Archive for the Covid-19 Category

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Leaving Late Again

Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , on June 3, 2021 by telescoper

Yesterday we were told that, as was the case last year, this year’s Leaving Certificate results will be delayed until September (3rd, to be precise). The first round of CAO offers will be made a few days later, on September 7th. All this is about three weeks later than the usual (pre-Covid) cycle of examinations and results. Last year the announcement of a delay was made in mid-July, but now it’s been done in early June.

I’m actually a bit baffled as to why it is going to take so long this year, given that it’s not a new situation with respect to Covid-19 and there will be fewer examinations to mark than in previous years. Universities are able to turn around marks for thousands of students in just a couple of weeks so why the heck will it take so long to get the Leaving Certificate results out? There will be fewer exams to mark than in pre-Covid era too, as some subject marks will be based on coursework.

Here at Maynooth University the start of the academic year 2021/22 is due to take place on Monday 20th September, with Welcome Week starting on 13th September.   Getting everything ready in time for teaching will be a huge challenge because we will only find out very late in the day how many students we have to accommodate in first-year lectures. It is unlikely that timetable will be possible so we face the prospect of having to scrap the orientation events that usually take place in Welcome Week, delaying the start of term, shortening the teaching semester (again) or scrapping the mid-term Study Break.

We’re not able to make many plans in advance because we don’t have much idea in what form teaching will resume because that depends on public health guidelines. Last year, most lecture rooms had their capacity reduced by more than half. Lecturers need to know how many students they have in order to decide how to use the available lecture slots and how to strike a balance between live and online delivery. It’s an even worse situation for laboratory subjects.

The Minister responsible is saying he expects campuses to be more-or-less fully open in September but I’m not convinced that we’re out of the woods yet. Let’s hope that I’m wrong.

If any prospective student is getting worried reading this, I can promise you that we will be doing the best we can to provide the best education we can in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in this September. So please bear with us. We didn’t want any of this any more than you did, but we just have to make the best of it!

UPDATE: We have now been informed that returning students will start as planned on 20th September, while lectures for new students will start a week later, on 27th September, with the previous week being used for some orientation events.

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Buttercups and Columbines

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Maynooth with tags , , on June 2, 2021 by telescoper

I suppose Ranunculus and Aquilegia are technically both weeds but they are adding a bit of colour to my garden at the moment and seem to be thriving in their spot next to the wall so I’ll leave them undisturbed.

I suppose it was inevitable that, the day I finished correcting my examination scripts, the glorious weather would end and it would start raining. Still, the rain is good for the garden. There’s always a burst of new growth after each shower. I wonder what will come up next?

The weather improve for the coming weekend which will be nice. It’s a Bank Holiday next Monday and a significant date for me personally on Friday so I’m hoping to take a break during which some gardening will be on the agenda (weather permitting).

I was also thinking about going into Dublin at some point for the first time in over a year, just for a walk around and maybe to visit the National Gallery again. The stories in the press of big crowds of people drinking outdoors last weekend have put me off a bit, but I dare say I can avoid the likely problem areas. Having been stuck in one place for 15 months (apart from a trip to get vaccinated) I feel I should make the effort to begin some sort of renormalisation.

With the exams over, students are asking what is going to happen with teaching in September. The answer is still that I have no idea, though if there’s a spike in infections due to recent events it will be even less likely that we will be back to normal for the new academic year.

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Between Shots

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19 on May 29, 2021 by telescoper

The weather being rather pleasant today I had the chance to do a spot of gardening and hence chat to a couple of my neighbours outside at front of house about this that and the other. It turns out all three of us are between vaccine jabs, two having had a dose of Pfizer/BioNTech and the other one dose of AstraZeneca. None of us had any side effects after the first dose but are all now wondering when we’ll get our second. I expect I’ll get mine by mid-June sometime.

Official statistics on Ireland’s vaccination are no longer being published owing to the continuing disruption caused by a randsomware attack on the HSE computer systems, but the programme itself has not been affected by this and it is now believed that over 50% of the adult population has had its first jab.

