Some pupils in Year 10 ( eg my grand- daughter and most of her year group at her school, a state grammar school ) who have worked their socks off both before and during lockdown, conscientiously completing all the work set every day, would be horrified at having to repeat year 10. They will cope well enough with GCSEs next year, especially if some form of teacher assessment is included in the final grade, but I can foresee that in some subjects the transition to A levels will be harder, so maybe an extra year in the Post-16 stage would work.
(I should clarify - 'drongos' means people who dick about, not people who don't know much)
Interesting - Brits using Aussie slang - and changing its meaning. Here a drongo is a bit of an idiot, but not a malicious one (as I understand it, anyway).
List of countries with at least 10,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 1,725,275 (1,144,734 / 479,969 / 100,572)
Brazil - 394,507 (211,321 / 158,593 / 24,593)
Russia - 362,342 (227,406 / 131,129 / 3,807)
Spain - 283,339 (59,264 / 196,958 / 27,117) 12.1%
United Kingdom - 265,227 (227,835 / 344 / 37,048)
Italy - 230,555 (52,942 / 144,658 / 32,955) 18.6%
France - 182,722 (88,313 / 65,879 / 28,530)
Germany - 181,288 (10,790 / 162,000 / 8,498) 5.0%
Turkey - 158,762 (32,858 / 121,507 / 4,397) 3.5%
India - 151,876 (83,104 / 64,426 / 4,346)
Iran - 139,511 (22,566 / 109,437 / 7,508) 6.4%
Peru - 129,751 (73,057 / 52,906 / 3,788)
Canada - 86,647 (34,669 / 45,339 / 6,639)
China - 82,993 (79 / 78,280 / 4,634) 5.6%
Chile - 77,961 (46,240 / 30,915 / 806)
Saudi Arabia - 76,726 (27,865 / 48,450 / 411)
Mexico - 74,560 (14,207 / 52,219 / 8,134) 13.5%
Pakistan - 57,705 (38,194 / 18,314 / 1,197)
Belgium - 57,455 (32,801 / 15,320 / 9,334)
Qatar - 47,207 (35,335 / 11,844 / 28)
Netherlands - 45,578 (39,472 / 250 / 5,856)
Belarus - 38,059 (22,765 / 15,086 / 208)
Ecuador - 37,355 (16,149 / 18,003 / 3,203)
Bangladesh - 36,751 (28,650 / 7,579 / 522)
Sweden - 34,440 (25,344 / 4,971 / 4,125)
Singapore - 32,343 (15,876 / 16,444 / 23)
United Arab Emirates - 31,086 (14,851 / 15,982 / 253)
Portugal - 31,007 (11,569 / 18,096 / 1,342)
Switzerland - 30,761 (646 / 28,200 / 1,915) 6.4%
Ireland - 24,735 (2,060 / 21,060 / 1,615) 7.1%
South Africa - 24,264 (10,999 / 12,741 / 524)
Indonesia - 23,165 (15,870 / 5,877 / 1,418)
Colombia - 23,003 (16,716 / 5,511 / 776)
Kuwait - 22,575 (15,097 / 7,306 / 172)
Poland - 22,074 (11,030 / 10,020 / 1,024)
Ukraine - 21,584 (13,365 / 7,575 / 644)
Egypt - 18,756 (12,932 / 5,027 / 797)
Romania - 18,429 (5,339 / 11,874 / 1,216) 9.3%
Israel - 16,757 (2,019 / 14,457 / 281) 1.9%
Japan - 16,623 (1,967 / 13,810 / 846) 5.8%
Austria - 16,557 (732 / 15,182 / 643) 4.1%
Dominican Republic - 15,264 (6,262 / 8,534 / 468)
Philippines - 14,669 (10,371 / 3,412 / 886)
Argentina - 13,228 (8,577 / 4,167 / 484)
Afghanistan - 11,831 (10,483 / 1,128 / 220)
Panama - 11,447 (4,755 / 6,379 / 313)
Denmark - 11,428 (821 / 10,044 / 563) 5.3%
South Korea - 11,265 (701 / 10,295 / 269) 2.5%
Serbia - 11,227 (4,921 / 6,067 / 239)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and India.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
(I should clarify - 'drongos' means people who dick about, not people who don't know much)
Interesting - Brits using Aussie slang - and changing its meaning. Here a drongo is a bit of an idiot, but not a malicious one (as I understand it, anyway).
That might be my usage alone But yes, it's a gentle term I borrowed when I was teaching, which I applied to people who wouldn't make an effort or who distracted others. Forgive my cultural (mis-) appropriation.
In other news, I read this morning that the man who died by ingesting a fish tank cleaning agent was called Gary Lenius. This seems like a Spoonerism worthy of Private Eye or the Onion.
Question about contact tracing (and this is a genuine question, not an attempt to pick holes).
Suppose tracing starts on June 1st. Presumably, you will contact-trace everyone who tests positive on the 1st. Do you contact-trace people who tested positive on May 31st? If so, how far back do you go? If not, why not?
Some pupils in Year 10 ( eg my grand- daughter and most of her year group at her school, a state grammar school ) who have worked their socks off both before and during lockdown, conscientiously completing all the work set every day, would be horrified at having to repeat year 10. They will cope well enough with GCSEs next year, especially if some form of teacher assessment is included in the final grade, but I can foresee that in some subjects the transition to A levels will be harder, so maybe an extra year in the Post-16 stage would work.
