![]() –MONDAY–
AAIE's COVID-19 BRIEFING #114
September 21, 2020
–Highlights–
–QUICK LINKS FOR BUSY PEOPLE–
SCHOOL REOPENING TOOLBOX AAIE's ONLINE CONVERSATIONS ARCHIVE AAIE's SIX-QUESTION SURVEY RESULTS ON SCHOOL REOPENING
AAIE MEMBERSHIP FOR 2020-21 SIGN-UP FOR THIS YEAR'S COHORT OF LEADERS SUPPORTING LEADERS THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION DASHBOARD
![]() THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR THE NEW SCHOOL PROJECT
–Beginning the Week with a Poem to Consider– from Dr. Kate C. McKenna, International School Nido de Aguilas
The International School Nido de Aguilas completed six weeks of virtual school, and on September 11th, we made it to our spring break. As a way of guiding the faculty into the holiday week, I shared this poem with our faculty, as it felt like the only way to appropriately honor the amount of work, energy, and dedication that they had put into the start of this virtual school year. I am sharing this poem now with AAIE in hopes that other international school leaders might find that these words resonate and inspire—also hoping that other schools have a spring (or fall break) on the horizon. –Kate McKenna
For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing – by John O’Donohue
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
The light in the mind becomes dim. Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
At first your thinking will darken
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Take refuge in your senses, open up
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
THIS WEEK'S LEADERSHIP CONVERSATIONS with International School Leaders Around the World
WEDNESDAY September 23 08:00AM EDT LESSONS LEARNED– THE LIBERATING FORCE OF CRISIS Presented by Dr. Marta Medved Krajnovic and the Western Academy of Beijing Academic Leaders From Dr. Medved:
THURSDAY September 24 08:00AM EDT SCHOOL HEADS AND SENIOR LEADERS AROUND THE WORLD #30! Our Weekly Conversation – hosted by Will Richardson All international school senior leaders are welcome. A Weekly CONVERSATION between School Heads and Senior Leaders– #30. Our discussions continue to be contemporary, important and a time we teach each other. The dilemmas and conundrums are ever-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.
THURSDAY September 24 10:00AM EDT LATIN AMERICAN SCHOOL LEADERS– Our Weekly Conversation #20 – hosted by Sonia Keller (Tri-Association) and Dereck Rhoads (AASSA) 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. Our sessions are hosted by Sonia Keller and Dereck Rhoads.
American School Foundation-Monterrey Waiting on the Green Light for Hybrid Learning and Preparing the Community
EDITOR's NOTE: Many of you have reviewed the ASFM Distance Learning 2.0 plan, and now Michael Adams and his team have advanced a Hybrid Learning Model, giving the school community awareness and knowledge on how it will be unfolded once the central government provides a green light to move away from full online learning. Unmistakable is ASFM's commitment to a set of guiding principles– upfront within the just released hybrid learning version.
–from Michael Adams
Although the COVID-19 pandemic continues to present the most serious public health crisis the world has experienced in generations, our ASFM educators (with the wonderful help of parents) are doing an amazing job meeting the needs of our online learners from grades Nursery through 12. As we prepare for a possible transition from our DLP 2.0 to a Hybrid Learning Scenario, we must use a pathway for reopening our campus safely with the health and wellbeing of our entire community in mind at all times.
If and when we receive the authorization to open in a Hybrid mode, we will do so over a gradual three-week period and in a way that meets the needs of our learners and of our community. The ASFM Hybrid Learning scenario is guided by the assumption that a vaccine will not be available for another 6-18 months, which means ASFM needs to be able to respond quickly to circumstances in its own school community as well as to conditions in Mexico. As we prepare for this possible transition to a Hybrid Learning mode, we know we may need to close it again with very little advance warning. This means ASFM must be prepared to “toggle” between different learning scenario models designed to fit a variety of circumstances and drivers.
As was clearly stated within the Roadmap 2.0, our potential transition to a Hybrid model of learning is completely dependent on the State of Nuevo Leon’s authorization and stoplight system. As we all know, based on State regulations, all schools are still under restricted conditions and as such we will need to continue with our DLP 2.0 until further notice. Only with a GREEN light from the state will we be able to begin our transition to the Hybrid Learning scenario.