However, this week we learned that Johnson & Johnson has joined AstraZeneca in not being able fulfil its contractual obligations and there might be a shortfall of several hundred thousand doses in June. It always seemed to me unlikely that Ireland would reach the Government’s target of 80% of the adult population vaccinated by the end of June, and now that looks virtually impossible.

Progress in vaccination will be a big factor in how we start teaching again next academic year, especially as it concerns the student population. We won’t know for a while how this will pan out so I’m trying not to think about it.

Of course there’s also the question of how many don’t take up the offer of a vaccine. I haven’t seen statistics on that but I hope it’s a small fraction. If people refuse their jabs, many may die needlelessly.

P.S. Can anyone suggest a plausible scientific explanation of why the lockdown has caused all my summer clothes to shrink?

 

 

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Marking Blues

Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on May 21, 2021 by telescoper

“May is a pious fraud of the almanac.” – James R. Lowell

The rainy weather we’ve been having for the last few days has at least deprived me of distractions from the job at hand: the marking of examinations and other assessments. Examinations started here in Maynooth last Friday (14th May) , a week ago today, and as I write this morning another one has just started. That’s the third in the past week. Yesterday I managed to finish all the assessments for one Module, just in time for today’s batch to arrive. It’s not only examination marking of course, I’ve also had computational physics projects to assess and feedback to write. Suffice to say that it’s a busy time of year.

When I was getting this morning’s examination online timed assessment ready it suddenly struck me that some of the students taking it belong the year group that entered the University in September 2018, and are the first students I will have seen all the way through the degree as they are taking their last set of exams now and will graduate this summer.

Of course when I say “will have seen” I’m not really being honest. I’ve hardly seen any of them since last March. Although I have spoken to them via Teams I haven’t even seen them virtually, as students virtually always have their video on mute during online teaching sessions.

Because of the Covid-19 restrictions, the students on three-year programmes have had most of their teaching online since last Spring, and by the time they finish the current set of examinations half their assessment will have been online.

You’ll have to ask students whether the lack of face-to face interactions has impacted their learning, but speaking for myself as a lecturer it has made life very difficult. Lecturing to a camera is not easy, and the absence of visual cues from the audience makes it difficult to know whether what you’re saying is sinking in. I guess we’ll find out when we look at the examination grades.

Thinking about the group of students who will form the graduating class for this year, though, the saddest thing is that they will shortly finish their exams and complete their degrees. We the staff won’t have the chance to congratulate them properly, nor will they the students be able to celebrate properly with each other (as they are scattered all over the country).

Although we’ve worked very hard to do what we can over the past year and a bit, I can’t rid my mind of the feeling that this group in particular has been let down very badly. I know the circumstances are beyond our control and all that, but they just haven’t had the educational experience they expected and deserve. At least – we hope – other groups can look forward to something like normality, possibly from next year, but for this group that’s it for their third level education. It’s really not fair.

I have said so before on this blog that I think any student who wishes to should be able to repeat the last year at university free of charge in recognition that they have been severely short-changed. It seems to me that would be the right thing to do, which is why I don’t think the Government will allow it.

Now, it’s still raining so I’ll try to get some more marking done while the exam goes on.

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Normal services will be resumed as soon as possible…

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19 with tags , , , on May 16, 2021 by telescoper

After posting updates about Ireland’s Covid-19 situation every single day since the end of March 2020 – a total of 441 entries so far – I’ve been forced to pause. The reason is that a “significant ransomware attack” has crippled many of the computer systems of the Health Service Executive and while it is being dealt with, no data on Covid-19 (including vaccinations) are being published. As far as I understand it, testing and vaccination are going on as before, but we will have to wait until systems are restored before announcements will resume and backdated data is published.

When the dust settles on this I’m pretty sure the inevitable investigation will reveal that the HSE has been using outdated IT hardware and software that made it much easier for the cybercriminals than it should have been.  The disruption is of course extremely annoying but there is a real possibility that the cancellation of urgent medical procedures may lead to loss of life. I sincerely hope the perpetrators are caught and subjected to the full force of the law.

