Heya folks, hope you are all doing the best that you can depending on where you are. Really feeling for folks right now.
Be safe - sending disco dancing chicken vibes from Australia. I incubated three chicken eggs, (well not me the incubator) and we have three cheeky chickens that do like to play a lot.
It is is true there's a lot more research on children than the above one from Prof Raina McIntyre. It does have some good links to research though and her presentations following from this one are much more detailed due to the research that has come in. It is interesting that her presentation and research was saying what it was saying three months ago. It's an incredibly complex virus and with it's cardiovascular and vascular aspects, there's just so much that we don't know. It's a bit concerning that patients who had either mild or nonexistent coronavirus symptoms, were stroking out in NYC. More research is being done so it will be interesting to see what happens with that. Sadly folks dying in other countries give you an idea of what we could possibly face here if it gets out of control. So far we have been extremely fortunate. No Australian children have died for which I am grateful. No teachers have died either. One of our biggest outbreaks has been a school though. It will be interesting to see how much asymptomatic transmission will effect how Australia goes. Widespread testing in Vo, Italy meant they quarantined asymptomatic cases and were able to eradicate SARS-CoV-2 from that town of Italy.
I have been collecting research. The evolving Scientific understandings are interesting.
I was interested child deaths (China had a teenager and an infant - but we don't have all their information) as the appeared in the media around the world. I met a lot of teachers at conferences and one thing Prof McIntyre said was that with greater spread you see a wider range of presentations. In some of the schools in NYC 65 staff members died so I really felt for them, and I was concerned for teachers in Australia. The Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome in Children - it seems in NYC they had 150 kids have it with some deaths. It's when it gets to countries without a first world medical system that then kids will die, such as in Indonesia. They have a huge issue with stunting.
The World Health Organisation was saying in Press Briefings that children needed protection from the virus when Scott Morrison was saying that schools are safe. There were quite a few Covid19 child deaths in countries with greater spread, around at the time so it did make me wonder why Australian journalists couldn't google "covid19 child deaths". No child deaths in Australia yet, I am hoping we don't get the virus spread to lose kids and teachers.
Australia also has only just discussed aerosols in the media and I thought that had been sorted out over 2 months ago, so our news is quite behind in some ways. I guess it is that we are lucky enough not to have the widespread impacts some other countries have. What the Scientists are talking about sometimes doesn't get translated into the news. I figure be as knowledgeable as you can be to protect yourself & others.
At one point as it was interesting to follow the percentage of students shut down around the world on the UNESCO site. There were 91.8% of students were shut down around the world. Australia has a great tradition of the School of the Air so there were many innovative online classes, lessons and programmes going around, some folks got so creative.
It will be seeing what happens to folks that don't get better and are still sick 100 days later, and whether lung issues in kids will mean they have long term health issues in a year or so. Sometimes it's a bit overwhelming and I try not to think about it. But I really admire people who have come up with some creative and inclusive ideas and teaching strategies whilst under a huge range of pressure.
The getting it multiple times is a worry with antibodies not occurring in some folks and lasting for a while in others. Professor Kim Woo-joo from Korea University Guro Hospital talked about that and it was interesting.
Hopefully there will be vaccines available, there seems to be lots of positive commentary, so fingers crossed that that comes off.
When we wore masks in late February this guy came up to me and said it's just the flu and there will be another one next year, but now we went out today in the car wearing masks and there are no comments now. I stayed in the car, and we ran a couple of errands. A lot of our Asian neighbours wear mask to protect themselves and others, it's like a badge of honour, they had the experiences of SARS, MERS, swine flu. Countries like Taiwan give adults two masks per week and children three masks per week. Teachers at special schools can have as many as they need. They didn't have to shut down. They didn't have the virus spread. 20 active cases, 440 recovered and 7 dead. I wish Australia could have been like Mongolia, NZ, Portugal, Iceland, Vietnam or Taiwan. Reading about them is inspiring. Hopefully we will lift our game a lot after this. The ethical and moral decisions that different countries made at different times has made me think a lot.
Hope everyone is doing okay as best as they can.
Good to read you all.
I am trying to do as much physical work that I can do each day but I have been a bit sick. Hope everyone is okay.
