In reply to: You know I respect you but posted by vermin05
I taught remotely for two weeks, and then dove back in. When y'all start talking about "what does your back to work wardrobe look like?" I just chuckle. I didn't have it as bad as Vermin, but I don't have any experience with work-from-home, because we didn't really do it for long.
(Sorry, I was trying to find a way to phrase that and went ambiguous for the “wait, what?” With a small dose of awkward humor)
Those of us in the US are well versed in how wildly the individual states over or under corrected in 2020 based on a lack of good federal guidance. Hell, even if we’d had a competent administration, we’re not set up for a strong federal response with 50 state health models. As a result you have people championing Florida or California or whatever and I think neither angle had it completely right.
We all read stories (and your reports!) in 2020 about Germany’s methods - boosting businesses to pay employees (rather than haphazardly trying to make them apply), having consistent rules that changed on the best available data and people who actually followed them.
But certainly nobody bats 1.000, right? What are some things that could have gone better over there?
We were building the plane while we were flying it. No one had it completely right or completely wrong.
IMHO vaccines were the biggest failure. Our response was so unbelievably slow--we didn't order enough doses, our vaccine board didn't recommend them for kids for a *long* time after we had gotten through the high-risk population, and we are *still* only recommending it for the highest risk individuals. So, unlike my mom who has had six shots (eh, feels excessive, but still...) and no Covid, I have had three shots and two bouts with the illness.
I also thought that our restrictions on outdoor activities were too harsh for too long. We were ahead of some countries on encouraging people to get get out for a walk or a run or a bike ride, but not with *anyone* else. I think the thing that made the Bavarians say "enough's enough" was cancelling the (outdoor) Christmas markets in December 2021. I think that they lost the "hearts and minds" battle at that point.
Schools were hit/miss. We did a lot right, prioritizing onsite learning was good, and how we made sure that schools were safe was great, but the way that we did it (being told by the county which students would be onsite, hybrid, or remote, every Friday for the following week) led to a lack of consistency and security that hurt *everyone.*
On a related note, the German educational authorities failed in a big way to learn *anything* from the many great, innovative things that we did with remote learning during the pandemic. 18 inches of snow, followed by an ice storm? Airport is closed, trains aren't running? Doesn't matter--get to school today or else.
There is a school of thought that the autumn 2020 lockdown was too soft and too late. I think that this is probably valid, as we could likely have saved a lot of lives in that short period of time. But, if we could have then rolled out vaccines quickly in January, we'd have been in a great place. That...didn't happen.
I think that the best things that we did (at least from a school perspective) were testing and ventilation. Everyone tested onsite at least 3x per week (for a while it was every morning), and we were required to open the windows for 5 minutes every 15. I don't ever want to do that again, but it worked.
I had to confront this virus every single day, I had the added burden of knowing that because of my job I was a major threat to anyone I cared about, I was shunned by some of my family with good reason because I saw that virus kill countless people and leave more permanently disabled. You never saw that aspect, the media never saw that aspect because of both federal guidelines (HIPPA) and the ethics of healthcare professionals. My darkest days were November-December 2020, the vaccine was a miracle I first received on Christmas Eve 2020. That finally gave me hope.
I know I know nothing about your service, I respect that I know nothing and always shut up when I’m told that by any veteran. I’m asking for that same respect and deference in this matter because while the world baked sourdough bread, dealt with zooming everything and having kids not go to school, I had to suit up, face death head on using communal masks I had to share and reuse (despite them being designed to be a one time use item) with no means to stop or even slow disease progression, go see patients in makeshift hospital rooms (because all our normal rooms were full,) and put my life in danger because that was my job and my duty during a god damm plague.
Quarantining saved lives by pushing peoples first illnesses until after they were vaccinated thankfully a majority of this country did not get the disease until after they were vaccinated, unfortunately this has caused most to conclude Covid was a big joke and the thing that saved their lives (quarantining and the vaccine) were unneeded bothers. I pray I’m retired before an illness proves the common idiot wrong.
Why, then, bring it up? What does my long-ago service have to do with Covid?
…so trust that he has a different perspective and knowledge base, just as you do about the realities of military service.
I cannot imagine the horror you saw nor comprehend the level of courage you have to have faced it the way you did. I remember your daily posts describing the situation you faced. They were incredible and I salute you for what you did.
A granddaughter of mine was firmly in the anti-vax contingent. Firmly. Absolutely.
Then a cousin of hers, a young woman who had been like a sister growing up next door, caught the virus. It killed her and did it slowly enough to make the full horror of the situation clear to all three of my grandkids in that branch of the family. More than two years later, they still cannot talk about it without tears.
And all of them are fully vaxxed. They saw nothing of the horror that you did, but one much-loved patient was sufficient for them to learn the truth.
The day is coming when the anti-vax movement will combine with the home schoolers to produce a degraded herd immunity that will have terrible, and totally preventable, consequences.
school our children, but painting everyone who does with a broad brush is neither warranted nor welcome.
is part of the "Parental Rights" coalition that also includes the anti-vaccination requirements folks. Many of the home schoolers are anti-vax as well and the result is that they are an important part of the fight against vaccine requirements for school kids, especially the kids who are home schooled.
