Tag: Coronavirus

Plague Driving People Nuts – Journal of the Plague Year – Daniel Defoe

Nay, a few were so enthusiastically ambitious as to run approximately the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they were despatched to evangelise to the town; and one mainly, who, like Jonah to Nineveh, cried within the streets, ‘Yet 40 days, and London will be destroyed.’ I will not be superb whether he said yet 40 days or but some days. Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night time, like a person that Josephus mentions, who cried, ‘Woe to Jerusalem!’ a little earlier than the destruction of that city. So this terrible naked creature cried, ‘Oh, the remarkable and the dreadful God!’ and stated no extra, but repeated the ones words continually, with a voice and countenance complete of horror, a speedy tempo; and nobody should ever discover him to stop or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I ought to hear of. I met this terrible creature several times within the streets, and might have spoken to him, however he might not enter into speech with me or anyone else, but held on his dismal cries always.

A Journal of the Plague Year
Daniel Defoe

Some time in the first few months of Covid, in 2020, there was a guy walking down the street outside my place. “Fuck Covid!” He yelled, loud enough for the neighborhood to hear. My guess was that he’d just lost some job prospect, or something fell through due to the shutdown.

Britain’s National Theater – Coronavirus Season

The Security Manager
Collen Heskey

It’s been like a ghost town. You start to think of those horror films where there’s a major catastrophe — zombies — because it’s so quiet.

You could tell how empty it was because the mice stopped. We had the pest controller still coming once a week, and he was catching less and less, until one day he got nothing. There’s no one dropping food.

In the six months, you know what I actually did? I learned to play piano. Never played one in my life, but I found myself in a rehearsal room and thought, “Why don’t I do something different?”

I went on YouTube and there was a lesson for Elton John’s “Song for Guy,” so I watched a bit, memorized a few notes, and when I had a break, went up there and tried to play.

I’ve come out of all this with something, which is really nice.

Alex Marshall
Six Months in the Life of a Locked-Down Theater
Britain’s National Theater hopes to reopen in October after being closed for more than 200 days. But even with the shutters down, it’s been an eventful and emotional time for its staff.

Covid Layoffs – Half Still Unemployed

Roughly six months after the coronavirus began to wreak havoc on the US economy, about half of those who lost their job say they are still without one.

That’s one of the most notable findings of a new Pew Research Center survey, which paints a picture of a nation still reeling economically even as it recovers from the labor market free fall earlier this year that intensified as Covid-19 cases increased, and state lockdowns froze businesses across the country.

The study, which surveyed 13,200 US adults in the first two weeks of August, found some limited recovery with respect to employment: Of all those who said they had lost a job, a third have returned to their old job, and 15 percent say they have a new job

Zeeshan Aleem, Vox
Poll: Half of Americans who lost their job during the pandemic still don’t have one

Hot Mic Stories – Education in the Time of Covid

Students/Teachers of Reddit, what’s the best ‘forgot to turn off the mic’ story during virtual learning? from r/AskReddit

Odd_Camera_9588
Ironically my IT teacher forgot to turn of his mic and camera and proceeded to get in a very heated argument on the phone with his ex-girlfriend who he has a kid with. Did I mention that she’s also a teacher at our school? Yeah most awkward 5 minutes of my life before he realised

WorldTheAround
Any entertaining details from the argument?

Odd_Camera_9588
Not really from the actual argument, just a lot of swearing, but when he realised she said ‘great, you can’t even do the job you’re barely qualified to do in the first place’

Unknown_user_12
Well, it happened in one of the classes.

The teacher was going through a rough time and the class could feel it. We assured her that we had done our homework and that she could take rest for the time being. She agreed and told she would switch her mic off and sleep for a while, as we did whatever.

Her husband was right beside her and the mic wasn’t turned off. She told, ” I am so lucky to have these students” and started sobbing to her husband. We all heard this, but kept quiet to prevent her being embarrassed.

She slept well during that time and we sent her a thank you gift collectively.

bingbong1234
I was producing a video for some university professors on a specific medical thing for a virtual learning course. I was all set up to shoot the process, and the teachers excused themselves to the next office to regroup and have a chat. I already had their wireless lav mics attached and fed to my camera, so when I sat down at the camera and put on my headphones I immediately heard their conversation – they were criticizing me, saying they couldn’t believe they hired someone so young, inexperienced in that particular medical field, how I looked, how I asked questions, etc… Oops! At least I made them a fine video. These days I don’t put my headphones on until we’re about to shoot.

Large_Dr_Pepper  
One of my professors classes had a student say something like “I just joined 5 minutes before class and this asshole is already teaching.”

The professor just laughed and told him his mic was on.

