COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (5 Viewers)

[Goatman Saint]

Frustration is mounting as more families across the U.S. enter their second or even third week of distance learning — and some overwhelmed parents say it will be their last.

Amid the barrage of learning apps, video meet-ups and e-mailed assignments that pass as pandemic home school, some frustrated and exhausted parents are choosing to disconnect entirely for the rest of the academic year.

Others are cramming all their children’s school work into the weekend or taking days off work to help their kids with a week’s worth of assignments in one day.

“We tried to make it work the first week. We put together a schedule, and what we found is that forcing a child who is that young into a fake teaching situation is really, really hard,” said Alexandra Nicholson, whose son is in kindergarten in a town outside Boston.

“I’d rather have him watch classic Godzilla movies and play in the yard and pretend to be a Jedi rather than figure out basic math.”

That stress is only compounded for families with multiple children in different grades, or when parents work long hours outside the home. In some cases, older siblings must watch younger ones during the day, leaving no time for school work............

Hey optimus. Is this from
An article and if you could would you link it? I want to read the whole thing

 

[Saint by the Bay]

I was talking to a friend the other day about how, in general, the skills required to get elected to office are pretty much only applicable to get elected to office and don't really qualify or prepare you to do anything required of the actual job. A lot local officials are pretty incompetent at their actual jobs because the "interview" (election) process has nothing to do with actual qualification unless you're running as an incumbent. And even then it often only somewhat factors in. It's a weird way to choose leaders, but I'm not going to pretend to have a better idea.

This is true, and it's amplified with local officials. By the time you make it to the state or federal level, you've been involved at some level with some type of crisis. At a bare minimum, you have some idea of how to pull the right levers to get the right people or resources.

To your point, getting elected as a local official is really about appealing to a very small constituency on a personal level. That skill set is worthless in a crisis. Very few, with the exception of a few mayors in really big cities, have ever been involved in running an organization the size of a city government let alone any type of crisis management.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Hey optimus. Is this from
An article and if you could would you link it? I want to read the whole thing

Sorry about that

Here you go

"I just can't do this." Harried parents forgo home school

Frustration is mounting as more families across the U.S. enter their second or even third week of distance learning — and some overwhelmed parents say it will be their last.

apnews.com

 

[Saint_Ward]

It's about making sure that infection of the population gets spread out over a longer course so that the health care system is not swamped at any one time. It was never meant to suggest that everyone stays home until the virus is gone.

Everyone who participates in daily American life is going to be exposed to the virus at some point. It's a matter of timing, and making sure that we do not all start dying of non-fatal conditions because we can't get into the hospital on one hand, and ensuring we don't plunge into a global economic depression on the other.

I agree with the idea that we weren't waiting for the virus to be gone.

Probably not that true that we'd all be exposed. Only if we let it run rampant and for a while. And many people who do get into a hospital, that is no where near over run die. I don't think we've had too many or any reported deaths due to over crowded hospitals.

We have tens of millions of flu cases a year. I haven't had the flu in 20+ years. (that might be due to the shot).

My kid had the flu 3 years ago. Only time anyone in our house got it.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

I don't disagree that LaToya is currently going off the rails. But, I think up to this point, she has been doing an okay job in this crisis. As far as opening up, I'm not sure that we are on a 14 day downward trend although I could be wrong. I have been trying to find a good graph for just Orleans over the last 14 days and I can't find one so maybe we are.

That being said, I don't have an issue with opening up to elective medical procedures at this point if the hospitals in New Orleans are saying they are ready.

But as far as other regional leaders, I guess input is always a good thing, but the same things aren't going to apply in each area of the region. The concerns and demographics are different. And, it's not like J.P., St. Tammy, St. Bernard, etc. consulted with Orleans on anything now or in the past. And, I think LaToya is listening to the city health coordinator who is a doctor. And, the City Counsel, several of which I think are much better at all of this than LaToya seems to be behind her so I don't think she's going totally off the rails in that she has consensus from the City Council. (Probably not so much on the current order for NOPD to conduct pretextual stops.)

And yeah, she is pissed off and digging her heels in which she shouldn't be doing. But, at the same point, we have civic "leaders" like Jay Batt who feel the need to grandstand with ads in the newspaper to specifically try to undermine her authority. Her reaction is wrong, but nobody needs to hear from Jay Batt during a crisis.

