COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[southsider2k5]

16 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

I think the problem was no one was willing to consider worst cast scenerio. And we have worst case scenerio. First we were told this isn't going to bother us at all. Then it was going away quickly. Then it was going away when the weather warmed up. Then it would be fine by Easter, then Pence said by Memorial Day, the Coronavirus will be behind us. I have been working from home since the middle of March. At first I figured 2 or 3 weeks tops and we would be back. Then our CEO send an email saying it looked like June or July until we were all back in the office. Now they said October, staggered and optional. 

I think many of us anticipated a governmental failure, but not of this magnitude. Our response has been one of the worst in the world. And we still have enough people who think if we just deny it exists or isn't a danger, it will go away. 

For the record, China wiped this out in 3 months after their lockdown.  The 15th made 5 months here, and we STILL are having huge numbers.

[southsideirish71]

1 minute ago, southsider2k5 said:

For the record, China wiped this out in 3 months after their lockdown.  The 15th made 5 months here, and we STILL are having huge numbers.

They forcibly locked their population in their homes in the affected zones.   That freedom thing here gets in the way of that.  

[Dick Allen]

6 minutes ago, southsideirish71 said:

They forcibly locked their population in their homes in the affected zones.   That freedom thing here gets in the way of that.  

We have an administration that instead of saying do what's best for the country and your community, wear a mask, rather stuck on the side of the "right" not to wear a mask and wanted to  "liberate" states that locked down for the good of its citizens. 

[caulfield12]

38 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

For the record, China wiped this out in 3 months after their lockdown.  The 15th made 5 months here, and we STILL are having huge numbers.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/asia/wuhan-water-park-party-intl-hnk/index.html

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2020 by caulfield12

[southsider2k5]

50 minutes ago, southsideirish71 said:

They forcibly locked their population in their homes in the affected zones.   That freedom thing here gets in the way of that.  

now explain the rest of the world outside of a few countries.

[Balta1701]

58 minutes ago, southsideirish71 said:

They forcibly locked their population in their homes in the affected zones.   That freedom thing here gets in the way of that.  

One very specific interpretation of freedom for very specific people. 

[southsideirish71]

21 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

now explain the rest of the world outside of a few countries.

You cited China as an example. I am not for a wide open society here promoting nonsense over science.  I don't think we did a great job here and wished masks were mandatory.  The problem here is the tighter we add restrictions the more segments of the population will revolt. Wait till a vaccine actually comes out.  I believe that should be mandatory for school attendance.  The antivaxxers will shit themselves over that.

Edited August 19, 2020 by southsideirish71

[Balta1701]

35 minutes ago, southsideirish71 said:

You cited China as an example. I am not for a wide open society here promoting nonsense over science.  I don't think we did a great job here and wished masks were mandatory.  The problem here is the tighter we add restrictions the more segments of the population will revolt. Wait till a vaccine actually comes out.  I believe that should be mandatory for school attendance.  The antivaxxers will shit themselves over that.

How much of that is the case because of certain politicians who encouraged such behavior right from the start? 

One of the items in the pandemic playbook handed down from the previous administration is how to deal with the public. A combination of honesty, putting the facts out there, making clear why we need to take draconian measures, and what will be done aftewards, all presented with a clear message over and over from everyone...works. People will go along with things that are hard when they genuinely understand that there's a much worse downside because the government itself treated it seriously. If you need evidence of that...most of Europe. Most of the planet in fact.

[Dick Allen]

37 minutes ago, southsideirish71 said:

You cited China as an example. I am not for a wide open society here promoting nonsense over science.  I don't think we did a great job here and wished masks were mandatory.  The problem here is the tighter we add restrictions the more segments of the population will revolt. Wait till a vaccine actually comes out.  I believe that should be mandatory for school attendance.  The antivaxxers will shit themselves over that.

I saw a poll today that claimed only 44% said they would get the vaccine.

[NWINFan]

2 hours ago, southsideirish71 said:

They forcibly locked their population in their homes in the affected zones.   That freedom thing here gets in the way of that.  

Yes, you're right about the freedom thing. Yet, wearing a mask at certain times, and social distancing at certain times has nothing to do with the freedom thing.