Meanwhile, out of interest, here is my latest summary plot (dated 14th May) which shows new cases steady at the (uncomfortably) high level of around 430 per day (7-day average) but deaths falling:

It is reasonable to infer that the combination of falling mortality figures and constant infection rates is attributable to the vaccination most people in the groups most at risk.

Last Monday (10th May) saw various relaxations of the current restrictions around Covid-19 and tomorrow there will be further loosening. In particular all remaining “non-essential” shops will open. This won’t make much difference to me personally as I shall be locked down marking examinations for at least the next fortnight.

I don’t think the cyber attack will affect the timing of my second vaccine dose, which is due in early June, but that remains to be seen.

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The Affair of the Missing Trophy

Posted in Covid-19, Crosswords with tags , , on May 13, 2021 by telescoper

A few weeks ago I posted about my first ever First Prize in the Azed Crossword Competition. At the end of that post I mentioned that I was eagerly anticipating being sent a silver trophy called the Azed Instant Victor Verborum Cup to hold for a month before passing it on to the winner of the next competition.

Unfortunately it seems that, owing to a combination of the Royal Mail and Covid-19, the Azed trophy has gone missing somewhere on its travels. In fact it hasn’t even reached the winner before me (a Dr S.J. Shaw) yet. The chances of it being located, retrieved and then sent to me before it would be time to send it on to the next winner are now remote so I don’t suppose I’ll ever get my hands on it. Ho hum.

Still, I did get a nice card from Dr Shaw explaining the situation and sending his congratulations:

I hope the trophy is found because it would be a shame if the tradition of passing it on came to an end, but it’s not such a big deal that I’ll miss out on having it on my mantelpiece for a few weeks. At least it absolves me of the responsibility of ensuring it reaches the next winner…

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First Shot of Comirnaty!

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19 on May 11, 2021 by telescoper

So here I am, then, back home from the CityWest Convention Centre where I had my first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is actually called Comirnaty. The vaccination centre was very busy (with parking quite a long way from it) so it took a little longer than anticipated to get in and out, but only by 45 minutes instead of the expected 30 so nothing at all to complain about.

They don’t allow photography inside the place, which is a huge theatre/auditorium, though only the floor space is used for this purpose. There was quite a lot of queueing: first for an ID check, then to register, then to get the jab. The lady in front of me in the queue said it was like Ryanair, but it rather reminded me of one of those laboratory experiments with rats. Most people were very relaxed and happy to chat while waiting, but one or two seemed very anxious. That had probably been anticipated and there were friendly faces on hand to help calm people down if there were signs of distress. Not everyone likes crowds and not everyone likes needles, and no doubt for some the combination of the two is especially difficult.

Quite a lot of the people running the show were members of the Irish Defence Forces, including the guy who gave me my jab. After that I adjourned to the crossword-solving area for the mandatory 15 minutes of observation, before heading out and back to the car for my lift back home.

So there I am, phase one complete. No side effects so far but it’s too early for that just now anyway. Thanks to all the on-site staff – many of whom are volunteers – for being so friendly and well-organized. See you again in due course for the second shot!

UPDATE: 12th May 2021. It’s now 24 hours since my first dose and thankfully I can report no ill effects whatsoever. The leaflet I’ve got does say that a reaction is more likely after the second dose than the first, but so far so good!

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A Vaccine’s Progress

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Maynooth on May 8, 2021 by telescoper

As I mentioned a few days ago, I was able to register for my shot of Covid-19 vaccine on Thursday 6th May, which I duly did. For those of you who haven’t yet registered in Ireland, it’s a straightforward process although you do need a mobile phone as well as an internet connection.

I said in my earlier post that

…I have no idea what that means for when, where or with what I will actually get vaccinated. As with so many things these days we’ll just have to wait and see.

