Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

2x a week

i should stop talking about this here
sorry

nah, get it out!

That sounds legitimately terrible, LL.

While I am an adjunct and only teach 2 courses max per semester at any given school, I'm glad the institution where I currently work has not pressured profs for synchronous courses, or in-person courses, or long, pre-recorded lectures. In fact, in the case of online classes, we've been told that the *max* amount of time our pre-recorded videos should take is ~10 minutes. Anything more and absorption goes down dramatically, according to studies.

I held open Zoom office hours as well as sign-up Zoom office hours this spring, and while it sucked, students who had questions were more likely to show up to them than to my office hours when I was holding them in person. Weird, I know, but working on the 9th floor of a confusing building on a large urban campus dissuades many from seeking out the guy who rambles at them about Foucault three days a week.

My last word on the topic and then I will shut up: I am not going to let these rules make my teaching suck -- I will not compromise on my own quality of work. Don't worry -- I am not going to record 3 hour lectures in a mask and grade students on their ability to learn under these circumstances. I will find another path.

I was in six hours of meetings on reopening today. Headline: nobody knows anything and everybody's passing around the same articles as reference material but using it to advance their own competing agendas. Safely reopening a school mid-pandemic is the single most complicated thing I've ever been involved in. Is it possible? Who knows? How can kids eat lunch? Who knows? How do busses work? What happens when a teacher is absent? What happens when a kid sneezes? What happens to ELL student who needs to see a teacher's lips to language? It's overwhelming.

My wife got her teaching evaluations back from last semester this week (along with everyone else’s as she is also programme director for the masters in ever Department). She did really well because, unlike a fair proportion of her colleagues, actually did live and interactive lectures rather than pre-recordings. No surprise, students hate, and do less well with pre recorded lectures.

She also kept all the group discussion and project work in the classes, using the zoom breakout rooms function, and students appeared to respond really well to that. I came and did a guest speaker thing in a couple of classes and I was surprised how engaged the students were in a late evening class, and a high proportion of students stuck overseas.

Going hybrid would destroy all of that because at least if everyone is on zoom it’s a level playing field, and you can mute the ones who dominate the participation.

My Zoom lectures have helped my evals too. This aside, it's been cool to start with goofy shit. Yesterday I mocked myself for wearing a hat because my "hair is a travesty." I'll recommend movies, albums, and books too.

soda - sorry to hear it. can you smell the burnout or is the air so thick with the scent that you can't smell it anymore? :(

tbh i have no trouble teaching online, i am good at it. it would be nice to have zoom so we could use the mothershitting breakout room function but i still do a good job in spite of lacking that.

What happens to ELL student who needs to see a teacher's lips to language?

My son's speech therapists just started using a mask with a clear panel - plus a face shield, along with other precautions. Not sure how well it's going to work, but it's not like no one's been thinking about this stuff.

i found this rubric helpful when i had to move my classes online last year. (it’s a thread)

If you’re being asked to “move a class online,” models may be even more useful than “tips.”

Here’s a link to a course site for my fully online class last semester. It’s a simple approach with very little “tech.” Feel free to borrow any of the ideas here. https://t.co/mlRPb7ffI4

— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) March 10, 2020

my school meanwhile is planning on going full steam ahead, with move in starting less than a week before the first day of classes. we’re going to get more details on testing and other plans in “mid july” according to the update given on... july 21.

First trip to the supermarket since the government's change of policy on the compulsory wearing of facemask in shops. So, for the first time ever, the majority of people are wearing masks (though not necessarily on their faces) but not everyone and, still, not all of the staff are either.

not on their faces? are they wearing their masks on their ass?

Nothing should surprise me but the staff thing surprises me

I went into a (large, empty) charity shop today and asked what the mask situation was like and he said 100% of customers were wearing them, compared to like 40% earlier in the week. People here really will do things when they are told to, on the whole. Good thing we waited until July to ask people to wear masks!

Of the 10 people I saw in sainsbury's, all the customers were wearing masks but one of the assistants had his around his neck and another had hers under her nose.

My first time wearing a mask anywhere - not seen one for sale anywhere and not organised enough to order online. I had a bit of a practice on Friday night but forgot that my sunglasses were heavier and slide down more than the normal ones, especially when I'm not just sitting on the sofa.

