Tsinghua University

Dear Commons Community,

My colleague Fred Lane forwarded this piece to me.

In early February,  Tsinghua University’s leaders, including Chair of Council Chen Xu, President Qiu Yong and Provost Yang Bin  offered the first class of the semester to more than 50,000 students and 5,000 faculty, announcing that  “the new semester would be ‘education as usual’ despite the swelling spread of the coronavirus.”   Since February 17th, almost 2,700 teaching staff at Tsinghua University have delivered 4,000 online courses to 25,000 students spread across every time zone and continent. Shifting one of the world’s most elite university campuses into the cloud has required clarity, expertise, community and computers.  As reported by University World News.

“Tsinghua’s decision to proceed with teaching-as-usual conveyed the clear message that higher education is one of our most precious resources. In times of uncertainty and fear, learning and research are more important than ever. Do not panic. Study and discover.

It will take millions of minds many decades to fully decode the ramifications of this shock to higher education. But it is important for people everywhere to know what has happened and immediately start making sense of what is going on.

No going back

A new global ‘education economy’ has been born. Right now, universities, faculty and students in countries including China and Australia are relying entirely on online learning to deliver core education services.

Systems, experiences and expectations have been quickly forged which will almost surely yield widespread and enduring changes for global higher education. It is not possible nor desirable to ‘go back’ from much that has been experienced.

Online learning has grown beyond smart acronyms and joined the mainstream education. Following China’s lead, countries across Asia will almost certainly place more formal emphasis on online learning. Such a move holds global consequences, with Asia being the world’s biggest time zone for higher education.

New regulatory policies and cross-border agreements will be required. Countries will need to negotiate new rules with physical institutions such as campus-based universities, including bolstering the already flourishing emergence of career-long learning.

The role of university leaders

Though often quiet achievers, university leaders will play a more prominent global role. Findings from the Global University President Interviews research project, run by the Institute of Education at Tsinghua, reveals the role university leaders play in steering investigation and debate and carving out futures in almost every imaginable area.

As the current Tsinghua case confirms, leadership is most tested when things go awry. The current situation presents a call to better understand university leadership during times of crisis, and how to steer an increasingly uncertain future. This is essential, for while technology enables global higher education, it is really the leaders, systems and engaged people who make education succeed.

The recent shock is a sharp prod to start learning quickly about online global higher education. Over recent decades, ‘international education’ has given rise to reasonably well-known information economies, student markets, research ecosystems and geopolitics. Much less is known about the new global era. There is little policy about how managers can support hundreds of globally located faculty who are delivering top-end university education to students all over the world.

While it spawns big data, we know rather little about the value of online education. We know even less about how countries, universities and families will distribute time and money across physical, technological and intercontinental platforms. Early signs suggest that the global era will blend concrete, kerosene and silicone in creative and smart ways. Many countries, particularly in Asia, must quickly reform national policy to embrace online pieces of learning.

Higher education has just been shaken by forces beyond its control. Such a shock is unsurprising given the role universities now play in the general economy. Universities can and must direct their future for the good of the globe, as Tsinghua’s leaders have demonstrated. Elite university education is surely more global and online than ever before. Now is the time for bold education experiments, informed by major useful research.”

This is a remarkable development especially since so much of China’s higher education has been very traditional.  As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

Tony

Andrew Cuomo

Dear Commons Community,

Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency yesterday as the number of novel coronavirus cases surged across New York.

Twenty more people in New York have tested positive for coronavirus, Cuomo said, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the state to 76.

Cuomo said there are 11 confirmed cases in New York City, 57 in Westchester County, two in Rockland County, four in Nassau County, and two in Saratoga County.

Officials have reported 312 cases of coronavirus and 17 deaths across the US as of Saturday. Florida reported the first death on the East Coast on Friday and a number of new cases along with Georgia on Saturday. Meanwhile, 21 people on board the Grand Princess, a cruise ship docked off the coast of California, have tested positive for the virus.

In New York, according to The New York Times, a taxi or ride-hailing driver tested positive, resulting in more than 40 doctors and others at the hospital treating him to go into self-quarantine.

Also on Saturday, Amtrak canceled its nonstop service between New York and Washington, DC, because of a lack of demand.

The company said it would cancel service until May 26 and said in a statement, “We are making temporary adjustments to our schedule, such as removing train cars or canceling trains when there is a convenient alternative with a similar schedule that will have minimal impact to customers.”