My 16 year old looked at me in utter bemusement at the idea of repeating year 11. He is ready to leave and start college and be treated more like an adult. Perhaps the fact he is going to a sixth form college rather than a school sixth form makes this an even more important step for him? Most of his course work was finished before lockdown anyway.
His sixth form has sent preparation materials out for the coming year (which they usually send in the summer), even before sending out the confirmed offer last week.
My sons both went to a comprehensive school in a run down area which had just failed its OFSTED.
There were plenty of classmates who would rather mess around than work. My reason for sending them there was entirely selfish - it was five minutes walk away from home.
My sons both did well, gaining first and Masters degrees. Neither ended up with jobs related to the subject they studied. Boogielet1 graduated in ecology and is now a nurse with a very keen amateur interest in ecology. Boogielet2 graduated in engineering and is now a pilot with a very keen amateur interest in cake baking.
Education is about the person. Not about ‘getting a good job’. Education is worthwhile in and of itself.
If people don’t ‘get on’ it is due to their attitude and motivation (which comes from family first imo).
Maybe the effect of this virus will be to stop the materialistic rat race and the effect it has had on education, especially universities.
Some pupils in Year 10 ( eg my grand- daughter and most of her year group at her school, a state grammar school ) who have worked their socks off both before and during lockdown, conscientiously completing all the work set every day, would be horrified at having to repeat year 10. They will cope well enough with GCSEs next year, especially if some form of teacher assessment is included in the final grade, but I can foresee that in some subjects the transition to A levels will be harder, so maybe an extra year in the Post-16 stage would work.
My 16 year old looked at me in utter bemusement at the idea of repeating year 11. He is ready to leave and start college and be treated more like an adult. Perhaps the fact he is going to a sixth form college rather than a school sixth form makes this an even more important step for him? Most of his course work was finished before lockdown anyway.
His sixth form has sent preparation materials out for the coming year (which they usually send in the summer), even before sending out the confirmed offer last week.
If everybody did repeat the year, it would be for the sake of the children who are not currently basically fine, not successfully managing to work at home - for the people who don’t manage well without the structure of school.
Logically, there should be an option for those who are not managing to repeat those parts of the curriculum they have missed out on - which hopefully, subject to ongoing effective restrictions on social contact to suppress the virus such that this is under control by the end of the summer break and there's no second wave, will be limited to the last few months of this year. The problem being that those children get labelled "failures", with the biggest problems being other children (their current class mates they'll partly leave to take some classes with the year below).
Even if we keep the virus under control and schools return at the end of the summer, so that the amount of curriculum missed by the majority of children is small, there will be local outbreaks that may require schools in some areas to be closed again for a few weeks, people will still develop symptoms that will require them, and members of their families including children, to stay stay home and not leave for any reason (excluding clear emergencies and some medical treatments) either for 14 days or a test can be administered and showing negative for Covid19. So, we will still need to have some mechanism in place to help children learn at home and catch up (if needed) from shorter breaks from school which will not be common for all children across the nation.
But that risks those who are currently fine becoming embittered about school and dropping out themselves. And what about those children who might be more comfortable at a college doing vocational education (a boy in my class at school aged 14 was already repairing cars from his father’s garage on the estate)? My son’s school does vocational subjects such as brick laying and health and social care (their engineering btec is great, my eldest did it) but not all schools do this.
I like the idea of it being optional but I suspect those children who most struggle without the structure would also be those less likely to want to repeat the year.
ISTM that part of the issue is that Brits have little to no experience of repeating school years. It's relatively common here. My stepson repeated years twice (the second time he also moved to a different school where he indeed got on better).
Question about contact tracing (and this is a genuine question, not an attempt to pick holes).
Suppose tracing starts on June 1st. Presumably, you will contact-trace everyone who tests positive on the 1st. Do you contact-trace people who tested positive on May 31st? If so, how far back do you go? If not, why not?
At a guess it's better to catch people earlier, if you are ringing Mr Jones because he shook hands with miss smith on the 28th that's better than waiting till Mrs Jones shows symptoms on the 5th and then finding out where she went.
That said two weeks id expect naively that any indirect contagion from then ought to have a shorter connection to someone visibly infected more recently.
And you do have limited resources, so if following an assymptomatic trail costs more than fighting the number of clusters they cause there may be some trade offs.
Question about contact tracing (and this is a genuine question, not an attempt to pick holes).
Suppose tracing starts on June 1st. Presumably, you will contact-trace everyone who tests positive on the 1st. Do you contact-trace people who tested positive on May 31st? If so, how far back do you go? If not, why not?
At a guess it's better to catch people earlier, if you are ringing Mr Jones because he shook hands with miss smith on the 28th that's better than waiting till Mrs Jones shows symptoms on the 5th and then finding out where she went.
That said two weeks id expect naively that any indirect contagion from then ought to have a shorter connection to someone visibly infected more recently.
And you do have limited resources, so if following an assymptomatic trail costs more than fighting the number of clusters they cause there may be some trade offs.
Sorry, by 'how far back' I meant how much of the existing backlog of positive tests do you contact-trace for, rather than how far back do you trace any new case.
E.g. If Mr Jones tests positive on 1st June, it makes sense to talk to people he met in late May. But what about Mrs Smith, who tested positive on 31st March, but who isn't in the trail for anyone who tested positive on 1st June?
