5 ms·

It’s true, our child care collapsed. A bunch folks folks are sick at work either for actual sickness, to care for kids or a sick family member. It’s a cascade o

by rdtwo 5y ago

It’s true, our child care collapsed. A bunch folks folks are sick at work either for actual sickness, to care for kids or a sick family member. It’s a cascade of institutional failures. Btw F-Npr they used to good but now it’s a New York Times like propaganda network.

relaytheurgency 5y ago
I don't think the opinion about the source is appropriate on Hacker News, but I can concur the child care problem is real and difficult. My child's classroom closed for a week because of a positive case. My child tested negative, so she can still potentially get sick which would cause _another_ closure plus she would have to quarantine for 10 days. There are 8 kids in the classroom, so I could be looking at losing 7*5+10 days of child care before this is over.
- D13Fd 5y ago
  Yes, the child care problem is huge. My kids' daycare is short-staffed due to staff being out sick, which means they have to combine the classrooms at times. Then when one child in a combined classroom tests positive for COVID, all of those kids--and all of the teachers--are sent home for the isolation period. This results in more short-staffing and more combined classrooms, which leads to even more opportunities for COVID exposure. It's a cascading failure, and it doesn't stop there. The parents end up watching their own kids and have to call out of work themselves (or work remotely at greatly reduced capacity).
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    It's a policy failure. Government should've paid a parent to stay home and provide childcare for their kids until under 5s could be vaccinated, instead of what we have now, which is a broken, dysfunctional childcare system attempting to keep itself together (and failing, both due to wages being too low to make the work worthwhile, spread of COVID, etc). I don't know how you convince anyone in the current environment to be a childcare provider or teacher, when there are robust alternative employment options available that pay more for a better work environment.
    - rdtwo 5y ago
      In the us we’re still a in 1950s Backwards mindset that a woman’s place is at home with the kids in the kitchen and our government services are based around that. At the same time it’s basically impossible to not be poor without two incomes.
- nradov 5y ago
  The notion of closing a whole classroom due to a single positive case is ridiculous and counterproductive. We're all going to be exposed occasionally regardless of what protective measures we take. Fortunately CDC data clearly shows that on average COVID-19 is less dangerous to children than other common viruses like RSV. And no, closing classrooms isn't necessary to protect teachers. They've been vaccinated for months now, and are free to wear PPE if they choose. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/han00443.asp https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/han00443.asp
lawlorino 5y ago
> Btw F-Npr they used to good but now it’s a New York Times like propaganda network. Not familiar with NPR as a European, what do you mean by this
- aaronax 5y ago
  Heavy focus on telling emotionally driven stories and a high percentage of stories focusing on inequalities and disadvantaged people.
- mml 5y ago
  I think it stands for "Nice, Polite Republicans"
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    Yeah republicans with strong focus on diversity and inclusion.
    - iqanq 5y ago
      In other words, modern republicans.
- brimble 5y ago
  NPR is "national public radio", known mainly for news programming, though they also carry other sorts of programs (humor, for instance). Only a tiny sliver of their operation is publicly (i.e. by government) funded, despite the name. This tiny bit often comes under attack because they're perceived as left-wing propagandists by the right (but so are most news outlets that aren't quite right-wing, so that means little on its own). At any rate, it's uncontroversial to note that they are some of the only news or political programming on the radio, in most parts of the country, that isn't very, very right wing. They famously hold funding drives a couple times a year, interrupting much of their usual programming to ask their listeners for donations... but these are also only a small part of their funding, and the drives amount to a kind of roundabout advertising or PR more than anything else. Most of their funds come from corporate and non-profit donors. [EDIT] And these get ads on the stations, read by NPR staff. "Donors", but actually many are just businesses paying for ads, like any other station has. This practice has gone from "they might name their donors sometimes" to "they frequently read ad copy on-air for them" in the last couple decades. On the left—so, among their traditional listenership—they are perceived, increasingly, as having a strong pro-corporate and pro-status-quo bias. This crowd perceives them as staunch defenders of the neo-liberal consensus that's driven US economic and foreign policy since the 80s, though they are (as corporations have, now that it's convenient, become) left-leaning on many social issues. Basically, lots and lots of people, right and left, don't like them. One might take this as a sign they're doing something right, but... well, I'll leave it to the listener to judge the quality of their coverage, whatever its leaning, for themselves. Suffice it that I, at least, think it's gone from "pretty good" in the '00s to total crap, now. IMO the best news coverage in a given broadcast day, for my local NPR affiliate, is when they're just re-broadcasting the BBC.

by rdtwo 5y ago

relaytheurgency 5y ago

I don't think the opinion about the source is appropriate on Hacker News, but I can concur the child care problem is real and difficult. My child's classroom closed for a week because of a positive case. My child tested negative, so she can still potentially get sick which would cause _another_ closure plus she would have to quarantine for 10 days. There are 8 kids in the classroom, so I could be looking at losing 7*5+10 days of child care before this is over.