The Trump administration, meanwhile, is facing intense scrutiny over its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

On Friday, the president drew sharp backlash when he told reporters that although scientific and medical experts had urged him to bring infected Americans off the cruise ship, he didn’t want to do so because it would cause the number of reported cases to go up and it “wasn’t our fault.”

I have listened to several of Governor Cuomo’s press conferences and I believe he has shown good leadership and honesty in reporting the coronavirus situation here in New York.

Tony

A. Wayne Johnson and Betsy DeVos

Dear Commons Community,

USDOE Chief Strategy and Information Officer, A. Wayne Johnson, appointed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned last Thursday, and told the Wall Street Journal:

“We run through the process of putting this debt burden on somebody… but it rides on their credit files—it rides on their back—for decades.. The time has come for us to end and stop the insanity.”  As reported:

“Outstanding college student debt stands at $1.48 trillion as of the last quarter, according to the New York Fed. Borrowers in the current system are facing loan burdens that are souring quickly: Out of the outstanding severely derogatory balance, 35% are defaulted student loans. Those in public service who applied for Public Service Loan Forgiveness are seeing 99% rejection rates.

Johnson called for federal student loan debt up to $50,000 be forgiven on an individual basis and tax credits provided up to $50,000 for debt already paid. He said the idea developed after joining the administration and discovering the difficulties borrowers were facing with their student loans. The plan would cost an estimated $925 billion, according to Johnson.

Johnson’s position on cancelling student debt is similar to student loan forgiveness plans announced by Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — while sharply at odds with the Trump administration, the Republican party, and specifically his own boss, Betsy DeVos.

“Their proposals are crazy,” DeVos said during an interview on Fox News, referring to Democrats’ proposals on student loan cancellation.

“Who do they think is actually going to pay for these? It’s going to be two of the three Americans that aren’t going to college paying for the one out of three that do … Let’s look at this for what it really is: A federal takeover of higher education.”

Johnson, who was appointed by DeVos in 2017 as the chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid (FSA), said back then that he was “the right person to modernize the FSA for the 21st Century.” He later moved on to the strategy role.

Members of Congress had previously flagged his position — along with a few others in the DOE — as having “deep ties to the financial industry,” which could present conflicts of interest.

Johnson had been the founder, chairman and CEO of First Performance Corporation, which was a global payment card technology platform. He has also been with VISA, Deloitte, among others.

The Macon, Georgia native now has a bigger goal in sight. He announced his plan to run for the U.S. Senate seat in his state that was recently made vacated by Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA).

“I intend to follow Senator Isakson’s example as a conservative Republican who is able to work across the aisle in Congress,” Johnson said.

I am not sure what to make of Johnson but I support the idea of student loan forgiveness especially for those who can show need.

Tony

Mick Mulvaney and Mark Meadows

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump tweeted yesterday that Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) is his new White House chief of staff.  In the tweet, he also thanked his outgoing acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, for serving the administration “so well.” Mulvaney will be named the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland, the president added.

Meadows has been an ally of Trump since the 2016 presidential campaign. But he also drew Trump’s ire during the early days of the GOP efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Meadows, as the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus at the time, ultimately convinced Trump and Republican leadership to pursue a bill that would have undermined protections for people with preexisting conditions. With those changes, Meadows was instrumental in getting the bill to pass the House in 2017.

Meadows has remained in frequent contact with Trump ever since, and he was a major defender of the president during the impeachment trial.

Mulvaney, who is also stepping down from his job as head of the Office of Management and Budget, has been a staunch Trump loyalist. The president named the former Republican congressman acting White House chief of staff in December 2018 to replace John Kelly, hailing Mulvaney as a “great patriot.”

Mulvaney and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were reportedly key players in Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to pressure Ukraine into launching an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, an operation that ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment. Mulvaney insisted that the investigation was intended to expose Ukraine, not Russia, as the nation that interfered with the 2016 presidential election, a conspiracy theory that runs counter to U.S. intelligence findings.

But Mulvaney has also caused trouble for the president, particularly when he admitted there was a quid pro quo conditioning U.S. military aid to Ukraine on an investigation into the Bidens. “Get over it,” Mulvaney told reporters. “There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy … That is going to happen. Elections have consequences.”

 There were rumors then that Mulvaney would be ousted, but he was able to hang on for months longer. 

