Beyond the Walls #5

ways to keep in touch with friends

Ways to Keep in Touch with Frieds

Ela, Jessica, Kay, Sofie

Distance Learning in other countries

Lucas K.

Online classes brought a lot of change into our lives. From the way we study to the way we talk to our friends. It is not just us that is experiencing this. Many countries around the world are also doing their own ways of distance learning. While not every country in the world is doing distance learning, here are some of the countries that are:

Italy - The government of Italy created a website that supports schools to start online learning. The MoE (Ministry of Education) also signed protocols that would make many online resources free.

Korea - The Korean government delayed the start date of every school. The country started online classes with 9th grade and 12th grade, which began on April 9, and grades 4 -11 began on April 16. The Ministry of Education (MoE) gathered 250 million dollars to support websites and platforms that the schools use for education.

Mexico - The government of Mexico is expanding the use of a television channel called “Telesecundaria.” It is a program that allows children living in rural areas to study. They are also dedicated to supporting the “Formación y capacitación digitales” program, which is a program that is dedicated to train teachers for digital learning. On the website of the government of Mexico, digital textbooks have been freely distributed, both in text and braille format.

Indonesia - The Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) cancelled the national exams. They stated that this will not affect graduation and enrollment, and students’ graduation will depend on their previous five semesters. They are also using a television channel to help educate, similar to Mexico.

Russia - Many online platforms have been made available to students, parents and teachers. Russian IT companies have also been supporting education. A national hotline has been launched to support regional ministries. Universities are sharing their online channels. The MoE has also put out guidelines for distance learning, as well as free resources on governmental websites.

These are just some of the many countries that are doing some form of distance learning. All of these methods are quite adventurous. After all, we've never tried distance learning before. It is something new. However, many countries are handling this situation well despite how chaotic it is. It is up to us to decide what we do next.

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COVID + shopping, sports, & the economy

Why is everyone taking the toilet paper?

Will G.

For months now, since the CoronaVirus outbreak began in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, many people have been panicking and panic buying. But why have people been flying for the toilet paper?

The toilet paper panic-buying first started in Australia, as hoarders started buying all the toilet paper they could find for fear that there wouldn’t be any left. It wasn’t only toilet paper though: canned tomatoes were also a big hit among panic-buyers as stated on The Daily Mercury.

As the toilet paper craze swept Australia, the prime minister had something to say about it. “Just stop it, it’s un-Australian” he stated, in a lengthy press conference on the 18th of march on the news.com.au. The toilet paper craze then moved to America, as people fought and lined up to buy up to a year’s worth supply.

Now saying all this from a civilian’s perspective, Many people were interviewed on 9 News after a fight in an Australian supermarket chain. One person stated in the argument “I just want one pack,” One of the women shouted.

In the end, is there really a need to hoard all this toilet paper.? Well, some people think you should and some are against it which you can see on theconversation.com. In the end, the hoarding of toilet paper and other canned goods leave other members of the public without them.

3 ways COVID-19 is affecting soccer

Audric H.

The COVID-19 virus, also known as the coronavirus, is rapidly spreading around the world. As a result of this, many schools closed, including ISM; many countries experienced a downturn in the economy; and due to panic buying, some items such as face masks and even toilet paper are out of stock in many stores. But these are not the only things the coronavirus is affecting. In this article, I will tell you three ways in which soccer has been affected by the coronavirus.

1. Leagues and Euro Cup 2020 suspended

Many leagues are suspended, including major leagues like England’s Premier League,

Spain’s LaLiga, and Italy’s Serie A. Many soccer fans joke around how sad they are now since there are no big games anymore. The only big leagues still playing are:

Superliga Argentina - games played without fans in attendance
Hyundai A-League (Australia) - games played without fans in attendance
Russian Premier League - crowds limited to no more than 5,000
Allsvenskan (Sweden) - games played without fans in attendance
Süper Lig (Turkey) - games played without fans in attendance
Ukrainian Premier League - games played without fans in attendance

Also, the UEFA Euro Cup, which was supposed to happen this summer, has been suspended until next summer. The Euro cup is a tournament for the 24 European countries that have qualified, and occurs once every four years.

