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Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#711

Post by [deleted] »

aggie wrote: post #680
isthispermanent wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for your NYT article, these are all pieces from more than 2 months ago. And the NYT has been exceptionally poor at reporting on covid with an even hand. What it fails to mention is that though Sweden's economy will contract by the same amount as it's Scandanavian neighbors, about -8%, it's a huge win compared to UK/Italy/France which will contract by 22-30%. src: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06…

> Sweden to Norway, when they took up the strategy, became apples to oranges. Your logic is simply wrong here. If you want to assess the effect of the lockdown, you compare effects between similar countries that did and didn't have a lockdown. Apple trees with fertilizer vs apple trees without fertilizer. You don't learn about the effect of fertilizer by comparing apple trees with fertilizer vs orange trees with fert…

[deleted]

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#712

Post by isthispermanent »

aggie wrote: post #680
isthispermanent wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for your NYT article, these are all pieces from more than 2 months ago. And the NYT has been exceptionally poor at reporting on covid with an even hand. What it fails to mention is that though Sweden's economy will contract by the same amount as it's Scandanavian neighbors, about -8%, it's a huge win compared to UK/Italy/France which will contract by 22-30%. src: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06…

> Sweden to Norway, when they took up the strategy, became apples to oranges. Your logic is simply wrong here. If you want to assess the effect of the lockdown, you compare effects between similar countries that did and didn't have a lockdown. Apple trees with fertilizer vs apple trees without fertilizer. You don't learn about the effect of fertilizer by comparing apple trees with fertilizer vs orange trees with fert…

I don't think anyone is arguing that Sweden's outcome is better than Norway's. I'm certainly not.

What I'm saying is that you can go without a lockdown and avoid the doomsday scenario that was so proffered about. Everyone was pointing to Sweden as though they were a cautionary tale of a state that was about to wipe out 10% of its population.

Yet here we are and that didn't play out. So the narrative switched to "but against its neighbors!". Yeah Sweden did worse, but they also showed you didn't need to go into hiding to get the same result the rest of the quasi-lockdown camp got.

What you're implying is that if the United States went full no-lockdown strategy our outcome would be different than Sweden. Whereas logically a virus does not care whether the host is Swedish, Ugandan, or American. A human is a human.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#713

Post by mynameisvlad »

rayiner wrote: post #683
jennasys wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the states may be responsible for what happens on the ground, it is certainly the role of the federal government to provide coordination in the case of a nationwide public health issue. Clearly, that was not done in this case. The CDC, NIH, FEMA, and the surgeon general should have all been playing a role in this pandemic. The states shouldn't have had to ultimately go about creating their own regional coalitio…

The CDC issued guidelines, and Trump had regular calls with the governors to coordinate. It’s more or less the same thing Merkel’s government did. They delivered what federal stockpiles they had. What else were they supposed to do? It’s the states fault that there weren’t any test kits, tracing and isolation infrastructure, etc. Obviously it would have helped if Trump wasn’t a counterproductive buffoon that contradic…

> It’s the states fault that there weren’t any test kits, tracing and isolation infrastructure, etc.

Why exactly is this the states' fault? This seems like something that would be far more effective at the federal level. It's the exact same argument as the parent comment, it shouldn't be up to states to create tracing and isolation infrastructure, test kits, etc.

Putting that burden on the states is exactly how we got to the place we are in. Without effective federal support and direction, no solution will be effective since inter-state travel exists and there's 50 different states that will come up with 50 different solutions, some more effective than others.

It makes zero sense to force states to individually do all this when a single entity would be far more effective.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#714

Post by hodgesrm »

Fargren wrote: post #471
ironmagma wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that’s true, except that it’s not easy. Easy to talk about, sure, but not easy to implement without backlash from the moneyed interests that exist.

Most of the world has reacted better than the US. I agree it's not easy, it has not been easy for anyone. But the unwillingness/incapability of the US to suffer backlash from their own moneyed interests is not the norm. It's a symptom of a dysfunctional system. It shouldn't be normalized.