Funny how people talk about freedom and rights, but they don't care about discrimination of all kinds, and don't appear to worry we are moving toward a police state. Those things don't bother them a bit.

[Chisoxfn]

3 hours ago, southsideirish71 said:

 

The staff had training in it.  You have geriatrics who barely know how email works trying to use zoom.  Zoom isn't rocket science.  Tip #1, Don't send out the host credentials to the user population like the teacher did.  

Not everyone has this luxury - but I had set-up a plan B over the summer because I just couldn't have the same situation as what happened in the spring occur again.  If you have the ability to do so, you can consider private (I Know it isn't a great answer because the public system should have responded faster and whether I want to point the finger at the public system and/or the federal government for the broader issues, the reality is as far as I'm concerned both failed miserably).  I'm not blaming individual teachers - I know too many who all do real good work and I recognize the uniqueness of this challenge, but the more macro public teaching body has utterly failed. I said it over the summer and I continue to say it now. 

After seeing what happened in the spring, we actually signed our daughter up for a virtual summer school program put on by one of the local private schools. Part of it was to give her something educational to do and just allow her to interact with others (it was both education but also had some virtual fun elements to it) and obviously helped us try to manage through the day (especially since my wife has to physically go into work most days which put more pressure on me to be able to juggle both roles).  The other reason we did it was I wanted to see how the private schools were pivoting and what the experience looked like, so that if I needed to, I could pull the trigger and make a shift. 

We have 3 neighbors who all teach in our district and all gave us the same message over past couple weeks - which was, this is going to be ugly. No one is prepared, the online platform is no bueno, etc (no training until the last few days before the school year stared).  We than tried the 1st two days in our public this year low and behold they were right, it was more of the same (which to be honest - was even worse since you have had a full summer to prep).  We made the decision to pull her and switch her to the private school (our intent is to only have her do it for this year and than have her go back to her public school next year (when hopefully everything is normal and in-person again).  

She has had her 1st 3 days now in the private school and wow what a difference.  It is night and day the difference in the virtual format and the attention to detail. Is it perfect - no, but the amount of time being spent with the kids, the investment in the technology and tools to be used (the school had to make some big investments between spring and now to prepare for this, but also the teachers were embedded in that entire process for the entire summer, working on multiple options, etc and it shows).  The teacher is unbelievable and it is awesome how throughout the day she pivots to the various other teachers (i.e., a spanish class, her science class, virtual pE with scavenger hunts and activities that get her away from the screen and the teachers are all 100% owning the students (when they need help they are saints in how they are able to work with the 2nd graders)).    

I'm literally floored at the difference - part of this is probably just a teacher difference (but her public school teacher was awesome - clearly putting in the time and sending emails all over the place and doing everything she could - but you can just tell was being hindered by some pretty massive failures from the districts and the broader system and the lack of a clear and concise REAL strategy.  Helped that with COVID vacations were off the table and we were able to save extra money (minimal gas) plus we didnt pay for daycare costs for either of our kids for a handful of months either (which helped us kind of offset at least some of the difference).  

[Texsox]

2 hours ago, Chisoxfn said:

Not everyone has this luxury - but I had set-up a plan B over the summer because I just couldn't have the same situation as what happened in the spring occur again.  If you have the ability to do so, you can consider private (I Know it isn't a great answer because the public system should have responded faster and whether I want to point the finger at the public system and/or the federal government for the broader issues, the reality is as far as I'm concerned both failed miserably).  I'm not blaming individual teachers - I know too many who all do real good work and I recognize the uniqueness of this challenge, but the more macro public teaching body has utterly failed. I said it over the summer and I continue to say it now. 

After seeing what happened in the spring, we actually signed our daughter up for a virtual summer school program put on by one of the local private schools. Part of it was to give her something educational to do and just allow her to interact with others (it was both education but also had some virtual fun elements to it) and obviously helped us try to manage through the day (especially since my wife has to physically go into work most days which put more pressure on me to be able to juggle both roles).  The other reason we did it was I wanted to see how the private schools were pivoting and what the experience looked like, so that if I needed to, I could pull the trigger and make a shift. 

