–Highlights–

 

• 27,683,499 Cases World-wide (Johns Hopkins)
• THURSDAY's  CONVERSATIONS
• It will take more than a vaccine to vanquish the coronavirus
• The global politics of vaccines versus building a global and equitable community
• It's all about "purpose" as we take on post-pandemic uncertainties- a powerful wellness leadership tool
• Senegal's success story
• Leadership can be lonely, let's change that!

–QUICK LINKS FOR BUSY PEOPLE–

–Thanks to the New Yorker

THURSDAY'S LEADERSHIP CONVERSATIONS 

with International School Leaders Around the World

All international school senior leaders are welcome.  A Weekly CONVERSATION  between School Heads and Senior Leaders– #28. Our discussions continue to be contemporary, important and a time we teach each other.  The dilemmas and conundrums are changing the longer we live with a global pandemic. Stay current and stay thoughtful in the company of colleagues. With thanks to Will Richardson who has facilitated our Thursday CONVERSATIONS  since the very beginning. 

The weekly Thursday CONVERSATIONS between Latin America school heads and senior leaders resumes in collaboration with Tri-Association and AASSA. All are welcome to join the discussion and we will also include guest speakers, specific to the Latin America circumstance and needs.  Our sessions, as before, are hosted by Sonia Keller and Dereck Rhoads.   

–The Most UPDATED Medical State of Play–

"It Will Take More Than a Vaccine to Beat COVID-19"

 

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control sent a letter to state governments telling them to prepare for the possible distribution of a coronavirus vaccine this fall; it described the progress of “Vaccine A” and “Vaccine B”—almost certainly the vaccines being developed by Pfizer and Moderna, respectively. Though these vaccines are promising, there is no guarantee that they will be cure-alls. “Unless you have a perfect vaccine, which very few are, you’ll always have people who end up getting sick,” Dr. Fauci said. “With or without a vaccine, we’re going to need other treatments.”

 

We could get lucky. But we need to be prepared for the possibility that, in the absence of a single-shot cure, it will be the tuberculosis model—incremental, simultaneous progress on multiple fronts—that gets us through the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a good thing, then, that vaccine research programs aren’t the only ones progressing at unprecedented speed. Three kinds of therapies currently in development—antiviral drugs, antibodies, and immunomodulators—may be ready soon. Alone or in combination with a vaccine, they could help us turn the tide.

(Click HERE or Above to Learn More)

–Another Quote to Consider–

 

"During this pandemic, I have often felt at a loss. At patients’ bedsides, I’ve experienced uncertainty and helplessness; the fear of getting sick myself, or of infecting my family, has followed me home from the hospital each day. In the evenings, when I’ve had the time and energy, I’ve turned to books and essays written by doctors during the first years of the aids epidemic. The challenges that they describe have felt familiar, and their accounts have given me hope. One step at a time, medical and scientific advances eventually subdued that deadly virus. They could do the same for the coronavirus."  

–Dr. Dhruv Khullar

WHO's Director General: 

Dr. Tedros Adhanom on Why Vaccine Nationalism Harms Efforts to Halt the Pandemic

–A Quote to Consider–

 

"Global co-ordination is essential. This will ensure that the vaccines are distributed on the basis of those who need it most. It also spreads a country’s risk, ensuring it has access to numerous vaccine candidates in case its preferred one doesn’t work. A co-operative approach is both morally right and the smart way forward. It’s more efficient, with fewer lives lost and a faster return to normal life."

–Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

EDITOR'S NOTE:  Consider reading this article from beginning to end.  It asks the essential question: "How important is getting your people to think about their “purpose in life” right now when you’re worried about their well-being—not to mention your organization's survival? Beautifully crafted and argued well, don't get caught up in the corporate perspective, but read as if your school's well-being depended upon it. Our CONVERSATIONS should be about wellness during the time of COVID-19 and linking your teams and community to purpose may be the most powerful leadership tool of all.  

"Creating strong links to an individual purpose benefits individuals and (organizations) alike—and could be vital in managing the post-pandemic uncertainties that lie ahead."

