Items

• 
  2020-10-16

  Great idea

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-16

  School Finance Guidance for COVID-19

  Arizona Department of Education fiscal information and guidance pertaining to attendance and absences while students participate in distance learning. The guidance page also includes links to important forms, school finance reports, and other valuable external resources. According to the report, the due date for a financial plan (Budget/AFR) is November 13, 2020. The name of the file is, "Distance Learning Report -Actual". No recent updates appear to have been made.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Distance Learning Submission- FY2021

  Arizona Department of Education authorizes distance learning with the passage of Executive Orders 2020-41, 2020-44, 2020-51. Students that are participating in online instruction "...shall be treated as pupils participating in Arizona Online Instruction for funding purposes." In this context, COVID-19 has impacted, on an economic level, the fabric of everyday life- down to gathering statistical data and reporting student attendance for online education for the purpose of funding virtual education, not brick-and-mortar institutions.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Social funeral: Bereavement Authority of Ontario

  This release provides an update on the procedures for funerals during the pandemic.
• 2020-10-16

  COVID hospitals

  Throughout this pandemic, I understood the importance of wearing your mask, staying isolated and social distanced to help protect yourself and others. I hadn't been directly affected by COVID besides my work and school closing, but my health was great and I didn't need to worry about my safety regarding COVID. My mom on the other hand, was considered high risk. Being a cancer survivor, and having other medial issues stemming from surgeries and treatments, I did what I could to protect her. In October of 2020, she was admitted into MAYO Clinic ICU for surgery complications. I flew up the next day, and had to say goodbye with my dad. It was the hardest thing I've gone though in my almost 20 years of life. My mom was my rock, and the COVID precautions, although necessary and I understood them, made me angry. While saying goodbye, I had to put on what seemed like a hazmat suit. I had to wear a gown, gloves, mask, and face shield so that I could safely be by my moms side in her final hours. I am all for protecting everyone around me, and I understood the precations, but I was angry, not at the hospital or the nurses or doctors, but at the reality of the world. Due to COVID, I can't imagine the vast amount of people who aren't even allowed to be with their family members, and I am so eternaly grateful I was able to be with my mom, but I'm allowed to be angry, and I haven't let myself accept that yet. For now, I'll be working through my days one day at a time, and working through trying to not feel guilty that I was able to be with my mom when so many others weren't. I miss her everyday.
• 
  2020-10-16

  A slightly light hearted take on how professors are making Zoom classes better for students.

  I chose this article because it touches on some issues I faced myself on a much smaller scale. Zoom class meetings can be, for whatever reason, intimidating. They create a different type of social anxiety than when in a class setting, where things can be more relaxed, or tension eased quickly. The communication barriers of having to mute microphones to hear one another, technical issues, and just not wanting to be the focus when you see your screen light up, and also still wanting to contribute can get stressful quickly. It also can be uncomfortable, staring at all of your classmates all at once, and also trying to focus on your professor. I also enjoyed how the professor in this article discussed his methods of improving his online lectures, and trying to ease those social tensions, and create a sense of normalcy for his students despite the vast array of challenges faced.
• 2020-10-16

  Macao, 2020

  I traveled to Macao in October 2020 for a family issue. Macao has lifted all the restrictions in late September and enabled travelers from China, mainland to enter the city with a covid-19 test report that was done within 7 days. Before the pandemic, Macao was one of the most popular places to travel for travelers all around the world, but now you could count how many people are on the street. The picture was taken in The Venetian, a luxury hotel with the largest shopping center in Macao, and a casino. Usually, the place is crowded with shoppers, people gambling in the casino, enjoying their vacations. I believe no one has ever seen this place is so empty as now, and no one knows when it will recover from the pandemic and the shopping center will be crowded again.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Theories on Bodies

  With quarantine came time, and time came art. For those privileged enough, a Renaissance has arisen within the art community. This art was made by a friend of mine who is quite dear to me who made this art for a work-in-progress album while in this ever-so-long quarantine.
• 
  2020-10-16

  United States Seeing Rising Cases Again

  It's not just Europe that's seeing a major increase in COVID-19 cases again, but also the United States. The U.S. is nearing 8 million cases with a specific rise in cases in the Midwest. The new levels of cases has not been seen since this summer and nearly 1,000 Americans are dying a day.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Table showing media bias

