Covid-19 Politics

[fred41]

Oh yeah, one thing that Covid 19 may have changed about how we receive education - there will probably be more on-line opportunities than before. At least in terms of Higher education anyhow. While some forms of education need to be more hands on, especially in terms of equipment needed, many college courses...and even perhaps some High School, have shown themselves able to be performed with a computer in the home. For reasons too numerous to list, the lower grades will almost always have to be performed in school...but perhaps supplemented online. Besides, schools covering grades K - 12 , do far more nowadays than just teach the basics. Not only are they needed as a form of DayCare, but sometimes they are needed to supply nutrition. Some kids might get their only real meals from public school.

[Stavros]

Oh yeah, one thing that Covid 19 may have changed about how we receive education - there will probably be more on-line opportunities than before. At least in terms of Higher education anyhow. While some forms of education need to be more hands on, especially in terms of equipment needed, many college courses...and even perhaps some High School, have shown themselves able to be performed with a computer in the home. For reasons too numerous to list, the lower grades will almost always have to be performed in school...but perhaps supplemented online. Besides, schools covering grades K - 12 , do far more nowadays than just teach the basics. Not only are they needed as a form of DayCare, but sometimes they are needed to supply nutrition. Some kids might get their only real meals from public school.

Thanks for taking the time for your thoughts and posts on education, but I fear that you have actually described the problem, which is the accumulation of different 'solutions' and 'opportunities' that create multiple layers of schooling, which inevitably means there is a hard core of children at the bottom of the pile and I think we know who those children are.

On one level, I think we can agree that in the past, the quality of education was not so important when working class/blue collar children with no academic aptitude, would leave school and work in heavy industry, in the days when labour-intensive industries were major recruiters of people from all backgrounds. And at the same time, as is evident from the first part of Michelle Obama's memoir 'Becoming', if parents had an ambition shared by their chidren the opportunities were there to break out of, if not the 'ghetto' (Obama was not a 'ghetto kid') the available but dead-end job, and end up in Princeton.

Take away that industrial base, and as in the UK, gographically mostly but not exclusively in the North, what are young men to do if they don't go down the pit, work in a factory or go into the military? This is why I think curriculum development is so important for the next generation, and though I wonder how effective it is, I do agree that one change Covid 19 may bring about is a more digital environment for learning, though the importance of children being in a social/collegiate environment also seems to me to be crucial for the development of social skills.

But in the end it is not about ideology so much as the public culture, where either education is left to 'the market', or the State takes on the responsibility for educating everyone, precisely to prevent the creation of layers of achievement and bias that can take over if parents alone are allowed to organize schooling As I argued, Germany and Switzerland, I assume also Sweden, are successful using a tax-funded education system with limited scope for the private sector- because the parents trust the State system. It would be a major challenge now in the UK, I can't see it happening in the US, but that is also because of the power which Religion seems to exert in the education sector.

The question of religious schools, in the UK at any rate, ought to be one of the most urgent debates we need to have. I cannot understand how the Government allows such insular schoolng that means in parts of London, Orthodox Jewish boys and girls go through the whole of their youth, and probably a lot of their adulthood never interacting with Gentiles, while in Bimingham there have been furious protests by parents -and some who were not parents- in a school with majority Muslim pupils, determined to prevent their children being taught that same sex relations and transgender conditions are normal, even where the details of what was actually being taught was distorted for political purposes. I would abolish religious or 'faith schools' at a stroke if I had the chance.

At the moment this is where some of the cultural issues arise which are exploited by New Wave Fascists who oppose immigration on the grounds that immigrants in large numbers dilute the 'National Character', just as leaving the EU will, one assumes they believe, over time restore to England what its normal Englishness once was, whatever that means. There is little new in this, as the sectarian divide between Catholic and Church of England schools has shown, with in all of these the fear that children are not just being taught how to read and write but also what to think and believe.

Ultimately I fear it is not about the liberal education that intended to develop a child's faculties in academic subjects while enabling them to balance their personal identity with a firm understanding of rights and obligations in society at large, it is about money, and class, and a fear that one's child will not get the best education if the school is x, y or z depending on your prejudice. The unsatisfactry result is that the very mechanism of separation that parents want to privilege their child, reinforces rather than dismantles social divisions derived from class, religion, race and sexuality. There are no easy solutions to this, and I fear that we in the UK will continue with this mosaic of schools, but where opportunity to improve may not be a choice but a matter of luck- and post-codes.

