SARS II: Respiratory Boogaloo

Absolutely, imo.

It's the death knell for old school schooling. Unions will put up a valiant struggle, but the path is inevitable (via tech, like virtual classes, AI instructors tinted the right color and demog., and the optimized (via AB testing, etc.) syllabus and presentation). Within a decade it will begin to supplant our inferior method and system, and this crisis will have kickstarted it.

You might be on to something.

If we can do it a different way, people might wonder "Hey, why don't we just do it that way all the time?"

Are you talking to me or @Ancalagon, @RickDeckard, @Asyncritus, @garamet or the others in this thread who keep bringing up Trump?

You.

Because distance learning does have drawbacks. It's fine for students who can self-educate or get by with one way of having stuff presented to them.

I'm taking an online degree course right now.

But students who struggle, or need things explained perhaps a slightly different way, have issues because they can't just catch the lecturer after the session and say "can you just go through X again, because I don't think I get it?".

I've lost track of the times that just quickly sketching something out or rephrasing it has made it "click" for a student who isn't an idiot but processes the world a bit differently to me. You lose that ability with distance learning, unless you adopt insane levels of planning.

I saw a FB meme recently condemning Common Core for a "stupid" way of teaching multiplication. And yes, it WAS stupid and tedious to most students. But to those who can't "get" the simpler way, it gets them to the same result.

You don't want to take students through every possible way of learning something. So distance learning either means "teach it this way and lose some students you could have caught up with after the lecture" or "plan excessively for every learning style and require the teachers to spend ages recording all that".

Just visited the supermarket and was pleasantly surprised. There's a surprising amount of stock on the shelves. TP is gone, of course, and the canned soups have taken a real hit, but I found everything I was looking for (or a suitable substitute).

I'm working from home for the foreseeable future, though I'll still have to come to the office to do hands-on stuff.

You're finally getting your GED or jolly old England equivalent. I'm happy for you.

This may require a separate thread...

I think distance learning can be tailored to every student's needs. It's a matter of identifying those needs and having a solution.

For any topic, there could be, for example, multiple videos explaining it at various speeds. If a student still doesn't get it, the student could be shunted to one-on-one sessions with a tutor.

If the student excels, the pace can be accelerated. If the student has trouble keeping up, the pace can be slowed, or they can be shunted to a remedial track.

This idea that every student has to start and stop a grade on the same day is outdated and poorly serves all students except the hypothetical average one.

That goes with the territory.

LOL already got a degree, Masters and Ph.D. None of which are needed to routinely highlight how much of a twat you are.

Nope, taking a part-time Computing/IT course to assist my bioinformatics needs and prep in case I need to switch careers, since I'm not prepared to describe a "career change" as "moved from the docks to the CostCo parking lot" like you are.

Utilizing some "stable genius" formula that is unclear to ordinary Americans, Der Drumpfenfuhrer held a news conference in which he advised against crowds of more than 10 people:



One can't help but notice that the number of people in the room is well in excess of 10 people...

in fairness a lot of them are lizard people

No one is saying the virus is Trump’s fault, but the FedGov’s response/early inaction certainly is.

Ever heard the phrase ‘The buck stops here’?

It’s impossible to know what a President Hillary would have done differently but we can hazard a guess on some things.

Hillary would likely not have spent 3 years attacking and demoralizing our intelligence agencies.

Hillary would likely not have put a sycophant in charge of the CIA.

Combined it is possible we would have gotten more intel on the extent of the outbreak in China earlier.

Hillary would likely not have downplayed the likely severity of the virus. Remember how Trump spent weeks saying how the flu was worse and that the number of cases would soon be zero?

Hillary would likely not have fired her Chief of Staff in the middle of the crisis (because he didn’t do enough to quash the severity of the crisis).

Hillary would likely not have put her son in law with no executive or government experience in charge of the West Wing’s coordination.

Hillary would likely not have required all decisions be routed through her.

Hillary would likely have come up with (or more accurately had a team to come up with) a response plan instead of making a bunch of ad hoc decisions on the crisis.