Mulvaney also, inexplicably, said in a speech at the Oxford Club in England last month that the U.S. is in “desperate” need of more immigrant workers for economic growth — even as his boss has continued to crack down on immigrants.

In recent days, Trump grew fond of the idea of replacing Mulvaney with Meadows, calling Meadows on Thursday to discuss the appointment, according to sources. 

It is incredible the loyalty Trump shows for his appointees!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

According to an email sent to students, faculty and staff yesterday, the University of Washington will hold all classes remotely until the end of March in response to a spike in COVID-19 cases in the Seattle area, including one “presumptive positive” case involving a staff member.

The email states that “classes will no longer meet in person” and faculty and staff will conduct classes and exams “remotely, as possible” and “online when feasible” starting Monday until March 20, the end of the winter quarter. In-person classes are expected to resume on March 30.

School facilities will remain open. The school also recommended “social distancing” for student groups and events.

“In-person classes qualify as events, and the sizes of our classrooms do not generally allow for social distancing,” school officials said in the email to explain the shift to remote classes.

Officials at the school said they made the decision in consultation with health officials. The main campus of UW, Washington state’s flagship public university, is located in Seattle, where a number of COVID-19 cases have been confirmed. More than 10 deaths have been connected to a long-term care facility in the suburbs of Seattle. 

As of Friday morning, Washington state had 75 confirmed COVID-19 cases and at least 14 deaths as a result of the outbreak.

The same day, UW officials announced one “presumptive positive” case involving a staff member at the university’s Seattle campus.

The employee “is in self-isolation at home” and the building where the employee works has been closed for cleaning. Everyone in close contact with the employee has been asked to self-quarantine for two weeks, school officials said, emphasizing that “the risk to the broader Seattle campus community from this case is believed to be low.” The sick employee is “believed to have had limited contact with anyone outside of their immediate office floor.”

School officials urged everyone’s “maximum flexibility” for accommodating students’ needs and navigating “significant challenges.”

“We recognize that these actions may create significant challenges for faculty, staff and students, and we ask for your understanding as we respond to events as they unfold,” the statement read. “We know these are challenging times, and that we are asking a lot of you in terms of flexibility, creativity and goodwill as we all strive to conclude this quarter successfully.”

Washington joins Yeshiva University which closed one of its campuses last week because a student tested positively for coronavirus. I think this is a very wise decision!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Senator Elizabeth Warren ended her bid for the White House yesterday and said that there was still plenty of hope that a woman would be elected president of the United States, “it’s just going to be a little longer.” 

“It feels like we were never going to make change, until we make change,” Warren told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, just hours after she suspended her campaign. “We were never going to elect a Catholic, until we elected a Catholic. We were never going to elect a Black man, until we elected a Black man. And we’re never going to elect a woman, until we elect a woman.

Many women were dismayed after Warren, struggling after Super Tuesday where she came in third place in her home state, said the numbers weren’t in her favor. Despite being a frontrunner and earning almost sole credit for pushing billionaire Michael Bloomberg out of the race, she wasn’t able to break headway in a field dominated by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and a resurgent former Vice President Joe Biden.

“One of the hardest parts of this is all of those pinky promises and all of those little girls who are going to have to wait four more years,” the senator, who touted her tour taking more than 100,000 selfies, said during the announcement. “That’s going to be hard.”

(Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is still in the race but has only two delegates.)

Maddow asked Warren if her own groundbreaking campaign and its failure to break the male septuagenarian ceiling was troubling, with the host saying that to many: “It feels a little bit like a death knell in terms of the prospects of having a woman president in our lifetimes.”

“Oh god, please no. That can’t be right,” Warren replied. “It doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen, it doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen soon. We can’t lose hope over this, we can’t lose hope because the only way we make change is we get back up tomorrow and we fight. We persist. That is how we make change.”

Warren declined to make an immediate endorsement after ending her bid, but said Biden was a genuinely “decent” guy and called Sanders her friend of a long time. But she fired off sharp criticism at the Vermont senator’s supporters, saying Sanders is ultimately responsible “for the people who claim to be [his] supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things to other candidates.”

Warren also cheered her massive field effort and said despite her disappointment, she still had work to do.

“Seeing all these people that I had the chance to fight alongside… I felt pretty good about it,” the lawmaker said. “I’m so grateful for all the people who volunteered, for all the people who were part of the team, for all the good policies, because dang I still think they’re good.”

“I’m doing fine.”