–A Sampling of the Article, by Naina Dhingra,

Jonathan Emmett, Andrew Samo and Bill Schaninger

 

During times of crisis, individual purpose can be a guidepost that helps people face up to uncertainties and navigate them better, and thus mitigate the damaging effects of long-term stress. People who have a strong sense of purpose tend to be more resilient and exhibit better recovery from negative events. Indeed, our research conducted during the pandemic finds that when comparing people who say they are “living their purpose” at work with those who say they aren’t, the former report levels of well-being that are five times higher than the latter. Moreover, those in the former group are four times more likely to report higher engagement levels.

Purposeful people also live longer and healthier lives. One longitudinal study found that a single standard deviation increase in purpose decreased the risk of dying over the next decade by 15 percent—a finding that held regardless of the age at which people identified their purpose. Similarly, the Rush Memory and Aging project, which began in 1997, finds that when comparing patients who say they have a sense of purpose with those who say they don’t, the former are:

• 2.5 times more likely to be free of dementia
• 22 percent less likely to exhibit risk factors for stroke
• 52 percent less likely to have experienced a stroke
  

And if this wasn’t enough, individual purpose benefits organizations, too. Purpose can be an important contributor to employee experience, which in turn is linked to higher levels of employee engagement, stronger organizational commitment, and increased feelings of well-being. People who find their individual purpose congruent with their jobs tend to get more meaning from their roles, making them more productive and more likely to outperform their peers.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

"Leadership Can Be Lonely; Let’s Change That"

Having Critical Leadership Friends May Be More Important Than Ever

–THE NEWS of COVID-19–

27,683,499

Cases Worldwide (Johns Hopkins CSSE)

Senegal's Quiet COVID Success:

Test results in 24 hours, temperature checks at every store,

no fights over masks

COVID-19 test results come back within 24 hours – or even faster. Hotels have been transformed into quarantine units. Scientists are racing to develop a cutting-edge, low-cost ventilator.

 

This isn't the pandemic response in South Korea, New Zealand or another country held up as a model of coronavirus containment success. It's Senegal, a west African country with a fragile health care system, a scarcity of hospital beds and about seven doctors for every 100,000 people. And yet Senegal, with a population of 16 million, has tackled COVID-19 aggressively and, so far, effectively. More than six months into the pandemic, the country has about 14,000 cases and 284 deaths.  

 

"You see Senegal moving out on all fronts: following science, acting quickly, working the communication side of the equation, and then thinking about innovation," said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank.  Senegal deserves "to be in the pantheon of countries that have ... responded well to this crisis, even given its low resource base," Devermont said. 

 

Senegal snagged the No. 2 slot in a recent analysis looking at how 36 countries have handled the pandemic. The United States landed near the bottom: 31st of the 36 countries examined by Foreign Policy magazine, which included a mix of wealthy, middle income and developing nations. Senegal's quiet success is due to a combination of quick action, clear communication and its experience during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. 

 

During that health crisis, Senegal confirmed its first case on Aug. 29; officials immediately identified 74 other people the patient had been in contact with and began monitoring and testing them. "Testing was prompt and reliable; all results were negative," the World Health Organization said in declaring the outbreak over just a few months later. "With outbreaks raging just across its borders, Senegal was well-prepared, with a detailed response plan in place as early as March." (USA Today)

 

 

A Culprit Could Be the Peptide that Controls Blood Pressure

An out-of-control human peptide called bradykinin could be responsible for some of the varied and sometimes deadly symptoms seen in people who have contracted the coronavirus. We already have drugs to control bradykinin, which are being tested as treatments for people with covid-19. Bradykinin normally helps to regulate blood pressure, and in some people, the coronavirus seems to be pushing bradykinin production into overdrive. This would create a kind of “bradykinin storm” in the body that may lead to a number of symptoms common in covid-19. Renuka Roche at Eastern Michigan University says such a storm could explain many aspects of covid-19 that seem disjointed, such as muscle pain, women sometimes having milder illness than men, and African Americans being more likely to develop complications. (New Scientist)

 

India Has Now Surpassed Brazil

India has surpassed Brazil to become the country with the second highest number of coronavirus cases, as the virus continues to spread through the country of 1.3 billion at the fastest rate of anywhere in the world. India recorded more than 90,000 cases overnight, bringing the number of infections in the country past 4.2 million and overtaking Brazil, which with 4.1 million cases had been the second worst-affected country for several months. India now only lags behind the United States, which has had 6.2 million cases so far. However, while cases in the US have begun to level off, the rate of infection in India is worsening by the day, with no signs of when it will hit the peak, and experts are predicting the south Asian country will soon tally the most cases in the world. (The Guardian)