Hillary would likely have treated this as a national security crisis not a public image crisis.

Hillary would likely not have dismantled the National Security team’s pandemic response team.

Hillary would likely not have gutted the National Security team in an effort to root out ‘the Deep State’.
Hillary would likely not have gone through six regular and acting National Security Advisors in 3 years, making forming a coherent National Security policy harder.

Hillary would likely not have appointed a sycophant as SecState making international cooperation on the crisis harder.

Hillary would likely not have spent all her early political capital on pushing tax cuts during a boom, lessening our ability to use fiscal stimulus during the economic crisis.

And just in general Hillary would likely have put competent people in charge of various agencies (not just picking based on personal loyal to her) so that when we did respond it was coordinated and not the bumbling response we’ve seen so far (see the screening lines at O’Hare).

So yeah, we don’t know how a President Hillary would have responded, but we can get a general picture of how many of the mistakes the Trump admin has made would have been avoided (although it is possible new mistakes would have been made).

But her emails.

Just got back from the store. Shelves were practically empty. I didn't really need a whole lot, I try to keep stuff in my freezer and some can food stocked for such occasions, but I did want to make sure I had enough to last. Frozen veggies were gone, toilet paper, gone, can food, gone, but they were restocking, pasta was mostly gone. I got what canned food I could get and just went with spaghetti with meat sauce. Got some ground beef and was able to find two large rolls of paper towels. Between that and what I already have coupled with the fact that I work at a restaurant and bring home food every night and it doesn't look like we're closing, I should be more than good.

I could do without the snark to be honest given I've tried to be reasonable with you. Re infection is always a potential issue with any virus and all I'm saying is that we're dealing with a lot of unknowns here. If you want a full, systematic review of the data there'll doubtless be one available in about six months. In the meantime it's a question of doing the best we can as the situation unfolds and a key concern within the medical community is the fact we are seeing what appear to be clinically valid (ie not explainable by human error or methodological issues) cases of re infection with a notable frequency. That doesn't have to mean it's commonplace, merely above expected norms.

The advice to not factor prior infection into testing decisions for that very reason is currently being disseminated throughout hospitals, clinics and pods throughout the nhs. At the moment I'm only involved in testing in house, with our own trust's patients and staff but the advice is based on the data coming in europe wide.

That is not empty speculation.

The Pennsylvania legislature has adapted new rules to adapt to the crisis...

“Under our current rules, members must be present in the Capitol to vote on legislation. We had to convene a quorum of members in Harrisburg today to vote to change our rules,” Majority Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Lancaster) said. “Under the new rules, members can vote on bills before the House and in committees without leaving their districts.”


The rules changes will be reflected in three separate ways:

• Allowing designated voting. Under this temporary rule, members will notify their party’s whip of their voting position on legislation, and the whip, or a member designated by the whip, will file a member’s vote on the House floor. As for the floor itself, only the speaker, leaders, whips or designated members to those positions would need to be present. The process is the same for committee votes, with the relevant party chairperson collecting the votes ahead of a scheduled vote.
  
• Suspension of legislative time requirements. This temporary rule shortens all required wait periods related to legislation to three hours. Specifically, the 24-hour posting requirement for bills before a committee is now three hours, the 12-hour requirement after a bill is amended on second consideration is now three hours, and the six-hour wait requirement for a bill to be voted on concurrence is now three hours.
  
• Blackout mailing period adjustment. Under current rules, no legislative mailing can be sent out within 60 days of an election. The temporary rule passed today lifts the restrictions to allow members to send electronic communications related strictly to COVID-19 information.
  

“We are living in a worldwide event of the magnitude many of us have never experienced. Leaders at state, federal and local levels are working constantly to stay ahead of the next development and keep their communities safe and operating,” Cutler said. “These important rule changes will allow our chamber to be a part of the solution and keep the voice of our constituents at the forefront of every decision made in Harrisburg.”


The rule changes will expire at the end of the emergency declaration or if the declaration is rescinded.