  Experiencing coronavirus in the age of 24/7 news coverage, I imagine most people have become far more conscious of where they choose to get their news. I've been brought up an ABC @ 7 operator, and I count myself lucky. Throughout the storm of rating battles, exclusive reports and breaking news I have been confident that I could trust the ABC and my paper choice The Age. Trust might be naive but it seems like the only option. Every now and again I'll flick onto a commercial channel and find myself wondering, is this news? My mates have also become more conscious of their sources too, one of them got me onto 'Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty' on iView, making me even more skeptical about anything I read. I feel like the media almost have an almost more important responsibility to people than politicians. I wonder a lot, at the moment especially, whether news outlets are fulfilling their responsibility or is shock and clickbait bringing in the money that really talks.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Trump Rally Amid High Covid-19 Numbers in Iowa

  Iowa is one of the states with the highest coronavirus numbers as of October 16, 2020. President Trump plans to hold a rally for his campaign right after he recovered from the virus. This photograph talks about the measures they plan to take during the rally. There is a chance that even though they are taking these measures; it does not mean that it will prevent the numbers from going up, especially since President Trump just recovered. In many local newspapers, there is a lot of concern over this rally.
• 
  2020-10-16

  To Go or Not To Go

  What happens when you live 3000 miles away from home, and your father asks you to meet him and your only sibling in Florida to celebrate his 90th birthday? This year, the answer is that you disappoint your father and feel guilty about not going, knowing that his time left here is limited. But, you know deep down that you are doing the right and responsible thing. I have only known my father for the last year, but that’s another story, and would really love the chance to spend some real time with him, but I know it would be risky. Not only is my father almost 90, but he is also diabetic. So, I’ll wait to see him sometime next year, because even though I am sad and feel guilty about saying “no” this time, it may give us an opportunity next time. I think that many people are going faced with making these decisions during this year of the quarantine, especially here in Los Angeles, where a good portion of the population is a transplant from somewhere else. But, there are even much tougher decisions or limitations on seeing family and loved ones. My dilemma seems minor, but it does matter to a 90 year old.
• 
  2020-10-16

  The scariest day as a Mom

  It was February 22nd, 2020 in what seemed like a very normal day for my family. We were on a club softball trip with my oldest daughter in bright and sunny Palm Springs California. We drove up to Palm Springs in the morning and watched my daughter play her regular three games. Nothing unusual for us, she’s been playing travel club for two years. After a quick shower and out the door to join the rest of her team for dinner, I turn around in the care and see my very active two year old son completely lethargic with very little response to us. I immediately began to tell my husband that we needed to find an urgent care because I knew looking at my son that he was not getting enough oxygen. Not being from California, I started to Google “urgent cares near me” I found one not too far away but I was told they did not take walk-ins and referred me to another urgent care across the town. Furious, my husband drives like a madman to the next urgent care. The nurse immediately took us to a room where she said to me that he needed to have a breathing treatment on the spot and his fever was 103 so they would be giving him fever-relief medicine. After about thirty minutes-a albuterol treatment and two different fever-relievers, we were released with the understanding that he had had a respiratory something (they couldn’t tell us what exactly it was), we were sent to get prescription. Well as unluck would have us, all of the near pharmacies were closed. We finally ended up at a Walmart, who was also about to close, where I finally lost it as mom, crying and begging the poor pharmacist to please fill my son’s prescription. Thank goodness she agreed, probably because of this sobbing mess that I was. Either that was enough. My husband made the executive decision to drive back home to Phoenix that night. Twelve hours from the time we first left AZ to we were on our way home. That Monday, we took my son to his primary care doctor who also couldn’t give us much of a diagnosis other than he was suffering from a very unusual respiratory virus. He was never tested for COVID-19, but my poor son was on breathing treatments for a week straight and his 103 fever finally broke….5 days later. At the follow up, in the beginning of March, we were told that my son probably had COVID-19, although testing was not really happening at this time. My son made a full recovery by the time our whole State and Nation shut down. But the experience I had with this virus was terrible and that day that I had with my son was the scariest moment I have ever felt as a mom. I am sharing this story because one, I want people to realize that this virus can affect children and that it has also been around for longer than people may have realized.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Can't Wait

  I had been deployed for quite some time already and had not seen my family in a long time. When I found out that I would not be coming home when I was supposed to earlier this year (due to Covid-19), it just crushed me. My wife was devastated too because she had been alone taking care of our two daughters. My oldest did not quite understand why I had to stay longer and my youngest daughter was just a couple months old when I left. I was longing to see and hold my girls. Time away from them seemed ever ending but I knew that I would be home soon but soon was unknown. The thought of that was scary but I had my girls as determination. The why I do what I do. Once I came home to my girls it completed my journey and they would not let me go. The baby was a year old and my oldest was so talkative. She never talked before I left. They were so different but I also felt like I stepped into a different country with new rules. (Arizona State University, HST485).
• 
  2020-10-16

  Mask Up New Mexico

  I found this image on the internet. It depicts Clint Eastwood wearing a mask with the caption "Mask up New Mexico". The imagery is based on the western movies Eastwood is known for.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Stress and hair loss