ISTM that part of the issue is that Brits have little to no experience of repeating school years. It's relatively common here. My stepson repeated years twice (the second time he also moved to a different school where he indeed got on better).
Question about contact tracing (and this is a genuine question, not an attempt to pick holes).
Suppose tracing starts on June 1st. Presumably, you will contact-trace everyone who tests positive on the 1st. Do you contact-trace people who tested positive on May 31st? If so, how far back do you go? If not, why not?
At a guess it's better to catch people earlier, if you are ringing Mr Jones because he shook hands with miss smith on the 28th that's better than waiting till Mrs Jones shows symptoms on the 5th and then finding out where she went.
That said two weeks id expect naively that any indirect contagion from then ought to have a shorter connection to someone visibly infected more recently.
And you do have limited resources, so if following an assymptomatic trail costs more than fighting the number of clusters they cause there may be some trade offs.
Sorry, by 'how far back' I meant how much of the existing backlog of positive tests do you contact-trace for, rather than how far back do you trace any new case.
E.g. If Mr Jones tests positive on 1st June, it makes sense to talk to people he met in late May. But what about Mrs Smith, who tested positive on 31st March, but who isn't in the trail for anyone who tested positive on 1st June?
The incubation period is something like 7d, so there's little point going back to the start of April. Obviously, you should try and trace any contacts of people with a positive test as soon as you have the capacity in place (in theory, from now at least to a partial extent as if there's to be capacity for the full requirement on the 1st June there has to be a significant number of people already trained and ready to go ... and, I see no point in them sitting around doing nothing until that 1st June date comes around). Ideally, you'd want to follow up anyone who tested positive in the last couple of weeks; probably those who were infected from people who tested positive 2 weeks ago have already developed symptoms whereas that probability reduces the closer to now that you get and hence when resources are limited the more recent cases would give you a higher chance of catching a cluster before it becomes an outbreak.
Sorry, by 'how far back' I meant how much of the existing backlog of positive tests do you contact-trace for, rather than how far back do you trace any new case.
E.g. If Mr Jones tests positive on 1st June, it makes sense to talk to people he met in late May. But what about Mrs Smith, who tested positive on 31st March, but who isn't in the trail for anyone who tested positive on 1st June?
Presumably you'd start with anyone who has a positive diagnosis on 1 June, rather than just those who are given said diagnosis on or after that date.
If people don’t ‘get on’ it is due to their attitude and motivation (which comes from family first imo).
Boogie you are that close (fingers held a couple of mm apart) to a hell call. Yours is a typical knee jerk response from a teacher who won't recognise their own culpability for the way some children's lives are adversely affected by school.
You can have all the motivation in the world but if the doors don't open or the teachers don't put you in front of them, you'll have no chance. School inculcates you with such negative values that it takes years to come to terms with it: some never do.
I happen to work in an area where some families have no concept of helping their children - in fact, they can't because they themselves have never learned. That's it Boogie, pile more on already piled parents.
Question about contact tracing (and this is a genuine question, not an attempt to pick holes).
Suppose tracing starts on June 1st. Presumably, you will contact-trace everyone who tests positive on the 1st. Do you contact-trace people who tested positive on May 31st? If so, how far back do you go? If not, why not?
At a guess it's better to catch people earlier, if you are ringing Mr Jones because he shook hands with miss smith on the 28th that's better than waiting till Mrs Jones shows symptoms on the 5th and then finding out where she went.
That said two weeks id expect naively that any indirect contagion from then ought to have a shorter connection to someone visibly infected more recently.
And you do have limited resources, so if following an assymptomatic trail costs more than fighting the number of clusters they cause there may be some trade offs.
Sorry, by 'how far back' I meant how much of the existing backlog of positive tests do you contact-trace for, rather than how far back do you trace any new case.
E.g. If Mr Jones tests positive on 1st June, it makes sense to talk to people he met in late May. But what about Mrs Smith, who tested positive on 31st March, but who isn't in the trail for anyone who tested positive on 1st June?
I think the reality is that it's going to limited by the capacity of your contact tracing apparatus, so you start off in June the 1st and then work backwards if you have spare capacity (or identify a particular hotspot) and then stop when you run out.
I'm not convinced that capacity testing will be carried out at much more than box ticking levels come June the 1st.
If people don’t ‘get on’ it is due to their attitude and motivation (which comes from family first imo).
Boogie you are that close (fingers held a couple of mm apart) to a hell call. Yours is a typical knee jerk response from a teacher who won't recognise their own culpability for the way some children's lives are adversely affected by school.
You can have all the motivation in the world but if the doors don't open or the teachers don't put you in front of them, you'll have no chance. School inculcates you with such negative values that it takes years to come to terms with it: some never do.
I happen to work in an area where some families have no concept of helping their children - in fact, they can't because they themselves have never learned. That's it Boogie, pile more on already piled parents.
You engage in teacher bashing and then accuse Boogie of piling on parents?
If people don’t ‘get on’ it is due to their attitude and motivation (which comes from family first imo).
Boogie you are that close (fingers held a couple of mm apart) to a hell call. Yours is a typical knee jerk response from a teacher who won't recognise their own culpability for the way some children's lives are adversely affected by school.
You can have all the motivation in the world but if the doors don't open or the teachers don't put you in front of them, you'll have no chance. School inculcates you with such negative values that it takes years to come to terms with it: some never do.
