News Worldwide impact of the novel coronavirus (covid-19)

[Changing4Best]

Maybe dough-nuts would better describe them.

 

[Freida]

I have seen it all. A "Heroes work here" sign in front of a Dunkin Donuts.

ooh dear god I couldn't help but laugh. I'm probably going looney but this was damn funny!

 

[EveHarrington]

Omg I think I stopped reading about 100 pages ago, lol.

Anyway, I just realized the stress is creeping up on me. I think it’s time for me to stop procrastinating about calling my pdoc. I was doing ok, until I wasn’t. The stress of it all is just...ugh. My hair is falling out. It’s literally everywhere. My skin issues are flaring up and I know it’s stress. My teeth hurt because I’m grinding them so badly in my sleep again and my TMJ is flaring up too.

And yet, my therapist and case worker say I seem to be handling it all so well. I don’t even want to ask how their other clients are doing...not that they could tell me anyway.

Are others dealing with this? I mean, these aren’t my normal PTSD anxiety symptoms. This is just COVID stress! Most of the time I stay home. I go out a few times a week to run errands. And that’s about it.

 

[mamachick]

Freida-I totally agree with you. This is dividing Americans horribly. Many conspiracy theorists now and growing. Imaginations running wild. We have a meat shortage because processing plants (butchers) have had large numbers of infected workers and have closed. Some are blaming that on the President also. So many misinformed. Not all their fault. Everyday news says something different. Recently said less likely to pick up from door knobs, shopping carts, or any surfaces. They will say something else in a few days. But these people that think this is a way to get Trump out of office and think things should just go back to normal are coming up with some serious theories. Yes they think Gates is going to put tracking devices in us, and in addition, it will change our DNA so that we can be controlled by the government. Dont know what you are going to hear next. One person told me that there are underground tunnels 6 miles down, and that's where the missing kids are, and these tunnels go from state to state. They are building an army to take over US and Trump is working on this.....and the richest know about it and are sick and perverted. Shits getting crazier here.

 

[joeylittle]

ALL - Lets keep the thread more directly on COVID and not go too far off-road into the US deep-state political debate.

Thanks.

 

[ms spock]

The really sad thing about this is the disruption to students, a lot of kids were getting over the hump of learning remotely. It was just beginning to work across the board in a much better way. So they just get used to it and this creates more uncertainly and insecurity for kids. Essential workers and kids at risk were always allowed at schools, and there was some joy being able to do one on one teaching more often with kids at risk.

So more schools closed due to the virus for campus cleaning and contact tracing to take place. Australia only had to wait 3-4 weeks more to have a 95% chance of eradication but we didn't wait. I feel concerned and sad about this.

It's a race against time now. Hopefully more cases will be found quickly before we have situations like in that school in New York which lost 63 staff members. I'm a New York City public school teacher and 63 of my colleagues have died from the coronavirus. It didn't have to happen this way.

Every teacher I speak is in a kind of trance "I am following the advice of the Dept." Yes well the Dept isn't on the ball. iSome schools don't even have enough soap and sanitiser, they could have at least go that together before schools went back. 30 kids packed into one small room is problematic.

Closed schools currently are:

Waverley College
Moriah College
Epping Boys high school,
Normanhurst West public school,
Warragamba public school,
St Marys senior high school and
St Ignatius college Riverview, have all had to shut their doors temporarily after students and staff tested positive for coronavirus.


Berejiklian said at the time the “health advice is very clear – a return to full-time face-to-face teaching is safe”, but that it would be common to see schools close due to outbreaks. Yeah right!

Two schools in Sydney's east closed after students test positive for Covid-19

 

[Deanna]

My state has increased in people catching Covid-19 and that has me worried. More people are dead. ( not too many, maybe 3 every other day but that's too many)

 

[Deanna]

The US reached 100,000 Covid-19 deaths today. This is really sad news but here it is:
US reaches 100,000 COVID-19 deaths

 

[blackemerald1]

Australia only had to wait 3-4 weeks more to have a 95% chance of eradication but we didn't wait. I feel concerned and sad about this.

^Where is the source for this? You've said this several times in this thread but not given a source.

On the way to flattening the curve the Chief Health Officer has always said, the aim is not to eradicate but if we do, that would be a great outcome. I've not heard anyone suggest that eradication would be a permanent solution. The asymptomatic transmission of this virus is the reason it will not be eradicated.

At the moment despite keeping the infection rate very, very low, the way it's appearing, apparently randomly, that it's primarily transmitting through the community via asymptomatic infection. So, tracing is extremely hard.

All of the cases are being investigated but if it keeps travelling through otherwise healthy people with such mild symptoms the only true way we will be able to determine where it is will be by antibody testing. I think that will be the next test they will bring forward. But therein lays another issue. The antibody tests thus far brought onto the market have been dodgy to say the least.

It was just beginning to work across the board in a much better way.

^No it wasn't. Australia wide the public school sector and children have suffered massive disruption to their school year. The preps were just beginning to establish their school routine and are so over-joyed to now be returning. :)

The Year 12 schedule has been severely disrupted. They're all very pleased to be returning to face to face. And btw so are their parents. :) ;)

^Indigenous communities have been yelling at the top of their lungs that they don't have adequate technology, bandwidth & continuity to adequately service their students. The covid situation has just highlighted severe inadequacies in that regard. So too, are many city dwellers because the network was never designed to take the load that covid has placed on it. The difference in speeds between download and uploads has been identified as yet another real problem with the roll out of the NBN. :oops: Low income families that are just now receiving equipment that was in back-log are well and truly ready to revert back to the school gate!