The staff almost never have been or if they have then it's around their chin, as it's a very loud environment where they'll need to talk a lot (and the government messaging on this has been terrible)

I’ve seen shops already with a sign

no entry without a face covering
Don’t have one? Face coverings sold instore

🤔

Haven't seen anyone maskless in a store in a while but when I went to the Dollar General today the woman behind me just had her T-shirt collar pulled up over her face and mouth. She seemed embarrassed and aware that she'd fucked up, though, and she stood well more than six feet away from me (the fact that my own face mask has a giant pentagram in its center may have helped with that, I don't know).

every time I go to my 7/11 (which isn't often), this one employee behind the counter always has his mask under his nose. not like he took it down when there were no customers in store (which he still shouldn't do), but even when we were there.

finally complained to the store but idt they care. i've been having groceries delivered but I can't really deal with the markup and the delivery fees anymore, so i tend to go to the one grocery store where I know compliance is near 100%, and at early times of morning to avoid traffic.

I went to a pharmacy a few weeks ago & was annoyed that several people walked in without masks but it turned out they were all there buying masks

not on their faces? are they wearing their masks on their ass?

Round their necks usually.

Ahh, that'll completely reduce the neck-based transmissions

Nothing should surprise me but the staff thing surprises me

All through the pandemic, I have never seen the staff at the butchers section in Morrison's ever wear a mask... or gloves for that matter. Not that I use the butchers section in Morrison's.

It goes without saying that no-one is actually policing the wearing of masks either.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c2/Wutangclanprotectyaneck.jpg/220px-Wutangclanprotectyaneck.jpg

Haha!

The police are, I understand, trying to get the shops to police this themselves, and only actually call the police as a last resort - the shops are having none of this.

for anyone who has to teach or wait tables or do anything else potentially risky

1. https://www.fast.ai/2020/07/10/upgrade-your-mask/ for details on how to home-make/etsy a mask that protects you as well as others.

2. https://www.rollingstone.com/product-recommendations/lifestyle/where-to-buy-n95-masks-online-1024302/ will point you to https://n95maskco.com/ with this:

“N95 Mask Co. has and continues to prioritize frontline workers and institutions,” she tells Rolling Stone in an email. “By making our products available to consumers, we are able to maintain a consistent level of production at the factory level, evening out the ebbs and flows inherent to the institutional ordering process. In some rare instances, consumer orders may be delayed for short periods if inventory needs to be reallocated to our institutional customers quickly.”

While the technicalities of supply chain management can be complicated, the short answer is that the more production a company can implement at its factories, the more prepared it will be once hospitals and other government institutions come calling. As a rep for N95 Mask Co. explains: “[The company] needs to make a solid commitment to the factory and to UPS as to exactly how many units will be produced and shipped every day.”

In other words, even if an order doesn’t arrive from a hospital, product still needs to leave the factory and get on the plane with UPS. If not, the company loses scheduled time at the factory, and space on the plane the following day. “This is where the consumer orders come in to fill those gaps and keep the supply chain rolling,” the rep explains.

tonight my friend texted to say he's in the ER with a 104 degree fever, and i should get tested. he and i and a couple friends had a studio session yesterday for a couple hours, and he was without any symptoms then. but, bad news, his preliminary COVID screen says he's positive.

my partner and i want to get tested but AFAIK there's no testing available in Hawaii for asymptomatic people. she spent this afternoon on a photo shoot with a few of her friends, and on hearing the news (rightly) felt she'd be remiss not to tell them that they may have risked exposure. everyone in our circle is spooked. it's my first close brush with this virus. i guess maintaining even a limited number of social contacts was a mistake.

to top it off, hurricane charlie is incoming and we're going to get hit on Oahu tomorrow night. all a bit scary but i'm kinda resigned to it like *shrug emoji*

shit. stock up on tylenol/paracetemol and get tested if you can.

Oh shit, good luck Davey.

thanks you two. apparently tests are gonna be false negative if administered too soon after exposure anyhow, so i'm to self-quarantine and hope not to present symptoms.

fuck covid.

