QUICK LINKS for Busy People

Editor's Note:  The Office of Overseas Schools continues to update leadership and teaching and learning support to our schools. Recently published resource materials are provided below– especially important to the AAIE mission is the work that provides guidance on leading digital learning. Providing teachers and parents guidance is also essential to our leadership mandate.  

–THE REST OF THIS WEEK'S CONVERSATIONS–

with International School Leaders from Around the World

AAIE'S NEW SCHOOL PROJECT: Friday 5 February– EQUITY

 

This week we launch our seventh, and final principle of the New Schools Project: EQUITY. The principle is articulated as: “We commit to identify, confront, and dismantle structures and systems of inequity, to examine our privilege, and take equity actions to increase justice and ensure belonging.”  

 

If you’ve missed the previous Friday sessions, we’d still love to have you join this most vital and challenging discussion. Join us, and bring a colleague!

TODAY'S CONVERSATION:  Emotional Agility

–presenter, Dr. Fran Prolman, and the research of Dr. Susan David

• Accept them. The opposite of control is acceptance—not acting on every thought or resigning yourself to negativity but responding to your ideas and emotions with an open attitude, paying attention to them and letting yourself experience them. Take 10 deep breaths and notice what’s happening in the moment. The important thing is to show yourself (and others) some compassion and examine the reality of the situation. What’s going on—both internally and externally?
• Act on your values. When you unhook yourself from your difficult thoughts and emotions, you expand your choices. You can decide to act in a way that aligns with your values. We encourage leaders to focus on the concept of workability: Is your response going to serve you and your organization in the long term as well as the short term? Will it help you steer others in a direction that furthers your collective purpose? 

TEDTalk by Dr. Susan David, Harvard Medical School

Confronting Fear –

An Example of Labeling Our Thoughts and Emotions

–commentary from Margaret Wheatley

Fear

 

Fear is just part of human life. It's so common that every great spiritual tradition includes the injunction: "Be not afraid."

 

If fear is this fundamental to being human, we can expect that we'll feel afraid at times, perhaps even frequently.  Yet when fear appears, we don't have to worry that we've failed, or take it as a sign that we're not as good as other people.  In fact, we're just like other people.  Fear is simple evidence that we're human.

 

What's important to decide is what we do with our fear. We can withdraw, flee, distract or numb ourselves.  Or we can acknowledge that we're scared.  And stay right here.  

 

We can stay where we are and bravely investigate our fear. We can move toward it, curious about it. We can even interview it. What does it feel like? What color is it? Does it have texture, size, personality?

 

What's important is to question the fear itself. We're not asking ourselves why we feel afraid, which is our usual inquiry. We just want to know more about this seemingly frightful creature that showed up in us. 

 

Our investigation moves us closer and closer, and then the fear begins to change. Paradoxically, the more we engage directly with it, the less fearful it becomes. 

 

It is our curiosity that transforms fear. Most often, it dissolves into energy that we can work with.

 

And all because we were willing to develop a relationship with what, at first, appeared so frightening.   

 

(thanks to Shabbi Luthra for sending on to us Margaret Wheatley's commentary)

STAYING UP-TO-DATE ON CORONAVIRUS SCIENCE

 

The devastation of the pandemic — millions of deaths, economic strife and unprecedented curbs on social interaction — has already had a marked effect on people’s mental health. Researchers worldwide are investigating the causes and impacts of this stress, and some fear that the deterioration in mental health could linger long after the pandemic has subsided.

There are three things a vaccine can do: stop you from acquiring the disease altogether, stop onward transmission, and stop symptoms. We know that hardly anyone who gets a covid-19 vaccine ends up in an ICU on a respirator, but we don’t yet know how well these vaccines stop transmission. That’s because it’s expensive and complicated to measure. The evidence so far suggests that vaccines should cut the chance of transmission, but may not eliminate it.

 

What’s happening: Pfizer is recruiting volunteers in Argentina and in the US to help answer that question. These volunteers will undergo a series of nasal swabs to regularly test for the virus. The outcome of this trial is likely to be critical to determining how the pandemic plays out and how soon life goes back to normal.

 

The significance: Stopping transmission is the only way to get rid of the coronavirus for good. But if vaccinated people are “leaky”—if they can still spread the virus sometimes—it makes it much harder to reach the threshold for “herd immunity”, commonly thought to be about 70% of the population. And that means the pandemic will last longer, and we’ll still have to rely on measures like masks, and social distancing.

Here are five reasons why schools can and should open at 100% capacity before a vaccine for those under age 16 is available.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has harmed children — not because they have fallen ill from the virus, for the most part, but by the choices societies have made to protect adults who are vastly more likely to suffer from the disease. In many places, kids have already lost a year of school, development, and life. A vaccine for kids will not happen in the short term, and emergency regulatory pathways for one or more of them may not be appropriate. The risk and benefit will need scrutiny.  

–THE NEWS of COVID-19–

104,221,874 Cases Worldwide (Johns Hopkins CSSE)

The WHO Investigation Continues in Wuhan

A team of experts from the World Health Organization investigating the origins of the pandemic visited a research center in Wuhan, China, on Wednesday that has been a focus of several unfounded theories about the coronavirus.

 

The W.H.O. scientists met with staff members at the center, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses a state-of-the-art laboratory known for its research on coronaviruses. The institute came under scrutiny last year as the Trump administration promoted the unsubstantiated theory that the virus might have leaked from a government-run laboratory in China. But many senior American officials have said in private that evidence pointing to a lab accident is mainly circumstantial.

 

Most scientists agree that the coronavirus most likely emerged in the natural world and spread from animals to humans. Peter Daszak, one of the experts on the W.H.O. team, described the conversation on Wednesday at the Wuhan institute as candid. “Key questions asked & answered,” he wrote on Twitter, without providing details.