Good luck Senator Warren.  Eyes will be on you to see whether you endorse Biden, Sanders, or nobody!

Tony

The Yeshiva University Maccabees huddle around guard Ryan Turell.  (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Dear Commons Community,

A hotel in a Baltimore suburb yesterday canceled the reservation of the Yeshiva University men’s basketball team over fears of novel coronavirus, the coach of the Maccabees told The Associated Press.

Coach Elliot Steinmetz said the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Pikesville canceled the reservation, forcing the team to book rooms at a different hotel. A student at the Orthodox Jewish university has tested positive for the virus.

“I made it very clear to the hotel that it’s discrimination,” Steinmetz said. “I basically said to them: ‘Do you have a checkbox on your website that says that you’ve been in an area with suspected coronavirus?’ And they said no. So I said: ‘Is it just for the guests of Yeshiva University?’ And they said yes. I told them that that’s called discrimination.”

Hilton spokeswoman Laura Ford said the hotel in Pikesville is an independently owned and operated property. Hotel management did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The team is scheduled to play Worcester Polytechnic Institute today in the first round of the NCAA Division III basketball tournament at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The winner would advance to play the winner of the later game between Johns Hopkins and Penn State Harrisburg tomorrow in Baltimore.

NCAA spokesman Bob Williams told AP on Thursday afternoon the games were set to be played as scheduled. Johns Hopkins athletic department spokeswoman Jill Guise also said no plans had changed for Friday’s games.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that the wife, two children and a neighbor of a New York lawyer who is hospitalized in critical condition with COVID-19 have also tested positive for the disease. One of the lawyer’s children is a student at Yeshiva University.

The family and the neighbor have been self-quarantined at home.

Yeshiva canceled classes at its upper Manhattan campus.

Josh Joseph, the university’s senior vice president, said the infected student is not a member of the basketball team, has not participated in any team events and has not been on campus since Feb. 27. He added that the New York City Department of Health has “cleared” the team to participate in the tournament.

The best team in the school’s history won the Skyline Conference title on Sunday, its second conference championship in three years, to qualify for the NCAA Division III tournament. The Maccabees have won 27 straight games.

As coronavirus spreads so does fear among the population!

Tony

Three months ago, I entered the race to defeat Donald Trump. Today, I'm leaving for the same reason. Defeating Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. It's clear that is my friend and a great American, @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/cNJDIQHS75

— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) March 4, 2020

Dear Commons Community,

Michael Bloomberg quit the race for the Democratic nomination for president yesterday and is throwing his support to Joe Biden.  Above is his twitter announcement.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump said he had a “very good talk” with a top Taliban leader and insisted the group wants to cease violence, a U.S. military drone yesterday targeted the militant group in retaliation for an uptick in Taliban attacks against Afghan forces.  The mixed signals underscored the fragility of the U.S.-Taliban deal signed last weekend that aims at ending America’s longest war. As reported by the Associated Press.

“U.S. officials said Wednesday’s airstrike was intended as a message to the Taliban to continue to enforce a reduction in violence commitment they had agreed to ahead of intra-Afghan peace talks that are supposed to begin next week. They stressed there was always the expectation that there would be hiccups in the process and that scattered violations would not necessarily crater the deal or the intra-Afghan talks.

Officials noted that the deal signed in Doha, Qatar, does not include a full-on cease-fire but rather leaves negotiations on a comprehensive nationwide truce to the intra-Afghan talks. In the meantime, the reduction in violence commitment had been expected to be respected. It does not, however, say that the truce or completion of a peace accord are required conditions for the withdrawal of American troops.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told a Senate panel Wednesday that the Taliban are honoring the agreement by not attacking U.S. and coalition forces, “but not in terms of sustaining the reduction in violence.” He added: “Keeping that group of people on board is a challenge. They’ve got their range of hard-liners and soft-liners and so they’re wrestling with that too, I think.”

Esper, who was in Kabul on Saturday with Afghan leaders while the peace agreement was signed in Doha, said the document allows the U.S. to act in defense of the Afghan forces. “It’s the commitment I made to the Afghans when I was there on Saturday. We would continue to defend the Afghans,” he said.

The peace deal calls for a comprehensive nationwide cease-fire to be negotiated in the intra-Afghan talks, and it says the U.S. must begin withdrawing more than 4,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan in the next week or so.