I don't see how the moneyed interests really have much to do with the COVID-19 response in the US (or lack of it). Few of the people refusing to wear masks belong to the idle rich.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#715

Post by temptemptemp111 »

oramit wrote: post #358

What we currently have going on right now is a complete collapse in confidence. So many commenters are debating the death rate, case counts, hospitalizations, etc, which is all besides the point. Heres the thing: even if you believe people are being irrationally afraid, telling people they are stupid and should just suck it up isn't going to get people to cooperate. Do you want to be smugly right, or do you want thin…

Did you just confidently pitch that you have the cure for fear? What a joke... How do you know fear hasn't manipulated into this view you're proudly suggesting others should adopt? There are no new viruses.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#716

Post by ironmagma »

Fargren wrote: post #471
ironmagma wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that’s true, except that it’s not easy. Easy to talk about, sure, but not easy to implement without backlash from the moneyed interests that exist.

Most of the world has reacted better than the US. I agree it's not easy, it has not been easy for anyone. But the unwillingness/incapability of the US to suffer backlash from their own moneyed interests is not the norm. It's a symptom of a dysfunctional system. It shouldn't be normalized.

Yes, we value money too much here and don’t care enough about sustainability.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#717

Post by panzagl »

jorblumesea wrote: post #322
not2b wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is a consequence of ideologies that have become popular in the US both in politics and in business. Having government direct a mobilization is not acceptable. A mandate that people wear masks is not acceptable. Having manufacturing capacity to make low-value products in large numbers in the US is bad business when poorer countries can do it for less. Having spare inventory is bad, because just-in-time man…

While it's easy to blame Trump (and he deserves a heaping pile of blame), the corruption and destruction of a functional US government has long been the goal of those on the right. Since the 80s there has been a concerted movement to defund and destroy the effective ability of our government for ideological and personal reasons. Then, when the water treatment plants break down or the education system is a mess they c…

So the thing is, since WWII we've switched pretty evenly between the 'left' party and the 'right' party at the national level. All administrations/Congresses have been quick to sell us out to foreign and corporate interests, whether it's Bush going to war for oil or Obama forcing everyone to buy health insurance.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#718

Post by isthispermanent »

gowld wrote: post #702
isthispermanent wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is largely the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think it would have mattered whether it was a left or right president. The side not in office would have done the opposite. Everything is a political proxy war right now.

There are two camps causing trouble preventing COVID-19 mitigation: the Radical Right where they are in office (Trump, Arizona, Florida,...), and the Radical Right where the Left or moderate Right are in office (Michigan).

This is what I'm talking about. I want to preface this with: I've voted blue ticket my entire life...

The numbers just do not back this claim up. NY/NJ/CT all have the absolute worst outcomes so far. NY and Gov Cuomo couldn't be more adored by the media. Meanwhile the red south and others that never locked down are sitting at about 10% the deaths of the blue northeast.

You can say wait two weeks, but we've been waiting two weeks on AZ, FL, and GA, for about 6 weeks now. Cases have gone up but deaths have not. Current trends suggest they will tick up, but they will not go vertical.

So I'm not sure what the real problem is that you point to.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#719

Post by inerte »

twblalock wrote: post #333
MattGaiser wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on the outside, it seems like pushing kids back into the classroom is poorly thought out. I can't imagine the shitshow it must seem like on the inside.

The problem is, remote education has been a complete disaster. I know a few teachers. Apparently their students found out that the state was unwilling to hold anyone back a year during the pandemic, they shared this information with each other, and now a substantial amount of them are not doing any work. In some classes, more than half the students are permanently absent! Either their parents don't know, or don't car…

To be empathetic, there's a 4th group of parents, those who can't really help. A single mom of 2 that used to rely on school and day care to work is between a rock and a hard place now. Either they work and are able to put food on the table but the kids suffer, or they help the kids and underperform at work and risk unemployment. I think most people chose putting bread on the table.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#720

Post by TeMPOraL »

rayiner wrote: post #692
shreyansj wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but the world could have refrained from partying on the beaches [1] [1] - https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/07/16/vacati...

Did beaches make a difference? They did that in Florida during spring break in March, but Florida has low cases until just recently.

Weren't the spring breakers mostly from out of state?
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