 

One of the people the W.H.O. team met was Shi Zhengli, known as China’s “Bat Woman” for her study on coronaviruses found in bats. In June, Dr. Shi had expressed initial fears that the virus could have leaked from the lab, according to an interview with the Scientific American. Later, checks showed that none of the gene sequences had matched the viruses that staff members were studying.

 

Separately, China announced on Wednesday that it would provide 10 million Covid-19 vaccines to Covax, a global body established to promote equitable access to coronavirus inoculations. (New York Times)

 

AstraZeneca Vaccine Slows Transmission Too

The vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca not only protects people from serious illness and death but also substantially slows the transmission of the virus, according to a new study — a finding that underscores the importance of mass vaccination as a path out of the pandemic. The study by researchers at the University of Oxford is the first to document evidence that any coronavirus vaccine can reduce transmission of the virus.Coronavirus variants are causing concern as they mutate. (The New York Times)

 

The UK Coronavirus Variant Has Further Mutated 

Samples of the more transmissible B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant, which was first detected in the UK, have acquired a mutation that will help them evade immune protection – the same mutation already present in the B.1.351 variant in South Africa, which is now spreading worldwide. Local transmission of the B.1.351 variant has been confirmed in the US, several European countries including the UK, Israel and much of sub-Saharan Africa.

 

It isn’t yet clear if B.1.351 is more transmissible, but it is certain that it can partly evade the immunity we develop from natural infection by other coronavirus variants and from vaccines.

 

The big worry is that it could evolve further and completely evade immunity, undermining vaccination efforts. (New Scientist)

 

USA Setting Up Disease Forecasting Service–

Similar to Predicting the Weather

The US is setting up a forecasting service that aims to do for diseases what the weather service does for meteorology. The day after his inauguration, Joe Biden announced the creation of the National Center for Epidemic Forecasting and Outbreak Analyticsfor “modernizing global early warning and trigger systems for scaling action to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from emerging biological threats.” 

 

The center’s name is strikingly similar to that of an imagined organization that Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security think-tank, sketched out in an essay last year for Foreign Affairs. That vision, co-authored with Dylan George, a specialist in biological threats, was for an agency that could bring together disparate strands of expertise relating to infectious disease modeling and give academics a permanent seat at tables where policy and strategy decisions are made. Their National Center for Epidemic Forecasting and Analytics would replace the groups usually thrown together at short notice when an outbreak happens, such as the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic. (via Financial Times, foreignaffairs.com)

 

An Alarming Amazon Variant

A new coronavirus variant from the Amazon is alarming scientists and overwhelming overcrowded hospitals in northern Brazil, raising the prospect of a prolonged outbreak in a country that has secured only a fraction of the vaccines it needs. The P1 variant was first identified by researchers in mid-January among Japanese visitors to the Amazon, and it has since spread to another seven countries, including the U.S. It is likely more contagious and better able to reinfect people, according to researchers studying its mutations. Doctors fear it could also be more deadly.

 

While researchers are still in the early stages of investigating the Amazonian variant, epidemiologists say it is at least partly responsible for a more than fourfold rise in cases in the past month in Manaus, the city of two million in the heart of the rainforest. (The Wall Street Journal)

 

Sputnik V is 92% Effective According to Lancet

Russia's so-called Sputnik V vaccine appears to be almost 92% effective against COVID-19, according to peer-reviewed late-stage trial results published in The Lancet, a prominent international medical journal.

 

When Russia approved Sputnik V in August, saying it was the first country to deploy an inoculation against the coronavirus, its claims prompted accusations that the vaccine program was rushed out before sufficient data had been collected. Tuesday's published findings bolster confidence in the vaccine's effectiveness.

 

Meanwhile, Mexico becomes the latest country to sign a supply contract for Sputnik V. The country's deputy health minister is quoted by Reuters as saying emergency approval use for the coronavirus shot is expected within hours. (Nikkei Asia, BBC, Lancet)

 

Cases and Fatalities Continue in India

India's daily cases and deaths have hit fresh lows. The country reported 8,635 cases in the last 24 hours, down from 11,427 the previous day and the lowest single-day rise since early June, bringing the total to 10.77 million. Fatalities fell to 94, sinking below 100 for the first time since the second week of May and bringing the total to 154,486. India started vaccinations on Jan. 16 and has so far inoculated 3.95 million people, according to the health ministry. (Nikkei Asia)

 

Japan to Extend COVID-19 State of Emergency to March 7

The central government plans to extend the state of emergency covering Tokyo and other regions struggling to contain coronavirus outbreaks by one month until March 7, an official with knowledge of the situation said Monday.

 

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he will make a final decision on the extension after hearing from an expert panel on Tuesday. “Coronavirus cases are declining, but we must remain vigilant for a while longer,” he told reporters after meeting with members of his Cabinet, including Yasutoshi Nishimura, minister in charge of the nation’s COVID-19 response, and health minister Norihisa Tamura.

 

According to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Tokyo and neighboring Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama prefectures will remain under the state of emergency, as will Aichi, Gifu, Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka. Tochigi Prefecture, lying to the north of Tokyo, will be removed because its coronavirus situation has significantly improved. Okinawa Prefecture, which was under consideration to be added due to outbreaks on remote islands, will be left off the list, the official said.

 

The emergency has helped halt a rapid acceleration of virus cases, which hit records in early January and raised worries of ripping through the developed world’s oldest population. While infection numbers have dropped since then, the Suga government has said they are still worryingly high.

 

“Looking at the situation from region to region, the number of infections is still high and the medical system continues to be strained,” said Shigeru Omi, the doctor chairing the government’s coronavirus subcommittee. (The Japan Times)

–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