  I’ve felt a lot more stressed since my daughter started school this fall. I’ve also noticed that when I take a shower, hair washes out with each wash. Losing some hair seems normal, but it’s felt like a lot of hair lately, or at least a lot more hair than should fall out. It’s a really subjective measurement, but let’s just say it’s more than normal based on the past 15 years. I’ve been wondering if I should just shave my whole head and start over? Not in a midlife crisis sort of way, but just to start over with healthy hair and more vitamins. I was on FB reading posts in a mom group I’m in. This particular group is for moms who had babies in 2018. I read a post today that talked about stress and hair loss, and I thought…yes…I’m going through something similar. I’m losing hair every day, but I can’t even stop to deal with it, because honestly, I don’t want to deal with one.more.thing. I’d rather just ignore this thing and hope it goes away.
• 
  2020-10-16

  N95 Masks

  During the 2020 Pandemic my job shutdown like many others, but since it is part of the larger UNC hospital systems it was able to start a labor pool and my coworkers and I began working at the UNC Medical Center. The first day I was told that I would be working in environmental services, which means cleaning patient rooms. During my second day the manager told me that I needed to follow him after lunch and we started what would become a 6 month long journey. Day after day I slowly learned to navigate the large medical center, through multiple buildings all floors, all departments were going through masks. Every day I would travel to floors where Covid-19 patients would be in isolation rooms and slowly the floors were restricted to essential personnel. But my two coworkers and I, all seemed out of place. We would travel to each floor to collect the N95 masks that were discarded for sterilization. We would also receive boxes of use masks from other UNC Hospitals around the state. The process was for the three of us to go to each floor and collect the masks, bring them to a "dirty room" and sort out trash and masks that were either dirty due to makeup or that were broken or were not N95 masks. From there we would count the masks that we thought that could be cleaned and put them in boxes waiting for sterilization. We went through four sterilization processes, and the first three did not meet standards so the final process did work and was approved. The final process used an aerosolized hydrogen peroxide that would be in a converted shipping container that would circulate air and the hydrogen peroxide over and around the masks. After this process was complete we would take the masks out of the container and take them to a "clean room" and sort them once again for masks that had made it through our first screening and then we would package them for future use if necessary. Hopefully those masks will never be used. By the time I left that job there was talk that UNC was close to getting a provider for new masks!
• 2020-10-16

  Pre-Pandemic, what did we know? Teachers knew nothing.

  March 12th, 2020 seemed to be a perfect spring day in Southeast Georgia, it was a beautiful morning. I am a teachers assistant in a self-contained classroom in Liberty Co., GA. We had a long weekend ahead of us, March 12th was a Thursday and we had Friday off, 5 day weekend, and all of the kids knew it! So as any teacher would do we had a relaxed day. We taught normal morning lessons, talked to the kids about why they will not see us on Friday, Monday, Tuesday, or St. Patricks day that was coming up. So, we painted pictures of rainbows - nothing out of the ordinary, at least not in our little self-contained bubble. The teachers for some time had been hearing about this virus, and that it was far worse than the severe flu we saw in 2018, or anything else we have seen from overseas. This illness was something that we all were closely monitoring in the news because schools are the perfect breeding grounds for germs of any illnesses; however, we knew one thing - that there were some measures being put in place for travel. Then we get an all-call on the intercom in our classroom, "Hey 201, we just want to inform yall the main water line is broken up the road. We suggest you call your parents to get ready to receive their children, its a half-day." STUNNED we all took a moment, took a breath. Our 7 kids had no idea what was happening so we all took to our phones and called the parents of the most vulnerable first, then the ones we knew may take some time to get a hold of. Next we informed our parents of the children who ride buses that they will be on their way home within the next hour as the school had no water. We rallied up our kids, went through our daily clean up (4 hours earlier than usual) and gave them all tight hugs. Some of them didn't want to leave, some really didn't understand why they were going home so early, and some just wanted to get out of the crowd. In the end, I hugged every last one of my kids I took up to the front office because I had a sick feeling about this weekend. I told them to be good and listen to their adults and I waved goodbye. For most, that was the last time I saw that set of kids again because last year's class was older. Those children went onto middle school. Friday, March 13th, 2020 came and rumors started that we may not be going back to school on Wednesday because of some virus called Coronavirus. What was this? Why? No one understood. My teacher friends were all communicating online what was happening, a lot of uncertainty. The weekend came and went, nothing. Monday, the 16th of March, we got the news we weren't to enter ANY school building, this virus is highly contagious. I'd seen the news and by then China, Japan, Korea, and Italy were on total lockdown, Spain was following suit; along with the rest of the world, the US was the only nation in the world not really doing anything. However, in Liberty co. we were on lockdown, schools shutdown. At some point we were told only lead teachers and 2 assistants per grade level may go into the school to help get the children's personal belongings, this did not happen. Everything was shutdown, it was too dangerous. Personally, I didn't hear from the majority of my students after March 12th. Many factors are at play here: little to no technology in low-income homes, parents decided that since school was out they weren't obligated to stay in the area so they went to visit family in different Counties/States (so no communication was made) or parents didn't pick up the phones when we would call, those that we did see online wasn't for long because our teaching method is very hands on for Special Education our parents had no idea how to help at home and some gave in a put YouTube videos on all day. This wasnt easy for ANYONE I know. Pandemics, changes in general, and a sudden life change is ALWAYS hard. School as we know it will never be the same. As of today, this new school year we are doing hybrid teaching, which is giving parents the option to send their child to school face-to-face learning (with a mask on at all times) or they can have virtual learning. Our county provided everyone child and staff with ipads, so there's really no excuse at this point. I'm optimistic for the future, I feel a change in teaching. It's hard to change a system that is so engrained in our systems but we can figure it out.
• 
  2020-10-16