2. Soccer players infected by COVID-19

A lot of soccer players are infected by the coronavirus. Most of them play for the Italian club Sampdoria, which has six players infected, plus another one unconfirmed. Not only are players infected. Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta is also infected, as well as the owner of the clubs Olympiacos and Nottingham Forest. Evangelos Marinakis and recently former Real Madrid president Lorenzo Sanz passed away after getting infected by the coronavirus. Other famous players who are infected are: Paulo Dybala, Blaise Matuidi and Daniele Rugani (Juventus); Callum Hudson-Odoi (Chelsea); Ezequiel Garay and Elaquim Mangala (Valencia); and Marouane Fellaini (Shandong Luneng).

3. Financial problems

Since there are no matches anymore, clubs aren’t earning any money so a lot of clubs are having big financial problems. Because of that, the clubs have to take action. They need to reduce the salary of the players or possibly even fire them. Many clubs are doing a big ‘clean-up’ as they call it. To save money, they fire their players or greatly reduce their salary. For some clubs this means even firing their best players, since they are usually the ones earning the most money.

Economic impacts of the CoronaVirus

New York Stock Exchange dives in light of new pandemic

Rahman K.

Many analysts claimed back in 2019 that 2020 would be the most likely year to have a global economic downturn since the 2008 financial crisis. This was before the Corona virus struck, and now a global recession seems imminent. US stocks have seen the worst crash since 1987, meaning that in the first few months of 2020, this the state of the US economy has already become worse than it was during the mortgage crisis of 2008. According to the New York Times, stocks fell over 7% and unemployment, especially for those in the gig economy, skyrocketed.

Despite this initial massive shock and the following one that came when the CDC declared COVID-19 to have officially reached the status of pandemic, recently markets have seen a surge. Investors have completely flipped their outlook from a “sell everything” mindset to “buy it all back." This rapid buying spree has been the catalyst for the greatest growth since 1933 and seems to be hinged on the possibility of the US government starting a multi-trillion dollar stimulus plan. Though the strangest part of this is, where the growth is coming from. According to an article from the New York Times the best performing stock in the S&P 500 was Norwegian Cruise Lines rising by 40%. It was followed closely by MGM Resorts and American Airlines, which rose 30%. United Airlines, Delta, and Boeing all rose by 20% as well. This obviously seems insane because all of these companies operate in the travel and tourism industry, meaning all of their revenue has been literally grounded to a halt by travel restrictions. This seemingly unexplainable spike in growth is based on the possibility of a massive stimulus package of up to 2 trillion USD from the US government. This stimulus is meant to help avoid these companies losing revenue and having to lay-off workers, though it’s had quite the opposite impact. Now these companies have guaranteed checks worth tens of billions of dollars coming to them whether they operate their business or not. They are thus incentivized to try and stop operations and lay-off as many workers as possible in order to have the most profitable year possible because they are already guaranteed to meet revenue goals by the end of the year.

