Teaching and Research with SARS-CoV-2
Please allow me some remarks regarding teaching and research during a pandemic.- Currently, our health system is under an enormous strain. Working day in and day out in protective clothing in understaffed emergency units deserves our respect and should not be taken for granted. Academics should try to understand the consequences their actions have on the health system. We should act responsibly.
- I am grateful to the colleagues (many of them young academics) who, during the past months, have successfully developed safe and virtual academic events. These colleagues have made and are still making a very important contribution to our academic life. They help us to keep in touch. They help us to carry on with our work in a responsible way. Thank you!
- During the last months I have learnt to appreciate virtual
academic events. I have difficulties understanding the reluctance of
some colleagues to embrace safe alternatives to traditional academic
formats. I find it dangerous when these colleages, in an attempt to
justify their own reluctance, point to others who “do the same”.
It does not help if we all argue that the risk generated by our own activities is
small in comparison to the risk generated by others.
The behaviour of others never justifies own choices. A society which follows the inefficient example of their neighbours enters a spiral of increasingly inefficient choices. We must make responsible and independent and safe choices. We must help reducing the burden we impose on the health system. We must do this, even if we have to adjust our routines. We must do this, even if others don't help.
The health system is under an enormous strain. Academics must help reducing this strain.
I find the following seminar series in my field particularly interesting: