Friday, April 23rd, 2021
Today began with a rather successful workshop on East Africa time zone which meant a very early start for me and four consecutive hours in front of the screen.
I made up for it later in the afternoon by first lizzarding in the sun and then going on a neighborhood walk with my French neighbor, seeing the sun was out and the chillly winds have abaed. I am so frustrated with my inability to express myself perfectly in French that I have resolved to check if there are any French series with English subtitles, I can watch to improve my vocabulary. Never mind about the grammar, that will have to wait.
Between the workshop, the walk, and the swim I did manage to get quite a bit done. Now my single biggest to do item is yet again some strategy work. I have just not been able to wrap my head around it. It requires thinking time which I will hopefully have on Monday.
Next week will be an all home school week again, so this weeks’ routine will go out the door and we shall return to the regular pandemic routine of shared lunches at noon and my swim slot has moved back to 13:00 for the week. The week after it is back to lonely lunches while I work and 17:00 swim slot, if I remember to book on time that is. What a confusing schedule.
EM and I are also confused between the IB and the MCPS scoring system. Her history teacher entered the IA grade using the MCPS scale. EM translated this into 2 on the IB Scale which is basically a fail. Given she had also been tutored by an IB history teacher through the entire IA and running up to the IA I was shellshocked. History is one of her three HL subjects and thus critical to her overall grade, so I reached out to the IB coordinator to understand what the implications are for EM’s ability to graduate. While she said she needed to speak to the teacher, she also wrote that 68% in MCPS would translate into a 5 on the IB scale. Now there is major confusion in our household until this issue has been resolved. Happy to report though she scored a 4 in English and 87% (MCPS score) for her psychology IA. The latter is important as she plans to study psychology.
While vaccination roll out continues to be strong with 3.2 million doses administered in the USA today, so is the infection rate. The past twenty-four hours saw an increase of 67k to bring the US total to 32.7 million. As more and more people in my social circle are partially or fully inoculated, our social activities expand. Last night a work friend came by and we sat indoors, drinking wine and talking unmasked since we are both fully vaccinated! What a bizarre experience it was. I guess we will be doing a lot more of this in our vaccinated group in the coming months.
The administration is moving to the next level of its vaccine roll out by now engaging communities to reach those less eager to take a shot. Another major concern is the inability to vaccinate children. Pfizer has been testing the BioNTech vaccine in kids 2-5 and it seems to be fine. So far this is only vaccine which can be given to children and it is the hardest to store. But at least there is an option for children now, so that is good news.
The strangest story I have come across yet, is an article about a bunch of scientists who have develop a vaccine against Corona which anyone can literally make in ones' own kitchen and they are distributing it open source. It has not gone through lengthy trials and has no regulatory approval. All the materials -- saline solution, small pieces of proteins that are similar to those of the coronavirus, and cross-linking chemicals including one called chitosan that’s made from shellfish and insect carapaces -- can be bought online with no special licenses or permission. A magnetic stirring plate, a beaker, pipetting equipment and a sterilizing agent is all that is needed in addition to a cooler to mix the stuff together. Because the vaccine is so simple to make, it’s also relatively easy to modify. RaDVaC is already on its 10th version, which includes copies of portions of the virus that aren’t included in commercial vaccines. Other components are designed to protect against new variants. RadVac on its website has millions of disclaimers, seeing no one knows if this actually works. Apparently some regulators are willing to back a trial, so it can not all be hocuspocus.
If it did work though it would be super cool as all nations could develop a vaccine within minutes for millions of people and it just needs to be snorted like a nasal spray. No need for needles!