I happen to work in an area where some families have no concept of helping their children - in fact, they can't because they themselves have never learned. That's it Boogie, pile more on already piled parents.
You engage in teacher bashing and then accuse Boogie of piling on parents?
Taking issue with a teacher is not taking issue with all teachers. There are many good ones IME but also some who are quick to pass the buck and not take responsibility. Like in all walks of life.
It’s why I became a teacher. I had (undiagnosed) ADHD and dyslexia. The teachers were either sweet and kind and underestimated my intelligence or assumed I was being lazy and physically or mentally abused me. I reacted, in school, by becoming the class clown and having everybody laughing. A very hard kid for teachers to deal with.
I became advanced skills teacher, deputy headteacher and acting headteacher - and taught teachers throughout our authority how to motivate pupils who were unmotivated or badly behaved due to lack of interesting, stimulating lessons. This was in a very deprived part of Greater Manchester. I’ve never taught in a leafy suburb. Even my teaching practices were in inner London.
Motivation is essential for good education and learning. Too many people have forgotten that. My point was that materialism and ‘getting a good job’ is very poor motivation.
All education is online here with free internet and data for cell phones, and the devices also provided. Exams are online as well. Education curriculum is provincial and standardized, centrally controlled. The very few private schools (mostly religious, but very few in number) must also meet provincial standards, though they are generally inferior evenso because they meet the minimums.
It's absolutely possible to have education not be interrupted - there was a 2 week hiatus in March only. But I suspect that the organization of education before the pandemic issues arose is pretty important.
Universities here are also online. With this creating some issues with practica and internships, i.e., medical, teaching. They've bumped most of these to Jan 2021, because the current plan is mostly online in the fall.
I do get the idea that Saskatchewan is very paranoid compared to other places. 638 total infections, 7 deaths, only 87 active right now in 1.1 million. But perhaps it is more data driven and science based that some of the chaos we're seeing in the media about some of your jurisdictions. But we also pay everything collectively via taxation, and the Public Health Act gives the Chief Medical Officer of the province power over the issues that are not over-rule-able by politicians without a real sh**-storm and a court challenge, which no politico in their right mind would do. Practically speaking, it took 4 days for the premier and gov't to work out how they would cooperate and do things properly collaboratively with the CMO. This delay was a big a deal.
Motivation is essential for good education and learning. Too many people have forgotten that.
Agreed - and motivation comes in many different shapes and sizes. Some people will be well-motivated to study at home, and will come out of this lockdown in the same position (or perhaps even in a better position) than had the virus not happened. Others are motivated by interaction with their teachers and classmates - they're not doing well with online learning, because their reward system just vanished.
It’s why I became a teacher. I had (undiagnosed) ADHD and dyslexia. The teachers were either sweet and kind and underestimated my intelligence or assumed I was being lazy and physically or mentally abused me. I reacted, in school, by becoming the class clown and having everybody laughing. A very hard kid for teachers to deal with.
I became advanced skills teacher, deputy headteacher and acting headteacher - and taught teachers throughout our authority how to motivate pupils who were unmotivated or badly behaved due to lack of interesting, stimulating lessons. This was in a very deprived part of Greater Manchester. I’ve never taught in a leafy suburb. Even my teaching practices were in inner London.
Motivation is essential for good education and learning. Too many people have forgotten that. My point was that materialism and ‘getting a good job’ is very poor motivation.
It doesn't matter what form of work you end up with, it's the value and contribution you bring to the world that's important. Witness the importance of hospital cleaners verses the "value" of a PR person.
Ok so you became an acting head: I admire how you have been able to rise above the issues from school. But imagine you came from a council estate background with a labourer father, then all the cards are stacked against you. You still don't have a voice because the school will shove you around and patronise your parents - yes, I've seen it and called it. If parents are at fault as you claim, why didn't yours wade in?
Many won't become the class clown simply because what they hear or are told or have done to them are all so bad that all they can do is, at best, simply stay alive. It is not the fault of their parents or family but the fault of those who are entrusted with their care in loco parentis.
I had to laugh recently. At a very public event, someone commented very favourable on my speaking and presentation and wondered (seriously) if I'd worked for the BBC. If only they knew that what they saw that day was the product of an abusive school system with sadistic sarcastic teachers who loved an easy target with no protection from loving elderly parents who were belittled by the same so called professionals.
ISTM that part of the issue is that Brits have little to no experience of repeating school years. It's relatively common here. My stepson repeated years twice (the second time he also moved to a different school where he indeed got on better).
That’s why I was suggesting everybody do it - the losing your peer group / singling out of graduation date from your age cohort are clearly very likely to be negative.
If all your age peers stay together and you & all your cohort takes their exams a year later - then no one can point at you and/or your cv and say “this happened because you are lazy/dumb/poor, and therefore we are going to take life chance away from you”.
I think it should be possible give repeating pupils who have mastered a subject to the required level, some off curriculum work to do at similar level. Then a revision chunk in the run up to the exams.
One thing I wish is that we could start calling them "lockouts" rather than "lockdowns" -- AFAIK, no one, other than actual prisoners, has been put under lock and key inside their dwelling.
What's really been happening is that everyplace you might conceivably want to go has been closed, therefore you're locked *out.* Maybe the Covidiot Freedom Fighters would understand that a little better?
If true that's got to be fantastic. That must be almost live info on numbers, which as the comments say allow you to prepare the hospitals, start implementing social measures fast (and hence can have them lapser), potentially narrow down (especially with contact tracing from the top quickly, compare with known data, and collecting samples has to be less invasive than swabbing.