I stand by my statement! If Hillary had done exactly what Trump has done in response to the virus the left would be humping her leg and singing her praises loud & proud.
So his response was irresponsible and incompetent? So what would you have done if you wore the daddy pants genius?

wow Anc, that was an extensive list of what Hillary would have done! Will you have a list of what Biden would have done when Trump gets reelected in November and we have another crisis?

this just in - one of my customers is an actual DOD salaried employee, and today they got read the riot act. They can't go further than a 25 mile radius from their residence until further notice, even on the weekends/free time. Let me clarify - they can come to work of course, they just can't go too far on their off time.

^His packaging has been off his game, he doesn't seem as good at instilling calm as I'd have predicted for a germaphobe isolationist.

I'm free of the hate trump virus, and during past few years - at most of the events we faced I think Trump was well suited to both the challenge and the salesmanship. But his salesmanship on the response to Wuhan coronavirus has been pretty weak.

I agree decentralized and customized (but coordinated) response is the only reasonable approach given our system and infrastructure. I don't know how the first planned recession will play out. I *do* know that in hindsight the biggest failure imo is the testing bottleneck, and then when HHS declared a health emergency the FDA regs are designed expressly to bottleneck innovation and production of new testing devices/processes until the FDA approves of every new step etc. and that the testing bottleneck is is directly attributable to this bureaucracy.

Fortunately they changed the applicableFDA regs. Pretty sure Trump hasn't mentioned any of those three bolded parts, instead repeating "we closed to China early and were harshly criticized for overreacting."

And it's good that our CDC system gets an overhaul with such a relatively benign Batsoup invader. It could be a lot worse, my county has 3 cases (city of around 2 mil. metro), and so far most of the problem has been centered at very few locations. Although like Britain, we now seem to have our US version of seeding some herd immunity - the airport crowding like we saw Post-9/11, and the kids partying at spring break, etc.

You really are insecure about your perceived lack of intelligence aren't you?

VA bars still open so far. We haven't had a whole lot of cases of Wuhan virus. MD bars are closed DC bars close at 10pm.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/03/16/coronavirus-dc-maryland-virginia-updates/

Yes, if Biden were to handle such a crisis as incompetently as Trump has and someone on WF was so far gone down the partisan rabbit hole as to try and defend the incompetence I would point out their idiocy.

For some reason, doctors don't like doing this, but it actually works.

Back in the '90s, I remember watching a Frontline documentary about WHO and CDC doctors dealing with an ebola outbreak in what was then Zaire. One of the local nurses during the shooting contracted ebola. The local doctors were all, "WTF are we going to do? We can't afford to lose her!" So, working in secret, they decided that they would try this procedure. The only tests that they could run was to make sure that the patient who survived with the same blood type as the nurse didn't have HIV. In the middle of the treatment process, the CDC and WHO doctors figured out what was going on and charged into the room. They proceeded to yell and scream at the local doctors about what they were doing but (thankfully) didn't actually stop the doctors from doing it.

The nurse recovered, and once she did, the local doctors began using it on the other patients in the clinic. All but two of them survived. When Frontline interviewed the CDC and WHO doctors about it, not one of them would admit that it had been the right thing to do. They all just kept talking about "protocol" and "risks." All I could think about was, "They just saved some lives! I bet if your ass was dying of ebola and they offered to do the procedure on you, you wouldn't be talking about 'protocol' and 'risks.' You'd be begging them to do it!"

I'm not the one second guessing what the president should do. You seem to be qualified to assess his performance so you must be the smartest guy in the room - impress me with your superior mental & leadership abilities.

The US is extremely slow on progress. The destruction of the old system seems to be about the only way to force progress. The trumpian retards in the US cannot even deal with universal standards of education, and they freak out when their own ignorance keeps them from understanding basic math problems given by teachers. They want god did it to be an answer because they are so ignorant.

There is already a reality that online resources and help assists modern students anyway.

I mean at that point, you got nothing to lose.

color me skeptical of your claims. Alas a moot point - Biden or Sanders (you never know) will lose in November.

Actually I should have said you seem proud of your lack of intellectual prowess.