Times of change and uncertainty
I enjoy learning and seeing what is happening all around the world from other Steemians. I wanted to use my blog to record my thoughts and impact of Coronavirus and share what is happening here in Arizona.
While the virus has been in the worldwide news for awhile, things in Arizona have been happening very quickly the past few days.
March 11, 2020 World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 is officially a pandemic
March 11, 2020 Arizona's Governor Doug Ducey declared a state of emergency
March 12, 2020 The three public universities, including ASU announced online instruction
March 12, 2020 President Trump announced restricted travel to the United States
March 13, 2020 K-12 public school closures in Arizona
March 13, 2020 President Trump is expected to announce a national emergency
I work as an academic advisor Arizona State University, which is one of the largest universities in the United States with a undergraduate population of 89,888.
The students have been away this week for spring break. As with many other universities they received communication that upon their return on Monday, March 16th "ASU campus classes will be moving to remote teaching and learning".
As of right now ASU has decided to keep the university open and the staff, of which I am a part, are to come to campus and the university is to run as usual except the classes will be online.
Other schools, like Harvard, have closed completely. I can hardly comprehend the logistical nightmare that would be to send students away from their on campus housing, especially tens of thousands of students.
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Yesterday I reached out to the students that I am responsible for that had been told that they have to come home from their semester long study abroad trips. There are so many things that need to be thought about and changed from how we normally function as a university and how students will experience their education for a time.
ASU is located in Tempe, Arizona and the K-12 public school system in Tempe has announced the closure of their K-12 system. Where I live in Mesa is expected to announce if they will close or stay open after spring break ends next week.
Things are changing very rapidly. This is my attempt to collect my thoughts and make sense of what is happening in my corner of the world. We don't know the impact this virus will have worldwide or when or how it will be contained. We do know that we need to be careful and use our best judgement on how we engage with others in this time of change and uncertainty.
It must be a logistic nightmare to switch to online teaching and change things within such a short period of time. Hopefully all goes well, and you take care yourself as well!!
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 20/30 - need recharge?)
Yes! Agreed it is going to be so interesting to see what happens next week and how many students come back to campus. If classes are all online most will probably stay home. As advisors we have been working to be online too and are offering Zoom meetings. Thank goodness for technology!
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That is pretty crazy... also ASU is the size of a city!!
Hope all goes well... are they making you come into work? Do you at least get better parking? ;)
Yes, they are making us come to work even though we are offering phone and Zoom appointments. I think that will change soon.
It's getting serious here in Estonia as well. We are a small country but we have 79 confirmed cases and the count doubled today. All schools are closed and assigned to online studies. Any public gatherings and meetings are banned, also all the events, sports contests, clubs, well everything which involves public :D Yesterday Estonia declared state of Emergency in the first time of the history.
Borders are still open but controlled. Every hour the situation changes.
The future will tell how bad it gets here.
Thanks for the update on Estonia. That is a lot for such a small country. That It is really incredible how fast things change. Take care!
Sara,
What's the current infection count in Arizona? I'm currently on the CDC site and it's on 9.
Also...what's looking like at supermarkets...and corner shops?
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Leigh
PS: How are you holding up? (All stocked with what you need for the month?)
Hi Leigh. Yes, the last I heard Arizona is at 9 cases. I do not think there is very much testing happening in Arizona. The numbers can be misleading if most of the population of the state is not tested.
The latest update is that as of Sunday, all the K-12 schools in Arizona are closed. The schools in most of the state were on spring break this past week. Many traveled (especially college students) and it will be interesting to see how well it is contained with school being closed.
I went to the store on Friday night and there were empty shelves, especially the bread and the frozen food sections.
How are things there in your part of Australia?