We have 3 neighbors who all teach in our district and all gave us the same message over past couple weeks - which was, this is going to be ugly. No one is prepared, the online platform is no bueno, etc (no training until the last few days before the school year stared).  We than tried the 1st two days in our public this year low and behold they were right, it was more of the same (which to be honest - was even worse since you have had a full summer to prep).  We made the decision to pull her and switch her to the private school (our intent is to only have her do it for this year and than have her go back to her public school next year (when hopefully everything is normal and in-person again).  

She has had her 1st 3 days now in the private school and wow what a difference.  It is night and day the difference in the virtual format and the attention to detail. Is it perfect - no, but the amount of time being spent with the kids, the investment in the technology and tools to be used (the school had to make some big investments between spring and now to prepare for this, but also the teachers were embedded in that entire process for the entire summer, working on multiple options, etc and it shows).  The teacher is unbelievable and it is awesome how throughout the day she pivots to the various other teachers (i.e., a spanish class, her science class, virtual pE with scavenger hunts and activities that get her away from the screen and the teachers are all 100% owning the students (when they need help they are saints in how they are able to work with the 2nd graders)).    

I'm literally floored at the difference - part of this is probably just a teacher difference (but her public school teacher was awesome - clearly putting in the time and sending emails all over the place and doing everything she could - but you can just tell was being hindered by some pretty massive failures from the districts and the broader system and the lack of a clear and concise REAL strategy.  Helped that with COVID vacations were off the table and we were able to save extra money (minimal gas) plus we didnt pay for daycare costs for either of our kids for a handful of months either (which helped us kind of offset at least some of the difference).  

I'm happy it's working out for you. 

[greg775]

8 hours ago, southsideirish71 said:

So far this remote learning is awesome.  The public schools around here are sharing the zoom meeting codes between students.  My son was showing me snap videos of the 3 local HS where people are zoom bombing every class, yelling racial slurs, one where a kid was slapping his ass on camera, and another where they streamed a porn.  Great work everyone.  We handed technology to an industry that doesn't understand it and we have an audience that knows more than the teachers.  BTW my son so far this week has spent a grand total of 1.5 hours on a zoom and has had homework. He can go back to his regularly scheduled sleep until the zoom, do his homework and keep sleeping and playing video games.  He will get straight As just like he did before this all started.  But this is exactly what I had feared is going on.   Great work.  And they will remain remote until the fall of 2021 is my guess.  Because if you cant do in person now how exactly are you going to do it when flu season kicks in.  This is a fucking waste.  

OMG. Porn? Racial slurs? This could be national news. You could call the media outlets nationally or locally. Not good.

[southsider2k5]

6 minutes ago, greg775 said:

OMG. Porn? Racial slurs? This could be national news. You could call the media outlets nationally or locally. Not good.

Do it well enough they will make you President. 

[Chisoxfn]

3 hours ago, Texsox said:

I'm happy it's working out for you. 

My daughter is happy - which is what matters the most. She would have been fine either way, but more than anything I empathize for everyone I know who teaches (and you especially).  I just feel like you the teacher has been put in this really difficult position where so many point the blame squarely on you.  All my neighbors (who teach in our local district + two neighboring districts) have all echoed the exact same thing. No training, no awareness, no clue - and they are upset. They said they had been asking for months for clarity and got nothing.  A chunk of them didn't get their info to even prep until the weekend before (no idea if that is how things always work - but that just seems crazy to me).  

Let me ask this question for you - what would your approach have been / what have been your main issues and if you guys do another year virtual do you feel ready?  Do you feel the right investments have been made (and I don't know the answer - you can't make investments without having access to funds and /or an ability to deploy funds in different avenues).

Whole thing sucks I tell you - why couldn't we have just reacted better as a country and been what as a nation we have largely done through your generation, my generation, and our past generations - which is be a leader and be the very best (and not not at getting the most case counts) in the world!  