[broncofan]

I have a theory about why our numbers are slowly improving even while we are being slightly less conscientious than we were in late March. I think that in early March we saw an explosion of cases in some regions that climbed at an exponential rate and we implemented a pretty good response once we got a handle on how bad it was (far too late though). It then continued to climb even though people were being very cautious because we didn't have a way to separate mild cases from their households. The plateau maybe consisted of a lot of transmission within households that took weeks and weeks to burn out.

By the time early May came around we loosened up a bit but people were still cognizant of the risk and are voluntarily being more cautious, except in extreme cases we've seen on the news. With not as much transmission occurring within households, and some caution in public, we are seeing a decline in cases. Of course, I have no evidence to back this theory up.

The alternative is that weather is helping, but it still doesn't look like that prominent an effect as some warm, humid regions got hit pretty hard. Anyhow I'm very happy to see our numbers improving even if they are still pretty bad.

I have a few other articles I want to post in the coming days. One or two are about whether severity of illness is correlated with initial infectious dose of virus during transmission. There are articles about this and while it's proven to be a factor in determining disease severity for some other viruses where they can do challenge studies, covid-19 is too dangerous for human challenge. Has anyone seen anything about that or have any thoughts about it?

Edit:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/o...iral-dose.html

Here's one link I might as well include. I read the article at the time it was published but can't now because New York Times wants my email address so they can spam me. You might be luckier though.

[Stavros]

As countries in Europe including the UK, and the US prepare for a phased end to collective isolation, the judgement that is being made of the management of the pandemic is beginning to look even worse than was thought, in both the UK and the US. We seem in the UK and the US, to have experienced what I would call either 'system breakdown' or 'institutional incompetence'. And given that pandemics have been high on the list of threats the State might encounter, complete with reports recommending what to do should one happen, the failures are startling -yet, in the UK seem also to be less unexpected when one looks at the way Brexit has been 'managed' since 2016.

At the moment, the UK Government has found itself under attack -including from its own party- for introducing a 14-day Quarantine requirement for travellers entering the UK -a measure that ought to have been introduced in February if not January- but has no testing regime for those entering the country, and when a Goverment Minister was asked on BBC Radio 4 to name a European country with a worse record than the UK justifying the Quarantine, he failed to answer the question. The claims that the UK now has a testing and tracing regime is being questioned by those who have never encountered it, while the scientists are now being queried for not demanding the most severe restrictions early on. Even the NHS is not immune, not the frontline staf, but the managers who, when the crisis began, relied on supply chains that had broken down and were thus unable to provide ventilators and PPE equipment for staff -and we don't yet know if any of the frontline staff died did not have adequate PPE- while the decision to send elderly patients back to care homes now appears to have been a colossal blunder.

But a long article in the New York Times (worth [free] registering to read) documents how in the US, the CDC has failed to take a lead in this pandemic, regardless of the lack of political leadership but mostly due to a systemic management failure that has left the CDC failing to modernize over the last 20 years or more- it suggests as in the UK, that whatever the degree of expertise the professionals have with regard to the epidemiology and treatment of Covid 19, the CDC lacked an up-to-date management process to 'get a grip'. not helped by the apparently wayward behaviour of Robert Redfield, and the sidelining, indeed punishment, of Nancy Messonier because she told the truth and provoked the President-

“It’s not a question of if this will happen but when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illnesses,” Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on Feb. 25.

According to the Journal, Trump was angry with Messonnier after her statement resulted in a dip in the stock market. The same day, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the virus was “contained” in the U.S.
https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...ry-diseases-in

The New York Times article is here-

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/u...gtype=Homepage

The opportunity, indeed, the necessity for reform is, I think inevitable even before the formal enquiries and reviews begin, and one hopes the money will be there, as well as the political support.

The other breaking news this morning (it is 03.55am here) is the claim that evidence now exists that suggests (proves?) Covid 19 is man-made, but leaked accidentally from the Wuhan lab. The claim is based on the argument in an academic paper following an analysis of the data by two Professors, one in London and the other in Norway, which claims that the earliest known cases were not related to the wet-market in Wuhan, and that in the Genome Sequence the Chinese presented to the WHO dna traces were inserted that are not natural, thus-

In their paper, the scientists claim to have identified "inserted sections placed on the SARS-CoV-2 Spike surface" that explain how the virus binds itself to human cells.
and
A further analysis produced by Prof Dalgleish and his colleagues, due for release in the coming days, claims the Covid-19 virus has "unique fingerprints" that cannot have evolved naturally and are instead "indicative of purposive manipulation".