Best wishes to you, Davey. My partner's family is on Oahu, so next time we go visit (in like 2022?), would be great to meet up, if that's something you'd desire.

Fingers crossed for you davey!

haven’t made a despairing post about masks in England for about 10 seconds so here’s one: we’re fully into harvest time now which is an insanely busy period for us and we have to hire a bunch of temps to help get the work done in time for the deadlines. We’ve spent the last 2 months working on how to do this safely, changing the setup of the labs and extending our opening hours so we have a morning and an evening crew who never come into contact with each other. We also bought a shitload of disposable masks.

At the last minute though they apparently chickened out (maybe taking cues from the govt) and have told the new staff “masks and gloves are available if you want to wear them” but not actually told them to wear one. The upshot is that I’m wearing a mask all day every day (I have an array of snazzy cotton ones) but I am literally the only fucker doing so. It isn’t really my call to make but I might insist people wear them in the room I’m running, I don’t think distance counts for much when you’re in the same lab for 6 hrs with air vents blowing currents all round the room (tbh I’m not sure even masks will prevent spread in these circs but they have to be better than nothing)

I think you should insist on it

hey blue light, yes, let's get a coffee or a beer or something... in a couple years lolol

Best, davey!

my oven stopped working the other day, thursday's the earliest I can get it repaired (zero confidence in doing it myself, especially since it's gas) and while it's obviously better to happen now than in april, it still sucks to be unable to cook during quarantine. technically I can use the burners but if it's a gas problem that seems risky

my oven stopped working in april; still haven't gotten it fixed because i haven't wanted people in my apt

(tbf i'm not much of a cook, particularly in summer)

yeah, not thrilled about having someone I don't know in the apartment, but I figure the amount of human contact involved in ordering takeout or delivery indefinitely would cancel that out

curiously, my gas bill has not gone down

teaching full-time was my dream job a few years ago (mostly because I thought it'd involve me going back into the office, but turns out, they wanted me to stay virtual). trying to do it during this pandemic is a nightmare, and I can't imagine trying to be a school teacher attempting to navigate makeshift ways to do it, with limited support. at least in my job, I've been doing it this way for years - and it's just the students that are having to adapt for the first time.

can't imagine relearning how to do things on the fly, with faculty and everybody yelling at you.

I'm no longer as worried at my job of layoffs for the time being only because at least in my dept, someone just quit, so we're already understaffed as it is and there are endless hire classes coming. Apparently 15-30% of the people we recently trained already quit, so we're well below staff (some of these folks may have been furloughed from other jobs that welcomed them back, so they left ours).

took an extra 401k withdrawal yesterday to prepay the taxes for next year, but gave my folks and my brother $500 each, just to give them as much ammo as possible for whatever's coming. still afraid of seeing frequent posts online of hospitalized friends or friends who are about to lose their homes, but I have to imagine it's inevitable. several people I know have had COVID, and friends or family of friends have died from it already.

to cosmically fix the temperature imbalance caused by my oven breaking down my window AC has now broken down

for this I can't even be like "well, at least it happened now and not in april!"

Sorry, katherine. It's brutal right now.

Our Indian neighbors just got back from a long family trip to Florida. They said they almost felt like the Floridians were trolling them, because they would be on a big empty beach, and yet someone would inevitably insist on strolling by within 6 feet of them. They also said both of their (well, his) parents are Fox News watchers, and in the last few months both got covid, yet each with very mild, negligible symptoms, which he said has only reinforced their belief that covid is nbd. Which ... who knows what the fuck is going on.

Addendum: he told me that his sister was with his parents, too, for a while, but she eventually told them they weren't taking it seriously enough and left with her family. This was a week or so before his parents both contracted covid, no doubt because ... they weren't taking it seriously enough.

I just left the 7/11 I complained about days earlier. there's still a big sign on the door requiring face masks, as tehre has been for a while, and this time, all customers had them on, and the employees too (no "under nose" wearers). my mood was improving, then a couple came in with nothing on. surprisingly, the employees actually yelled at them "guys...facemask!".

and one of the assholes snarkily says "can I just put my shirt over my face, will that be 'ok'?" I was on my way out but I wanted to trip the fucker