  P.E.I. Buddhist monks, nuns create bubble within the bubble amid COVID-19

  Buddhist monks and nuns are creating bubbles within their community in Prince Edward Island. "Anyone who leaves the bubble will be quarantined for 30 days" according to Venerable Kelvin Lin. PEI has been one of the best provinces in Canada keeping their Covid-19 rates down. Creating social bubbles has been a popular method of prevention in Canada aswell.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Worrying for future scholarships

  I'm worried about applying for a future scholarship called the MEXT scholarship because supposedly international students are still not allowed to enter Japan. While this will likely change, I'm fearful that due to many governments around the world losing tax revenue due to the pandemic, that they'll will cut extraneous programs such as the MEXT scholarship. The pandemic prevented people taking the JLPT language assessment last July as well. That makes it harder to get certifications to help boost my current resume. They say that there will be a test date in December, but like many events during the pandemic, it's up in the air.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Selling Coffee during the Plague Year

  A journal of a Starbucks employee working during the pandemic. Describes the ways in which the company provided in ways adequate and not. Six weeks of paid stay-at-home that spiraled into depression, and the mounting stress from working with the public, and the pressure to open space for customers to stay in store.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Growing Cases as Winter Approaches

  Many scientists and leading health professionals worried this day would come. As winter approaches each day, the number of infections begins to rise again. Projected death toll is estimated at around 400,00 by February 1st depending on social distancing requirements and mask mandates.
• 
  2020-10-16

  アビガンで新型コロナ症状早く改善　承認を申請(2020年10月16日) - Apply for approval for early improvement of new corona symptoms with Avigan (October 16, 2020)

  I previously uploaded a story about the drug Avigan, where FUJIFILM was still in the process of asking for approval. This news talks about how FUJIFILM now actually asked for manufacturing approval and could be another drug that could be used for the new coronavirus. Personally, I do here that this drug also has a lot of side effects for certain patients, so I feel like we are rushing the development of drug. Side note, Avigan is also known as Favipiravir which is known to be used for treating influenza mainly in Japan. 承認されれば日本の製薬会社が作る初めての新型コロナ治療薬となります。 　富士フイルムは「アビガン」について、新型コロナウイルスの治療薬として製造販売の承認を申請したと発表しました。3月末から行われていた臨床試験で新型コロナの患者に対してアビガンを投与すると症状が早く改善することが確認でき、安全性の面でも新たな懸念事項は認められなかったということです。厚生労働省が承認すれば「レムデシベル」「デキサメタゾン」に続いて新型コロナの治療薬としては3例目となり、日本の製薬会社が開発した薬としては初めてとなります。 If approved, it will be the first new corona treatment made by a Japanese pharmaceutical company. FUJIFILM announced that it has applied for manufacturing and marketing approval of "Avigan" as a therapeutic drug for the new coronavirus. In clinical trials that began at the end of March, it was confirmed that administration of Avigan to patients with the new corona improved their symptoms quickly, and there were no new safety concerns. If approved by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, it will be the third therapeutic drug for the new corona following the "Remdesiver" and "Dexamethasone", and the first drug developed by a Japanese pharmaceutical company.
• 
  2020-10-16

  Connecting Spanish Flu Historical Texts with Current Pandemic

  My essay shows just how similar the Spanish flu outbreak is with the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasizes the fact that we should've been so much more prepared today, with all of our modern technology and science, than we were in 1918. The newspaper article I look at also shows the shocking differences between the two, like the zero urgency for quarantining and the different kinds of masks and methods that were used to try and treat these illnesses.