![]() ![]() Dr. Michael Adams, Superintendent
An ASFM Community Appeal: VALUES MATTER
Values matter, especially during a crisis. They allow individuals and institutions to orient themselves and set priorities quickly. They permit us to navigate confusion, turmoil, and emotion. They compel us to reflect on our relationships with, and obligations to, others. Most importantly, they inform our decisions and actions. ASFM is committed to supporting our students in an open minded, caring and global manner, empowering all students to continue to develop their individual potential in this ever-changing world and based on the following principles:
An Example of the High School Daily Schedule Using the Hybrid Learning Hub Model: Use of Cohorts
CLICK HERE or above for the Hybrid Learning Hub Table of Contents ![]()
We're Not Out of the Woods Yet: Answering a Key Leadership Dilemma– When Covid-19 Enters Your School From Tara Waudby Editor's Note: Head of School Tara Waudby shares a flowchart that describes key steps–medical and otherwise– that can guide an international school when Covid-19 enters your community. In Tara's words, "I am attaching our COVID Response flowchart in case it might be helpful to other schools. Some of it is country related, but much of it is probably transferable. We have used it for s drill and I hope that is all we will need it for." ![]() ![]() The (Anti)fragility of our schools ![]() by Dr. David Willows, International School of Brussels ![]() It was Friedrich Nietzsche who once famously said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
Echoing with the same sentiment, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder introduces us to the idea that “Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty.”
Taleb: "The best way to verify that you are alive is by checking if you like variations."
Let’s take a moment to unpack this idea by considering three everyday objects: a china vase, a brick, and a human muscle. Each one, according to Taleb, responds differently to disorder and when subjected to stress. A china vase is fragile and easily breaks into pieces when dropped on the floor. A brick, by contrast, is robust and can withstand a considerable amount of stress and pressure. At the same time, it can hardly be said to “thrive” under pressure and will itself crumble when faced with a huge or unexpected strike. A human muscle, by contrast, is, in Taleb’s words, antifragile in that not only can it withstand a degree of stress, it actually benefits from it and becomes stronger as a result.
"By insisting on locking everything down, always taking the smooth path, and leaving nothing to chance, not only do we remove that element of luck that is so critical in the process of human discovery, we make ourselves fragile and more vulnerable to future volatile events."
Caught up in the midst of a global pandemic, with all of the volatility and disorder that it has brought in its wake, there is no doubt that the landscape of education has been altered and that some schools were always going to be too fragile to survive the shock of Covid-19. Many others have survived only by drawing deep into human, financial and other resources. A few, I would argue, are beginning to discover that it is not just about weathering the storm, but that there is the possibility of growing, changing - even thriving - under these conditions. But what are the conditions under which we can help our schools become antifragile? Taleb’s book is intentionally non-linear, so he hasn’t exactly provided us with an off-the-shelf manual. At the same time there are clues and here are just three that I picked up along the way to get the conversation going.
1.Beware the Fragilistas. The Fragilista, Taleb explains, is someone to be avoided. Often found in meetings, they cause fragility by their naive rationalism. They are constantly writing policies and generating actions, the benefits of which are small and invisible. In doing so, they deprive “variability-loving systems of variability and error-loving systems of errors.” The Fragilisita, Taleb concludes, knows the cause and effect of everything - at least, that is what they think - but tends to create systems that crumble when an inevitable surprise comes their way.
Discussion question: If schools truly are “error-loving systems”, rooted in the idea than failure is a critical part of the learning process, what are things that are starving these systems of oxygen?
2. Avoid the tourist trap, become a flâneur. Taleb dislikes tourists, but only for the fact that their formulaic approach to adventure is so one dimensional and blindingly goal-driven. Touristification sets in, he says, when we become prisoners of our plans and stop learning from what is right in front of our eyes or from occasionally taking a different turn. The “rational flâneur” (flâneur, someone who wanders around observing), by contrast, is someone who, unlike the tourist, is happy and confident enough to go off course and, at every step, is ready to revise and adjust his schedule based on new information. The tourist has designed the route and has a predetermined end in mind. The flâneur is simply tinkering. And tinkering, he concludes, always outperforms design.
Discussion question: What are the plans in place that may be stopping you from discovering other alternative routes and alternative futures?
3. Don’t deny a bird the opportunity to fly. Taleb quotes Baudelaire’s sad poem about the albatross to make the point that what is made to fly will not do well trapped on the ground. In the same way, he says, organizations need volatility (volare, to fly) to succeed. By insisting on locking everything down, always taking the smooth path, and leaving nothing to chance, not only do we remove that element of luck that is so critical in the process of human discovery, we make ourselves fragile and more vulnerable to future volatile events.
Discussion question: What is the level of risk that your school is comfortable taking and where might this be making you vulnerable to future volatile events?
Only a few weeks into a new school year, the final words in Taleb’s remarkable book offer us comfort: “The best way to verify that you are alive is by checking if you like variations.” Modernity has tended to avoid volatility at all costs. So have many schools, making them ultimately more fragile than we had realized.