When I registered I was informed that it would be up to three weeks before an appointment would be arranged. Actually, I got a text this morning giving the answers to all three questions I wondered about in that quote, and very interesting they turned out to be!

First my appointment is actually on Tuesday 11th May, just three days from now. The location is Citywest Convention Centre, in Saggart (outside Dublin), and the vaccine I will be receiving is Pfizer/BioNTech.

All three of these pieces of information surprised me: the date (because it is so soon – not that I’m complaining about that); the location (because I was led to believe I would be vaccinated in the County I live in, Kildare, the vaccination centre for which is Punchestown Racecourse, near Naas; Citiwest is in County Dublin); and the vaccine (for reasons I discussed here, I assumed I would be given either the AstraZeneca or Janssen (J&J) vaccine).

Anyway, I’m delighted with the way it has turned out, which means I’ll could well be fully vaccinated by the end of June, depending on the timing of the second dose.

The only (very slight) downside to this is that I was actually quite looking forward to visiting the racecourse at Punchestown as I’ve never been there before and it is an easy journey from Maynooth by bus. The consultant who looks at my knees from time to time is at Naas Hospital, so the trip is a familiar one to me. Citiwest may be marginally closer as the crow flies, but it’s basically inaccessible by public transport from here so I’ll have to get a taxi there and back. The vaccination system here seems to assume that everyone has a car as many of the big centres are in out-of-town locations hard to reach by public transport.

Some people I know who have had this vaccine have reported side-effects and others have experienced none whatsoever. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens in my case. I’ll get my jab in the morning so if I do react badly to it I’ll have an excuse for missing the Faculty Meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon!

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Notes from the Last Week

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth on May 5, 2021 by telescoper

So it’s Wednesday of the last week of teaching here at Maynooth. I’ve got three lectures today, two on Advanced Electromagnetism and one on Engineering Mathematics, and after that my lecturing will be done for this Semester and indeed this academic year. In fact two of today’s lectures will be revision classes as I’ve finished covering the syllabus in both of these modules.

That doesn’t everything related to teaching is over, of course. Tomorrow we have final-year project presentations to assess and after that the final Computational Physics laboratory. That is really just a  virtual drop-in session as students finish off their mini-projects to be handed in on Friday.

Next week is a study week – so no lectures –  but I’ll be using the time to finish off grading coursework and lab tests ahead of the examinations online timed assessments, which start on Friday 14th May. As it happens I have an examination on that day so will be occupied supervising it and then immediately afterwards marking the scripts (electronically). Then next week I have two further assessments and related marking. That should all be finished by the end of May and we then have Examination Boards and related activities in June.

It’s been a tough year. This Semester in particular seems to have lasted an eternity. It’s been bad enough for the staff but has undoubtedly been worse for the students.

People are already asking about what’s going to happen for the new academic year which starts in September. The only honest answer to that is that is that we have no absolutely idea. The possibilities range from being completely back to normal with teaching in classrooms on campus to there being nothing on campus at all, like at present. Which of these turns out to be the case depends primarily on the rate of vaccination in Ireland during the summer.

Talking of which, I will be to register for my shots from tomorrow (6th May) but I have no idea what that means for when, where or with what I will actually get vaccinated. As with so many things these days we’ll just have to wait and see…

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At the Castle Gate

Posted in Covid-19, Music on May 2, 2021 by telescoper

When (if?) this Covid business ends I hope we’ll remember the things that kept us going through it. Here is one of the socially distanced concerts broadcast by RTÉ Lyric FM*. I hope that in a few years’ time people will look back on recordings of events like this and understand what a weird time it has been. People come and go, but the music continues.

I found the performance of the incidental music by Jean Sibelius for Pelléas et Mélisande  starting at about 24.40 very moving, the isolation of the orchestra and the emptiness of the hall, enhancing the extraordinarily beautiful music. I think fans of The Sky At Night will enjoy it too…

 

P.S. It was the 22nd birthday of RTE Lyric FM on May 1st 2021..

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