Still, a surge in Taliban attacks since the peace deal was signed, coupled with the refusal thus far of the Afghan government to release thousands of Taliban prisoners, may have imperiled the planned March 10 start of the Afghanistan negotiations.

And, as the renewed violence complicated the situation, U.S. lawmakers expressed concern that the U.S.-Taliban agreement gives away too much for too little and may threaten America’s national security. They also complained about two annexes to the agreement that have not been made public that lay out the process for the withdrawal of American and allied troops

“I read the secret annexes to the Taliban deal today. Bottom line: the administration is telling a terrorist group the conditions (such as they are) of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, but not telling the American people. This is wrong. And it serves no national security purpose,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., a former State Department official.

Even Trump allies like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., have aired doubts.

At a congressional hearing on Tuesday Cheney made a point similar to Malinowski’s. “The documents have been seen by the Taliban, so I believe that the American people deserve to know what agreement has been entered into our name with the terrorists” who harbored those behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, she said.

Graham accused the Taliban of violating the deal. “Always suspicious of the Taliban when it came to any peace agreement, but can’t believe they’re this stupid,” Graham tweeted, adding that the violence “not only violates the spirit of the alleged peace deal, it violates the letter of the agreement.”

U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett said in a tweet that Wednesday’s “defensive” strike was aimed at countering a Taliban assault on Afghan government forces in southern Helmand province. He said Taliban forces had conducted 43 attacks on Afghan troops on Tuesday in Helmand, where the local governor’s official said two police officers were killed.

The Afghan Interior Ministry said four civilians and 11 troops were killed Wednesday in a wave of Taliban attacks across the country.

In his account of the call with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban and head of their political office in Qatar, Trump told reporters that his relationship with Baradar is “very good” and that the Taliban “want to cease the violence.”

The White House readout of the call was more restrained. It said Trump had “emphasized the need to continue the reduction in violence” and urged the Taliban to participate in the intra-Afghan talks.

In a tweet Wednesday, the U.S. special representative, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he had met with Baradar and other Taliban members before the call with Trump. “We all agreed the purpose of the US-Taliban agreement is to pave the path to a comprehensive peace in Afghanistan,” he said.

Trump has looked to the agreement as a step toward making progress on his campaign pledge to extract U.S. troops from “endless wars.”

Although the agreement signed in Doha says the phased drawdown of American and allied troops is dependent on the Taliban entering intra-Afghan negotiations and taking them seriously, the withdrawals are only specifically contingent on the Taliban meeting its counter-terrorism commitments, including a rejection of al-Qaida and other groups.”

Tony

A student attending an online class at home in Fuyang, China, on Monday.  Credit…China Daily/Reuters

Dear Commons Community,

The coronavirus epidemic is reaching deeper into daily life across the world as governments decide that it is necessary to close their schools. Yesterday,  all schools in Italy were closed and the United Nations estimates that  nearly 300 million students globally are not attending due to fears of spreading the coronavirus.  The global scale and speed of the educational disruption from the coronavirus epidemic is “unparalleled,” the United Nations said.  Furthermore, school closures are not only disrupting the families but also all of the service providers and suppliers who support school operations.  Here is an excerpt from an article that appears in today’s New York Times.

“Only a few weeks ago, China, where the outbreak began, was the only country to suspend classes. But the virus has spread so quickly that by Wednesday, 22 countries on three continents had announced school closures of varying degrees, leading the United Nations to warn that “the global scale and speed of the current educational disruption is unparalleled.”

Students are now out of school in South Korea, Iran, Japan, France, Pakistan and elsewhere — some for only a few days, others for weeks on end. In Italy, suffering one of the deadliest outbreaks outside China, officials said Wednesday that they would extend school closures beyond the north, where the government has imposed a lockdown on several towns, to the entire nation. All schools and universities will remain closed until March 15, officials said.

On the West Coast of the United States, the region with the most American infections so far, Los Angeles declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, advising parents to steel themselves for school closures in the nation’s second-largest public school district. Washington State, which has reported at least 10 deaths from the outbreak, has closed some schools, while on the other side of the country in New York, newly diagnosed cases have led to the closure of several schools as well.

The speed and scale of the educational tumult — which now affects 290.5 million students worldwide, the United Nations says — has little parallel in modern history, educators and economists contend. Schools provide structure and support for families, communities and entire economies. The effect of closing them for days, weeks and sometimes even months could have untold repercussions for children and societies at large.

