A couple of days ago, I shared a song lyric that spoke to me. I seem to be finding meaningful, at least to me, quotes in many places these days. The latest was the last line in an episode of Law and Order originally shown some years ago but now in syndication. "Sometimes the good you do doesn't do you any good." The line was said by Manhattan District Attorney Arthur Branch played by Fred Thompson. Whenever I read the words, I hear them spoken in Thompson's deep Southern drawl. I need to remember these words the next time I do something that I think is under-appreciated. Did I do the good deed to be thanked, or did I do it because it was the right thing and needed to be done? I'm hoping Arthur Branch aka Fred Thompson can keep me in line.
The Professor has a case of covid-19 in the undergraduate class he's teaching. There was a midterm today, and the student let The Professor know that she might be getting up and then returning during the test; he didn't ask why. The Professor watches students taking an exam via Zoom. I think the exams are open book and open notes, but students are not supposed to use the Internet. If The Professor sees a student use their smart phone, for example, he's going to want to know what they are doing. The student with covid-19 wanted The Professor to know that she wasn't going to use the Internet while off-camera.
The local university's case numbers are so low that I really wonder how many cases are missed because students go for testing outside the university. I don't know if the university has started its testing every on-campus student every nine days. The plan is to test an entire dorm on the same day. Given the university numbers that were just updated, they may have started doing whole dorms. There were 15 new student cases, the most in a couple of weeks. Last week (Sunday through Saturday), 34 students tested positive. Three days into this week, there have already been 21 positive cases. I have not seen many photos of student gatherings, but the ones I have seen suggest little mask use and less social distancing. It makes me want to grab a random student by the shoulders and shake them as I ask, "Why?" over and over. Actually, I don't want to do that given that it would put me in close physical contact with someone who odds are has not been taking basic precautions.
England is poised to start a challenge trial in 2021. They will take a pool of healthy young adults ages 18 through 30 and expose them to the novel coronavirus in order to test vaccines. The first step is to infect 90 volunteers with live virus with the aim of determining the smallest dose that will infect someone. Then, groups of volunteers will be given a vaccine then will be exposed to the virus. Obviously, the goal is for the vaccine to prevent the virus from taking hold. Son #1 has put his name in the pool for any trial they might end up doing in this country. I'm not sure this country would do a challenge trial. There are pesky ethical questions to be sure.
Closer to home, my kindle is still unaccounted for.
1 comment:
I am keeping an eye on the heir's university cases. They are split into three columns, staff, students on-campus and students off-campus. I have been giving this the side eye for a while because all students are supposed to be having 50% of their tuition face to face so there cannot be any students who are not on campus during the week. Today, there is a definition of the dubious off-campus column, it is "those who have remained off-campus for a period of at least 48 hours since their symptoms developed". As I thought then, it's a column there to make the others look better.
Last week's new cases, 96 students and one member of staff (from 28,000 students, 4,000 staff). It's about the same as the local rate so doesn't indicate that they are any less conscientious than the general population. They are in an area whether it is illegal to gather indoors with anyone you don't live with so you'll not be seeing photos of any party as it's automatically illicit.
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