My analogy is you are being asked to do the most difficult thing in your teaching career - which is not only teach a bunch of kids (god bless every teacher out there because the patience you have - amen) but do it in a remote setting where they have way more potential distractions and you the teacher have such a harder way of connecting to them, etc. Harder to tailor and/or customize the experience.  Now add that to the fact that you aren't even given the proper tools to at least alleviate some of these challenges....just tough.

[Brian]

My sister is a teacher in Arizona and it is a constant daily struggle. The district is all over the place with no real plan. I don't talk to her much but get 2nd hand stories from my parents. They do a hybrid schedule, whatever that means, but you can imagine how some parents in AZ are.

On top of that Cox has a monopoly on internet out there. They are not the only company but they are the best, which isnt saying much. When she WFH, it is constantly going out, so she ends up having to go work in her empty classroom anyway. My sister called and an agent said they can't handle all the traffic from people WFH and students learning at home, and aren't upgrading. They charge up the nose but their internet sucks.

[Balta1701]

 

[Harry Chappas]

19 hours ago, Chisoxfn said:

Not everyone has this luxury - but I had set-up a plan B over the summer because I just couldn't have the same situation as what happened in the spring occur again.  If you have the ability to do so, you can consider private (I Know it isn't a great answer because the public system should have responded faster and whether I want to point the finger at the public system and/or the federal government for the broader issues, the reality is as far as I'm concerned both failed miserably).  I'm not blaming individual teachers - I know too many who all do real good work and I recognize the uniqueness of this challenge, but the more macro public teaching body has utterly failed. I said it over the summer and I continue to say it now. 

After seeing what happened in the spring, we actually signed our daughter up for a virtual summer school program put on by one of the local private schools. Part of it was to give her something educational to do and just allow her to interact with others (it was both education but also had some virtual fun elements to it) and obviously helped us try to manage through the day (especially since my wife has to physically go into work most days which put more pressure on me to be able to juggle both roles).  The other reason we did it was I wanted to see how the private schools were pivoting and what the experience looked like, so that if I needed to, I could pull the trigger and make a shift. 

We have 3 neighbors who all teach in our district and all gave us the same message over past couple weeks - which was, this is going to be ugly. No one is prepared, the online platform is no bueno, etc (no training until the last few days before the school year stared).  We than tried the 1st two days in our public this year low and behold they were right, it was more of the same (which to be honest - was even worse since you have had a full summer to prep).  We made the decision to pull her and switch her to the private school (our intent is to only have her do it for this year and than have her go back to her public school next year (when hopefully everything is normal and in-person again).  

She has had her 1st 3 days now in the private school and wow what a difference.  It is night and day the difference in the virtual format and the attention to detail. Is it perfect - no, but the amount of time being spent with the kids, the investment in the technology and tools to be used (the school had to make some big investments between spring and now to prepare for this, but also the teachers were embedded in that entire process for the entire summer, working on multiple options, etc and it shows).  The teacher is unbelievable and it is awesome how throughout the day she pivots to the various other teachers (i.e., a spanish class, her science class, virtual pE with scavenger hunts and activities that get her away from the screen and the teachers are all 100% owning the students (when they need help they are saints in how they are able to work with the 2nd graders)).    

I'm literally floored at the difference - part of this is probably just a teacher difference (but her public school teacher was awesome - clearly putting in the time and sending emails all over the place and doing everything she could - but you can just tell was being hindered by some pretty massive failures from the districts and the broader system and the lack of a clear and concise REAL strategy.  Helped that with COVID vacations were off the table and we were able to save extra money (minimal gas) plus we didnt pay for daycare costs for either of our kids for a handful of months either (which helped us kind of offset at least some of the difference).  

Private schools are better at this as they can control every aspect of e learning and can pivot quickly and can engage faculty to assist in the transformation.  In the Chicago area for public schools this is not the case.   Public school district faculty and administrators have nobody to answer to if they fail.  Many really didn't do much over the summer as that is what they were used.  In early August they then tried to figure it out.  The ISBE IDPH and governor gave little hope.

CPS and the CTU are an embarrassing disaster but nobody cares.  

In the end for me it has been and always will be the fact that is no middle ground in this country and still 5 months into this thing we can't all agree that we should wear a mask and put proper protocols in place to get back to school.