And lets face it. Many parents are simply not up to the task of being teachers. A new respect for the profession has emerged :hilarious: Maybe it will convert to more & better graduates entering the profession and a better pay rate? Not likely but we can only hope. :cautious:

So they just get used to it and this creates more uncertainly and insecurity for kids.

^Honestly? No, I don't know anyone who is happy with remote learning. It was a necessity for some people & it was never compulsory. If a parent could justify sending their child to school then the schools were required to accept. That was reasonable imo.

The media has done enough coverage at the school gates to convince me that overwhelmingly students, parents & teachers are over-joyed at the prospect of returning to a physical learning environment. So I'm not seeing the uncertainty that you speak of. There will always be the dooms and glooms and they are loud, but the average, normal person is happy to get on with it.

^Over and over again, teachers who are in the high risk category have been advised to request alternative duties. As government employees, and with assistance & co-operation from their unions, I've observed that schools are definitely onboard with that. Nobody wants anyone to get sick.

Children are truly resilient little people and the school environment they know and love has been sorely missed.

The parents and children and very much too, the teachers, are all prepared to follow the new rules to assist in reducing the likelihood of infection. The staggered school start times, the drop off zones, the bans on parents congregating at the gates etc and the separate play times and areas are all designed to help.

But realistically, the virus is here and is still transmitting through our society everywhere. So, positive tests & new infections in schools isn't and shouldn't be a surprise. Everyone accepts schools may close, on an individual basis & temporarily, for cleaning when a positive case comes to light. It happened before the shut down and it's to be expected in this new covid 'era'.

It's simply unrealistic to expect children to continue to learn on a remote basis indefinitely. Parents have really struggled to work from home and supervise their children so that they achieve appropriate learning outcomes. It's been a really hard slog.That is the reason the Federal government insisted over and over that public schools should remain open because there is a large part of the community that cannot do their work from home or don't have the resources or capacity to do so.

Some schools don't even have enough soap and sanitiser, they could have at least go that together before schools went back. 3

^Source please. There are thousands of litres of sanitiser in supermarkets now, actually it's almost in over-supply lol. The supply chains & manufacture's have ramped up to meet demand.

Soap was never in short supply anywhere in Australia. Now, neither is toilet paper. :rolleyes:

 

[Justmehere]

Huh. This is a best case senario, and doesn't mean the virus is something to shrug off.... but maybe good news.

New data from CDC estimates COVID 19 mortality rate is 0.4%, significantly lower than previously reported

 

[Sideways]

Parents have really struggled to work from home and supervise their children so that they achieve appropriate learning outcomes

My sister has 2 primary school aged kids. They're fortunate enough to have adequate technology to make it work, and were fortunate enough to both be working from home so that the kids weren't home alone.

But it was an absolute nightmare, and the younger of the 2 in particular was having a terrible time trying to figure out this new learning style. The state school system wasn't well prepared or adequately resourced, and teachers simply weren't trained in the resources either.

So my sister basically had the job of supervising her older primary-aged child, the job of teaching her younger child both how to access education content, then teach that content as though she was a trained educator...oh yeah, and somehow fit in her own job on top of that.

Working? Hell no. Not even close.

I did a whole tonne of my primary, secondary and tertiary study by correspondence. But in circumstances where that style of learning worked (freakishly) well for me individually, and where most of those subjects had already been set up to learn remotely. My parents didn't need to step in as educators. If they had? I'd have failed miserably, because they had to work to put food on the table.

The truth is that for the vast majority of both students and parents? Our system is set up so that kids can be in the classroom, learning from a teacher.

The impromptu, cheaply and urgently 'learn from home' system set up in the public sector was keeping people safe while covid was rife in our community. But it was utterly unsustainable for parents who have a job (which is most of them). They can't do a job and teach their kids. Even doing a job while supervising their kids is an unreasonable stretch.

The situation now is that when a child somewhere in Australia gets diagnosed with covid, the school is shut down so that it can be thoroughly cleaned, and so that there is time to test anyone that may have been exposed while that child was infectious, then the school can reopen a few days later.

Kids need to be in schools. Parents weren't coping with being at-home workers and stand-in educators. Teachers would know, from how much work is involved in teaching kids, that doing both of those tasks simultaneously was unsustainable.

Within the space of a few months, both my sister and get kids were desperate to get back into the classroom. For their own welfare, and so that the kids could back to proper learning, and their parents could get back to doing just one full time job.

And that's not even starting on the thousands of Aussies kids who don't have their own ipad, laptop, or decent internet connection at home.

The system wasn't working. And has been mentioned before, the WHO has been putting out stats on kids who have had their education interrupted by covid, but the '70-90% of schools were-are in lockdown' is not what the WHO was reporting, nor what they were recommending.

ETA. I live in an area where around half the local population is first generation Australians. They don't speak English at home, and for most, English is their second (and definitely not preferred) language. The kids in my area? Spent lockdown learning how to ride bikes and skateboards in the streets - because how does a parent who struggles with English teach their child? So many sections of our community were simply left behind in the 'learn from home' model. Unless our curve starts trending back upwards in a big way? We need our kids back at school.

 

[Freida]

This is just heartbreaking....scared people + misinformation= everything from covid deaths to murder. Its happening all over the world and I have no idea how it could be fixed.
The human cost of virus misinformation

But...then I see there is hope out there in the people who do care about others and they renew my faith in humanity
These Uplifting Stories of Neighbors Helping During Coronavirus Will Inspire You to Do the Same