Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[SwAg]

5 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

PS, we also were given social media reminders and/or warnings of being critical of our employers return to school protocols or any other policies. (I don’t have a social media account, unless you count here).

Yeah, I imagine the union warned you.  It’s technically insubordination and undermining administrative action.

I’ve had to tell people the same, then tell them how to get around it (informally).

Hopefully the unions speak for their members.  They’ve seemed galvanized by it all.  Another positive to come from the pandemic: unions faded for twenty years, and are roaring back.

[MWil23]

57 minutes ago, SwAg said:

Yeah, I imagine the union warned you.  It’s technically insubordination and undermining administrative action.

Correct. Also, you’ll get a kick out of this, I’m a union rep.

57 minutes ago, SwAg said:

I’ve had to tell people the same, then tell them how to get around it (informally).

Hypothetically speaking, I may know what you’re referring to. Purely hypothetically of course.

57 minutes ago, SwAg said:

Hopefully the unions speak for their members.  They’ve seemed galvanized by it all.  Another positive to come from the pandemic: unions faded for twenty years, and are roaring back.

85% of our staff has deemed return to work under these conditions unacceptable.

90% of staff wants mask mandates for students.

87% of staff believes the school year should be pushed back.

“Right to work” legislation hit hard the last 10 or so years, so yes, a rebound was necessary, and we are seeing why. 10 years ago we voluntarily took a 2% pay reduction and freeze, foregoing a 2% raise and step salary increase, to help the district and community out during the recession, only to have our good faith used as toilet paper 4 years later...While that was dealt with and things returned to an amicable relationship, things could get ugly quickly.

[kingseanjohn]

3 hours ago, EaglesPeteC said:

Ours district 49% of the kids signed up for Virtual Academy. We are starting full Virtual for the first few weeks. 
 

that social media part is b.s though.....

Where do you live? 

 

Kansas City

[EaglesPeteC]

Damn those numbers you guys posted of amount of parents just like “take em I don’t care” is crazy. I guess Raleigh is being more cautious. Of course our NC numbers keep going up 

[MookieMonstah]

10 hours ago, kingseanjohn said:

This was posted on the Kansas City sub-reddit. It's from a teacher in a local school district sharing a memo that was sent out. I added the spacing myself to the memo to make it easier to read, rather than one large block, but made no changes to the content.

Thoughts @MWil23 @MookieMonstah @EaglesPeteC and other teachers? Is this the standard response so far from your districts?

We’ve been told to be careful on social media, we sent out a survey but I haven’t heard back about what percentage of students will be in school.

Betsy DeVos is absolutely using this as a way to attack public education. It’s an absolute shame but it is what it is at this point. My social media is currently full of people attacking teachers and making us out to be the enemy, I just don’t engage in the discussion but I’ve certainly seen colleagues try to explain their stance and it never goes well.

[BobbyPhil1781]

When you throw your chips all in

https://mobile-reuters-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN24R0IN?amp_js_v=a3&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQIKAGwASDYAQE%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-health-coronavirus-moderna-funding-idUSKCN24R0IN

[Xenos]

One of my dearest friends posted this petition on social media. I’m just so disappointed right now but really don’t want to deal with the drama of asking what she means and the implications of what seems to be an antivaxxer stance.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/president-trump-sign-executive-order-protecting-persons-right-choose-and-refuse-vaccinations?

Edited July 27, 2020 by Xenos

[theJ]

6 hours ago, Xenos said:

One of my dearest friends posted this petition on social media. I’m just so disappointed right now but really don’t want to deal with the drama of asking what she means and the implications of what seems to be an antivaxxer stance.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/president-trump-sign-executive-order-protecting-persons-right-choose-and-refuse-vaccinations?

Tbf, have vaccinations ever been mandatory? Seems like a hard thing to track. I don't know that this one even will, and it probably doesn't matter. I imagine most will get it, even if they don't admit it. When it comes down to it, it's free and it'll be taken by billions. There will be a good track record for it, easing some people's minds. 

Plus, like Rams had pointed out earlier in this thread, we only need something like 60-80% compliance anyway to wipe this thing. Not everyone has to take it. 

[ET80]

On 7/25/2020 at 11:29 PM, EaglesPeteC said:

Damn those numbers you guys posted of amount of parents just like “take em I don’t care” is crazy. I guess Raleigh is being more cautious. Of course our NC numbers keep going up 

There is less than 10% chance I send my daughter to school this semester. She's going to be in Kindergarten, so she'll miss some of the basics in relation to socialization - the rest she has pat, with her ABCs, color recognition, counting to 100, etc. She's been doing Zoom storytime with her daycare once a week, so she's familiar with using Zoom, so I'm going in that direction until things clear up.

My son is autistic, so he isn't in public school right now - but he's restarted his occupational and speech therapy at his Behavioral Learning Center. It is a highly sterilized facility before Covid, and everything is in a 1:1 setting, so his contact with therapists is limited. It was a requirement to get something, the sudden stop brought on by Covid-19 was really disruptive to his routine (and anyone who has worked with kids on the spectrum knows that routine is key). My son was backsliding for about three weeks, pushing into behavior and self harming with a lot of his actions; I'm equipped to deal with those in a preventative manner, but I'm just a holding pattern until he was able to get to his therapists.

He's on a FT schedule three days a week, with half days on Wednesday and Friday - his behavior and progress has really improved once he got back to his RBT and BCBA. 

[JonStark]

7 hours ago, Xenos said:

One of my dearest friends posted this petition on social media. I’m just so disappointed right now but really don’t want to deal with the drama of asking what she means and the implications of what seems to be an antivaxxer stance.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/president-trump-sign-executive-order-protecting-persons-right-choose-and-refuse-vaccinations?

