This week’s news round-up includes stories from Southern Adventist University, Blue Mountain SDA Elementary School, Israel, and Australia.
A “Coronavirus-killing” air filtration system. Really! Just like the one those Phoenix megachurch pastors got before Trump’s visit to their flock. It’s a Christmas miracle! Or better yet, a long drink of Kool-Aid on a hot Tennessee summer afternoon 
In fact, it’s so effective Phoenix’s COVID-19 numbers are shooting through the roof.
let’s hope it works…but it does sound a bit like what those phoenix pastors were announcing, which even the manufacturers distanced themselves from:
it’s hard to see how SAU could have been working on a system to kill covid in 2015…
I guess the fancy air filtration systems can’t hurt anything, but I sure wouldn’t rely on them!
i haven’t heard whether SAU is actually planning to open in the fall…i would think they’d wait a bit…it seems like the entire south in the U.S. is now being hit by out of control covid…
They’re reopening campus for fall classes on August 24. There’s a video on their website promoting it.
They wouldn’t spend $500K on filters if they weren’t going full speed ahead on reopening, whether it actually makes any sense to do so or not.
i’m sensing the possibility of disaster…i wonder if the kids who attend will be required to sign any kind of waiver absolving the school from any responsibility if they get sick, like the trump rally attendees did in tulsa…
most universities here in canada, where covid is much more controlled, are offering only online courses in the fall…
Indeed, they are. Here is the latest report out of Chattanooga/Hamilton County (where Southern is located), which has hit #2 on the New York Times list of highest average growth rates of deaths in the country: https://newschannel9.com/news/local/hamilton-county-reports-total-of-28-covid-19-deaths-as-of-june-22-free-testing-available?fbclid=IwAR03tkUlkc5ET05w6xdN23OTdWxTdVxXYN4LKTY13i8roPQhCpGJ9_czN4Q
Sadly, it is the reliance on this sort of pseudo-science or anti-science that has contributed to the exponential spread in the South. In the case of the “Coronavirus-killing” air filtration system, respiratory droplets leave the mouth of a potentially infected person, are sucked up into a room’s filtration system and neutralized, before then returning JFK “magic bullet” style to the mouth and nose of a person standing some feet away. The reports that this is a COVID-19-killing system were so overblown that the company that manufactures the system ran from the claims (as you have noted), and the pastors who recorded the video took it down from their website. Southern really needs to retract this piece and ask for their half-a-million dollars back.
i can’t understand this push to open…if worse came to worst, and a kid graduated at 23 or even 24, instead of 22, but were alive and well enough to tell the story, why isn’t this enough…and even if the kids end up being OK, for the most part, what about the profs…and what about parents and grandparents at home…
even if masks are worn, nobody can keep that up for several back to back 50 min classes, let alone a 3 hr lab…it’s best to go online, and hope for a vaccine by xmas…i hope SAU reconsiders…
Doesn’t SAU have better things to do with $500,000 than throw it away on a fraudulent scheme that is unscientific, unproven, and very expensive? Why are SDA conservative bastions of “higher learning” so susceptible to false science? The gullibility of many on the right seems to have deeper roots even than this. That may be because at the most basic level, conservatives and liberals seem to hold different beliefs about what constitutes “truth.”
SDA hyper conservatives are less introspective, less attentive to their inner feelings, and less likely to override their “gut” reactions and engage in further reflection to find a correct answer. As a result, they may be more likely to rely on error-prone cognitive shortcuts, less aware of their own unconscious biases, and less likely to respond to factual corrections to previously held beliefs. SDA hyper conservative preferences for information that fits in with their pre-existing ideology provide only a partial explanation. Faulty reasoning and judgment, leading to a $500,000 mistake are the result.
How many delicious “Little Debbies” cakes could have been purchased with $500,000?
Not a stretch to imagine them using the tech for air quality improvement since then.
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