Work and Automation, Questions, Facemasks at School
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| Foundry Scene, Artist Unknown, Photo Credit: Derby Museums Trust. [CC BY-NC-SA |
Work and Automation
...Here then is the horrible choice coronavirus will spring on us as the working world creaks slowly back to life: between lingering fear of infection on one hand, and the relentless march of automation on the other. Recessions don't so much change the world as speed it up, accelerating trends already rippling beneath the surface.
... The authors of an Oxford University study in 2017 thought that by 2035 it would be possible to automate 86% of restaurant jobs, three-quarters of retail jobs, and 59% of recreation jobs.
Questions
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Patients waiting to see the Doctor, Rosemary Carson, (b. 1962)
Photo Credit: Wellcome Collection [CC BY]
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... We do not yet know why Britain appears to be having a worse pandemic than other countries. To what extent does having the most densely populated city in Europe, and a hub of international travel to boot, make us more vulnerable? How important, relatively speaking, will it turn out to be that we place so many of our old people in care homes... Did we lock down too late and is that the biggest error? Perhaps. I don't know. Neither do you.
... Why does the virus kill some people and hardly affect others? Why do people from some ethnic minorities suffer in greater numbers?
(Philip Collins, The Times, 2020)
Thank goodness that we have someone who is prepared to say: I don't know.
Facemasks at Schools in Spain
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| Afterglow, the Alhambra and Sierra Nevada, Granada, Spain Albert Moulton Foweraker (1873-1942) Photo Credit: Royal Albert Memorial Museum [CC BY-NC-SA] |
Children as young as six will be required to wear masks during lessons when Spain's schools reopen as part of a desperate attempt by the government to stem a second wave of coronavirus cases.
Pupils and teachers will have their temperatures taken before entering the school building each morning and children would be required to wash their hands "frequently and rigorously", which the government later clarified as amounting to at least five times a day.
Those as young as three will have to wear masks on their way to nursery.
...Since late May, when the restrictions were eased, all children aged six and over have been required to wear masks in public.
Any hopes that pupils would be at least able to remove masks in the classroom evaporated when the government's health and education ministers, together with Spain's 17 regional authorities, agreed on a battery of strict countrywide Covid-19 measures for primary and secondary schools.
... The new rules require that a distance of 1.5 metres between classmates be kept.
Classrooms will be ventilated between each lesson for between 10 and 15 minutes and children will have to keep to the same seat in school canteens and on buses.
Even after yesterday's announcement, two key areas - teacher-pupil ratios and whether coronavirus tests will be carried out on students - are to remain a devolved issue, with each of the 17 semi-autonomous regions deciding on their own regimes.
(Alasdair Fotheringham, The Times, 2020)
Meanwhile in the UK
Headteachers are urging ministers to produce consistent guidelines on facemasks after being censured for deciding that pupils must wear them.
The government says pupils and staff at secondary schools in lockdown areas should wear coverings, but has left it up to other headteachers to choose whether to introduce them or not.
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| School is Out Elizabeth Adela Forbes (1859-1912) Photo Credit: Penlee House Gallery & Museum [CC BY-ND] |
A survey of schools by The Times has found some will insist all secondary pupils wear them in corridors and other communal areas, with one making them mandatory in the classroom.
Others say leaving the decision to schools has triggered abuse and anger from parents with tensions running high among people who favour masks and those who oppose them.
Andy Byers, the headteacher of Framwellgate School in Durham, said this week that his school would require pupils to wear facemasks.
He was abused on Twitter with messages that included mention of "happily punching the headteacher to the ground," accusing him of "emotional abuse" that should result in care proceedings, not being safe to look after children, being unfit to have responsibility for pupils, inflicting psychological damage on them, being sick, a child abuser and a disgrace to his profession.
Mr Byers wrote: "All this for a bit of cloth to make adults at school and home feel safer."
Most parents were supportive and much of the abuse came from outside the community. His deputy head wrote: "The response has been staggering both positive and negative. I continue to be shocked at the vile and bilious tweets that some individuals are capable of making."
(Nicola Woolcock, The Times, 2020)
Huge cultural differences then between the UK and Spain and indeed the rest of Europe.
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