It's unfortunate that people still feel the need to ignore science but at least once the vaccine is available, their ignorance won't affect the ones who get it. If 25% of the population doesn't want to get it, that's fine. I'll be covered and can continue a normal life while they either continue to take precautions or end up contracting the virus. At that point, they're only hurting themselves.

 

[WizeGuy]

So, I went to the bar for the first time since the pandemic began. I did outdoor dining because I'm not comfortable sitting at a bar indoors.

Positives:

95%+ of the people who got up to go to the bathroom or walk around would put their mask on. I'm not sure I saw one person neglect to put their mask on while getting up to go pee, leave, or whatever other errand they had to do.

Bouncers would remind people to put their mask on if they forgot and people adhered. Though some would mock it a bit.

It was easy to social distance outdoors.

Waiters and waitress all wore their masks correctly. 

It's easy to avoid people who are a bit more reckless

Negatives:

Cuomo's 'buy food to order a drink' has too many loopholes. The first bar I went to was selling fries for a dollar. The second one sold fries for cheap.

The rule "you have to be seated to order a drink" actually put me in a worse spot. The first bar I went to didn't have any waiters/waitresses, so I had to go up to the bar, which was pretty full with a bit of social distancing. I found a spot between a couple who had their back to me and was maybe 4-5 feet away and another lady who faced toward me but was 6 (ish) feet away. I felt comfortable. Unfortunately, the bartender said I need to be seated to order a drink, so I had to maneuver to another part of the bar that had a seat but put me in a worse position. I was probably 4 feet away from people on both sides. They weren't masked up since they were sitting around the bar. I kept my mask on while ordering. At least the bar was located outside. 

Bartenders were lackluster on their mask wearing.They'd wear them, but some would wear them incorrectly.

A couple of people were dancing without their mask on. And by a couple, I mean 2 or 3 people total.

There were a couple of tables with 7-8 people drinking and shouting without masks on. They were younger people, and definitely not from the same household.

The seating around the actual bar was a bit crowded at one of the bars I went to. I noticed couples around the bar and groups of maybe 4-5 people around the bar. The space between each group was probably 3-4 feet, but it still looked a bit too crowded for my liking. The second bar I went to was way less crowded. Probably because the bar was located indoors unlike the more crowded bar I went to that was outdoors.

 

Overall, I felt very comfortable sitting outside at a table and ordering drinks with my dad. Him and I were able to socially distance with ease, and everybody respected each others boundaries. The issue seems to be sitting around the bar, which is easily avoidable if there are waiters. You definitely get a glimpse of those who are not taking this virus seriously at all, but they seem to respect the areas of others, and stick to themselves, so at least there's that.  

 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by WizeGuy

[ramssuperbowl99]

1 hour ago, theJ said:

Tbf, have vaccinations ever been mandatory? Seems like a hard thing to track. I don't know that this one even will, and it probably doesn't matter. I imagine most will get it, even if they don't admit it. When it comes down to it, it's free and it'll be taken by billions. There will be a good track record for it, easing some people's minds. 

Plus, like Rams had pointed out earlier in this thread, we only need something like 60-80% compliance anyway to wipe this thing. Not everyone has to take it. 

It's a state by state thing as to whether they offer non-medical exemptions. 

There is legal precedent for forcing medical treatments on children when parents object. For example, when a LDS/JW child needs a blood transfusion to live, the state has actually removed custody of the child from the parents, authorized the transfusion, and restored custody after since the parents are no longer a present danger to their child's health. In this case, since we should be able to hit herd immunity regardless, it's not worth the legal trouble. 

[Xenos]

2 hours ago, theJ said:

Tbf, have vaccinations ever been mandatory? Seems like a hard thing to track. I don't know that this one even will, and it probably doesn't matter. I imagine most will get it, even if they don't admit it. When it comes down to it, it's free and it'll be taken by billions. There will be a good track record for it, easing some people's minds. 

Plus, like Rams had pointed out earlier in this thread, we only need something like 60-80% compliance anyway to wipe this thing. Not everyone has to take it. 

No, vaccination has never been mandatory. But herd immunity depends on the people who can, choosing to get vaccinated in order to protect those who legitimately medically cannot. What’s annoying is hearing about measles outbreaks last year because herd immunity was compromised in certain parts of this country because of antivaxxer ridiculous conspiracy theories. I worry the same thing will happen with Covid.

[WizeGuy]

I did a random poll on a hockey forum a couple of weeks ago asking if people would get vaccinated if a vaccine was widely available in 6 months. Over 400 people answered, and as of right now it sits at 67.5% would get vaccinated and 32.5% wouldn't get vaccinated. I know, this poll has hardly any significance, but it's still encouraging to see many people would take the vaccine. It's also worth noting that many of those voters are Canadian, too, so I'm not sure how much that impacted results. 

[WizeGuy]

18 minutes ago, Xenos said:

No, vaccination has never been mandatory. But herd immunity depends on the people who can, choosing to get vaccinated in order to protect those who legitimately medically cannot. What’s annoying is hearing about measles outbreaks last year because herd immunity was compromised in certain parts of this country because of antivaxxer ridiculous conspiracy theories. I worry the same thing will happen with Covid.

Fortunately (unfortunately) we're probably going to have a strong percentage (15%? 20%?) of the population already infected before a vaccine is even available, especially in hot spots which drive up the Ro number in surrounding areas.

An issue that gets overlooked is how effective are these vaccines going to be? The FDA said they will approve a vaccine that is 50% effective. This means that if 100 people get vaccinated, only 50 of them will have a strong enough immune response to acquire partial or full immunity. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by WizeGuy