I believe education is essential and now it is viewed as being non-essential.  At this point educational officials treated this as such all summer because of a complacency of school administrators and unions.  Where was the union input in May, June and July to partner with school districts.

Schools can be opened safely if people really wanted to put the work in to do it.  I feel the public school system in northeast Illinois rewards complacency far to often.  There is zero accountability and enormous salary and pension hand outs for putting in little to no effort.    

 

 

[Kyyle23]

 

[greg775]

1 hour ago, Harry Chappas said:

Private schools are better at this as they can control every aspect of e learning and can pivot quickly and can engage faculty to assist in the transformation.  In the Chicago area for public schools this is not the case.   Public school district faculty and administrators have nobody to answer to if they fail.  Many really didn't do much over the summer as that is what they were used.  In early August they then tried to figure it out.  The ISBE IDPH and governor gave little hope.

CPS and the CTU are an embarrassing disaster but nobody cares.  

In the end for me it has been and always will be the fact that is no middle ground in this country and still 5 months into this thing we can't all agree that we should wear a mask and put proper protocols in place to get back to school.

I believe education is essential and now it is viewed as being non-essential.  At this point educational officials treated this as such all summer because of a complacency of school administrators and unions.  Where was the union input in May, June and July to partner with school districts.

Schools can be opened safely if people really wanted to put the work in to do it.  I feel the public school system in northeast Illinois rewards complacency far to often.  There is zero accountability and enormous salary and pension hand outs for putting in little to no effort.    

 

 

Seems to me this is an excellent post. Our country has a lot of work to do and I doubt we will survive as a nation because there is no middle ground as you say, and most people don't even want a middle ground or would consider compromise on medical, education and social issues, all three.

[Balta1701]

Guys, this is the middle ground, right now. If one side is "Take strong action to defeat the virus", and the other is "the virus is a hoax and we should do nothing", taking some actions but letting a thousand people die and a hundred thousand get infected each day is a nice, happy, middle ground. You should be fully satisfied if it's a middle ground you're looking for. 

[bmags]

Private schools do an excellent job of getting wealthier students that have more resources to accommodate a situation like this. If I was a head of public schools, I'd start running it like a business and start "cutting the fat" of students that need more resources than they put in. Don't have internet? Seeee yaaaa. No computer? Bye byeeee.

 

[caulfield12]

32 minutes ago, bmags said:

Private schools do an excellent job of getting wealthier students that have more resources to accommodate a situation like this. If I was a head of public schools, I'd start running it like a business and start "cutting the fat" of students that need more resources than they put in. Don't have internet? Seeee yaaaa. No computer? Bye byeeee.

 

Ummm...then you’re running a charter school, essentially.   These last three sentences don’t seem possible in modern America...where has empathy disappeared to, and compassion for our fellow citizens?

 

Exhaustive, 27 post thread on Wuhan Institute of Virology...coverups, allegations, etc.

[southsider2k5]

49 minutes ago, bmags said:

Private schools do an excellent job of getting wealthier students that have more resources to accommodate a situation like this. If I was a head of public schools, I'd start running it like a business and start "cutting the fat" of students that need more resources than they put in. Don't have internet? Seeee yaaaa. No computer? Bye byeeee.

 

That's why charter schools thrive.  They can do that while public schools are forbidden by law to do it.  All of the "expensive" students end up dumped in public schools because privates and charters make the "choice" to not accept them.

[Iwritecode]

On 8/14/2020 at 11:42 AM, Balta1701 said:

Honestly? No we won't. The cases are spread around the country and the details that would be required to link it directly to that trip aren't going to be available to health departments, particularly if any of them try to do tracing with inter-state travel. No one is going to say "3000 cases were traced to Sturgis" because they won't be able to do that and couldn't legally say that even if they found that. All we'll get is maybe a few thousand new cases nationwide, starting new clusters, with only about 1/2 of them actually recognized, and with testing spread out over 10 days so the total bump is a few hundred per day in a nation where there's 100,000 people getting it a day and roughly 1/2 actually being tested. 

Right on que:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-tied-coronavirus-002612074.html