Orleans added just 21 new cases yesterday, the lowest number of new cases since March 16.
Orleans and LA data:

 

[Saint_Ward]

Sorry about that

Here you go

"I just can't do this." Harried parents forgo home school

Frustration is mounting as more families across the U.S. enter their second or even third week of distance learning — and some overwhelmed parents say it will be their last.

apnews.com

So, teachers should expect parents to shush a bit about this next school year?

However, it's not apples to apples. We're trying to do other things, or do our jobs AND teach the kids full time, vs supplement what they get. Like, I already work with the kids after I get home from work, but that's mostly it.

 

[gboudx]

As a teacher, I’ll say this even though it’s probably not the politically correct thing to do. I agree with her. I think distance learning is a near joke, and teaching a new concept is almost ridiculous. Distance learning doesn’t work unless a teacher is there to explain. That’s why I’m interested to see if we go back in the fall and still practicing social distancing if we don’t do half class in the am half class in the afternoon, fit our instruction tightly in, then allow home time to do the work. Next day go over and assign. I’m expecting very little to no learning in all honesty happening.

But I do like seeing frustrated parents who so hope I stay healthy so they don’t have to do this much longer.

My wife teaches 5th and she would agree with you. She complains the online learning isn't enough and fears kids will get left behind. But at the same time, she knows this is a unique situation and the school district is doing the best they can with the very little time they had for preparation. She has some students who have not logged into the Google classroom yet, and repeated calls and emails to the parents have gone unreplied. What do you do? She found out 1 of those students is the oldest of 4 and has to take care of her siblings while her mom works(dad isn't in the picture). Then she found out another students mom lost her job and Rent-A-Center was threatening to take their fridge. We've been trying to contact them and ask about the fridge as we want to help and pay a few months of the payment so they keep it. She teaches at a school where about half the students are near or below the poverty line. Worrying about an online education isn't exactly at the top of some of these families priority lists.

 

[DaveXA]

Virginia continues to be such an anomaly that it it is suspect. Look at that map, there's a gaping hole between the color from Maryland up through New England, and from North Carolina down through east Texas. That gap is Virginia.

There could be legitimate reasons for it (for example, it's a well-insured population, especially in the population centers of Northern Virginia and the VA Beach, tidewater area), but I don't know - it just has a suspicious look about it.

I just want to say that there are numerous cases here, at least anecdotally. I know people here, friends of friends who have gotten it. And I'm not exactly well connected here. It's definitely going around.

That said, people here are taking the stay at home and other restrictions fairly seriously and overall it seems to be working.

That said, Virginia is hardly out of the woods yet. The stay at home order will remain intact until June 10th. No idea what happens at that point though.

 

[DaveXA]

Orleans added just 21 new cases yesterday, the lowest number of new cases since March 16.
Orleans and LA data:

Let's hope that trend continues. Thanks for posting.

 

[St. Widge]

Orleans added just 21 new cases yesterday, the lowest number of new cases since March 16.
Orleans and LA data:

That doesn't really show the number of new cases per day over the last 14 days unless I am missing something. It does show the number of hospitalizations, but it seems to be pretty flat overall in the last 14 days with a couple deep drops and steep rises in between. But, I don't really know what criteria to go by since "downward trend" can be fairly ambiguous over a relatively short time period.

Edit: I see that the second set of graphs shows new cases. It does look like an overall downward trend.

 

[Saint_Ward]

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Standalone graph of Orleans Parish new cases

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[St. Widge]

So, teachers should expect parents to shush a bit about this next school year?

However, it's not apples to apples. We're trying to do other things, or do our jobs AND teach the kids full time, vs supplement what they get. Like, I already work with the kids after I get home from work, but that's mostly it.

I don't know, it reads a lot like parents complaining because they actually have to parent. Nobody ever said being a parent was going to be easy.

 

[St. Widge]

Standalone graph of Orleans Parish new cases

Yeah, I didn't click on the pictures at first so I didn't see the words on the side that said what they were. It does look like a pretty serious decline in the last 14 days. So, yeah, it is time to start Phase One, But we need to be on the look out in a week or so when we hit 14 days or so from Easter. I expect a bit of a spike from Easter gatherings but probably not enough to stop moving forward.