The one bad thing is it shows it wasn't here in advance, but that was something we'd confirmed already.
[ETA read article 3 day lead on hospital admissions, 7 day lead is on them being tested, still]
Well, I don't know about you Winds of Change, but NZ has had one of the most strict 4 week lock downs I have read about, but as a survival issue I'm quite partial to eating, so I am pleased we weren't locked out of the supermarket, just had to queue for a few minutes.
Also I wonder if it's a matter of how words may be interpreted in different places. The lock down here was about something we were actively doing together. "Locked out" implies something you are stopped from doing. The result may be the same but the same, but words matter in getting people onside.
So far, it appears to be paying off. No one is currently in hospital with COVID 19, although there are 21 with it people self-isolating at home and there have been no new cases for a week now, despite widespread testing.
There is some push back against the Prime Minister, and her party's policies, but she has had the most support of any PM this decade. Meanwhile the Opposition Party is polling badly, and has just had a change in leadership in an attempt to gain ground. The General Election on September 19 will be the acid test of whether they have been successful or not.
If true that's got to be fantastic. That must be almost live info on numbers, which as the comments say allow you to prepare the hospitals, start implementing social measures fast (and hence can have them lapser), potentially narrow down (especially with contact tracing from the top quickly, compare with known data, and collecting samples has to be less invasive than swabbing.
The one bad thing is it shows it wasn't here in advance, but that was something we'd confirmed already.
[ETA read article 3 day lead on hospital admissions, 7 day lead is on them being tested, still]
The high correlations and leads are visible only after they do a lot of smoothing, which would add lag if you needed to do it in real time rather than retrospectively as in this study. I think the most valuable aspect may be that testing primary sludge could avoid a lot of the problems associated with trying to get tests from a large representative sample of individuals in a community. As the saying goes...
Question about contact tracing (and this is a genuine question, not an attempt to pick holes).
Suppose tracing starts on June 1st. Presumably, you will contact-trace everyone who tests positive on the 1st. Do you contact-trace people who tested positive on May 31st? If so, how far back do you go? If not, why not?
At a guess it's better to catch people earlier, if you are ringing Mr Jones because he shook hands with miss smith on the 28th that's better than waiting till Mrs Jones shows symptoms on the 5th and then finding out where she went.
That said two weeks id expect naively that any indirect contagion from then ought to have a shorter connection to someone visibly infected more recently.
And you do have limited resources, so if following an assymptomatic trail costs more than fighting the number of clusters they cause there may be some trade offs.
Sorry, by 'how far back' I meant how much of the existing backlog of positive tests do you contact-trace for, rather than how far back do you trace any new case.
E.g. If Mr Jones tests positive on 1st June, it makes sense to talk to people he met in late May. But what about Mrs Smith, who tested positive on 31st March, but who isn't in the trail for anyone who tested positive on 1st June?
I'm not convinced that capacity testing will be carried out at much more than box ticking levels come June the 1st.
According to Sky there appear to be some fairly basic issues with the contact tracing setup.
Oh, I'm sure it's a different experience depending on what part of the world you're in. I'm in the US, Southern California.
What I mean is that I never felt like I was "locked down" in any way. I had no trouble going out of my house, getting in my car, and driving, as I do pretty much most days.
The difference was in where I was able to drive *to* and what I was able to do once I got there. I could and did drive to the grocery store or the pharmacy, and get out and walk around each of those stores while doing my necessary shopping.
So in the sense that I had freedom of movement, I didn't feel "locked down." However, even though I could drive to their locations, I couldn't go inside my gym, or the local library, or my favorite bookstore, because I was locked out.
It's probably more semantics than anything else. Or perhaps me just being ornery, because I am, sometimes. Sorry. ;-)
Well, I don't know about you Winds of Change, but NZ has had one of the most strict 4 week lock downs I have read about, but as a survival issue I'm quite partial to eating, so I am pleased we weren't locked out of the supermarket, just had to queue for a few minutes.
Also I wonder if it's a matter of how words may be interpreted in different places. The lock down here was about something we were actively doing together. "Locked out" implies something you are stopped from doing. The result may be the same but the same, but words matter in getting people onside.
So far, it appears to be paying off. No one is currently in hospital with COVID 19, although there are 21 with it people self-isolating at home and there have been no new cases for a week now, despite widespread testing.
There is some push back against the Prime Minister, and her party's policies, but she has had the most support of any PM this decade. Meanwhile the Opposition Party is polling badly, and has just had a change in leadership in an attempt to gain ground. The General Election on September 19 will be the acid test of whether they have been successful or not.