Entitled "A Reconstructed Historical Aetiology of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike", the new study, seen by The Telegraph, suggests the virus is "remarkably well-adapted virus for human co-existence" and is likely to be the result of a Wuhan lab experiment to produce "chimeric viruses of high potency".

The paper concludes: "Henceforth, those who would maintain that the Covid-19 pandemic arose from zoonotic transfer need to explain precisely why this more parsimonious account is wrong before asserting that their evidence is persuasive, most especially when, as we also show, there are puzzling errors in their use of evidence."

The paper has not yet been accepted for publication in any scientific journal."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...caped-chinese/

This appears then, to remain a theory, and I wonder if it has been part of the 'evidence' that Michael Pompeo claims 'proves' that Covid-19 is man-made.

[broncofan]

I'm not sure if anyone is interested in sharing but I'm just curious if anyone wants to say a few words about what precautions they're taking. We're at the point in the U.S. where we have fewer cases but there's still a risk in social interaction and things are opening up again. As I've said, there really aren't any new therapeutics if one gets sick (other than Remdesivir) but I can tell people are less afraid, or maybe everyone is getting a better sense of what is risky versus what is relatively low risk.

I work in an office and it is completely flexible when I have to come in as most of my work can be done remotely and my employer has no problem with that. I work with three other people in about 1200 square feet so there is plenty of space to distance. I've been going in now a couple of times a week and the people I work with have chosen to do the same. I still order groceries delivery because I figure why not if I can, and I haven't socialized at all... in person.

Also, when I order packages from amazon I let them sit for two days, then open them and wash my hands. Nothing too tough for me. Anyone been taking a few more risks than that? Obviously it depends on where you live how risky a particular behavior is.

[blackchubby38]

I'm not sure if anyone is interested in sharing but I'm just curious if anyone wants to say a few words about what precautions they're taking. We're at the point in the U.S. where we have fewer cases but there's still a risk in social interaction and things are opening up again. As I've said, there really aren't any new therapeutics if one gets sick (other than Remdesivir) but I can tell people are less afraid, or maybe everyone is getting a better sense of what is risky versus what is relatively low risk.

I work in an office and it is completely flexible when I have to come in as most of my work can be done remotely and my employer has no problem with that. I work with three other people in about 1200 square feet so there is plenty of space to distance. I've been going in now a couple of times a week and the people I work with have chosen to do the same. I still order groceries delivery because I figure why not if I can, and I haven't socialized at all... in person.

Also, when I order packages from amazon I let them sit for two days, then open them and wash my hands. Nothing too tough for me. Anyone been taking a few more risks than that? Obviously it depends on where you live how risky a particular behavior is.

I will wear a mask when I go into a store, but I don't wear one when I'm walking out in a public. Its a lot easier to maintain physical distance then people make it out to be.

I stop washing my hands as soon as I walk into the house because I accidentally threw out my keys one day because I was in a rush to get to the sink.

I too work in an office, but we are still working from home until June 30th. Then it back to going into the office twice a week. My office consists of 6 rooms that have work stations in them for 2-3 people. Going forward, only one person will be in each room everyday. We were allowed to change our schedules to make this happen.

I think working from home full time is something that sounds good in theory, but it does have its flaws. One of them being a company figuring out that they can save money by outsourcing your job to another country. Something that may happen for industries that lost money during the economic shutdown.

Finally, depending on what it is, most packages that I get usually sit around for two days. But that's more from laziness then worrying about Corona Virus.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

I'm not sure if anyone is interested in sharing but I'm just curious if anyone wants to say a few words about what precautions they're taking. We're at the point in the U.S. where we have fewer cases but there's still a risk in social interaction and things are opening up again. As I've said, there really aren't any new therapeutics if one gets sick (other than Remdesivir) but I can tell people are less afraid, or maybe everyone is getting a better sense of what is risky versus what is relatively low risk.

I work in an office and it is completely flexible when I have to come in as most of my work can be done remotely and my employer has no problem with that. I work with three other people in about 1200 square feet so there is plenty of space to distance. I've been going in now a couple of times a week and the people I work with have chosen to do the same. I still order groceries delivery because I figure why not if I can, and I haven't socialized at all... in person.

Also, when I order packages from amazon I let them sit for two days, then open them and wash my hands. Nothing too tough for me. Anyone been taking a few more risks than that? Obviously it depends on where you live how risky a particular behavior is.

