Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #74

You do realize that the chart shows that most places can only get 1-2 channels? How would that work as a nationwide or statewide educational system?

I put in my zip and it advised me I need an antenna (not rabbit ears) mounted on my house (which has been true since I was a kid - we lived 60 miles outside of Los Angeles). The antenna they are advising me to buy (to get 3 whole channels in my area) is way cheaper than on the other site (only $200) but has been unavailable nationwide for several months.

I can just see it: schools email parents all over California to tell them to get up on the roof and install an antenna, then they buy time (how much time? so many grades of students! so many classes!) from CBS, NBC, ABC or KTLA.

Let's say it was just for 7-12th grade (where it's needed most). Average middle school has 3 grades with about 15 subjects available for each year. 45 classes a day. They'd have to be every other day and some broadcast at night. Parents would need to set up some kind of recording option.

Whew. My own suggestion to parents would be to find age appropriate programming on youtube or Coursera or Kahn Academy and go from there.

There are two different stats under discussion. President of Mexico is using IFR, you're using CFR (also called CMR).

So you're both right. One could argue all day long whether either the US or Mexico have properly discovered all their active cases or not. But we do know, more or less, the total population of the two countries - so the President of Mexico used IFR.

Here's the Statista chart for the data under discussion by Mexico's President:

COVID-19 deaths per capita by country | Statista

Note that Belgium is in first place and UK is #2. This stat is as interesting as the other, given that the actual number of tests and known cases is something of a wild card variable.

US is in 8th place, Mexico is in 10th place on that stat.

 

The Unequal Cost of Social Distancing

“Social distancing will save lives.(i) Its economic costs are staggering. While frustrating but manageable for many people(ii), the economic fallout of social distancing is brutal for the poorest, most vulnerable and marginalized members of our society. Even looking at the issue purely in terms of lives lost, injuries sustained, and lifelong psychological damage, there are tradeoffs that we feel have not been sufficiently acknowledged.”

 

Trump orders $400-per-week unemployment payments amid COVID crisis, hits Dems for stonewalling

 

I never suggested it be used for education.

 

How lovely. We have an ambulance organisation here in Oz - St John Ambulance - who has many trained first aid volunteers. They are attending quarantine hotels and testing stations ... not to conduct testing, but to ensure that they are one of the first that people see, with their friendly smiles and warm welcome. There is a lot of public confidence in them, and always has been.

Many of the St John personnel are taking time off from their normal jobs, annual vacation and such, to assist at these various stress points.

It is the little things that bring the humanity to this virus crisis .....

Source: Ch7 TV News

 

SBM

Yes I realise there are different stats but I particularly wanted to see the deaths per cases which is why I mentioned it. I understand that deaths per population favours Mexico, which is probably why he used that particular statistic.

 

After reading this article, it is probably not correctly titled. They are speaking of the cost of lockdowns, I think. We tend to think of social distancing as staying 1.5 metres apart.

But I am a bit frustrated by the talk of economic damage if lockdowns occur. Can people not see the widespread economic damage that is happening already - even with no (or few) lockdowns?

I was speaking with a US friend on FaceTime last night, he said that in their malls Lord & Taylor are now closing down - the biggest dept store which is/was the kingpin of the malls. They have already lost BonTon - another big chain store - from their malls.
And we all know about the hundreds of small businesses that have closed.

 

We are the same. 14 mile round trip to shop every 10 days.

 

If that happens then they contact trace and quarantine, deep clean the school and re-open.

 

NBC Nightly News Broadcast (Full) - August 7th, 2020 | NBC Nightly News


Above:
NY Schools now able to open.

Kids and COVID: Misc-C: CDC reports 570 cases in 40 states through the end of July, 10 children have died in the US

 

As to teachers teaching with just face shields - that's basically zero protection IMO. They would need masks too.

Kids would miss out on the facial expressions of the lower half of the face, but if the only other choice was just staying home watching whatever on TV, real world school with masked teachers would be preferable, IMO. Those parents who could stay home and basically help with their kids' schooling could keep their kids home - it would be a classroom full of kids with less-engaged or less-available parents.

However, in many places, schools do not have the funds for dry erase markers, much less N95 masks. We're already reading that teachers in some places are expected to provide their own PPE (and they'd have to social distance too - no having kids right up at their desks/in their faces).