List of countries with at least 10,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 1,745,803 (1,153,566 / 490,130 / 102,107)
Brazil - 414,661 (222,317 / 166,647 / 25,697)
Russia - 370,680 (224,504 / 142,208 / 3,968)
Spain - 283,849 (59,773 / 196,958 / 27,118) 12.1%
United Kingdom - 267,240 (229,436 / 344 / 37,460)
Italy - 231,139 (50,966 / 147,101 / 33,072) 18.4%
France - 182,913 (87,733 / 66,584 / 28,596)
Germany - 181,895 (10,562 / 162,800 / 8,533) 5.0%
Turkey - 159,797 (32,573 / 122,793 / 4,431) 3.5%
India - 158,333 (86,050 / 67,749 / 4,534)
Iran - 141,591 (22,851 / 111,176 / 7,564) 6.4%
Peru - 135,905 (75,753 / 56,169 / 3,983)
Canada - 87,519 (34,590 / 46,164 / 6,765)
China - 82,995 (73 / 78,288 / 4,634) 5.6%
Chile - 82,289 (47,908 / 33,540 / 841)
Saudi Arabia - 78,541 (27,094 / 51,022 / 425)
Mexico - 78,023 (15,043 / 54,383 / 8,597) 13.7%
Pakistan - 59,151 (38,784 / 19,142 / 1,225)
Belgium - 57,592 (32,763 / 15,465 / 9,364)
Qatar - 48,947 (35,634 / 13,283 / 30)
Netherlands - 45,768 (39,647 / 250 / 5,871)
Belarus - 38,956 (22,819 / 15,923 / 214)
Bangladesh - 38,292 (29,823 / 7,925 / 544)
Ecuador - 38,103 (16,403 / 18,425 / 3,275)
Sweden - 35,088 (25,897 / 4,971 / 4,220)
Singapore - 32,876 (15,577 / 17,276 / 23)
United Arab Emirates - 31,969 (15,343 / 16,371 / 255)
Portugal - 31,292 (11,587 / 18,349 / 1,356)
Switzerland - 30,776 (559 / 28,300 / 1,917) 6.3%
South Africa - 25,937 (11,934 / 13,451 / 552)
Ireland - 24,803 (1,083 / 22,089 / 1,631) 6.9%
Colombia - 24,104 (17,190 / 6,111 / 803)
Indonesia - 23,851 (16,321 / 6,057 / 1,473)
Kuwait - 23,267 (15,146 / 7,946 / 175)
Poland - 22,473 (11,115 / 10,330 / 1,028)
Ukraine - 21,905 (13,252 / 7,995 / 658)
Egypt - 19,666 (13,645 / 5,205 / 816)
Romania - 18,594 (5,205 / 12,162 / 1,227) 9.2%
Israel - 16,793 (1,942 / 14,570 / 281) 1.9%
Japan - 16,651 (1,820 / 13,973 / 858) 5.8%
Austria - 16,591 (718 / 15,228 / 645) 4.1%
Dominican Republic - 15,723 (6,459 / 8,790 / 474)
Philippines - 15,049 (10,639 / 3,506 / 904)
Argentina - 13,933 (9,084 / 4,349 / 500)
Afghanistan - 12,456 (11,091 / 1,138 / 227)
Panama - 11,728 (4,034 / 7,379 / 315)
Denmark - 11,480 (809 / 10,106 / 565) 5.3%
South Korea - 11,344 (735 / 10,340 / 269) 2.5%
Serbia - 11,275 (4,758 / 6,277 / 240)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between India and Iran.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Oh, I'm sure it's a different experience depending on what part of the world you're in. I'm in the US, Southern California.
What I mean is that I never felt like I was "locked down" in any way. I had no trouble going out of my house, getting in my car, and driving, as I do pretty much most days.
There are differences based on where you are. Here the rules were simple, "stay at home" with a short list of legitimate reasons for going out - to a grocery store for food or pharmacy for medicine, essential work that couldn't be done from home (with a short list of key work such as food chain and health care), daily local exercise. With, of course, anyone showing symptoms or anyone else in their household staying at home for 14 days without exception (well, OK, emergency with an immediate threat to life such as your house on fire or the ambulance taking you into hospital). Getting into the car and driving for anything other than getting into work or going to the supermarket was banned - indeed mostly still is - so no driving to the gym carpark and back again, no driving to beauty spot for a walk, no driving to stay in a second home (including homes owned by other members of your family, such as a cottage adjacent to your parents home).
Right on, Alan. It's now clear that the delays in implementing lockdowns both sides of the pond have played a major part in the death totals.
If you look at what is happening in Brazil and Russia, the unholy duo is looking more like an unholy quartet. And Bolsano's behaviour is just appalling.
If true that's got to be fantastic. That must be almost live info on numbers, which as the comments say allow you to prepare the hospitals, start implementing social measures fast (and hence can have them lapser), potentially narrow down (especially with contact tracing from the top quickly, compare with known data, and collecting samples has to be less invasive than swabbing.
The one bad thing is it shows it wasn't here in advance, but that was something we'd confirmed already.
[ETA read article 3 day lead on hospital admissions, 7 day lead is on them being tested, still]
The high correlations and leads are visible only after they do a lot of smoothing, which would add lag if you needed to do it in real time rather than retrospectively as in this study. I think the most valuable aspect may be that testing primary sludge could avoid a lot of the problems associated with trying to get tests from a large representative sample of individuals in a community. As the saying goes...
The word 'valuable' had me expecting a setup for 'where there's muck, there's brass'
Your point about the lag put in by long averages is a good one.
*I know the figures include those for the three other countries in the British Federation, but THEY don't have idiocrats.
Given that among those other leaders is Arlene Foster, the fact that the UK government is even more idiotic is a significant achievement; "Alexander Boris dePfeffel Johnson, even more bonkers than the DUP", the achievement of a true world beater.
*I know the figures include those for the three other countries in the British Federation, but THEY don't have idiocrats.
Given that among those other leaders is Arlene Foster, the fact that the UK government is even more idiotic is a significant achievement; "Alexander Boris dePfeffel Johnson, even more bonkers than the DUP", the achievement of a true world beater.