 

 

China and Two Experimental Vaccines

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese have been given two experimental Covid-19 vaccines under an emergency scheme without a single case of infection, a top official with a state-owned vaccine developer has said. Zhou Song, secretary for the commission for discipline inspection with China National Biotec Group, also said the company’s two candidate vaccines were likely to protect people for up to three years. Zhou told China National Radio on Monday that the firm’s vaccines were the most widely used in the emergency scheme, adding: “Hundreds of thousands have taken the shot and no one has shown any obvious adverse effects or got infected.”  (South China Morning Post)

 

 

COVID-19 as a Metaphor

The new coronavirus is a killer with a crowbar, breaking and entering human cells with impunity. It hitchhikes across continents carried on coughs and careless hands, driven by its own urgent necessity to survive. It has a gregarious side that makes it hard to resist. It loves a party. The persistent social climber claims its victims around the world by riding on moments of the most innocent of human interactions—a shared laugh, a conversation, an embrace. And it is a liar. SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, often misleads the body’s immune systems. Taken on its own terms, SARS-CoV-2 is the infectious disease success of the past 100 years. Almost unmatched in the annals of emerging human contagions, it has parlayed a few chance infections into a pandemic of around 27 million confirmed cases so far. (via The Wall Street Journal)

 

 

Mexico at #4 and Running Out of Death Certificates

Mexico is running out of death certificates due to the high death toll brought by the coronavirus pandemic and federal bureaucratic snafus, authorities say, delaying burials. The shortage reflects the depth of the pandemic in Mexico. The country ranks fourth in the world in Covid-19 deaths at more than 66,000, after the U.S., Brazil and India. Both the government and health experts say the real toll is likely far higher but is obscured by limited testing. (via The Wall Street Journal)

 

 

More on Steroid Treatments that Give Hope to Severely Ill Patients

The World Health Organization just issued new guidance that recommends treating severely and critically ill covid patients with steroids. Here’s why they did it, how steroids help combat the coronavirus, and what it could mean for future cases.

The news: The new WHO recommendation is based on evidence published last Wednesday in JAMA. In seven clinical trials run around the world, researchers looked at the effects of three steroids used to treat more than 1,700 patients. The studies indicated that each of the three drugs reduced the risk of death. Among critically ill patients, deaths reduced by about one-third. 

 

The drugs: The biggest steroid examined was dexamethasone, which reduced death by 36% drop in deaths in 1,282 patients treated in three separate trials. Next was hydrocortisone, administered to 374 patients in three trials, reducing deaths by 31%. And the last steroid was methylprednisolone, given to 47 patients, reducing deaths by 9%.

 

How do the steroids work? Steroids are actually anti-inflammatory medications that temper the body’s immune system. This might seem counterintuitive, but many people who succumb to covid-19 or experience severe infections aren’t actually being hurt by the virus itself. Covid-19 seems to elicit a particularly strong immune response that often leads to uncontrolled inflammation that ends up damaging healthy tissue. This is what often ends up killing many patients who are hospitalized. Steroids can reduce overactive inflammation, saving the body from tissue and organ failure.

 

Steroids will almost certainly be viewed as the go-to treatment for severely and critically ill patients. But WHO’s recommendations do not extend to patients with mild or moderate infections, as they are unlikely to benefit from these drugs and instead may end up suffering a backlash due to a decreased immune response. (MIT Coronavirus Tech Report)

 

Ongoing Questions About the Russian Vaccine

A group of international scientists questioned results from a study of Russia’s fast-moving coronavirus vaccine that were published in the Lancet medical journal, saying some of the findings appeared improbable. The researchers flagged concerns over seemingly identical levels of antibodies in a number of study participants who were inoculated with the experimental vaccine. This and other patterns in the data present “several different points of concern,” according to an open letter written by Temple University professor Enrico Bucci and signed by more than a dozen other scientists. (Bloomberg News)

–Tracking the Virus Around the World–

–FROM JOHNS HOPKINS CSSE–

The Cultures of Dignity Resources for Supporting

Social-Emotional Wellness 

A Final Note: The AAIE COVID-19 Briefing is provided to support your leadership for the school community you serve. We encourage you to use these resources in any way, shape or form that helps you, your communications and toward furthering close relationships across your community.  – The AAIE Board