Testing the Net

[hammer]

Both a safety net and the internet.


My University, the University of Minnesota, just extended Spring break for students until further notice due to Covid19 concerns. When they return, we will be teaching all our courses online until further notice. I’ve got no worries about the evening graduate course I teach but that 9-11 AM class which is taught TTh at the same time as several hundred other courses on campus is going to be interesting using a system that even on typical days is often extremely slow.


We will see if telling students to stay home and take classes online will help slow transmission when we have 6,000 international students most of whom are still in dorms, as well as large clusters in private apartments in a extremely small, confined geographic area.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Northern Illinois University has extended Spring Break as well; as I am no longer connected to the school, I don't know what they'll be doing upon resumption.

Peter

[lbpesq]

Our son is at San Jose State University.  They cancelled class this week and will switch to all on-line classes starting next week.  He wasn't too upset about getting this week off.  lol

Bill, tgo

[edwardofhuncote]

My good friend (I'll call her VictoriaofDerby) is a faculty coordinator at a big school in SoCal... part of her job yesterday became setting up the professors to teach their classes online. It's a BIG TASK, she tells me, but do-able. And since she is the smartest person I know, it'll absolutely happen, or there'll be a Victoria-shaped hole in somebody's wall over there, and a lot of noise. I think it's a good idea anyway, if for no other reason than a drill, and the timing really could be much worse if you think about it.


I think this is maybe the 3rd or 4th epidemic/pandemic event in my nearly 30-year career as a public service employee. I can tell you it's being taken very seriously here in Virginia, where so far the coronavirus has yet to manifest itself in any major way. At work, we've been advised to put plans in place to staff our facilities with minimal personnel. Plain and simple, you can't shut off a Regional Water Treatment Plant because of a virus... basically, this means if you aren't sick, you're going to be working around the clock, and sequestered so you don't get sick. It was H1N1 a couple years ago, another Influenza strain some years before that, and some mosquito-borne disease I can't remember what or when, but somebody thought it was going to get bad enough that we ought to hold a meeting. I've seen all this unfold before, but I haven't seen this scare factor, and I'm not quite sure yet how to process it. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what's real anymore.


Here's how not to go wrong. Do common-sense things. Don't do stupid things. You already know what these are. Calculate risks logically rather than emotionally. Take care of the people close to you. Set a good example. And for pity's sake, stop stockpiling toilet paper... you're making our brothers and sisters over in the Wastewater Treatment Plant very nervous wondering when the mother of all clogs is coming down the pipe. (as if those guys don't have enough to worry about)


Closing on a serious note- I love this group, and I wouldn't want a one of us to fall victim to this thing... hope and pray we'll all be okay. Feel free to add anything I've missed...

[David Houck]

Our club being a group of people that both plays and listens to music, one of the impacts of note (among so very many) will be on live music.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Our club being a group of people that both plays and listens to music, one of the impacts of note (among so very many) will be on live music.

IL Gov. JB Pritzker today made a statement discouraging gatherings, public or private, of >250 people - and banning outright anything of >1000 people.

My middle son, who teaches in one Denver school, and his older son, who attends another, found out today that as of Monday, they're off for at least 3 weeks.

Peter

[keith_h]

One of the schools systems near me just shutdown and won't reopen until April 3rd. Our school system has told all central office personnel to work from home and has cancelled all field trips. No word yet on if they will close and if they do close how they will handle the year round schools for make up days so late in the year.

[goran]

I'm in EU, all schools, kindergartens, colleges are cancelled, every gig, anything that would have more than 100 people. Nobody knows what will be in a week. So let's see.
Time to put new string and practice and write some songs.

Only thing that made me laugh today was this post:

"Corona Virus severely underestimates how long I can sit inside my house living off nothing but caffeine and shredded cheese."

[hammer]

It looks like most authorities are finally starting to take this seriously. Colleagues in the Czech Republic have inidicated all schools are shutting down including Universities; in Bhutan, they have blocked all flights coming in to country (an American was just found to have seeded Covid19 in Bhutan last week).


Here in the US, some of the Nordic skiers I coach or have coached in the past just had their championships cancelled. Two were out in Bozeman Montana for the NCAAs where they held their first races but cancelled the second for both Alpine and Nordic. The others are in Lake Tahoe for the Junior National Championships where they got in two of four races before the cancellations.  The crazy thing with these events are that they are not like the basketball or hockey tournaments that draw thousands of spectators and those watching tend to be spread out across 3-5 km, the athletes were already present, and now they are basically stuck there until Sunday because of flight schedules anyway.


Here in Minnesota, however, schools are all still in session and they are continuing to hold winter sports  championships (hockey, basketball) with the only changes being restrictions on spectators.

[David Houck]

... Time to put new string and practice and write some songs ... "Corona Virus severely underestimates how long I can sit inside my house living off nothing but caffeine and shredded cheese."

   

[pauldo]

It looks like most authorities are finally starting to take this seriously.

It certainly is refreshing when people pay attention to concrete statistical data instead of reacting on their “hunches”. 
Science it’s all about facts and not emotion... weird huh?


Goran, I know some introverts that are VERY happy with how things are playing out. 


Paul (who is washing his hands a lot these days)

[keith_h]

"Corona Virus severely underestimates how long I can sit inside my house living off nothing but caffeine and shredded cheese."

Whoever said this is a true student of the modern human condition.

[edwardofhuncote]

Heck, I could skip the cheese and mainline the coffee, but I salute the whole notion.

Update- our Water Plant Operations staff was given a memo this afternoon to expect a Tier 3 action plan to be implemented as early as next week. We've all been divided into platoons for staffing each facility, and instructed not to interact directly or mingle with staff from other Plants.

Since I and my partner are the only two Operators for the Water Plants in that particular segment of the City's system, we will be splitting up to cover 7 days a week operation in the event Tier 3 happens. Beginning Monday morning, we train a third guy to replace us in the event one or both of us is infected.

I'm thinking about just taking a couple of my Alembics and a practice amp to work and hanging out until this thing has run its course. Wouldn't be the first time. 

*and a coffee maker.
**and lots of coffee. (I got plenty of water there)

[goran]

At least we'll have some great players coming out after Corona, people gonna practice for days

[peoplechipper]

I was reading today an account from someone in Italy about how quickly it all went sideways there and how we have no idea what's coming; doctors and nurses literally having to choose who's more likely to survive and giving them the treatments, health care workers up 'till they drop or get sick themselves, etc...be safe everyone...