Though in this case the fact that there is more state capacity in NI is undoubtedly a large contributing factor/
Right on, Alan. It's now clear that the delays in implementing lockdowns both sides of the pond have played a major part in the death totals.
If you look at what is happening in Brazil and Russia, the unholy duo is looking more like an unholy quartet. And Bolsano's behaviour is just appalling.
Despite Bolsano's behaviour in a country with massive crowding and massive slums, Brazil manges a rate of infection and death well below the rate of the US.
Despite Bolsano's behaviour in a country with massive crowding and massive slums, Brazil manges a rate of infection and death well below the rate of the US.
So far.
Brazil's daily case numbers are still rising steadily. I'm afraid that the next few months are unlikely to be happy ones for Brazil.
It looks like the numbers in Brazil are not as bad as they could be because the virus has largely been associated with relatively wealthy areas - communities where people travel internationally or are in contact with international travellers (in particular, tourist destinations). When the virus gets into the higher density slums the numbers will go through the roof very quickly.
Comments
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
Interesting - Brits using Aussie slang - and changing its meaning. Here a drongo is a bit of an idiot, but not a malicious one (as I understand it, anyway).
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and India.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
That might be my usage alone
In other news, I read this morning that the man who died by ingesting a fish tank cleaning agent was called Gary Lenius. This seems like a Spoonerism worthy of Private Eye or the Onion.
Suppose tracing starts on June 1st. Presumably, you will contact-trace everyone who tests positive on the 1st. Do you contact-trace people who tested positive on May 31st? If so, how far back do you go? If not, why not?
His sixth form has sent preparation materials out for the coming year (which they usually send in the summer), even before sending out the confirmed offer last week.
There were plenty of classmates who would rather mess around than work. My reason for sending them there was entirely selfish - it was five minutes walk away from home.
My sons both did well, gaining first and Masters degrees. Neither ended up with jobs related to the subject they studied. Boogielet1 graduated in ecology and is now a nurse with a very keen amateur interest in ecology. Boogielet2 graduated in engineering and is now a pilot with a very keen amateur interest in cake baking.
Education is about the person. Not about ‘getting a good job’. Education is worthwhile in and of itself.
If people don’t ‘get on’ it is due to their attitude and motivation (which comes from family first imo).
Maybe the effect of this virus will be to stop the materialistic rat race and the effect it has had on education, especially universities.
I can but hope.
If everybody did repeat the year, it would be for the sake of the children who are not currently basically fine, not successfully managing to work at home - for the people who don’t manage well without the structure of school.
Even if we keep the virus under control and schools return at the end of the summer, so that the amount of curriculum missed by the majority of children is small, there will be local outbreaks that may require schools in some areas to be closed again for a few weeks, people will still develop symptoms that will require them, and members of their families including children, to stay stay home and not leave for any reason (excluding clear emergencies and some medical treatments) either for 14 days or a test can be administered and showing negative for Covid19. So, we will still need to have some mechanism in place to help children learn at home and catch up (if needed) from shorter breaks from school which will not be common for all children across the nation.
I like the idea of it being optional but I suspect those children who most struggle without the structure would also be those less likely to want to repeat the year.
That said two weeks id expect naively that any indirect contagion from then ought to have a shorter connection to someone visibly infected more recently.
And you do have limited resources, so if following an assymptomatic trail costs more than fighting the number of clusters they cause there may be some trade offs.
Sorry, by 'how far back' I meant how much of the existing backlog of positive tests do you contact-trace for, rather than how far back do you trace any new case.
E.g. If Mr Jones tests positive on 1st June, it makes sense to talk to people he met in late May. But what about Mrs Smith, who tested positive on 31st March, but who isn't in the trail for anyone who tested positive on 1st June?
I'm rather glad we don't have experience of it under normal circumstances as the evidence points to it being a terrible idea:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/repeating-a-year/
Presumably you'd start with anyone who has a positive diagnosis on 1 June, rather than just those who are given said diagnosis on or after that date.
You can have all the motivation in the world but if the doors don't open or the teachers don't put you in front of them, you'll have no chance. School inculcates you with such negative values that it takes years to come to terms with it: some never do.
I happen to work in an area where some families have no concept of helping their children - in fact, they can't because they themselves have never learned. That's it Boogie, pile more on already piled parents.
I think the reality is that it's going to limited by the capacity of your contact tracing apparatus, so you start off in June the 1st and then work backwards if you have spare capacity (or identify a particular hotspot) and then stop when you run out.
I'm not convinced that capacity testing will be carried out at much more than box ticking levels come June the 1st.
You engage in teacher bashing and then accuse Boogie of piling on parents?
Taking issue with a teacher is not taking issue with all teachers. There are many good ones IME but also some who are quick to pass the buck and not take responsibility. Like in all walks of life.
It’s why I became a teacher. I had (undiagnosed) ADHD and dyslexia. The teachers were either sweet and kind and underestimated my intelligence or assumed I was being lazy and physically or mentally abused me. I reacted, in school, by becoming the class clown and having everybody laughing. A very hard kid for teachers to deal with.
I became advanced skills teacher, deputy headteacher and acting headteacher - and taught teachers throughout our authority how to motivate pupils who were unmotivated or badly behaved due to lack of interesting, stimulating lessons. This was in a very deprived part of Greater Manchester. I’ve never taught in a leafy suburb. Even my teaching practices were in inner London.