The article at the link has a bit about it. So does this article, albeit a minor part. There have been others as well.
https://wapo.st/3H5dTbf
*I get a lot of my information from the WaPo. It's definitely a bit to the left of center, but the reporting is really pretty good.
defend it by saying "according to WaPo" and citing an opinion piece. That some home schoolers are also anti-vaxxers means what? If you want to attack anti-vaxxers, so be it. But your post includes a cheap shot at home schoolers, who have every right in the world to raise their kids and teach them as they see fit, rather than as some fucked up powers that be want to indoctrinate them.
There are places where there are exceptional school environments and educators, and places where there are not.
have every right in the world to raise their kids as they see fit". Ok for the parents, but what about the kids?
The home school movement makes the parental rights argument an absolute. Thus a significant part of our school age children are being educated in an environment that rejects any form of regulation, be it for health, the credentials of the educators, or the curriculum studied. While I'm confident that many of these schooling efforts are doing a good job, I've also seen people with no teaching skills or language capability teaching kids Spanish in their home schooling efforts.
Thus, my concern is about "places where there are not." That includes rejecting some - many- all vaccinations for the kids. Is it the parent's right to put their kid at risk of the diseases that the industrialized world has managed to all but eliminate through vaccination? Note that it was through vaccination that smallpox was eliminated.
Whether you agree or not, there are very serious health and educational effectiveness issues in this. While the parents are making the decisions involved, it is the children who live with the results.
As to cheap shots, do you have any reference whatsoever that disputes my assertion that there is a significant overlap between the home school and anti-vaxx communities? It's fine to just blast away if you want, but an intellectual discussion here requires something beyond simply asserting that I'm either wrong or unfair.
Including them simply reveals your inherent bias.
Be well, and have a nice day.
Is it bias about the home school community? Perhaps. If it is, it was developed as I watched family members home schooling their children. Is it bias about the anti-vax movement? If it is, it has developed as I've watched that group using everything from misinformation to outright lies to promote the idea that the diseases are better than the vaccines. Is it bias because I've concluded that the two movements include a lot of the same people, both from reporting that I can reference and from personal observation that I can't?
But on what do you base your assertion, or what I believe your assertion to be, that the home school community does not include a significant number of anti-vax believers? Or is it that the anti-vax community does not include a lot of home school believers?
I don't understand the basis for your assertion.
But this is of no matter. My best to you, and to all ndnation posters, for a wonderful New Year.
You have the ultra crunchy left and the zealous right and everything in between. The most vehement anti-vaxer I came across during our homeschooling time was a woman who was an anti-religious vegan meat is murder nutter. On the other hand, another family simply turned in the exemption form because they didn't care what the Board of Ed though their kids should get - their kids were fully vaccinated (except for one vaccine for a toddler aged disease that wasn't relevant to their teenage kids...).
I see your anecdotes and raise you mine.
There's a school of Christian thought that views public schooling/public sector rules as anathema to their morality.they also operate private schools. In a horse shoe fashion there's cross pollination with hippie wierdos on the left. This faction represents an opposition to general public health measures and childhood vaccination.
Concerns about homeschooling is more a symptom of that development. There are several good reasons to homeschooling, but a lot of homeschooling fall into that camp. By painting all homeschooling with that brush you're likely to push other people into the camp you're looking to avoid.
to that of some ex-smokers. That is, to me you seem to be unwilling or incapable of seeing nuance or shades of grey in positions, particularly those with which you disagree. Not everyone who home schools their children has motivations that a reasonable person would find objectionable. If you want to assert that the Venn diagram of those two groups has significant overlap, please cite studies that bear out that conclusion.
It felt like a gratuitous shot out of the blue, which as I noted was neither warranted nor welcome. It was an inflammatory statement for no good reason.
While we disagree fairly strongly, I thank you for your well-wishes and I extend the same to you and your family. Have a happy and healthy New Year.
Talk about your gratuitous shot out of the blue.
Not everyone who is an ex-smoker gives a shit about people smoking. If you want to assert that Venn diagram...eh, never mind. I'm just fuckin' with ya. I really don't give a shit. I actually still like the smell of secondhand smoke.
Happy New Year.
what came to mind. I'll edit to add _some_ ex-smokers.
Have a Happy New Year as well!
We have just in time supply chains for about everything, including basic medications. Most generic medications we use come from China/India. Our ability to mass produce a lot of workhorse medications are similar to ppe.
What we saw in every country that let it rip was a bad variant. Brazil got gamma. Sub Sahara africa got beta. India eventually got delta, etc.
Gamma was 3 to 4 times more deadly than our original variant. Beta was 2 or 3 times worse. Delta was 2 to 3 times worse. The reason delta overwhelmed everyone was massively worse transmissibility.
Brazil had total breakdown of hospital services in one city. I heard a doctor discuss how they had neonates dying of non COVID diseases that are 100% survivable without any disability because they ran out of oxygen. Hell, Los Angeles was having oxygen distribution issues in January After the release of The Great Barrington Declaration when they had a much wimpier variant.
‘Our New York Moment’: Southern California Reels as Virus Surges https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/us/california-coronavirus.html?smid=nytcore-android-share