Coronavirus/COVID-19

[Fossie 32]

I would think that all essential service personnel, not just health care, are needed to carry on - eg police and emergency services apart from health, food producers, processors, packers, transporters, distributors, vendors. Public transport services. I'm sure we can think of many others. So their kids need to stay at school also if no other arrangements are possible.

Yes, seems to be what they are doing in NSW

 

[BallaratBulldog]

bring back john howard

 

[wayniac]

Internet has complicated things for no good outcome.

The rush to embrace technology as a substitute for good hard copy learning is the hard lesson we are now learning.

My wife, who left school at age 15 home-schooled my three children when we moved to Indonesia. The materials she used were supplied by the School of Distance education in Queensland, this was set up by the Showmens Guild to help travelling people keep their kids well educated.

My wife is not a trained teacher but my eldest jumped a year on return to the Australian public system in Victoria. He obtained a double degree with honours and a golden key scholarship to a US university.

I learned so much from books that my teachers either didn't know or couldn't impart in an interesting manner. We seem to have abandoned books in favour of tablet computers without really understanding the quality, cost and effectiveness of both media.

My house is full of books and there are dead computers in the garage and incompatible pieces of much needed software on older systems. As far as books go Ohms law still works

 

[Pugz89]

Correct. I think last night was the first time the PM has mentioned the importance of maintaining school attendance for the inherit value of the kids' education. It's important but it's not the #1 motivation.

I'm sure there'll be a lot of discussion in future weeks about how a missed or disrupted year will affect kids, especially those in final year of school. Right now it's all about getting the public health responses right and that's quite appropriate.

I think with attention shifting to distance ed, the loss of a week (this week) and perhaps one or two more at the start of next term during the transition should not have a massive impact. I would imagine they can pick that up over the rest of the year and by Nov/Dec, it will all be where it should be.

 

[King Harold]

Gee Gee’s now sut down

 

[dogwatch]

Gee Gee’s now sut down

On the positive side it should resolve the problem of pet food shortages.

 

[King Harold]

On the positive side it should resolve the problem of pet food shortages.

had one in today Sandown , luckily scratched this morning.
2 others ready to go
going to be a lot of horses looking for agistment paddocks.

 

[bresker]

Internet has complicated things for no good outcome.

The rush to embrace technology as a substitute for good hard copy learning is the hard lesson we are now learning.

My wife, who left school at age 15 home-schooled my three children when we moved to Indonesia. The materials she used were supplied by the School of Distance education in Queensland, this was set up by the Showmens Guild to help travelling people keep their kids well educated.

My wife is not a trained teacher but my eldest jumped a year on return to the Australian public system in Victoria. He obtained a double degree with honours and a golden key scholarship to a US university.

I learned so much from books that my teachers either didn't know or couldn't impart in an interesting manner. We seem to have abandoned books in favour of tablet computers without really understanding the quality, cost and effectiveness of both media.

My house is full of books and there are dead computers in the garage and incompatible pieces of much needed software on older systems. As far as books go Ohms law still works

We're seeing some of the failures in the Australian education system right now :- a lack of basic science knowledge, a lack of curiosity, and the inability to question ideas, whether they come from the government or Facebook.

Most of what I teach the kids seems pretty useless in a crisis.

 

[Mattdougie]

Does AFLW make it back after this?

Some may question the Giants and Suns but the AFLW has to be as big a fund drainer as either of those teams.

 

[NBates]

 

[BrisDog]

Look fella’s, we are all going to die pretty soon. Don’t die with regrets. Pick up your phone, call that high school girl you always wanted to marry and seduce her in a sentence or two.

No regrets - no surrender.

 

[Mantis Toboggan]

Can someone help me out here. So the plan is to flatten the curve...but we need around 70% of the population to gradually get infected and recover to attain herd immunity.

To get that done in 6 months is around 100,000 new cases each day.

Isn’t that going to be completely overwhelming? If someone can better explain the current plan Or point out what I’m missing then I’d appreciate it.

 

[wayniac]

We're seeing some of the failures in the Australian education system right now :- a lack of basic science knowledge, a lack of curiosity, and the inability to question ideas, whether they come from the government or Facebook.

Most of what I teach the kids seems pretty useless in a crisis.

Totally agree. My youngest had difficulties with the Australian schooling from an early age. He questions a lot of things and has a keen interest in how things work. In his second year at primary school his teachers invented a problem that they said he had and off he went to a child psychologist. They thought he had fine motor skills issues and that was why he didn't like writing. He told us that school was boring the exercises were pointless, so he played the teacher.

My wife knows her kids better than anyone, so she worked it out while I was an expat in Indonesia.

Since then, he's built an electric car, bought a house, got married, installed his own ducted heating system he bought second hand, holds down a job as a general manager. He doesn't fool around, doesn't drink. None of which he learned in our rainbow experiment in social engineering.