I wear a mask whenever i go to the grocery store and the laundromat, and maintain social distancing,and wash my hands when i return home. and disinfect surfaces around the house as well. and when i order packages from online stores, i let them sit them on the patio for 2-3 days before bringing them in.

[Stavros]

I follow UK guidelines for someone of my age, and wear a mask in shops and other esablishments (for example the Chemist, and the Post Office where I was this morning) where social distancing is not easy to achieve. It is also now mandatory on buses and trains though I have not been on either since mid-March and have no reason to in the near future. However, I wear a standard nursing mark not a high grade medical mask, and not the three-layered covering recommended by the WHO. I am relaxed about 'stuff' such as groceries which I unpack and put away in fridge or cupboard whereas my sister (who lives in North America) cleans and wipes everything, though her husand is in a vulnerable category owing to serious illness in recent years. I do wash my hands when I return from the shops, and that is it basically. I do go out for walks now and then, and even though I believe I am in an area with low rates of infection, this surprises me as there are a lot of care and residential homes close to where I live.

When I am not going into basic shops in town -supermarket, bookshop, and the independent DVD/CD shop (which I fear may not re-open), my time has not changed much, which was spent mosty at home reading and writing and listening to music, or going to concerts, the latter being the one thing that has changed most for me. I went to a piano recital in the next town in February and took the half-hour train journey to Birmingham's Symphony Hall for a Tchaikovsky/Berlioz concert in late Febuary and the German Requiem in early March, all involving close contact with people of my age and younger on trains, in the street, on a tram and in Symphony Hall -and a week after that I was in London and I recall one very crowded supermarket, so I think I must be lucky, or maybe I was infected but showed no symptoms. I am also lucky because I have not lost any income, which these days comes from my pensions, but I do understand how hard it must be for those without savings or a job, and my criticism of the sloppy way this Government has handled the crisis is mostly for them, as I have not been impacted much at all. But who knows, if there is a second wave, I could be dead by Christmas!

[broncofan]

But who knows, if there is a second wave, I could be dead by Christmas!

I hope you're safe. We'd miss you here if you got sick. I think you did get a bit lucky because so many people got sick right around that mid-March period.

My parents are retired and were vacationing in Florida. Around February 28th I flipped out at them. I told them that if this spreads they'll have no time to get back and if they get sick they won't know any doctors to admit them to the hospital. They were very reluctant to come back bc they had a hotel booked for the entire months of March and April but finally agreed, thinking they were making a concession to me. They drove 1200 miles or so to get back to Pittsburgh. They were fortunate not to get sick but it would have been worse if they waited. Their Florida hotel kicked everyone out late March or so anyway.

Blackchubby-I haven't been nearly as productive at home as I am at work. I miss talking to people at work and though I have a printer scanner copier at home I kind of suck with troubleshooting. But work hasn't been the same either as our hours are a bit staggered and we don't sit and talk as much.

As for handwashing, I was a bit crazy for the first week and a half. Then I thought, eh, I just can't control this. I'm at home, my house is probably clean, and I can't be perfect.

I also did not go to any of the BLM protests in Pittsburgh. I am supportive of them but was worried about getting sick and even though they were peaceful I think they still got doused in pepper spray. But I'd say covid kept me away.

[Stavros]

The other breaking news this morning (it is 03.55am here) is the claim that evidence now exists that suggests (proves?) Covid 19 is man-made, but leaked accidentally from the Wuhan lab. The claim is based on the argument in an academic paper following an analysis of the data by two Professors, one in London and the other in Norway, which claims that the earliest known cases were not related to the wet-market in Wuhan, and that in the Genome Sequence the Chinese presented to the WHO dna traces were inserted that are not natural, thus-.

A new article in The Guardian today dismisses the conspiracy claim referred to above, and does so on the basis that research going back several years has discovered that-

"Contrary to the idea that Chinese scientists deliberately released the virus, existing patterns of infection suggest that the wide spread of Covid-19 was a question of when, not if. Only a handful of people work on bat coronaviruses in labs in China, and they wear masks and gloves so as not to contaminate their laboratories. In 2018, we conducted a pilot survey of people living in rural Yunnan province and found nearly 3% had antibodies for bat coronaviruses. Expanding this data to cover the densely populated area in southeast Asia where there are bats known to harbour coronaviruses, we can safely estimate that between one and seven million people are infected with bat coronaviruses each year."
The full article is here-
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...false-pandemic