At the same time, if we find ourselves right now being tossed around by the turbulent waters of a pandemic, constantly adjusting our course only to survive, that may just be a sign that we are going to emerge out of this much stronger than at first we ever would have thought. –THE NEWS of COVID-19– 31,183,470 Cases Worldwide (Johns Hopkins CSSE)
The Week That Was It has been a devastating week for many reasons. The U.S. is expected to reach 200,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19, and experts say the actual toll is likely even higher. And last Friday, the Supreme Court lost a feminist icon in Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death and replacement on the court could threaten progress in preserving affordable healthcare and women's reproductive rights. (Scientific American)
Making the Case for Success: Thailand as a Best Case Example On 13 January this year, Thailand was the first country outside of China to record a case of the disease. Thailand’s experience with SARS and H5N1 – combined with a strong public health and surveillance system – gave them the “muscle memory” to respond quickly to COVID-19. Leadership across government of Thailand and public engagement supported by a million community health workers helped swiftly scale up an effective track and trace system.
This empowered the country to suppress the virus as citizens played their part in breaking the chains of transmission. WHO recently shared a video outlining Thailand’s response and we appreciate Thailand. Developing “muscle memory’, like Thailand did from previous outbreaks, is key to pandemic response and now we need the whole world to strengthen preparedness. From endless warnings about the world being under-prepared, all countries need to dig in together and invest to ensure a pandemic of this magnitude and severity never happens again.
With the right political and financial commitment and investment now, we can prevent and mitigate future pandemics. In a world that is heating up and where intensified human activity is shrinking wild spaces, the likelihood of spillover of a novel pathogen from animals to humans is increasing.
We know for certain that there will be future novel viruses and another so called disease X. But we also have the tools and know that the only way confront these global threats is as a global community, united in solidarity and committed to long-term cooperation. (WHO: Director General Commentary)
Winter is Coming… Some of the physical elements of winter weather make viruses more difficult to escape. The coronaviruses that cause the common cold reliably peak in winter months, as do influenza viruses. There is some mystery as to why. It seems partly due to the air: Viruses travel differently in air of different temperatures and humidity levels. In typical summer weather, the microscopic liquid particles that shoot out of our mouths don’t travel as efficiently as they do in dry winter air.
Cold weather also drives us inside, where air recirculates. “As things get colder, activities and people will start moving indoors, and unfortunately that’s going to increase transmission risk, and the risk of super-spreading events,” Tom Inglesby, the director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins, told me. The public-health directives that have allowed many businesses to reopen in recent months—by opening windows and doing as much as possible outdoors—will no longer be feasible in regions where temperatures plunge as the days grow short.
Winter days also wear on our body’s defense mechanisms. When people become more sedentary, our immune systems become less vigilant, and our overall resilience flags. Symptoms of depression, too, tend to run high in winter. This year these symptoms will be accompanied by restrictions on social life and concerns for health and economic security, leaving us physiologically vulnerable. “There is a growing sense of behavioral fatigue, and a real need for segments of the population to get back to work,” says Albert Ko, the chair of the department of epidemiology of microbial diseases at Yale School of Public Health. “I think the resurgence is going to be worse than what we’ve seen in the summer.”
“A lot of what we’re expecting about what might happen this winter comes from previous pandemics,” says Stephen Kissler, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. Flu pandemics tend to travel in waves, and often the first fall and winter waves are the worst. There are striking similarities so far between the current pandemic and the 2009 influenza pandemic, Kissler told me. “There was patchy transmission in the spring, in New York City and some other places, but then there was a unified wave that hit the entire country. It started right around now, the beginning of September.”
In a typical cold-and-flu season, many of us are protected—or partially protected—by antibodies to circulating viruses. But with COVID-19, the number of people with antibodies is still low. Even in the cities hardest hit by the disease, it seems that roughly 85 percent of people are still without antibodies. And if the immunity these antibodies confer is incomplete or short-lived, the number could effectively be even higher. This goes against the president’s allusions to how we might safely defeat the virus with “herd immunity.”
The CDC Says Coronavirus is Airborne and Spread by Aerosols, Warns of Poorly Ventilated Spaces (then two hours after posting, it backed away from this scientific stance) For months, scientists and public health experts have warned of mounting evidence that the novel coronavirus is airborne, transmitted through tiny droplets called aerosols that linger in the air much longer than the larger globs that come from coughing or sneezing.
Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agrees (has since backed away from this largely held opinion and science). The CDC recently changed its official guidance to note that aerosols are “thought to be the main way the virus spreads” and to warn that poorly ventilated indoor spaces are particularly dangerous.
“There is growing evidence that droplets and airborne particles can remain suspended in the air and be breathed in by others, and travel distances beyond 6 feet (for example, during choir practice, in restaurants, or in fitness classes),” the agency stated. “In general, indoor environments without good ventilation increase this risk.” The fitness industry is trying to lure gym members back — but experts say it’s using flawed data.
While the CDC has not called for any new action to address the airborne threat of a virus that has now killed nearly 200,000 Americans, experts said the change should help to shift policy and public behavior.