Another key fact to understand in this situation is that believe it or not this crisis is largely not because of COVID-19; it was just triggered by it. Analysts have found that the causes behind all of his volatility and destruction of wealth is not that different from the 2008 mortgage crisis. During that financial crisis, mortgage bonds were seen as the most stable bonds and were the foundation of the US, and subsequently the world, economy. Technically the only way for these bonds to crash was if there were mass rent defaults, and no one thought it was possible that all of a sudden tens of millions of Americans would stop paying rent. So these bonds were considered unshakable and everyone started buying them out as a stable asset to keep their wealth. Very quickly banks were unable to maintain supply of high quality AA mortgage bonds on par with demand. So they started scraping from the bottom of the barrel, and giving loans to shady landlords in bad financial situations with little chance of paying them back. All this just so these banks could continue selling the bonds inline with demand. Rating agencies also got greedy and feared missing out on the mortgage boom so they started giving the most lousy bonds AA ratings. They did this by bundling together several junk B and C rated bonds and calling it AA. Massive pools of debt were created with most of it about to be defaulted on. Most companies in the US had based themselves on the “extremely stable” bond markets with most of their money being invested into what they didn’t realise were trash bonds. Banks soon realised when the first defaults started coming in that they were in trouble, and they delayed the collapse by artificially raising prices and while the government kept up the fake AA ratings. For a moment the market looked great, better than it had in years. Then the time came when these trillions of dollars of debt were to be paid, and a wave of mass defaults took place, precisely what many said was impossible. Thus causing the largest destruction of wealth since the Great Depression.

Of course the government made stimulus plans the same way they are today but in order for governments to raise the kind of money it takes to raise an economy out of depression they need to sell government bonds. Government bonds are also seen as very reliable as they are backed up by national treasuries and monetary policy, so whenever they are offered on the market they quickly sell out. Though the reason a government can’t constantly do this is because it creates a lack of liquidity, because a public company’s stocks can’t compete on reliability with government bonds making it harder for them to sell stocks and go liquid, often leading to bankruptcy. This was seen with Lehman Brothers going bankrupt and numerous banks needing to be rescued as can be seen in this Guardian article.

Something scarily similar has taken place in 2020. Right after the financial crisis ended governments and banks didn’t learn their lesson about how no bond is unstoppable, and to avoid scraping from the bottom of the barrel. After the mortgage crisis banks desperately needed a big invincible stock to maintain revenue numbers, and they found it in business stocks. Once again a case was made to make these bonds look unstoppable. The idea here was that businesses will always pay back their loans because they make logical decisions based on profit, loss, revenue, and growth. These are well managed institutions that plan ahead to be able to repay loans. Though as usual once you scrape from the bottom of the barrel and start handing out business permits to absolutely anyone just to keep supply up with demand, any bond no matter the reasoning backing it up becomes total junk.

This is what has happened in 2020. Now trillions have been given out in business loans to people with little to no chance of paying them back and the first defaults are rolling in. The market collapsed recently when COVID-19 hit because numerous of the small businesses to which these loans had been handed were un operational, but then we saw a rapid comeback a week later based on suspicious circumstances. The government and banks are once again artificially raising the market, and that 2 trillion dollar stimulus plan will most certainly hinder liquidity and stop any US companies from turning their theoretical stock money into cold hard cash in these times of instability.

COVID: Containment and contagion

The Success of Korea’s Response to COVID-19.

Streets now nearly back to their usual crowded state.

Alex K,

The global pandemic COVID-19 has infected more than 3 million people and killed over 200 thousand globally, effectively shutting down countries and spurring a number of economic crisis situations. In the United States, if you were to walk through even the famous Time Square in New York City, it would be completely empty. Nearly every school and company in this world has closed their offices, and we are brought forth into this new transition to working online. The Philippines is in total lockdown and President Duterte himself threatens Filipino citizens to obey quarantine regulations or be shot. This virus has seemingly brought mayhem, but there is one country that is returning to business as usual, where streets once empty are beginning to crowd again.

In late February, COVID-19 cases started to spike in South Korea, going from a few hundred cases to thousands of cases in just a matter of weeks. With over 5,000 cases in early March, the country looked to be the next “hotspot” for this virus. But then something surprising happened. During the middle of March, while most countries saw their cases begin to rise exponentially, Korea’s numbers began to level off. Approximately 10 days after the country’s hundredth confirmed case, the “curve” started to bend, and 35 days later, the curve has flattened. Korea effectively contained and controlled the spread of COVID-19 early on. But how?

