Today’s Link
The Economist’s chart of the day is an attempt to work out how much Covid19 is in the community in various countries.
Across the 11 European countries studied, official government statistics indicate that there are 319,500 confirmed cases, affecting less than 0.1% of the population. The Imperial researchers peg the more likely figure at 18.5m cases (with a confidence interval of between 7m and 43m), which suggests that, as of March 28th, 5% of the population in these countries have contracted the virus.
That confidence interval is pretty wide. But the 7m to 43m range is certainly a lot more than the just over 300 thousand officially diagnosed cases.
Life Glimpses
This week I got more into Zoom and its analogues for meetings. The two biggest experiences involved lots of people. The French class I signed up for after I finished full time work moved quickly from in person, to google hangouts, to (this week, changing in the middle) zoom. I’m very impressed with my french teacher who managed a four hour class with 7 people, half of whom hadn’t used zoom before. And now we know how to use the imperatif case! (and my four hour french class yesterday was the reason I just ran out of time for a blog post – I had to break the daily streak eventually).
And I had my first go at chairing a meeting – it is MUCH harder than in person. Even though you can (in theory) see everyone’s face and their body language, the occasional freezing of the video, the people on the phone, and the awkwardness of only one person at a time makes it a much more formal experience. I’ve lost the article I found with tips about how to do it, but the main tip to remember is that a meeting will take longer than an in person meeting. And the second tip is that you need to call on people, as the chair – free flowing discussion is hard (and often dysfunctional) no matter how well people know each other. It’s still much better than a teleconference, despite the challenges.
Bit of Beauty
Today’s bit of beauty comes from bike ride around the foreshores. I think I’ll stop doing those on the weekend, as there are just too many people around. It is almost impossible to stay more than 1.5m away from people 100% of the time, particularly those people who don’t seem to think it is necessary. It was a beautiful day, though.
I will skip reflections No.14. Interested in the French course, 4 hours seem a lot, will you do it daily,are
the participants are more or less on the same level, not beginners, of course.
Your Zoom experience will get and better with more meetings. Though I do not use it, I also have
Zoom, I feel I am part of the 21st century now. The foreshores are so lovely, if not on the weekends, do the bike rides on week days, your photos do justice to views.
Love Marta