Randi Weingarten writes on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers:
This is a confusing and scary time for many of us.
Since January, in response to the coronavirus, the AFT’s attention has been focused on how to ensure the health and safety of our families and communities, particularly those on the frontline of this crisis. Now, since the World Health Organization has labeled the coronavirus a global pandemic, our attention must be on everything: prevention and precaution, treatment, and the short- and long-term economic impact of COVID-19 on families and communities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautions that the spread of the new coronavirus will get worse in the United States before it gets better. But we’ve seen that the comprehensive response to COVID-19 in both China and South Korea—where they have used widespread testing and quarantines—appears to have stemmed the spread of the virus and is a very good sign.
The difference in the United States is that we are not fighting COVID-19 with all the tools we need because, unlike China and South Korea, the federal government has cut public health infrastructure and does not have enough tests for the coronavirus to use them preventively, as opposed to when a cluster erupts. Nonetheless, we wanted you to know what the AFT is doing related to preventing, treating and dealing with the long-term impacts of COVID-19 to protect people, prevent the spread and limit the ravages to our economy:
We are focused on the health and safety of frontline healthcare providers. This means fighting for proper safety equipment, including N95 masks. It also means pushing for high standards for workplace safety, even as the CDC attempts to roll back safety standards, potentially putting healthcare workers at risk.
We are equally focused on the health and safety of children, families and communities, and maintaining as much normalcy as possible. We know that social distancing, limiting who can be in schools beyond students and staff, and closing schools when necessary flattens the curve of exposure to the virus. But we also need to ensure that if (and when) schools close, distance and online learning is done in a positive, equitable and beneficial way—and that children who rely on schools for meals and a safe and welcoming environment have access to those supports.
We are supporting efforts to reduce the economic impacts of the pandemic. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed a multibillion-dollar package of policies and programs to fight the spread of COVID-19 and help ensure that our economy and working people and their families are protected. It includes emergency paid sick leave, free coronavirus testing, provisions to protect frontline healthcare workers, and food assistance for seniors and vulnerable children and families. This bill, combined with the initial $8.3 billion in emergency funding to fight the coronavirus, is exactly what’s needed.
The AFT has done numerous information sessions since the coronavirus emerged, and we’ll do the largest telephone town hall to date this Saturday at 2 p.m. Eastern. We will highlight what we know, provide our recommendations and answer your questions. You can sign up for the town hall here.
And right now, you can help by sending a letter to your senators telling them to pass the vital comprehensive package that I mentioned above to protect the health of our families and communities, as well as to address the short- and long-term impacts to their economic well-being. You can send the letter by clicking here.
And I want to make sure you have all the resources we’ve created. We have been working with experts for months on preparing resources and fact sheets for all our divisions. This includes step-by-step guidance on what you should be asking your employers—as individuals and as a union—everything from their pandemic preparedness plan and their infectious disease cleaning protocols, to their teleworking and leave policies. All of those can be found here.
I hope you can make it to the telephone town hall on Saturday. There will be plenty of space for questions from members. I know that things are scary right now, and we’re all disappointed at how unprepared this administration was for this crisis. But I know that if we care about each other and show up for each other and fight for what’s needed, we can get through this together.
In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President
PS : Here’s a list of our resources and a few of the many things we’ve done to prepare and protect ourselves during this crisis.
Resources for all divisions.
Share My Lesson and Colorín Colorado resources for educators and parents.
An educator checklist to prepare for potential remote learning.
We joined with UNITE HERE to call for paid sick days.
We joined the Association of Flight Attendants to call for a coordinated federal response plan to the virus.
We joined with other healthcare unions to call on the CDC to maintain safety standards for frontline workers.
FYI – LAUSD is shutting down as of Monday for at least the next two weeks. Spring Break is scheduled for April 6 so they may extend the closure for a full month.
Excellent. I urge all readers of this blog to sign the letter and to share the posting.
Thank you, Ms. Weingarten!
Maybe public health policy should follow 21st century public education policy… Pearson and ETS can provide coronavirus tests to all patients. Healthcare professionals can be held accountable for the test results of their patients. These accountability measures will require firing “the worst” doctors and nurses. TFA will provide five weeks of medical training to recent college grads who will spend two years practicing medicine in urban areas before moving on to other careers. Hospitals will be shut down and reopened as charter hospitals who select their patients through a lottery and are held “accountable” for their patients’ test results.