Believe it or not, Korea has already been in this situation before, against a different coronavirus outbreak. In May of 2015, a Korean businessman returned from Bahrain, a country in the Middle East. He later developed a cough, fever, and reached the critical state of pneumonia. He was diagnosed with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS. By that point it was too late to contain the spread, and his movements had infected several others. The dawn of MERS was upon the nation. All together, MERS in Korea lasted about two months, infecting nearly 200 people, and killing 38, the highest anywhere outside of the Middle East. Although the government eventually declared an end to the outbreak in 2015, they didn’t stop planning. The lessons they learned from MERS have helped the nation combat the current COVID-19 pandemic.

In the beginning weeks of COVID-19, Korea maintained low numbers; there were only 30 reported cases on February 17. However, despite this, government and health authorities had already begun working with biotech companies to develop a reliable diagnostic test for the virus. Soon, Korea had thousands of testing kits ready to go. The nation realised the essential importance of diagnostic tests from their previous experience with MERS. In addition to tests, protocols and measures were established. Korea was prepared for the worst, and the worst followed in late February, 2020.

Cases rose dramatically, and by February 29th Korea had over 3000 confirmed cases, the largest outbreak outside of China. The rapid rise began in Daegu, by a woman who became known as “Patient 31.” The government was able to trace her movements, identifying and testing everyone she had come into contact with. One major source of the outbreak was the “ShinCheonJi Church of Jesus” in Daegu. Everyone with COVID-19 was traced to identify the people they had come in contact with. Then those people were traced, and so on and so forth. This process is called “Contact Tracing.” It’s a protocol that allowed Korea to test over 9,000 people who had been in contact with someone with COVID-19. After Daegu, Korea began testing nationwide, utilising more than 600 locations that screen as many as 20,000 people per day. This system allows the government to continue to trace contacts of the virus and break the chains of transmission.

Furthermore, through this system the Korean government was also able to trace the various locations a carrier of the virus had been. After the MERS outbreak, when the government wasn’t able to trace the virus, the country changed the law so that the government would be allowed to collect a patient’s data and security footage during an outbreak. Their movements could be logged and shared via messages on smartphones to close or alert certain areas where carriers of the virus visited. It was obvious that the government wouldn’t be able to give out testing kits to everyone in the country, but in an era of technology, an app on a smartphone would be realistic. The government developed an app, mandatory for everyone with a smartphone, where a daily survey is conducted of possible symptoms of the virus. Although controversial, most citizens are for government tracing and data collection in an outbreak as it reassures safety in the nation.

In conclusion, South Korea was able to test over 300,000 people thanks to protocols and measures in place from the previous MERS outbreak. This allowed the government to see the movement of the virus and contain it, allowing Korea to make substantial progress without the use of aggressive lockdowns like the Philippines. On May 4th, Korea plans to lift the social distancing regulations as numbers begin to flatten, and day to day lives slowly become restored. Such success in handling this outbreak has also been noticed by other countries such as Germany, the UK, and the US, who are all implementing Korea’s contact tracing and aggressive testing methods. It certainly appears that this method could be an effective substitute for current lockdown methods in the Philippines. Hopefully all countries find an effective way to flatten the curve and learn from this intense pandemic to develop efficient ways to rid any lurking threats of new outbreaks.

Why has COVID-19 been Worse than Other Viruses?

By Kyler See

With technological upgrades, improved healthcare, and an overall better world, it’s hard to believe that such a measly virus that started in Wuhan would have such great impacts. Up to this date, there have been more than 3 million infected (a number which is continuing to rise), 200,000+ deaths, and many more suspected victims to come. Economically, it has caused absolute mayhem. According to the UN, COVID-19 will cause an 800 billion USD loss in terms of developing nations (excluding China), and in terms of labor value alone, 3.4 trillion USD is predicted to be lost across the world. The fact that I, a student of ISM (the most relenting school to close down) is writing this article from home, and has been quarantined here for over a month, really exemplifies how terrifying this really is. So why is COVID-19 so bad? We look at SARS and MERS, and they seemed to have simply passed by. In this article, we will go in-depth to look more closely at what exactly is the unstoppable contagion, COVID-19.

