@jc100 I hope you like online classes. U of O just went online for the rest of the year. I expect the pace will pickup now that two have gone.
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Coronavirus
- Thread starter nobbie48
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I was online already for the whole year, my classes are too large for any social distancing, some of my colleagues were hoping to teach in classrooms this winter term.
I won’t be setting foot in a classroom until September 2021 at the earliest. That’s a sobering thought and it’s going to take a lot of adjustment.
I drive a transit bus now. Young uns not required to wear a mask. Masks are "mandatory" but I cannot refuse a ride to someone without one or call them out on it.
Limits on the buses were lifted from the max 20 just two weeks ago. Sometimes there is only one or two without a mask. Sometimes 20 out of 50 are not wearing a mask. Ford needs to do a Provincial mandate on Public transit to limit riders and 100% mask or shield requirements. I have chain smokers claiming "extreme asthma" and then scream at me for even pointing at my own mask. I don't even ask anymore; sick of being "coached" which then goes into my disciplinary record.
It is disheartening to see so many trying to do the right thing and then places like public transit can be super spreader chambers.
But your MPPs folks.
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Unfortunately, local transit is governed by the local government, isn't it? Time to get after your local council.
I think He was hoping douggie could do an overrider that got them all at once. Getting every local government to lean on their transit board to make changes and provide enforcement will take a while and some may never get to it.
Yeah, you summed up my frustration. Some goofy policies. Only one of us allowed in a staff washroom at a time. 2 to a large breakroom at a time and we are expected to wear masks pretty much everywhere except when we are in our buses behind a shield.
Yet, the inside of a transit bus probably translates to a 36' x 7' space once you account for how much space is actually usable and the HVAC units is blasting the air in there at a feverish pace. With emergency powers I am kind of surprised that the Provincial Health administrators of the various provinces are not all over this considering that they are limiting other public gatherings.
It just seems asinine to me to not have a better handle on Public Transit considering the mask requirements on airplanes etc.
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I'm not sure what systems like the TTC are going to do. They've already published a policy, and they may already be on the other side of this to @Zoodles95 . They're going to support the union, whichever way it's wind blows. The same will go for city council. If the union doesn't want masks there won't be masks. Think about enforcement; if a 95 pound driver, has a 275 pound maskless person board, how are they going to get them off? If it happens all over the city, will the police come? Will they have to put bouncers on the buses? That's why earlier I said you have to talk reasonably to people and convince them to wear masks, rather than calling them names etc. and having them entrench their views of you.
I think one of the only practical solutions after reasoning fails is "the bus doesn't move until you put on your mask or get off". Let the rest of the passengers shame and intimidate the idiot. Alternatively, have strategically located enforcement and the bus stops at one of the predefined locations where bouncers take off the offending passenger and fine the crap out of them.
Except you're now playing chicken with someone who doesn't wear a mask during a pandemic. . . . Your move.
If the cop shows up before they leave, $10,000 fine. Their move.
Don't think you'd get that through council. That's why the "rules" are as they are now i.e. not really enforced. There are also a bunch of drivers who were exempt from wearing masks.
That’s the way I’d play it. That’s what I do in lectures when students cram the room and sit on the steps when they swap sections they aren’t supposed to be in. I tell them we are skipping the lecture until those that aren’t supposed to be there leave. The peer effect is pretty big.
Mad Mike
Well-known member
I've been VILT since April -- no sign of change on the horizon. Kinda miss the personal connection you make in a classroom. Also find VILT to be more a more grueling delivery, keeping track of stragglers, engagement, tech blips all make the days longer and somehow more tiring - who'd have thought it was more work delivering online than in the classroom.
One thing I find disheartening is the readiness of some school boards to deliver online. TDSB has shown poorly - they had 6 months to prepare and are still scrambling to get setup.
Speaking of tech blips, my kids school (and possibly school board) robocalled every parent this morning and told them their kid was absent. When you try to call the school, the phone number was broken ("this number is not assigned"). They sent an email acknowledging issue within 10 minutes and are now calling every parent to apologize and tell them that their kids are safe.
I'm immensely proud of my course right now. It took a lot of scrambling to adapt my accelerated course to a 12 week format but it’s done and we have added flexibility, multiple grade components, extra help, 8h of synchronous material (recorded) per week. Undergrad volunteer produced content etc etc. This is the best it has run, it’s like it’s on rails and the majority of students have said they like it so far. Which only means there’s going to be a massive hitch somewhere probably.
I really miss chatting face to face with the students though.
Portions of article quoted below.
'Completely unfathomable,' US reaches grim milestone of 200K COVID-19 deaths
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus topped 200,000 Tuesday, by far the highest in the world, hitting the once-unimaginable threshold six weeks before an election that is certain to be a referendum in part on President Donald Trump's handling of the crisis.
www.cp24.com
The number of dead in the U.S. is equivalent to a 9-11 attack every day for 67 days. It is roughly equal to the population of Salt Lake City or Huntsville, Alabama.
And it is still climbing. Deaths are running at close to 770 a day on average, and a widely cited model from the University of Washington predicts the overall U.S. toll will double to 400,000 by the end of the year as schools and colleges reopen and cold weather sets in
The U.S. has less than 5% of the globe's population but more than 20% of the reported deaths. GG-that's a bit crap as we all know that many high population countries are either not testing much or intentionally obscuring the situation.
The virus swept into nursing homes, which suffered from poor infection control, where it began claiming lives, now numbering more than 78,000.
The real number of dead from the crisis could be significantly higher: As many as 215,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. from all causes during the first seven months of 2020, according to CDC figures. The death toll from COVID-19 during the same period was put at about 150,000 by Johns Hopkins.
Dark, the emergency physician at Baylor, said that before the crisis, “people used to look to the United States with a degree of reverence. For democracy. For our moral leadership in the world. Supporting science and using technology to travel to the moon.”
“Instead,” he said, “what's really been exposed is how anti-science we've become.”
Cormac Mac Sweeney tweeted this image purported from Public Health Agency of Canada. Interesting graphic but almost useless without further information. Obviously blue line is much better than grey, but how much decrease in our current rate of contact is required? Do we need to lock the doors and not go out, go back to april where one person goes to a store once a week and that is it, stop having any social visits, shut down schools, etc. etc?
The link goes to an article published in April. That article has similar graphs but obviously they only have data from April and before. I have no idea where the current image was sourced.
www.680news.com
www.medrxiv.org
The link goes to an article published in April. That article has similar graphs but obviously they only have data from April and before. I have no idea where the current image was sourced.
New model shows COVID-19 accelerating at alarming rate in Ontario
A new model released by the Public Health Agency of Canada shows how young people make up most of the provinces COVID-19 cases to date.
www.680news.com
Estimating the impact of COVID-19 control measures using a Bayesian model of physical distancing
Extensive physical distancing measures are currently the primary intervention against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide. It is therefore urgent to estimate the impact such measures are having. We introduce a Bayesian epidemiological model in which a proportion of individuals are...
www.medrxiv.org
While I sympathize with those that have to make the tough calls they get compensated to do so. They ran for office. We didn't conscript them. It's a tough job. Were they looking for an easy one?
The hardest thing on an economy is uncertainty. Economies are resilient and will bounce back but it will be much harder if businesses have to close today and re-open tomorrow followed by weeks of limited business then closed and re-opened etc.
For bus drivers one has to consider the articulated buses with the front partitioned off for the driver only.
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