Indiana Daily Student
2
NEWS
Thursday, May 14, 2020 idsnews.com
Editor Lilly St. Angelo news@idsnews.com
Local candidates campaign from home By Lilly St. Angelo lstangel@iu.edu | @lilly_st_ang
Months before the coronavirus wiped out jobs and put thousands in the hospital, people saw the need for better leadership in their communities and made the decision to run for public offices in the 2020 elections. Then the pandemic hit. Plans to canvass neighborhoods went down the drain, a campaign manager moved in with a candidate so they could continue the campaign in quarantine and almost all forms of campaigning moved online. “Campaigning has always been a wonky process—you never really know what’s going to get voters out to the polls,” said Dominic Thompson, a rising IU senior majoring in law and public policy who is running for Monroe County Council. “Adding this new element of living in the age of coronavirus, it has completely upended any strategies we had.”
When the stay-at-home order began and the community was largely hunkered down, candidates strategized the best move to make. “We decided to take a break to allow people to digest what was going on with the coronavirus and not put pressure on them to get out there and vote,” Thompson, a 21-year-old Democrat said. Democrat Brandon Hood, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in District 9, said his campaign also stopped for a few weeks, thinking it would come across as rude or opportunistic to campaign during a time of crisis. His campaign manager, Glitz Litzenberg, moved from St. Petersburg, Florida to Hood’s house to manage the campaign in the uncertain time, and he’s staying until the campaign is over. But in the past month, candidates have tried to increase their presence in the community. Phone calls and social media have been the main
strategies candidates have been using to reach voters. In addition to using online avenues, John Zody, a Democrat running for the Indiana State Senate, has also been using texting and mailers. If you drive by Republican Carl Lamb’s law office, yard signs make it clear he is running for Monroe County circuit court judge. “We’re doing what we can and we’re certainly trying to do what’s best for people’s health,” Zody said. In addition to campaigning, Thompson uses time on the phone with voters to inform people about how to vote by mail. He has heard from more people who are excited about voting than people who are feeling reluctant. “Our number one job is to tell voters that they have unlimited access to mail-in ballots this year, which is not something that Indiana has historically done,” he said. Hood and Lamb said there are some positives to campaigning exclusively online.
COURTESY PHOTO
John Zody is campaigning to be an Indiana state senator. Candidates are finding new ways to continue their campaigns online.
Candidates don’t have to walk miles upon miles going door to door. But Hood said he much prefers face-to-face interaction than campaigning online. He isn’t sure which way people are leaning with their votes when he isn’t interacting with them regularly. “It’s hard to really gauge because I’m not really around people,” he said. “I can only put stuff out there.” Lamb said the inability to talk to people in person has especially hurt his campaign’s
Vaping might increase COVID-19 risk, but more evidence is needed By Lyndsay Valadez lvaladez@iu.edu | @lynds_val
With his class of about 700 medical students, Professor W. Graham Carlos recently looked at a COVID-19 case. He emphasized the importance of documenting a good medical history. This means asking about the patient’s social life, which includes vaping history. “I believe that taking a good medical history for anybody presenting with breathing problems should include asking about smoking as well as vaping,” Carlos said. Carlos is also section chief for pulmonary and critical care at Eskenazi Health, a hospital in Indianapolis, leading the COVID-19 unit. People are still learning more from medical research about the effect of vaping on the lungs. Carlos said because vaping is relatively new, it’s hard to tell what the long-term effects of vaping are, let alone what effects it can have on coronavirus. Vaping-associated pulmonary illness is a lung injury that can look a lot like COVID-19. When people come in with VAPI, they have coughs, shortness of breath and abnormal X-rays, Carlos said. This can make it more difficult on the health care team to decide what treatments to employ. “As a pulmonary specialist, working here at Eskenazi Health and teaching at the medical school, I believe it’s my responsibility to warn patients and my trainees about a potential danger because both COVID-19 and vaping cause
lstangel@iu.edu | @lilly_st_ang
While many students quarantined at home in March and April, uncertain of their summer plans, IU sent out emails nudging students to knock out some credits and take a summer class or two. On March 26, Provost Lauren Robel announced all summer classes were going to be online and could be completed from the convenience of students’ homes. Many students took the university up on the offer. Summer enrollment is up by 28% compared to 2019, according to the senior associate registrar Michael Carrol, who also said the overall number of classes is down 13%. He said he did not have any official reasoning behind these numbers. Math professor Jee Koh has been teaching an online calculus class for four or five years and his summer class is usually capped at 60 students. But with all in-person classes canceled, he now has a summer class of 144 students.
