Tag: COVID-19

Categories
life pandemic

Covid Continues

Earlier this week I implied that Covid was a breeze but with all the sleepless nights and harsh cough burning in my lungs — the most succinct thing I can say now is, this sucks. After 13 days I’m really starting to wonder when I’m finally going to get better.

After missing 5 days of work my admin explained that she was going to need medical documentation that I was still sick. I made a phone appointment and started explaining the situation to my doctor and how I had taken another test but it still showed me as being positive when she cut me off saying it doesn’t matter because I was STILL SYMPTOMATIC. She kindly wrote up a note saying I would be off “until symptoms cleared.”

I feel guilty for being away from work for so long but I can’t imagine showing up to my grade fives all stuffed up and coughing and explaining how I had Covid but because enough time had passed (and the guilt was getting to me) it was just time for me to return. I’m mad that these thoughts are even going through my mind. It’s dumb for a person sick with Covid to even think about returning to work before they are better; yet, here I am, doing exactly that.

Categories
life

Covid Test

I woke up with a sore throat this morning and pulled the trigger on getting a Covid test. I didn’t want to because, as everyone knows, once you sign up for a test you’re legally obligated to quarantine until results are back. So no playdates with the kids and my friends’ kids (at least not with me, Ange took them out to the park). And the big stress of the day became whipping up sub plans and trying to find someone to go in for me tomorrow.

Luckily enough, I couldn’t find a sub right away and before I had someone booked (less than 12 hours after the test) the relieving negative result arrived via text message.

On the other hand, I was already starting to look forward to a day in bed watching the Apple event tomorrow. I’m strongly thinking about getting a new MacBook Pro and I’ve been patiently waiting for this day since the rumours first started circulating in 2018. I guess I’ll just have to catch it on the replay.

Categories
pandemic work

Alberta Parents’ Guide to Returning to School

The Alberta government today released their parents guide for the 2020-2021 school year.

“Your child may feel nervous about what school will be like. While there will be changes, the key school experience will be the same as before—they will learn in class with their teacher and see friends.”

Parents’ Guide 2020-2021 School Year PDF

Categories
work

Alberta Education Minister Wants Teachers Tested

In a letter sent to school superintendents across Alberta yesterday (and then forwarded to all teachers), Education Minister Adriana LaGrange explains that the government has been working hard to increase testing capacity and turn-around times.

I recently became aware that the test result turnaround times in Alberta are already supposedly down to two to three days. Friends of mine decided to get the whole family tested because one of their kids became ill with Covid-19 like symptoms. (Still waiting until tomorrow to hear back).

LaGrange also suggests that all teachers should be tested for the novel corona virus before returning to in-person learning this fall.

Her complete letter after the jump.

Continue reading “Alberta Education Minister Wants Teachers Tested”
Categories
humor pandemic

COVID-19 Risk Chart

From XKCD

First prize is a ticket to the kissing booth.

Randall Munroe runs you through risky behaviour in this handy chart that applies for both pandemic and non-pandemic risks. I’m betting that I’ll be doing in-person classes come September. The minister of Alberta Education will let us know as of August 1st — though some teachers believe the decision has already been made and they’re waiting for August to improve the optics. It’s not like it really matters what they “decide” because things will change the moment we have confirmed cases at school — at least I hope so.

As for the chart, I feel like, “Skateboarding into a mosh pit on a cruise ship” should be rated as higher risk than “Getting a Covid test from a stranger at a crowded bar” on the non-Covid risk axis.

(via Kottke)

Update: Apparently at the same time I was posting this the Alberta Government decided to make the announcement early: School is back on in September. It turns out I was right about the decision being already made and this was confirmed by a leak to the Globe and Mail.

Categories
pandemic

COVID-19 Cases in Alberta and the Rest of Canada

I’ll try to keep this interactive graph up to date with the number of COVID-19 cases in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and the rest of Canada. My spreadsheet can be found here.
I’ve started breaking the charts down by month, here’s one for April:
Data from Coronavirus Info For Albertans and 2019 Novel Coronavirus Infection.

Categories
pandemic

COVID-19

The Atlantic is providing free ongoing access to its Corona Virus information.

This recent article from Kaitlyn Tiffany’s conversations with a number of public health experts about The Dos and Don’ts of ‘Social Distancing’ is enlightening. From the article:

If you’re confused about what to do right now, you’re not alone—even these experts occasionally disagreed on the answers to my questions. Where there were discrepancies, I’ve included all the different answers as fully as possible. This guide is aimed toward those who are symptom-free and not part of an at-risk group, with an addendum at the end for those in quarantine. If you are symptom-free but are over 60 years old; have asthma, heart disease, or diabetes; or are otherwise at risk, experts recommend defaulting to the most conservative response to each of these questions.

I created this graph of the number of cases in Alberta compared with the rest of Canada. This is just the beginning. I, for one, am skeptical that Alberta is going to have much success flattening the curve until they cancel school. Hopefully that happens before it’s too late.

Data collected from https://www.alberta.ca/coronavirus-info-for-albertans.aspx

Update: School in Alberta is cancelled.

Categories
pandemic

How Should We Respond to Coronavirus

The Making Sense podcast episode on “How Should We Respond to Coronavirus,” is required listening. In this episode, Sam Harris speaks with Nicholas Christakis about the coronavirus pandemic.

From the episode:

“Even if we’re all destined to get this thing, or even if 75% of us are destined to get it, getting it later is absolutely better when you consider the implications for our health care system. Here are just the numbers, we have something like a million hospital beds (speaking now about the United States) there are something like 2.[8] beds for every 1000 people. […] So just imagine a situation where everyone gets this at once. It’s just a tsunami of illness. You have a break-down of the health care system.

Listen to the entire episode.