Today I’ve got a few links I’ve been accumulating on diverse topics to share – some directly COVID-related, some not so much.

Piper on school options

John Piper had a nice article recently on how Christians should look at school options. It’s valuable because it reminds us how the ultimate responsibility for training our children, Biblically, lies with parents, then draws out some practical principles from that. They’re worth reading in full, but I’ll summarize them here this way:

  1. We must take responsibility to shape our children’s worldviews
  2. Our kids may need complex skills, so we may need to partner with others
  3. As America heads more towards secular commitments (not just ideas but commitments), “partnering with public-school teachers to accomplish biblical goals for our children becomes, year by year, less feasible — and, indeed, in many cases, unthinkable.”
  4. Perhaps we should be considering Christian schools, because the cost of public education is what drives many people there. So what about Christian cooperative schools or similar?
  5. “Parents and churches need to think deeply and wisely about the principle of ‘apart from the world for the sake of the world.’”

Some assorted COVID-19 content

A COVID cartoon A webcomic I follow (probably in part because it’s written by a physicist —- which I am by training also – and I love the geeky humor), XKCD, had an interesting analogy pictured above. Be sure to see the mouseover too.

My teenage daughter points out Saturday Night Live had a Fauci segment featuring Brad Pitt. I enjoyed it, though it’s scathing to Trump. It ends with a tribute/thank you to Fauci. I was shocked – isn’t that kind of unheard of for SNL? I’m grateful a scientist’s work is so appreciated across political lines.

Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeted about a detailed plan he’s worked on with others on how to use monitoring and surveillance to help get back to normal; it’s worth a quick look at least at the summary.

How trust impacts our views on COVID-19

Vox recently interviewed Bill Gates on COVID-19; I’ve linked to it before and it’s worth reading. But I wanted to highlight another interesting bit of the interview, which deals with how our trust of sources impacts the response. Here’s the relevant exchange, where Ezra Klein asked this:

Something that has struck me throughout this entire calamity is just how much any effective response relies on social trust and solidarity. We seem to be in a moment where our ability to break down the trust people have in institutions outpaces our ability to raise it.

Gates responded:

Compliance on the social distancing has been very high. Over time, people’s patience will wear thin, particularly if they’re getting a confusing message from their leadership. But overall, you’d have to feel pretty good about the attitude in the country. If you said to me, we were going to shut all this stuff down, I’d have predicted more of a backlash.

It’s interesting – Klein seems to have been trying to make the point (consistent some of the most prominent material on social media) that people live in bubbles and when they stop trusting one another and the media, we can’t respond effectively anymore. And aspects of that are probably true, but Gates goes the opposite direction and notes how surprised he’s been that people have mostly been complying with orders. Yes, there’s been a lot of debate, and some protests – and those taking extreme positions get a lot of attention. But mostly, people seem to be complying. That’s a good thing, and probably means that despite all the apparent erosion of trust in “key” institutions like the government and the media, we’re still able to achieve some solidarity.

What COVID-19 might do for our attitudes

I happened to read this blog post which makes an interesting point about how COVID-19 could serve to affect our outlook on life:

Our expectations are being reset. Someday soon, it will feel like an absolute joy and privilege to walk into a store and see things fully stocked and prosperous again. And imagine the feeling of taking a vacation or attending a big event or a restaurant or a party!

The author doesn’t write from a Christian perspective, but a frequent topic on his blog is the idea that happiness doesn’t really result from our circumstances (and I agree with him on that). So he frequently argues that we shouldn’t get used to setting our standard of living and spending high, because it won’t make us any happier. His point here connects to that train of thought – as we emerge from COVID-19, we’re going to have a new appreciation for things we took for granted not so long ago. For example, I’ve noticed what a privilege it is to be able to mostly eat what we want – something I’d largely taken for granted my whole life. And what did it take for that? Just not being able to buy yeast or whole wheat flour for a couple of weeks. But I need that realization more often so I can be thankful for what I have. In a way, this connects to my earlier post on taking this opportunity to evaluate our culture.

A source for interpretation of COVID-19 science

People who are interested in accessible scientific summaries of the latest COVID developments may want to follow In The Pipeline, by pharma insider Derek Lowe. He writes about news in drug discovery in a way which is relatively accessible to the general public (though you might learn some science along the way). Since this has suddenly become much more relevant to a large number of people, more people might be interested in reading it – it’s probably the single most widely read pharma industry blog.

His most recent post interprets the latest remdesivir results for us; basically they’re in the “may do some good for some people” category it seems, but certainly not a solution it seems.

If you’re interested in hearing more directly from scientists about what the news is in terms of drug discovery/vaccine development/etc., rather than waiting til the media oversimplifies it for you, this is a great place to go.