Insulin or Food?

In March, Bolei, 63, who lives in San Rafael, California, was laid off from his job as a maintenance supervisor at a startup that manages real estate properties. After falling behind on rent, he fears he’ll get evicted as rent moratoriums expire.

For the past three months, he’s missed his nearly $3,000 monthly rent payment due to growing medical costs for his partner. She has lupus, an autoimmune disease, and faces $30,000 in medication costs this year to treat a brain injury following a car accident.

‘Insulin or groceries’: How reduced unemployment affects struggling Americans from California to Mississippi
Jessica Menton
USA TODAY

If Covid Never Happened What Would the Past Four Months Have Been Like For You? – AskReddit

If Covid never happened, what all would’ve you done in on past 4 months? from r/AskReddit

AssDimple
Honestly, Id probably just find something else to complain about.

adnanoid
I would have gotten my tooth surgery done and over with

AMatofFact
I would have taken a kick ass trip to Japan which would have been way outside of my budget!

TillyGalore
I would have got married today

toohighforthis_
Would have kept my job, gotten a raise, a sizeable bonus, moved out of my parents house, and ultimately taken my plunge into independence.

Dont_make_this_hard
I would be working a part time job in a failing weed shop which probably would have been shut down by now.

Instead, I’m now the manager, have fixed nearly 100 issues I inherited from the previous manager, store sales have improved greatly, and I suddenly have a career.

All thanks to the global pandemic. Yay?

mht03110
I moved to New York City in February, a few weeks before the lockdowns started. I had a whole binder of things I wanted to see and do and a job I was excited about. But I got laid off as soon as things got started and everything I wanted to do became impossible, and some of it is probably never coming back.

I would have been taking the train to every station, catching impromptu shows, hunting down the best open mics, trying to pin down the best pizza and burger, putting together a d&d group, and traveling to other parts of the north eastern us that I’ve always wanted to see. I had big plans for this year, and I’m so heartbroken that all I’ve experienced is an endless chorus of sirens.

‘I Can’t Keep Doing This:’ Small-Business Owners Are Giving Up – The New York Times

More owners are permanently shutting their doors after new lockdown orders, realizing that there may be no end in sight to the crisis.

That day, June 26, Mr. Larkin and his partner dumped what they had just bought into the trash and decided to close their club, Krank It Karaoke, for good.

“We did everything we were supposed to do,” Mr. Larkin said. “When he shut us down again, and after I put out all that money to meet their rules, I just said, ‘I can’t keep doing this.’”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/business/small-businesses-coronavirus.html

When Essential Workers Earn Less Than The Jobless – NPR

When the government shut down the U.S. economy in a bid to tame the spread of the coronavirus, Congress scrambled to help tens of millions of people who lost jobs. The government rushed one-time relief checks to all families that qualified and tacked an extra $600 onto weekly unemployment benefits, which are usually less than regular pay and vary by state.

But so far, lawmakers have not passed any measure to increase pay for workers who were asked to keep going to work during a highly contagious health crisis. Some companies did create hazard, or “hero,” pay — typically around $2 extra an hour or a one-time bonus. Most have since ended it.

ALINA SELYUKH
NPR

Telehealth – Freakonomics

Thanks to the pandemic, the telehealth revolution we’ve been promised for decades has finally arrived. Will it stick? Will it cut costs — and improve outcomes? We ring up two doctors and, of course, an economist to find out.

ELLIMOOTTIL: Up until March 2020, less than 1 percent of Medicare patients have ever used a telehealth service.

ELLIMOOTTIL: We’re seeing patients from all over the state who sometimes travel four hours just to have a 15-minute consultation about their kidney stone. And to be honest, I probably knew the answer about how I was going to manage that patient when I looked at their C.T. scan.

CUTLER: It is amazing. We went from essentially no visits for medical care being telehealth to now between 10 and 15 percent of visits for medical care are telehealth. And we did it virtually overnight.

The Doctor Will Zoom You Now (Ep. 423)

Online Learning – Letters to Editor of NY Times

Veronique highlights some of the benefits that remote learning can bring. But she neglects the reality that it advantages some students over others and exacerbates existing societal inequities.

The students who get the most out of remote learning tend to be self-directed and/or able to get guidance and support from parents or other family members. Special education students and English-language learners who need more intensive one-on-one supports often struggle with online learning, as do students who live in crowded quarters where constant distractions are present. And of course there are many students who lack access to computers or the internet, making online learning an impossibility.

Lessons for the Future From Online Learning
Should schools incorporate more virtual learning when they reopen? Students and educators respond to one student’s enthusiasm for it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opinion/letters/coronavirus-online-education.html