 

[ScragCity]

Can someone help me out here. So the plan is to flatten the curve...but we need around 70% of the population to gradually get infected and recover to attain herd immunity.

To get that done in 6 months is around 100,000 new cases each day.

Isn’t that going to be completely overwhelming? If someone can better explain the current plan Or point out what I’m missing then I’d appreciate it.

I think the plan is just to slow things down as much as possible. Even if we get to 40% of the population having an immunity then the virus would naturally spread a lot slower even without social distancing. I'm not sure where the 6 month timeframe is coming from.

 

[Bont2Bruce]

Can someone help me out here. So the plan is to flatten the curve...but we need around 70% of the population to gradually get infected and recover to attain herd immunity.

To get that done in 6 months is around 100,000 new cases each day.

Isn’t that going to be completely overwhelming? If someone can better explain the current plan Or point out what I’m missing then I’d appreciate it.

The current plan is to keep the number of new cases each day as low as possible so that we don't run out of ICU beds for critically ill people.

If we rapidly expose the population, we end up like Italy with lots of sick people at the same time some of which cannot be treated and are left to die.

The point at which we gain immunity as a group isn't the focus.

 

[Hard Ball Get]

Totally agree. My youngest had difficulties with the Australian schooling from an early age. He questions a lot of things and has a keen interest in how things work. In his second year at primary school his teachers invented a problem that they said he had and off he went to a child psychologist. They thought he had fine motor skills issues and that was why he didn't like writing. He told us that school was boring the exercises were pointless, so he played the teacher.

My wife knows her kids better than anyone, so she worked it out while I was an expat in Indonesia.

Since then, he's built an electric car, bought a house, got married, installed his own ducted heating system he bought second hand, holds down a job as a general manager. He doesn't fool around, doesn't drink. None of which he learned in our rainbow experiment in social engineering.

Schooling has changed a hell of a lot since then.

The biggest failing of the system is it is slow to catch up to world changes. That isn't the Australian system, that's most systems world wide. Ours is one of the better ones. Much better than those that are lauded for good results, such as Singapore.

The issues arise because academics and politicians dictate so much of what happens in a school. Everyone drives, so everyone is a traffic and town planning expert... everyone went to school, so everyone knows how schools should run.

Schools here are transitioning. Its a slow process, but they're getting there. Look at the amazing things schools like Templestowe High are doing.

 

[dogwatch]

The current plan is to keep the number of new cases each day as low as possible so that we don't run out of ICU beds for critically ill people.

If we rapidly expose the population, we end up like Italy with lots of sick people at the same time some of which cannot be treated and are left to die.

The point at which we gain immunity as a group isn't the focus.

This. At least right now.

It's hard to know when the restrictions can be eased, and how that is going to be done safely and smoothly.

The ideal is that we have 20 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine that can be administered to 75%+ in the population over a short period of time (say 3 months). Then the brakes could come off. There would still be new infections but the rate of infection would be low and we would have the ICU capacity for treating serious cases. Nevertheless there would still be some deaths (perhaps roughly on a par with our annual flu deaths).

Hard to see us getting to that point within 18 months though.

 

[Dog 36]

Does AFLW make it back after this?

Some may question the Giants and Suns but the AFLW has to be as big a fund drainer as either of those teams.

Spot on and a question that is unpopular to ask that needs a response.

 

[yebiga]

The plan is that there is no plan

No one knows what we are doing or why except that we don't want people to die - which is fantastic
I am all for no one ever again dying.

We may never have a proper vaccine. So if we are looking obtain herd immunity then 200-300 new cases a day is going to take a number of years to reach to the 60% herd immunity rate

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Internet has complicated things for no good outcome.

The rush to embrace technology as a substitute for good hard copy learning is the hard lesson we are now learning.

My wife, who left school at age 15 home-schooled my three children when we moved to Indonesia. The materials she used were supplied by the School of Distance education in Queensland, this was set up by the Showmens Guild to help travelling people keep their kids well educated.

My wife is not a trained teacher but my eldest jumped a year on return to the Australian public system in Victoria. He obtained a double degree with honours and a golden key scholarship to a US university.

I learned so much from books that my teachers either didn't know or couldn't impart in an interesting manner. We seem to have abandoned books in favour of tablet computers without really understanding the quality, cost and effectiveness of both media.

My house is full of books and there are dead computers in the garage and incompatible pieces of much needed software on older systems. As far as books go Ohms law still works

In Queensland they are building new schools with no libraries because, you know, no one needs books anymore with all this tech-narlogy

 

[Sentinel]

Internet has complicated things for no good outcome.

The rush to embrace technology as a substitute for good hard copy learning is the hard lesson we are now learning.

My wife, who left school at age 15 home-schooled my three children when we moved to Indonesia. The materials she used were supplied by the School of Distance education in Queensland, this was set up by the Showmens Guild to help travelling people keep their kids well educated.

My wife is not a trained teacher but my eldest jumped a year on return to the Australian public system in Victoria. He obtained a double degree with honours and a golden key scholarship to a US university.

I learned so much from books that my teachers either didn't know or couldn't impart in an interesting manner. We seem to have abandoned books in favour of tablet computers without really understanding the quality, cost and effectiveness of both media.

My house is full of books and there are dead computers in the garage and incompatible pieces of much needed software on older systems. As far as books go Ohms law still works

I'm going to have to disagree with this myself. Literature (which absolutely is important) still exists without books and in this day a lot of textbooks are outdated before they even hit the shelves. Personally I don't agree with the necessity in holding books in my own house, taking up space without ever actually being read again.

I'll also say this in favour of technology. If the coronavirus situation had occurred even 3-4 years ago the impact would have been significantly larger to business and education than it is today. Taking things online is now highly possible (industry dependent) through applications like Zoom - it can just take a bit of time to organise as the schools and unis are now doing. We didn't have those kind of communication resources a few years ago and once this is all over we'll only see it embraced even further. Teachers can now still teach without relying on parents to carry the majority of the education at home load.

The internet and data go hand in hand and through that, important advancements occur at a far greater speed than previously possible, including the response to what's going on now. Not saying there are no negatives to it all, but the positives far outweigh them (IMO).

I honestly shudder to think of the increased impact of the current situation had it occurred several years earlier (ignoring the circumstantial leadership issues we have now).

 

[wayniac]

I'm going to have to disagree with this myself. Literature (which absolutely is important) still exists without books and in this day a lot of textbooks are outdated before they even hit the shelves. Personally I don't agree with the necessity in holding books in my own house, taking up space without ever actually being read again.

I'll also say this in favour of technology. If the coronavirus situation had occurred even 3-4 years ago the impact would have been significantly larger to business and education than it is today. Taking things online is now highly possible (industry dependent) through applications like Zoom - it can just take a bit of time to organise as the schools and unis are now doing. We didn't have those kind of communication resources a few years ago and once this is all over we'll only see it embraced even further. Teachers can now still teach without relying on parents to carry the majority of the education at home load.

The internet and data go hand in hand and through that, important advancements occur at a far greater speed than previously possible, including the response to what's going on now. Not saying there are no negatives to it all, but the positives far outweigh them (IMO).

I honestly shudder to think of the increased impact of the current situation had it occurred several years earlier (ignoring the circumstantial leadership issues we have now).

OK for certain learning processes. I don't think my car workshop manual or 5 volume factory service manual on a touch screen is very practical when I have a technical problem to solve or perform. I change the oil on my car on time, that doesn't need a manual or a tablet but pulling out a gearbox, changing a clutch needs a book in front of you, not a computer.

I hook up a laptop to tune the LPG system on my wife's car and without the software and cable I couldn't fix the tune, however, the "howto" manual sits on my shelf and won't disappear to the wayback machine, unlike a lot of technical information.

That's why my cars are 15+ years old. I maintain them myself where possible because a lot of professional mechanics don't appear to be able to read or follow a set of co-ordinated steps.

 

[wayniac]

In Queensland they are building new schools with no libraries because, you know, no one needs books anymore with all this tech-narlogy

Like modern kitchens, you won't see a Bero book. That's why we have so many celebrity chefs, Millenials can't make scones.

 

[BEaston]

OK for certain learning processes. I don't think my car workshop manual or 5 volume factory service manual on a touch screen is very practical when I have a technical problem to solve or perform. I change the oil on my car on time, that doesn't need a manual or a tablet but pulling out a gearbox, changing a clutch needs a book in front of you, not a computer.

I hook up a laptop to tune the LPG system on my wife's car and without the software and cable I couldn't fix the tune, however, the "howto" manual sits on my shelf and won't disappear to the wayback machine, unlike a lot of technical information.

That's why my cars are 15+ years old. I maintain them myself where possible because a lot of professional mechanics don't appear to be able to read or follow a set of co-ordinated steps.

All modern maintenance procedures are going towards electronic versions, most are already there. So much more useful for a techo to bring up whatever procedure he or she needs on the spot from a tablet than having to go back to an office or whatever to grab the hard copy. They can also complete the order, add costs, notes, etc etc all in the one package. The medium doesn't change the information contained within.

At an amateur level it's fine to have your own books (personal preference of course) but in any larger maintenance system the advantages of electronic/online resources are enormous.

 

[The Boy From Brasil]

I wonder how the preppers in Sweden are going. They are about 4-5 years ahead of the world.

On a serious note, what I learned from that was that we rely too much on our government.We expect them to do everything for us. Not to much with that as it is their job to care for its citizens, but we have completely lost our ability to be self sufficient.