Veoride scooters make debut amid pandemic By Cate Charron catcharr@iu.edu | @catecharron
ILLUSTRATION BY CARSON TERBUSH | IDS
inflammation of the lungs,” Carlos said. Because of the uncertainty surrounding VAPI and coronavirus, he advises people to avoid cigarette and e-cigarette use. He also reminds people that testing positive for COVID-19 does not necessarily mean having lung trouble. Carlos has actually seen a decrease in the usage of cigarettes and e-cigs recently. But, David Jewell, general manager at Stimline Variety Smoke Shop, said at the start of this pandemic business really went up as they were one of the few smoke shops in the area to stay open. While they don’t sell vape juices, they do sell CBD cartridges. “Everybody wants to buy up whatever they can, whether it’s twinkies or bread or toilet paper or e-cigs,” Jewell said. Stimline Variety Shop was able to stay open mainly because they sell medicinal
marijuana and products that help people relax in this crazy time, Jewell said. However, Jewell said people should do their best not to risk anyone’s health, including their own. While Jewell said they are following social distancing guidelines and sanitizing to stay open, if cases were to worsen as other places reopen, they would be willing to shut their doors. “We’re not medical experts,” Jewell said. “We’re just wanting to follow the guidelines of the local government to be honest.” According to the blogpost of Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Because it attacks the lungs, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could be an especially serious threat to those who smoke tobacco or marijuana or who vape.” Carlos said he has seen patients who have vaped, smoked and done neither but who have each contract-
ed the virus. The bottom line is that VAPI could be a confounder or lead to diagnostic uncertainty if patients were to test positive for COVID-19 as well, he said. “So, picture this: somebody comes in with vaping injury, they test positive for COVID and the health care providers, we all think, ‘Oh, this is all COVID,’” Carlos said. “We could be fooled because their lung injury, their disease may be related to their vaping instead.” A major limitation to studying the vaping population and coronavirus is it’s difficult to track who’s vaping through electronic medical records. This is why it’s so important to Carlos to teach his students how to record thorough medical histories for patients. “We don’t have enough evidence yet to make an association with the virus and outcomes and vaping,” Carlos said.
Professors give tips for online classes By Lilly St. Angelo
ability to fundraise. Hood’s campaign has suffered from this as well. “If we do win the primary, we’re not going to be going in with gold on our boots,” Hood said. Thompson said he participated in a debate via Zoom on Monday night led by the Monroe County West Side Democratic Collaborative for Democratic candidates. Zody has done solo Facebook Live “town halls” to answer voters’ questions and has talked to various political IU student
Koh’s online course is accelerated, squeezing a 15week class into an 8-week period during the first session of summer classes from May 12 through July 2. He said students’ biggest challenge is keeping up with the work and his biggest challenge is keeping them engaged and learning. “Math is like learning a language,” Koh said. “There are many new concepts to learn. If you put it off, it just accumulates.” Through his years of online teaching experience, Koh has learned to break things up into bite-sized chunks for students taking online courses so students don’t feel overwhelmed. He keeps his lectures short and focuses on only one subject at a time. He also said it takes more effort to keep students engaged in an online course, and having over double the students he normally has will keep him and his seven assistant instructors busy. “You are frequently contacting them, pushing them, motivating them to keep going,” Koh said.
ALEX DERYN | IDS
Sunshine illuminates the Sample Gates on June 28 on the IU Bloomington campus. In March, Provost Lauren Robel announced all summer classes would be online.
