D&D and the rising pandemic

[Zardnaar]

Just walked past the Pullman hotel, group of quarantined returnees there. Still, the US warning seems a little off, it's like "Bro, have you seen what your own country is like? We think it's unsafe for you to come here too."

I don't think we have any qurantine down here. They were talking about Queenstown/Dunedin.

Queenstown was dropped, they have the rooms but lack ICU units.

Americans here seem happy enough along with the various stranded travellers.

Long article.

How the Pandemic Defeated America

A virus has brought the world’s most powerful country to its knees.

www.theatlantic.com

Basically they spend almost triple we do on healthcare but 25% if it basically disappears.

We've got very few ICU beds per capita apparently hence the lockdown. No takeaways for what 5 weeks iirc. Not much of anything.

 

[Umbran]

No, obviously it is not fine, but the amount of people who will be shot because of mask-related issues will probably be less than the amount of people who would catch/die from Covid-19 if they hadn't worn masks.

Ah, yes, the cold, hard "calculus of death". You may want to look for a role in government or insurance adjustment.

I'm just saying. If you lower the risk of Covid-19 with the mask, the option of being shot at because of that is not a significant risk to argue against mandating masks in school.

So, now pretend you are a school principle, and you have to tell that to the teachers you need to come back into the classroom. Consider how you this will go over with teachers who are already on the verge of quitting over the risk being imposed on them and their families as a requirement of work at a frustrating, highly skilled job for which they are already significantly underpaid. Do this after talking about the budget cuts, by the way. Make it the closing point of your address.

I am not of the opinion that it will be taken well at all.

 

[Umbran]

I mean, open the windows, turn on the air conditioner/fans, and wear the masks.

And, in November, with the windows open, and it is 40 degrees outside? In January, when it is below freezing?

All the school buildings I used as a kid are still standing and operational. Not a one of them has a forced-air HVAC system at all, much less one that can produce the air turnover required to significantly reduce the risk of covid spread.

 

[Umbran]

Relevant to this discussion.

What Matters: I asked for hate mail from teachers and this is what I got

When I wrote Wednesday about the crisis of kids not being in school and linked to a story written by a nurse and arguing teachers are essential workers and that kids should be in the classroom, I invited them to email me their hate mail.

www.cnn.com

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So, now pretend you are a school principle, and you have to tell that to the teachers you need to come back into the classroom. Consider how you this will go over with teachers who are already on the verge of quitting over the risk being imposed on them and their families as a requirement of work at a frustrating, highly skilled job for which they are already significantly underpaid. Do this after talking about the budget cuts, by the way. Make it the closing point of your address.

I am not of the opinion that it will be taken well at all.

Most of the teachers I know are NOT happy. Retired ones are saying they’d quit. Employed ones are saying that sounds like a plan.

Weeks ago, I mentioned that the pandemic might resculpt society. This is one area in which I’m thinking the probability is high.

I’ve been seeing a lot of online posts from teachers and school admins who are most definitely NOT on board with school reopening plans. Especially after some of those already opening have had C19 events- one on the very first day of classes.

One I saw recently was an administrator sending out a thank you to all the teachers in his school system who had recently quit instead of work under their state’s reopening plan. It seems there was a big public meeting in which many parents vocally & loudly urged teachers unwilling to teach classes in person to quit. So a shitload of them did, along with a bunch of ancillary personnel.

So the admin had to hold another public meeting with parents at which he announced they didn’t have the required staff to reopen for in person classes, so everything was going to be done remotely.

mic drop
silence

“Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.”

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And, in November, with the windows open, and it is 40 degrees outside? In January, when it is below freezing?

Or when it’s raining cats & dogs?

All the school buildings I used as a kid are still standing and operational. Not a one of them has a forced-air HVAC system at all, much less one that can produce the air turnover required to significantly reduce the risk of covid spread.

The ones my Mom taught in in the 1960s are still in use, after some post-Katrina cleaning. Given the impoverished nature of Louisiana’s school system, I doubt their HVAC has been significantly upgraded anytime recently.

 

[Umbran]

Retired ones are saying they’d quit. Employed ones are saying that sounds like a plan.

I'm currently helping/mentoring a Junior High School teacher from the Pacific Northwest to transition out of teaching, and into the commercial job market. They quit because asking them to teach in person at this stage seems... like betrayal.

 

[Wasteland Knight]

My household strictly quarantining and have been doing so for months. Plan to do so until there is an effective vaccine or cases in the US have significantly dropped to very small numbers and flatlined. I fully expect to be WFH from a long time.

if I had a fane going it would have been cancelled (or I would have politely dropped out) a long time ago.

But I haven’t had time for gaming in many years.

However, the funny thing is now that I have so much time on my hands, plus various people I have games with over the years also finding themselves with tons of free time, we decided to try VTT gaming, and I’ll be running a Roll20 game this weekend.

Basically, I went and gathered parts of my old HS and college groups fir a new game.

 

[Cadence]

I'm university faculty and my spouse is on staff. Luckily our building has outside air vented in, windows that open, and water based AC/heat with separate blowers in each room.

She had to start going in twice a week this week (first time since March, had been working from home; alternating days with the person in the next office; no one live Friday). One person needing help at a time in her office, giant plexiglass shield in front of her desk, masks required. We bought a nice HEPA filter for her office. The campus is basically empty for another few weeks. We'll see when the students start coming back.

Half of our faculty are only teaching online. The rest are similar to what I'll have. 75 seat classroom capped at 25 students iirc. I was going to be streaming the classes live (and making recordings) anyway for our graduate distance program. I think they said anyone who isn't masking needed it cleared with the disabilities office. If they hadn't had it look like a lot of our international grad students would be hosed if we went all virtual, I might have asked to switch to just recorded. At least they changed that rule eventually.

My son has the option of either doing 6th grade all on line, or 2 days live+3 days online. Since we can work at home alternating days he's staying home.

My guess is we won't even get close to Thanksgiving before it's all virtual everywhere. If so, hopefully it's just a few positive tests leading to mass quarantines and not a bunch of dead teachers, and dead grandparents the kids live with or get day care from.

Really wish everyone could have at least tried over the past few months (not complete lock down even, just close the high risk places [gyms, bars, crowded places with singing or yelling], mask, use curb-side pick up instead of going in, etc..). We might have been at a 1% positive rate on tests instead of close to 20% or whatever it is now here -- and these plans might have had a better chance of working.

Anyway. One or two nights a week of EDH (Magic) via spelltable and discord, and running 5e on Google meet for my son and two of his friends.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just for giggles, I looked up the age demographics for NYC and Sturgis. Median age in NYC: 34. In Sturgis: 41.

That’s not going to help them any.