D13Fd 5y ago
Yes, the child care problem is huge. My kids' daycare is short-staffed due to staff being out sick, which means they have to combine the classrooms at times. Then when one child in a combined classroom tests positive for COVID, all of those kids--and all of the teachers--are sent home for the isolation period. This results in more short-staffing and more combined classrooms, which leads to even more opportunities for COVID exposure. It's a cascading failure, and it doesn't stop there. The parents end up watching their own kids and have to call out of work themselves (or work remotely at greatly reduced capacity).
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  It's a policy failure. Government should've paid a parent to stay home and provide childcare for their kids until under 5s could be vaccinated, instead of what we have now, which is a broken, dysfunctional childcare system attempting to keep itself together (and failing, both due to wages being too low to make the work worthwhile, spread of COVID, etc). I don't know how you convince anyone in the current environment to be a childcare provider or teacher, when there are robust alternative employment options available that pay more for a better work environment.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    In the us we’re still a in 1950s Backwards mindset that a woman’s place is at home with the kids in the kitchen and our government services are based around that. At the same time it’s basically impossible to not be poor without two incomes.
nradov 5y ago
The notion of closing a whole classroom due to a single positive case is ridiculous and counterproductive. We're all going to be exposed occasionally regardless of what protective measures we take. Fortunately CDC data clearly shows that on average COVID-19 is less dangerous to children than other common viruses like RSV. And no, closing classrooms isn't necessary to protect teachers. They've been vaccinated for months now, and are free to wear PPE if they choose. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/han00443.asp https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/han00443.asp

lawlorino 5y ago

> Btw F-Npr they used to good but now it’s a New York Times like propaganda network. Not familiar with NPR as a European, what do you mean by this

aaronax 5y ago
Heavy focus on telling emotionally driven stories and a high percentage of stories focusing on inequalities and disadvantaged people.
mml 5y ago
I think it stands for "Nice, Polite Republicans"
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Yeah republicans with strong focus on diversity and inclusion.
  - iqanq 5y ago
    In other words, modern republicans.
brimble 5y ago
NPR is "national public radio", known mainly for news programming, though they also carry other sorts of programs (humor, for instance). Only a tiny sliver of their operation is publicly (i.e. by government) funded, despite the name. This tiny bit often comes under attack because they're perceived as left-wing propagandists by the right (but so are most news outlets that aren't quite right-wing, so that means little on its own). At any rate, it's uncontroversial to note that they are some of the only news or political programming on the radio, in most parts of the country, that isn't very, very right wing. They famously hold funding drives a couple times a year, interrupting much of their usual programming to ask their listeners for donations... but these are also only a small part of their funding, and the drives amount to a kind of roundabout advertising or PR more than anything else. Most of their funds come from corporate and non-profit donors. [EDIT] And these get ads on the stations, read by NPR staff. "Donors", but actually many are just businesses paying for ads, like any other station has. This practice has gone from "they might name their donors sometimes" to "they frequently read ad copy on-air for them" in the last couple decades. On the left—so, among their traditional listenership—they are perceived, increasingly, as having a strong pro-corporate and pro-status-quo bias. This crowd perceives them as staunch defenders of the neo-liberal consensus that's driven US economic and foreign policy since the 80s, though they are (as corporations have, now that it's convenient, become) left-leaning on many social issues. Basically, lots and lots of people, right and left, don't like them. One might take this as a sign they're doing something right, but... well, I'll leave it to the listener to judge the quality of their coverage, whatever its leaning, for themselves. Suffice it that I, at least, think it's gone from "pretty good" in the '00s to total crap, now. IMO the best news coverage in a given broadcast day, for my local NPR affiliate, is when they're just re-broadcasting the BBC.