Great analogy!
Thanks! I love your most recent book. And Bob, I read in the acknowledgements about how you helped!
LOL. Awesome, Jon. But, ofc, many of the charters are not held accountable.
I’m sorry, Joe. Thanks. Very funny!
It’s bad doctors who cause people to get sick . . . . Right?
LOL.
President Trump’s response to the Coronavirus:
Wuh oh. I’ve got a penmark. Anybody have any of that white stuff? F***.
That should take care of the problem.
The legislation to deal with COVID-19 that the Democratic majority in the House submitted to Congress was voted down by the GOP majority in the Senate.
After that defeat that was intended to save lives, Trump and his pack of GOP leaders in the Senate were all smiles with Trump holding a thumb-up, another victory for stopping Pelosi ….. This was photographed by the media.
The Republicans do not care how many Americans die from this pandemic as long as they continue to block the Democrats in the House.
This piece is pre-pandemic but it says it all:
“House Democrats have passed nearly 400 bills. Trump and Republicans are ignoring them.”
https://www.vox.com/2019/11/29/20977735/how-many-bills-passed-house-democrats-trump
The New York Times is reporting that according to the CDC, between 160 million and 214 million American could be infected over the course of this epidemic, between 2.4 and 21 million could require hospitalization, and between 200,000 and 1.7 million could die. A week and a half ago, Trump said that because he imposed a ban on entry from China, the number of cases would soon be down to around 5.
And when anyone dares remind Trump of what he said or tweeted about how he was controlling the outbreak, he will get angry at them and accuse them of spreading “fake news”.
I watched the video and saw Trump shaking hands with some of his deplorable supporters. My first thoughts will offend some, but I do not care if someone reading this is offended. We are fighting a war. I have fought in a real war. There will be casualties, and viruses can be weaponized. In this case, the victims are willing to be exposed so let them.
With that in mind, I want Trump to shake as many hands as possible. I want him to hold rallies and breathe on the people that show up wearing the MAGA hats Trump’s family sells to them at a profit.
Let’s urge his deplorable supporters, the ones that will vote for him in November 2020, if Trump doesn’t stop the election, to show up and shake hands with Trumpelstiltskin and to attend his hate rallies.
The reporters forced to cover these events should wear hazmat suits.
Let’s spread the love of his hard-core supporters for Trump and COVID-19 as far as possible among the deplorable, faux Christian zealots that would still vote for him even if he did shoot an innocent person on 5th Avenue in NYC.
Why would Trump say that? Because in the moldy sludge where his brain should be, he fantasizes about shooting anyone he wants to kill at any time and still be above the law.
“But we also need to ensure that if (and when) schools close”
Why not close all schools in the US? What are we waiting for? If we wait until the first kid in the school gets tested positive, it’s late.
We are waiting for the virus to spread throughout the entire population so that closing the schools won’t make any difference, evidently.
Idiots
I do understand that for many parents, closing schools is a big issue since schools also serve as babysitters, and parents have to continue working. There is a solution to this problem, but it requires money the government would rather spend on helping out the stock market.
March 14: Since the Fed began its repo loan operations on September 17, the tally of the Fed’s cumulative loans to Wall Street’s trading firms comes to more than $9 trillion.
According to the Fed audit conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), from December 12, 2007 to July 21, 2010, a period spanning more than 31 months during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Fed’s cumulative loans to Wall Street tallied up to $16.1 trillion. (See chart below from the GAO audit.)
And here we are today, when everyone from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to bank analyst Mike Mayo is telling the public that the banks have plenty of capital and yet the Fed has pumped out 56 percent in six months of the amount it funneled to the Wall Street banks over 31 months during the 2008 financial crisis. At this rate, it is going to top the money it threw at the 2008 crisis in no time at all.
That’s no exaggeration. Just this past Thursday the Fed said it would make $1.5 trillion available to Wall Street over just the next two days. The banks didn’t take all of that money but the Fed clearly thought there was a big enough crisis to offer it.
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/03/the-fed-has-pumped-9-trillion-into-wall-street-over-the-past-six-months-but-mnuchin-says-this-isnt-like-the-financial-crisis/