Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Tuesday, September 1st, 2020

Virtual Return to School

Yesterday was the first day of EM’s last year in school and it went surprisingly well, apart from some IT challenges caused by systems and teachers being overwhelmed. One should have thought that MCPS would have used the past three month to sort these things out, given everyone was expecting to go back to school virtually only or at best have some hybrid form of teaching. I am however hopeful things will iron themselves out in the coming days.

If the school had some IT support that would most certainly be helpful. The one resource they have is deaf, which is not exactly ideal for remote support of 2500 students and 200 or so teachers and administrators. As a result there has been a flurry of emails on the BCCnet listserv with people sharing experiences, providing guidance on how to deal with challenges and so on. Also, I seem to be getting EM’s zoom class links, while she has not been getting them. I now forward anything school related, causing her email inbox to overflow. However, every teacher has now set up some sort of site on the new platform to be used which should also have the Zoom class links.

After the spring experience where each teacher used a different platform varying form Google classroom to MyMCPS portal, the district has felt the need to streamline platforms. In theory this is laudable. In practice each teacher uses the platform differently making it as confusing as if there were multiple platforms and students are struggling to find content. I do acknowledge that teachers have put a lot of work into their respective sites while learning about the technology on the go. Maybe providing one generic structure would have been helpful for them also. Everyone is trying very hard to make it work though.

Meanwhile in Europe, China, Australia and elsewhere schools are reopening for in person teaching. Given numbers and Virus management protocols in the USA it is completely inconceivable for this to happen here. There is an increasing focus on aerosol transmissions and the resulting need for good ventilation and I doubt that schools can remotely comply with what is needed. They are just too big, too crowded and have no money to make investments.

The USA today accounts for 6.2 million of the worldwide 25.3 million known cases. Only densely populated India with its population of well over 1 billion is on track to overtake the USA in total number of infections. Given its dismal performance the administration is trying to get a vaccine at all costs and amidst intensifying pressure on the FDA to provide an emergency use license to an untested vaccine it may be worthwhile looking at results of vaccinations used with emergency licensing in history. None of these were successful and some actually caused significant harm. Using an in sufficiently tested vaccine could completely undermine the trust in a badly needed inoculation, so any emergency use license seems an incredibly stupid idea. Or more bluntly the only purpose could be to support he moron in chief in his bid for re-election.

The most advanced vaccine manufacturers are exerting pressure on the EU to change its regulations. The EU has 24 official languages and all documents must be available in all of these. Vaccine producers are now complaining about this, stating it could slow the distribution. How does the commission solve this problem? In my experience there is a poor auto-translated version of every document made a properly scripted version in either English or French. I suggest drug makers do the same.

In the category obscure news I read about a COVID-19 treatment effective for cats which may soon be administered to humans  to reduce viral reproduction.