 “They’re always saying, ‘When can we go out to play? When can we go to school?’” said Gao Mengxian, a security guard in Hong Kong whose two daughters have been stuck at home because school has been suspended since January.

…

“I don’t have data to offer, but can’t think of any instances in modern times where advanced economies shut down schools nationally for prolonged periods of time,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

In Hong Kong, families like Ms. Gao’s have struggled to maintain some semblance of normalcy.

…School and government officials have sought to keep children learning — and occupied — at home. The Italian government created a web page to give teachers access to videoconference tools and ready-made lesson plans. Mongolian television stations are airing classes. Iran’s government has made all children’s internet content free.

Students even take online physical education: At least one school in Hong Kong requires students — in gym uniform — to follow along as an instructor demonstrates push-ups onscreen. Each student’s webcam provides proof.

The offline reality, though, is challenging. Technological hurdles and unavoidable distractions pop up when children and teenagers are left to their own devices — literally.

Thira Pang, a 17-year-old high school student in Hong Kong, has been repeatedly late for class because her internet connection is slow. She now logs on 15 minutes early.

“It’s just a bit of luck to see whether you can get in,” she said.

The new classroom at home poses greater problems for younger students, and their older caregivers. Ruby Tan, a teacher in Chongqing, a city in southwestern China that suspended school last month, said many grandparents were helping with child care so that the parents can go to work. But the grandparents do not always know the technology.

“They don’t have any way of supervising the children’s learning, and instead let them develop bad habits of not being able to focus during study time,” Ms. Tan said.

Some interruptions are unavoidable. Posts on Chinese social media show teachers and students climbing onto rooftops or hovering outside neighbors’ homes in search of a stronger internet signal. One family in Inner Mongolia packed up its yurt and migrated elsewhere in the grasslands for a better web connection, a Chinese magazine reported.

…With the closings, families must rethink how they support themselves and split household responsibilities. The burden has fallen particularly hard on women, who across the world are still largely responsible for child care.

Babysitters are in short supply or leery of taking children from hard-hit regions.

The 11-year-old son of Lee Seong-yeon, a health information manager at a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, has been out of class since the government suspended schools nationwide on Monday. South Korea has the highest number of coronavirus cases outside China.

Working from home was never an option for Ms. Lee: She and her husband, also a hospital employee, have more work duties than ever. So Ms. Lee’s son spends each weekday alone, eating lunchboxes of sausage and kimchi fried rice premade by Ms. Lee.

 “I think I would have quit my job if my son were younger, because I wouldn’t have been able to leave him alone at home,” Ms. Lee said.

Still, she feels her career will suffer. “I try to get off work at 6 p.m. sharp, even when others at the office are still at their desks, and I run home to my son and make him dinner,” she said. “So I know there is no way I am ever going to be acknowledged for my career at work.”

For mothers with few safety nets, options are even more limited.

…The epidemic has shaken entire industries that rely on the rituals of students in school and parents at work.

School administrators in Japan, surprised by the abrupt decision to close schools, have rushed to cancel orders for cafeteria lunches, stranding suppliers with unwanted groceries and temporarily unneeded employees.

Kazuo Tanaka, deputy director of the Yachimata School Lunch Center in central Japan, said it scrapped orders for ingredients to make about 5,000 lunches for 13 schools. It would cost the center about 20 million yen, nearly $200,000, each month that school was out, he said.

“Bakeries are blown,” said Yuzo Kojima, secretary general at the National School Lunch Association. “Dairy farmers and vegetable farmers will be hit. The workers at the school lunch centers cannot work.”

To blunt the effects, Japan’s government is offering financial help to parents, small businesses and health care providers. But school lunch officials said they had not heard about compensation for their workers.In Hong Kong, many among its sizable population of domestic helpers have been jobless as affluent parents have enrolled children overseas.

Demand for nannies had already dropped by a third when the outbreak began, because many companies allowed parents to work from home, said Felix Choi, the director of Babysitter.hk, a nanny service. Now some expatriate families have left the city rather than wait out the closings.

“Over 30 percent of our client base is Western expat families, and I’m not seeing many of them coming back to Hong Kong at this moment,” Mr. Choi said. “Most of them informed us they will only come back after school restarts.”

I fear this is still only the beginning of the coronavirus spread. The Associated Press has an article entitled, The World Girds for Months of Trouble as the Coronavirus Pushes West that attempts to put a timeline on the  situation.

Tony