Bob Shepherd lists what he hopes will be the lessons learned from the pandemic nightmare.
Since I agree with him, I hope you will read his six lessons.
Feel free to add your own ideas.
Number one: Distance learning is a crock, and teachers are really, really important.
Yes! Excellent recommendations, all very important. #6 Universal health care is long overdue, we should have had a national healthcare system in 1947 when Truman proposed it. All these essential propositions are contingent on ousting Trump, Mitch McConnell and the GOP.
Yes. Yes. See also Bob’s discussion of online learning here.
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/a-warning-to-parents-about-online-learning-programs/
Thanks for the link. Excellent review of lockstep mastery learning. It didn’t work in the 60s and 70s, and it does not work now with computer assisted learning. It is as the article says, “Old vinegar. New bottles. Still not wine.”
I’m concerned that this country will continue to have ever-increasing numbers of illness and deaths…largely due to the lack of decent leadership. Trump’s ONLY concern is getting re-elected. [It’s his keep out of jail card.]
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Team ‘Lock Her Up’ Is Now Going After Fauci
The nation’s leading infectious-disease expert has not been optimistic about the COVID fight. Trumpland has noticed.
A cadre of influential conservatives is growing increasingly convinced that the nation’s foremost infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is recklessly driving the nation to financial ruin—possibly even in a concerted attempt to undermine President Donald Trump. And in an effort to stop him, they’re resorting to tried and true methods: from public shaming, to online conspiracy theories, to lawsuits meant to unearth emails pertaining to his work.
At the heart of the effort to knock Fauci down a peg are some of the biggest luminaries in Trump’s orbit—including key figures who helped spearhead the campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, insisted in an episode of his podcast on Wednesday that Fauci had “set up President Trump for failure in the fall.” He was reacting to Fauci’s testimony before a Senate committee this week, during which Fauci questioned efforts by some elected officials, including a number of Trump allies, to “reopen” schools and businesses shuttered in an effort to control the spread of the coronavirus.Fauci, in Fitton’s view, is emblematic of a class of bureaucrats that may be experts in their specific, esoteric fields, but take it upon themselves to try to steer national policy according to their own whims, without regard to the limits of their own expertise or the weight of competing policy priorities….
https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-lock-her-up-is-now-going-after-anthony-fauci?source=email&via=desktop
This is one way to rethink what matters and how the current administration is engaging in dangeous thinking and a deliberate sacrifice of humans in the hope of political gain.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/05/americas-chilling-experiment-in-human-sacrifice.html?
Just released by one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world: “Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics.”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31140-5/fulltext
Arguably the most overtly political statement I’ve ever seen in a medical journal. The fact that they would publish this demonstrates that this administration and it’s enablers are a the most serious threat to public health besides actual war.
Share it with everyone you know and ask them to do the same.
Thanks, Greg. This article was mostly about the defunding of the CDC beginning with the Reagan Administration. It stopped short of drawing a connection between the failure of the CDC in February and the gutting of its funding under conservative leadership over the past forty years, but the implication is there.
Given the generally scientific and conservative nature of the medical profession, you are correct in finding this a fascinating article.
I randomly asked some friends today if they had ever seen anything like the last sentence before, most said no, one recalled something similar about Bush/Cheney Iraq War.
Thanks, Diane, for sharing this. Much appreciated!
I would add a point about political philosophy. This pandemic confronts us with some very basic questions concerning personal freedom. The Enlightenment discussion of the concept of individual freedoms and the responsibilities of citizenship keeps arising in post-Enlightenment society. We need to renew that discussion.
Gun-toting buffoons in state-houses should awaken us to the idea that anyone can play-act at the concept of personal freedom without responsibility. These actors, directed by their right wing producers and directors, produce a comic (hopefully not tragic) parody of real debates about personal freedom, but they do raise a point that is important to us. We need to have a constant, on-going conversation about the role of government in people’s personal lives. The pandemic presents us with huge questions about this role.
Anyone who has read very much American History does not need to be reminded that these invaders of the Michigan state house would not have been allowed to do that if they had been of any origin other than European. Can you imagine what the country’s response would be if the right of African-Americans to peaceably assemble was emphasized by groups toting AR-15? This introduces us to the first test for laws relating to personal freedom. This is the “what is good for the goose is good for the gander” test (WGFGTGT). If one group is permitted to express themselves in some manner, another group must have the same right.
So is it a right to engage in behavior that will spread covid or any other virus? To some people, it seems OK if you are one person, but not so much if you are another. that attitude fails the WGFGTGT. If we must engage in activities while there is danger, then these activities should not increase the danger. Nobody wants to tell someone they cannot give their loved ones a send off, but ask the folks down there in Albany, GA if there is any harm in it.
Covid is re-defining what a personal freedom is. We need to be wary of all who try to erode personal freedom, but we need also to question the people who tout their support for personal freedom, and secretly try to undermine it by looking into bedroom windows or collecting personal data.
Perfect six lessons, thank you, Bob.
Why is Indiana determined to reopen when it is KNOWN that the number of confirmed cases is likely to continue to climb?????
This is Republican thinking: we have a number of empty hospital beds and we can fill them.
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[NWI Times] 6 more COVID-19 deaths reported across NWI; positive cases continue to climb
Six additional COVID-19 deaths were reported Friday in Northwest Indiana, including two in Lake County, two in Porter County and one each in LaPorte and Newton counties.
The additional deaths brought totals to 136 in Lake County, 15 in Porter County, 14 in LaPorte County, nine in Newton County and one in Jasper County.
The number of deaths statewide rose by 42 to a total of 1,550, according to the Indiana State Department of Health. More than half of residents, businesses don’t expect a return to normal until 2021, Region survey shows
Another 141 deaths were listed as probable, which means there was no positive test on record but a physician listed COVID-19 as a contributing cause based on X-rays, scans and other clinical symptoms. One of the deaths reported by Porter County officials was probable…
An additional 614 Hoosiers tested positive for the virus, bringing Indiana’s total number of confirmed cases to 26,655.
As the state expands testing in an effort to reopen the economy, the number of confirmed cases is likely to continue to climb, officials said…
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/6-more-covid-19-deaths-reported-across-nwi-positive-cases-continue-to-climb/article_43555a3a-7db8-55b8-a07c-a58740b94194.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share
I think #6 is the most important. I am not sure about #4. Science in such complicated issues as pandemic or climate change is far from exact, and hence readily attackable if we wanted to base policy decisions on the available research data and theories. These issues better addressed morally and that will guide us to do the right thing. And we’ll do the right thing only when we transition to a social democracy.