I’m up early-- thunderstorm woke me. Very clear description-- just like being there! (Sort of.) Question: what’s the process/rationale for putting a student in Group A v. Group B? Purely arbitrary or is there some academic reason?
Thanks! The metric is that one half of the classes on each floor is in one group, the other half in the other group. I think it’s simply every other room chosen, but a coworker thinks it’s based on the students’ academic standing. Since the students are assigned to classes based on academic performance, there’s really no way to tell without the person who made the choice telling you. The rationale is to minimize the number of students in the hallway between classes. A sharp observer would note that there is still a five minute overlap when both groups are on break between periods. The first period should have been extended for ten minutes, IMHO; however, this protocol seems to be working as intended for the four days it has been in use. Supposedly the break halfway through evening study hall is also staggered in the same way, but I do not know that for a fact because I simply do not care what happens on the campus after I leave each day. I care what happened on campus when I lived on campus and that was too much aggravation.
The students will have to adjust more when more grades have returned because a number of classes are now meeting in rooms that will all of a sudden be occupied by their original student inhabitants.
“Send me videos of your young children doing exercises. What could go wrong?”
Hah!
Our state started reopening but me and my family decided to stay home and wait a little further. We think it’s too early to reopen. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
I have a friend that is a teacher. Special ed. We both are on satellite dishes for internet (no other choice), so video conference with her kids is pretty much impossible because of the latency/delay. She has come up with a novel solution. She has an agreement with a B&B where she, and only she goes to the house and use the internet for her work and connect to her students via zoom. Then she returns home.
The B&B is empty otherwise. I think she is paying the B&B owners $25 a day. So it’s a win/win.
Our state is pretty much still closed. Which is fine for me, but I feel very sorry for businesses that this is affecting.
I’ve been wanting to work from home for years anyway, so it’s working out well for me. Bosses boss has said this will probably continue until July for our department. And then, we’ll see. We’ve proved that working from home … works.
I would very much like to continue to be able to work from home a few days a week. And especially in our frequent snowstorm events so I can plow our driveway in the daylight. It sucks to come home, park in the ‘road’ hike uphill through a foot of snow to my truck and plow in the dark.
enipla, it occurs to me that folks who run Air BnBs (like my parents) could also offer rooms to people who have adequate technology to work from home, but find it crazy-making because of kids or what-have-you. I should tell my parents about this idea.
Today in Austria:
[ul]
[li] Chancellor Kurz came under heavy criticism today for failing to maintain enough distance from well-wishers and fellow speakers at an outdoor press event in Vorarlberg yesterday. A widely circulated video of the event prompted a flood of negative front-page news stories and social media comments, all shaming the chancellor and those members of the public who got too close to him or to each other. I suppose that this video may look rather tame to some, but it bears keeping in mind that the chancellor has been absolutely fastidiuous until now in personally demonstrating his commitment to his own distancing regulations. In recent weeks he had never appeared public without a mask (except when speaking, and even then usually behind a plexiglass screen) and press conferences with his cabinet were careful to show him giving everyone an extraordinarily wide berth when entering, standing, and leaving. The public backlash forced him into damage control mode today. After he and members of his cabinet were grilled about the issue at televised press conferences this morning, he spoke on public television this evening, partly to deflect blame onto the media and to the unruly crowd at the event, but also to admit that things could have been handled better and to promise to stick to indoor, well-contained and -orchestrated press events from now on.[/li][li] I passed the federal chancellery on my way home from work today, sans ferret, and noticed a public protest by some 500 people. This was organized by the Initiative for Evidence-based Corona Information, the same group whose demo on 24 April was cancelled at the last minute (but which kind-of sort-of went ahead anyway thanks to the assorted conspiracy theorists and white nationalists who showed up to watch). This time I didn’t spot any obvious lunatics in the crowd; most people weren’t even holding signs, and those that did just had generic anti-lockdown messages. One of them was waving a Swedish flag. Almost everyone was wearing a mask and keeping distance. Police were present in much smaller numbers than before, though they did have all egresses barricaded with police trucks. The demo was actually quite boring so I didn’t stick around for more than a couple minutes.[/li][li] Cafés and restaurants will reopen tomorrow but need to ensure that guests from different do not sit too close together. This is a problem for certain establishments whose tables are bolted to the floor in close proximity to each other. Some clever café owners are getting around this problem by seating well-dressed mannequins at every other table. Not only does this help enforce the social distancing rules, but it also gives the establishment the illusion of being well-attended by fashion-conscious customers.[/li][li] Swimming facilities will open later this month. The published health regulations indicate that open-air facilities can admit no more than one visitor per 10 m² of floor space, and swimmers not living in the same household must maintain two metres’ distance from each other. Enclosed pools can admit no more than one visitor per 6 m² of pool space. It is prohibited for visitors from different households to simultaneously use saunas or steam rooms. Visitors will need to wear face coverings in the lobbies and changing rooms.[/li][li] The Austrian Airlines fleet will remain grounded until at least 7 June.[/li][li] Current statistics: 16,014 confirmed infections, 626 deaths, 14,405 recovered.[/li][/ul]
More bad news and more reasons for wearing masks.
Talking Can Generate Coronavirus Droplets That Linger Up to 14 Minutes
The hits just keep on coming. 
Stores should tell their employees to speak as little as possible. All that happy customer service chatty talking they tell their employees to do are just more opportunities for the virus to spread. The idle chit-chat between an employee and customer spreads millions of droplets between them. The chit-chat at the registers and doorways means the fog of droplets will be thicker there and the surfaces in that area will have more droplets land on them, which means more get transferred to your purchases. And with the extra distance apart from social distancing, people have to project their voice more which releases more droplets.
People should be aware that the amount of droplets they release is proportional to how hard they exhale. Even soft breathing may release a small amount. Talking will release more, projecting their voice will release more than that, yelling even more, and so on. The danger with the more forceful exhales is that they have the strength to bring virus all the way up from deep in the respiratory system, but even a light exhale may release virus in the throat or nose.
For simple folk, maybe best explanation would be “one fart rule” ™. If one man farts and coughs (or talks loudly with lots of certain consonants) at the same time, then if you smelled it, you can get it. Empty elevators included. Common sense educated guess?
4,526,905 total cases
303,405 dead
1,704,268 recovered
In the US:
1,457,593 total cases
86,912 dead
318,027 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
There is the problem that the customers are now conditioned to expect customer service chirpiness. Between no longer seeing smiles and no chirpy greetings customers react to store employees as hostile, when said customers are already stressed or even pissed off.
Not sure that would end well…
Do you have those perspex barriers in your stores? I would think those would take care of most of the droplets-from-talking problem
Yes, at the registers, but it’s not like we walk around the store with riot shields strapped to our arms. We still talk to/help customers in the aisles. I’m not sure how someone could just a plastic shield and stock shelves at the same time.
Working in a grocery store is and will continue to be a risk.
I hope this means they will stop welcoming me to Moe’s.
Kidney damage seen in one-third of COVID-19 patients studied in new report
Note: The study group was patients sick enough to be hospitalized. So we aren’t talking about one-third of all COVID patients. Still, the findings remind us that getting over a COVID-19 infection doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in good health. One concern that just popped into my mind: There may be some/a lot of COVID-19 survivors who succumb to other infections (like the flu) that they would have otherwise been able to fight off. And there may be some/a lot of COVID-19 survivors whose unhealthy lifestyle habits (drinking and smoking) may catch up to them sooner than they would have otherwise as well.
David Foster Wallace on The Professional Smile