Motivation is essential for good education and learning. Too many people have forgotten that. My point was that materialism and ‘getting a good job’ is very poor motivation.
It's absolutely possible to have education not be interrupted - there was a 2 week hiatus in March only. But I suspect that the organization of education before the pandemic issues arose is pretty important.
Universities here are also online. With this creating some issues with practica and internships, i.e., medical, teaching. They've bumped most of these to Jan 2021, because the current plan is mostly online in the fall.
I do get the idea that Saskatchewan is very paranoid compared to other places. 638 total infections, 7 deaths, only 87 active right now in 1.1 million. But perhaps it is more data driven and science based that some of the chaos we're seeing in the media about some of your jurisdictions. But we also pay everything collectively via taxation, and the Public Health Act gives the Chief Medical Officer of the province power over the issues that are not over-rule-able by politicians without a real sh**-storm and a court challenge, which no politico in their right mind would do. Practically speaking, it took 4 days for the premier and gov't to work out how they would cooperate and do things properly collaboratively with the CMO. This delay was a big a deal.
Agreed - and motivation comes in many different shapes and sizes. Some people will be well-motivated to study at home, and will come out of this lockdown in the same position (or perhaps even in a better position) than had the virus not happened. Others are motivated by interaction with their teachers and classmates - they're not doing well with online learning, because their reward system just vanished.
It doesn't matter what form of work you end up with, it's the value and contribution you bring to the world that's important. Witness the importance of hospital cleaners verses the "value" of a PR person.
Ok so you became an acting head: I admire how you have been able to rise above the issues from school. But imagine you came from a council estate background with a labourer father, then all the cards are stacked against you. You still don't have a voice because the school will shove you around and patronise your parents - yes, I've seen it and called it. If parents are at fault as you claim, why didn't yours wade in?
Many won't become the class clown simply because what they hear or are told or have done to them are all so bad that all they can do is, at best, simply stay alive. It is not the fault of their parents or family but the fault of those who are entrusted with their care in loco parentis.
I had to laugh recently. At a very public event, someone commented very favourable on my speaking and presentation and wondered (seriously) if I'd worked for the BBC. If only they knew that what they saw that day was the product of an abusive school system with sadistic sarcastic teachers who loved an easy target with no protection from loving elderly parents who were belittled by the same so called professionals.
That’s why I was suggesting everybody do it - the losing your peer group / singling out of graduation date from your age cohort are clearly very likely to be negative.
If all your age peers stay together and you & all your cohort takes their exams a year later - then no one can point at you and/or your cv and say “this happened because you are lazy/dumb/poor, and therefore we are going to take life chance away from you”.
I think it should be possible give repeating pupils who have mastered a subject to the required level, some off curriculum work to do at similar level. Then a revision chunk in the run up to the exams.
Measuring #SARSCoV2 levels in sewage predicts forthcoming #COVID19 cases with a full week's notice at 94% accuracy.
What's really been happening is that everyplace you might conceivably want to go has been closed, therefore you're locked *out.* Maybe the Covidiot Freedom Fighters would understand that a little better?
The one bad thing is it shows it wasn't here in advance, but that was something we'd confirmed already.
[ETA read article 3 day lead on hospital admissions, 7 day lead is on them being tested, still]
Also I wonder if it's a matter of how words may be interpreted in different places. The lock down here was about something we were actively doing together. "Locked out" implies something you are stopped from doing. The result may be the same but the same, but words matter in getting people onside.
So far, it appears to be paying off. No one is currently in hospital with COVID 19, although there are 21 with it people self-isolating at home and there have been no new cases for a week now, despite widespread testing.
There is some push back against the Prime Minister, and her party's policies, but she has had the most support of any PM this decade. Meanwhile the Opposition Party is polling badly, and has just had a change in leadership in an attempt to gain ground. The General Election on September 19 will be the acid test of whether they have been successful or not.
According to Sky there appear to be some fairly basic issues with the contact tracing setup.
What I mean is that I never felt like I was "locked down" in any way. I had no trouble going out of my house, getting in my car, and driving, as I do pretty much most days.
The difference was in where I was able to drive *to* and what I was able to do once I got there. I could and did drive to the grocery store or the pharmacy, and get out and walk around each of those stores while doing my necessary shopping.
So in the sense that I had freedom of movement, I didn't feel "locked down." However, even though I could drive to their locations, I couldn't go inside my gym, or the local library, or my favorite bookstore, because I was locked out.
It's probably more semantics than anything else. Or perhaps me just being ornery, because I am, sometimes. Sorry. ;-)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between India and Iran.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
If you look at what is happening in Brazil and Russia, the unholy duo is looking more like an unholy quartet. And Bolsano's behaviour is just appalling.
A sorry and depressing day indeed.
Still, England* is ahead of those Horrid Foreign People Not Like Us, and that is SO IMPORTANT to the present idiocrats 'in charge'...
*I know the figures include those for the three other countries in the British Federation, but THEY don't have idiocrats.
The word 'valuable' had me expecting a setup for 'where there's muck, there's brass'
Your point about the lag put in by long averages is a good one.
Not.
Though in this case the fact that there is more state capacity in NI is undoubtedly a large contributing factor/
So far.
Brazil's daily case numbers are still rising steadily. I'm afraid that the next few months are unlikely to be happy ones for Brazil.