First, let’s talk about the basic reproduction number, or R0. The R0 determines the expected number of people a carrier may infect. COVID-19 has a basic reproduction number of 2.3, meaning that a carrier is expected to pass on the disease to 2-3 people, who may then pass it on to 2.3 more people, and so on and so forth. If we use 2 as our basic reproduction number and allow the virus to go through 10 cycles of infection, an average of 2047 total people will be affected. If we use the flu, which has a reproduction number of 1.3, and go through the same number of cycles, the total amount of people sick would be 56, a number which babies in comparison to COVID-19. MERS and SARS were mildly frustrating to research due to their lack of consistent data. It seemed as if SARS had an average R0 of 3 and MERS an R0 of <1. On average, SARS had a higher R0 then COVID-19, so why did SARS not have the same effects? Well actually, at the start, COVID-19 had an R0 of about 6 in Wuhan, but with new regulations implanted, China and the rest of the world managed to lower that number to what it is today, about 2.3. By maintaining social distancing, or not, this number can stay down or go up. SARS and MERS never reached their devastating potentials, so more urgent measures weren't necessary. Using these statistics, we can confirm COVID-19's spreadability is and was much much worse than the flu, SARS or MERS ever was. This is further backed by the fact SARS only ever had a total of 8.5k cases and MERS a measly 2.5k.

COVID-19 is one of the strangest diseases because of its symptoms, as they only show up between five days and two weeks of being exposed to the virus. This means if you get it, you are likely to not know until after the five to fourteen days, in which during this time, you are still contagious, and can pass the disease off to anyone. This can be very problematic because if you know you have it, you are probably going to self-quarantine more strictly than if you didn’t think you had it, likely taking the chance to roam around in public, and therefore passing it to more people. With other viruses, people typically feel the symptoms in a day or two, which allows them to know whether they have it or not, causing people to take it more seriously.

Next, let’s talk about the actual symptoms. COVID-19 is ever-evolving, and every day, we discover new things COVID-19 is capable of. Usually, COVID-19 causes a common cold, coughing, shortness of breath, headaches, chest pressure, and fever, but the symptoms have now expanded further. Recently, it has been found to cause blood clots and strokes, and pain in the feet. SARS and MERS, on the other hand, had very few and minor symptoms, but their impacts were much more hurtful, especially to the elderly. Like COVID-19, SARS attacked the elderly, shown by the fact that 70-79-year-olds had a significantly higher fatality rate, due to the symptoms being worst in people with weaker immune systems. MERS on the other hand, affected and had similar symptoms across all ages.

These are purely the facts. There is about a 7% death rate across all ages with COVID-19 and a 20-30% hospitalization rate. With the flu, the hospitalization rate is about 2% hospitalization and the mortality rate is about 0.1%. That means only one in every 1000 people who get the flu, die. To put it even more harshly, if someone got COVID-19, they would be approximately 70 times more likely to die from it than if they were to get the flu. This is the same flu that has already been vaccinated and kills 60,000 people every year. SARS and MERS had much higher mortality rates, but much less total deaths because of the virus’s inability to spread. Predictions now are that 20-60% of people across the world (more than a billion) could be affected by COVID-19. However, we can stop this from becoming a true possibility.

Since we are yet to find a vaccine or a true cure to the virus, there are only two things we can and must make sure we always do.

1. Maintain good hygiene as always.

2. Always maintain social distancing by limiting how many times we go out and staying a good distance away from others.

If you are reading this article right now, go and wash your hands for 20 seconds if you haven’t already, and then remind your loved ones to promise to distance themselves in public premises. If everyone could universally agree to these things, we can make the predictions anomalies, and sooner than later return to normal life.

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