• SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    There's so many ifs between now and then that it's hard to say what things will look like at the end of 2022. Assuming though that, after Omicron, there continue to be variants that spread in the population and somewhat bypass herd immunity and things are generally pretty bad but not quite as fundamentally dire as they are now... I could see 20, maybe 30% of teachers actually leaving (and not just expressing major dissatisfaction), but the overall impact will be obscured because they'll be able to bring in volunteer teachers. This will damage an entire generation of students and their learning, but because there will be people in seats regardless of their skill at the profession, the media won't ring any alarm bells in a month or two. A few articles here and there but it'll be absorbed into the general din of "Somebody needs to do something about this!" without anything being done.

    Nursing is different, as anything more advanced than basic first aid and CPR isn't something you can bullshit away and pretend you're doing - if you don't have actual nurses, people will start dying in larger numbers. A student not receiving their proper education is something that takes a while to have an effect - but a corpse is a corpse. 20% of nurses have quit, and I could see that doubling before the end of the year, though I'd be very surprised even for hellstate America for it to breach 50%. Only if the variants get more severe but retain their contagiousness with no change in CDC guidelines.

    • Nakoichi [they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      2030 Balkanization here we come. You can quote me on this, I don't see how the US lasts another decade at this rate.

      • SoyViking [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I think American balkanisation will look less like Yugoslavia and more like the Holy Roman Empire. It will not be a sudden rupture but the gradual realisation among states that they can do as they please.

        There will still be an emperor, a president, in Washington and some idea of belonging to the same nation but the central government will be powerless to either help states or to force them to follow orders and the president's role will be that of a mediator between essentially independent states, not that of leader of a unified nation. To make up for the lack of a working central government states will ally with eachother in a complex patchwork of alliances and treaties.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Damn that's the most realistic take on balkanization I've yet seen

        • rubpoll [she/her]
          ·
          3 years ago

          We're getting that megaregions map in everything but actual written law. No formal secession, no states seizing states through warfare; just the major local economies consolidating the smaller ones on their periphery as things like federal jurisdiction and state lines become effectively meaningless.

        • invo_rt [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          a mediator between essentially independent states, not that of leader of a unified nation

          It sounds more like the EU when you put it that way

    • invo_rt [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Nursing is different

      Absolutely. I don't know a ton about the profession, but I have a cousin who's a nurse. She was a great student in college and still got waitlisted a year to get into a good nursing program. When she finally did and finished, she ended up being in college for nearly 5.5 years. It's not an easy profession.

    • StuporTrooper [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      they’ll be able to bring in volunteer teachers.

      I work in a school, I've never heard of volunteer teachers. There's nobody who will do this job for free lmao, the system has been in slow collapse for a while. Consider that for a new teacher to get their credential, they generally have to work a whole semester without pay as part of "student teaching." While this can be very valuable experience, teachers are usually paying tuition and rent with no income. Covid is only heightening this contradiction.

      • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Something like this: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072372489/texas-schools-ask-parents-to-fill-in-as-substitute-teachers

        • StuporTrooper [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Lmao Texas has the sheriff mentality where every able bodied white man can be deputized.