Since schools cannot provide the protection indicated by the CDC, lawsuits would occur from both teachers and parents of sick children (especially those without health insurance - which is about half of them).

Teachers have health insurance, of course, but since the CDC has weighed in on PPE, it would be open and shut to show negligence on the part of a school. So schools have to shut immediately when COVid is detected and obviously, some people will end up suing anyway. Technically, these cases should be Workers Comp, but there are other ways to skin the legal cat. Class action suits seem plausible.

It's very possible - although there's no easy way of knowing. It's possible some of us have had other coronaviruses in the past. The research is focused on human coronaviruses, but...I'd think that even a closely related virus could help with contemporary immunity.

Coronavirus | Human Coronavirus Types | CDC

I only wish we could know. I'm feeling 1% braver for a few reasons, one of which is that I've been exposed to common colds for years - but also, there are better treatments for CoVid and I have a new doctor who has admitting privileges to a hospital with a UCLA hospitalist - so the possibility for getting an antiviral that works just went up for me.

I am being watched, though. My husband and daughters think I should be exceptionally careful. I guess I'm now the oldest person they know, ha.

 

One of our local elementary schools is going to e learning next week. The way the school system quarantines, we are short on teachers next week. Hopefully, enough staff week after next.

 

That's what happens here. But from what I have been reading, contact tracing has long been abandoned in many/most areas of the US due to the huge numbers of active cases ... and then no-one (or few) isolating for two weeks when they are identified as a contact of a covid-positive person.

Contact Tracing Is Failing in Many States. Here’s Why.

 

Not in schools.

 

Read further into this. It is a delayed tax.
Trump said he would forgive the delayed payroll taxes if re-elected and make the payroll tax holiday permanent. “If I win, I may extend and terminate” the tax, Trump stated (Note: Trump doesn’t have the power to unilaterally forgive the delayed payroll taxes. That would require Congressional approval and action).
There are several execution challenges with Trump’s action because it doesn’t actually cut the payroll tax, but rather delays its collection. “Just postponing the collection from employers doesn’t guarantee that employers would pass any savings on to workers,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
This will also affect Social Security. No tax taken out. What will happen to SS?
Trump Signs Executive Orders: Extends Federal Unemployment Benefits At $300 Per Week, Protects Against Evictions, Defers Student Loan Payments, Suspends Payroll Tax

 

Contact tracing? What's that??

(And schools are notoriously hard to contact trace: first, there are the other people in the class; then the people in the school - those are the *known* contacts; then the parents and all their coworkers).

If anyone lives in a US state (besides NY or NJ) and that's what's happening, please post about it!

I'm more familiar with the western half of the US - there is no contact tracing. It has to be obvious as all get-out for people to say, "Welp, they got it from school" or "They got it from their spouse."

We spend lots of time trying to figure out how the sick or dead people got CoVid - but it's our own personal time and the public health department where I work still hasn't had their "contact tracers" go through training.

Plus, people are being assaulted, threatened and otherwise abused for trying to contact trace. Only in the SF Bay Area and NY/NJ are people downloading apps to make it easier. Even there, it's not a majority.

 

Well, that is good to hear. I guess we will wait and see what happens as more schools open ... if the affected contacts really isolate themselves for two weeks. As I understand it, that is the biggest issue.

 

Here's a link to a Swedish newspaper's reports about Corona, and there are graphics showing the spread of cases here. Scroll down to the map and click on "Visa alla län" (Show all regions) to see the entire map.
Senaste nytt om coronaviruset
Translations:
Visa hela perioden - show the whole period
Senaste två veckor - last two weeks
Smittade - infected
Döda - dead
Antal - number
Per 100 000 - per 100,000 (population in the regions)

 

Coronavirus Australia live news: Bunnings Campbelltown worker, Sydney hospital staffer test positive to COVID-19

ICYMI, here is what made headlines overnight:

• Brazil's death toll from COVID-19 is expected to hit 100,000 on Saturday (local time) and continue to climb as most Brazilian cities reopen shops and dining even though the pandemic has yet to peak.
• Thousands of Israelis have rallied outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem as anger mounted over corruption allegations and his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
• Randox Laboratories, a Northern Ireland-based medical technology company, has been instructed by Britain's medicines regulator to recall up to 741,000 coronavirus test kits from the national test and trace program as a precautionary measure.
• The Czech Republic has recorded its biggest daily rise in new coronavirus cases since April 3 due to local outbreaks in a number of regions.