Media School professor Galen Clavio has been teaching an online summer class on sports social media for a few years and has also learned to adjust his teaching style. “You have to have more energy,” Clavio said. “You have to maintain students’ attention.” Clavio also has a larger class size this summer with 25 students instead of his usual 18. He has learned that having live, video-conference lectures is sometimes important but he also records lectures to give students more flexibility. “Keep in mind Zoom fatigue is a real thing,” he said. Clavio said he also keeps
his lectures short and uses the Canvas discussion page heavily to make sure students are reading the material and participating. “A lot of times students feel more comfortable commenting instead of raising their hand,” Clavio said. Even though Koh has taught online classes for years, he still had to adjust his class slightly to meet the fully-online requirements. Previously, he would require students to take exams in person at a local university or library where they lived. Now, exams are all online. When the math department first asked Koh to create an online calculus class years ago, they weren’t sure what the demand would be like. Now, as the coronavirus cancels in-person classes indefinitely, classes designed for online learning are more important than ever, and the end to spring semester was a taste of what the whole summer will be like for students and professors. “If they haven’t done it before, they’ve gotten a lot of practice over the past six weeks,” Clavio said.
groups via Zoom. Hood said he may organize a Facebook Live informal discussion with the other U.S. House of Representatives District 9 Democratic candidates because no local organization has done it yet. “I don’t want this to become some campaign or vote where people are in the ballot box and they’re just like, ‘oh that name sounds cooler than that name,’” Hood said. “We want people to be informed.” For Lamb, campaigning and keeping up his work as an attorney has made him a “Zoom expert.” For Thompson, the experience is a valuable lesson on how future campaigns might play out if there are more crises like the coronavirus pandemic. “I think that future campaigns really have to be prepared for the reality of campaigning during a public health crisis,” Thompson said. “There is a reality that you could be campaigning from your cell phone rather than going door to door.”
Weeks after the coronavirus shut down Bloomington and the IU campus, a new scooter company is in town. Veoride scooter company had a soft launch of a small number of their new scooters April 20 in Bloomington. “They reached out and they said, ‘we’re going to do a very small deployment so we can kind of get things going,’” said Alex Crowley, City of Bloomington director of economic and sustainable development. Crowley said the Chicagobased company originally meant to launch immediately after spring break. He said Veoride told the city they decided to delay their launching plans since students were gone. “They fully understand and recognize that students aren’t around,” Crowley said. “It’s unlikely that there’s going to be a huge amount of ridership.” Crowley said Veoride has a different charging system than Bird and Lime scooters. Instead of having to take the scooter to charge it, Veoride has replaceable batteries. Veoride CEO Candice Xie said Veoride is one of the first companies to use this charging technology. She said Bloomington is a perfect city to have their scooters in because of the city structure. She said the company doesn’t know when they will drop off more scooters. “It depends on how everything turns out after the virus,” Xie said. Xie said the scooters could be an essential service for the city for people who are not comfortable riding public transportation during a pandemic. She
said the scooters could potentially be a safer option. “We deployed a few to support transportation,” Xie said. Regarding COVID-19, Xie said Veoride is alerting users of security and safety precautions. She also said employees wear gloves and masks to sanitize the scooters when they go to replace the battery every one or two days. Crowley said Byrd and Lime scooters dropped off scooters unannounced and caused a disruption in the city’s transportation. Bloomington City Council decided to create an ordinance so new companies would apply for a scooter license. “There was a little bit of craziness when the two had launched in Bloomington,” Crowley said. Veoride applied and was approved Nov. 26, 2019 by the City of Bloomington Board of Public Works. Freshman Megan Coddington said she thinks having another scooter company in Bloomington seems unnecessary. She said she doesn’t use them routinely but knows other people use them to travel between classes. She said she thinks some people may like that Veoride is more environmentally friendly with the battery changes but it makes little difference to her. “Unless their scooters are completely different where it goes a lot quicker than the other ones or has anything special about it,” Coddington said. “It’s the exact same thing.” CARL COTE | IDS
Tags hang from parked VeoRide scooters May 11 on North College Avenue. VeoRide had a soft launch of their scooters April 20 in Bloomington but has delayed their launch plans.
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