“It’s a major change,” Jose-Luis Jimenez, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies how aerosols spread the virus, told The Washington Post. “This is a good thing, if we can reduce transmission because more people understand how it is spreading and know what to do to stop it.”
The CDC shifted its guidelines on Friday, but the change was not widely noticed until a CNN report on Sunday. Where the agency previously warned that the virus mostly spreads through large drops encountered at close range, it now cites “small particles, such as those in aerosols,” as the most common vector.
“These particles can be inhaled into the nose, mouth, airways, and lungs and cause infection,” the guidance says. “This is thought to be the main way the virus spreads.” Since the pandemic began, arguments have raged over how the virus travels — and how to best halt it. At first, widespread fear of contaminated surfaces led some to bleach their groceries and mail. But the CDC soon concluded that person-to-person transmission was a much more pressing threat. Instead, the agency focused its guidance on avoiding the larger droplets hacked up by sneezes and coughs, which are thought to be mostly limited to a six-foot radius.
But researchers long suspected that the virus could travel much farther, especially indoors and in places where people talk loudly or sing. Infamously, one infected person in March unknowingly passed the coronavirus to 52 others at a choir practice in Washington state. Similar indoor “superspreader” events added weight to the idea of an airborne threat.
The World Health Organization recognized the threat of aerosols in July, after hundreds of scientists urged the international body to address airborne spread. It’s not clear why the CDC finally followed; Jimenez said high-ranking CDC officials were still arguing publicly against airborne transmission as a major vector as recently as late August. (Washington Post)
Distressing Coming Days in the UK Britain faces a further six months of “very difficult” lockdown restrictions, Downing Street has warned, as Boris Johnson prepares the country for fresh measures to combat the latest increase in infections. The government’s chief scientific and medical officers will tell the public today that Britain is “heading in the wrong direction” and that we are at a “critical point in the pandemic.” Mr. Johnson is expected to announce further lockdown measures in the coming days, with cabinet ministers split over how extensive these should be. (Times of London)
More on the UK Britain is entering a second wave of coronavirus, Boris Johnson has said as scientists expressed fears the death toll could be as high as in the first spike without a rapid change in public behavior. The prime minister is prepared to impose sweeping nationwide measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, it is understood. About 13.5 million people in the UK – one in five – are already facing local lockdowns after the government introduced new measures in parts of the north-west, Yorkshire and the Midlands. Speaking during a visit to Oxfordshire, Johnson said: “We are now seeing a second wave coming in. We’ve seen it in France, in Spain, across Europe. It’s been absolutely inevitable, I’m afraid, that we would see it in this country.” (The Guardian)
Madrid Returns as a Center for Infections Madrid, the region of Europe with the highest rate of coronavirus infections, has ordered 850,000 people not to leave their neighborhoods as it struggles to keep pace with more than 45,000 cases over the past two weeks alone. Under new rules that take effect on midnight at Monday and will apply for an initial period of two weeks, people can only exit or enter the affected areas for work, education, health or similar reasons. The measure will apply to the parts of Madrid most afflicted by the second wave of the pandemic — 37 areas largely in the poorer south of the city that account for 13 per cent of the region’s population and 24 per cent of its coronavirus cases. (Financial Times)
A Third Wave in Iran Iran appears to be in the grip of a “third wave” of the coronavirus outbreak, with the number of new infections above 3,000 a day – as high as at any point since the virus first hit in February. Iran was one of the first countries to be struck by the virus outside China. Its officials brought the disease under a form of control by early May, but then experienced an increase at the start of June that drifted down to fewer than 1,600 new cases a day in late August. (The Guardian)
Is It Possible for Pre-Existing Immunity Do many people have pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2? With public health responses around the world predicated on the assumption that the virus entered the human population with no pre-existing immunity before the pandemic, serosurvey data are leading many to conclude that the virus has, as Mike Ryan, WHO’s head of emergencies, put it, “a long way to burn.” Yet a stream of studies that have documented SARS-CoV-2 reactive T cells in people without exposure to the virus are raising questions about just how new the pandemic virus really is, with many implications. At least six studies have reported T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 in 20% to 50% of people with no known exposure to the virus. (The British Medical Journal)
–The STATS–
TOTAL GLOBAL CASES:
Johns Hopkins–31,183,470
WHO–30,949,804
GLOBAL DEATHS (WHO):
Today–959,116
Three Days Ago–943,433
EVOLUTION OF-GLOBAL CASES (WHO):
Today–30,949,804
Three Days Ago– 30,055,710
NEW CASES (WHO):
Today–272,585
–Tracking the Virus Around the World– ![]()
–FROM JOHNS HOPKINS CSSE–
The Cultures of Dignity Resources for Supporting Social-Emotional Wellness
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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 |