Benjamin P. Linas, an epidemiologist, writes in VOX that both blue and red states are doing the wrong things about the pandemic. The blue states are too quick to close down schools and the red states are too quick to keep them open without proper safety measures. The Trump administration has provided no guidance at all and left it to states to craft their own responses, which mostly fall along partisan lines.
He describes a plan that he hopes the new Biden administration will adopt that will both contain the pandemic and enable schools to be open for in-person instruction.
Linas offers a plan that he hopes will be the basis for a new approach:
Our current political leaders are failing to provide a clear, national plan for reopening America’s schools. The incoming Biden-Harris administration has announced that it will provide new funds and guidance, but details have not yet emerged. Below are four essential elements for such a plan.
1) Clear guidance for when and how to open (and close) schools
Such guidance includes two components. One is reasonable, evidence-based thresholds for opening and closing our schools. The CDC has such guidance, but it is not clear how the thresholds were chosen. Further, the guidance has no bite.
At no time has the CDC said that districts may not open above a given threshold. They simply “advise caution” or “reconsideration” of current policy. We need strong federal action to prevent schools from opening when Covid-19 is not yet controlled in their communities. We also need clear and effective guidance for when schools should be open.
Second is making new strategy that envisions schools as one part of a larger public health policy. No district should employ school closures as the first intervention when Covid-19 cases rise. In a Covid-19 crisis, it may be necessary to close schools, but if so, then the school closures must be one component of a larger strategy that seeks to generally reduce mobility and social interaction, including restrictions on activities such as indoor dining, bars, gyms, and other places that we know Covid-19 is being transmitted.
2) Clear guidance for distancing in schools
While 6 feet has become the default stance on appropriate distancing from others in most of the US, 6-foot distance requirements greatly limit the ability of public schools to bring all students back full-time. The reality is, in many public school districts, if we insist on all students being 6 feet apart at all times, many districts simply will not have the space (and thus not really be able to bring all kids back to school full-time until there is an effective, widely distributed vaccine). That means that there is a very realistic scenario in which even in 2021 schools will need to use a hybrid instructional model.
Globally, the WHO identifies 1 meter (about 3.3 feet) as a minimum for distance from others. We need data-driven guidance for situations in which it is acceptable to distance less than 6 feet in educational settings.
Fortunately, data does exist to help us gauge the risk of Covid-19 transmission with contact of various distances. Perhaps, with quiet activity and good air flow and all students reliably in masks, a 4-foot distance might be acceptable. Covid-19 is always a question of risk and benefit. The benefit of being back in school full-time is clear. What are the real risks of occasionally being 4 to 5 feet apart during the school day if everyone is wearing masks?
3) Strong mask mandates at the federal, state, district, and school levels
Every message from every person of authority needs to reiterate the civic duty to wear a mask in public. Currently, many states leave masking mandates up to districts. This needs to change. People do not have a right to walk down the street naked, and almost every school district has a definition of clothing that is not appropriate to wear in school. Likewise, people do not have a right to have a naked face in school during this viral pandemic, and not wearing a mask is at least as inappropriate as wearing short shorts.
4) Robust testing and contact tracing
It’s critical that whenever any child develops symptoms consistent with Covid-19, it is fast, easy, and free to obtain testing. It is not possible for parents to keep their child out of school for many days every time that child develops a new runny nose, or winter cough. Symptomatic testing is important to make it possible to stay in school.
The role for asymptomatic screening is more complex. Routinely screening all members of the community holds promise as a strategy to identify and quarantine asymptomatic cases that may otherwise come to school. But we do not currently have the infrastructure or resources to make this happen. And in any case, the real pillars of safe school operation are community control, masks, and distancing. We cannot make asymptomatic screening a prerequisite to opening schools, because if we do, we will not be able to reopen.
This is what a plan to reopen looks like, but implementing it requires courageous leadership at the federal and state levels. With this plan in place, however, America can open its schools, keep students and teachers healthy, and contribute to a larger public health strategy to end the Covid-19 epidemic.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We need a moonshot-style program to ramp up production of the melt-blown material that constitutes the middle layer of N95 masks, and especially of production of the very expensive precision machines used to manufacture this material. Unfortunately, other masks aren’t effective enough.
There should be money for asymptomatic testing of children and adults in schools.
I like Fred Klonsky’s idea of how to get money to fight COVID-19. The U.S. ALWAYS HAS money for killing, maiming and ruthless destruction but never any money for fulfilling plans that help people. I AGREE WITH FRED, “DEFUND THE PENTAGON”.
………………………………………………
Fred Klonsky’s blog:
To pay for a pandemic and post-pandemic recovery, defund the Pentagon.
…The GOP-led Senate Appropriations Committee is proposing a $696 billion Pentagon spending bill for this fiscal year.
The Senate’s version of the fiscal 2021 Pentagon spending bill was released Tuesday.
Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have said they want to pass an omnibus spending bill, rather than another short-term resolution, but the two chambers still have to work out key differences on controversial issues.
The Democrats in the House passed its $694.6 billion version of the Pentagon spending bill in July as part of a package of spending bills.
The Senate version released Tuesday includes $627.2 billion for the base defense budget and $68.7 billion for a war fund known as the Overseas Contingency Operations account.
The Senate’s bill would also fund 96 F-35 fighter jets, 17 more than the administration requested and five more than the House bill would buy.
The bill also includes $21.35 billion to build nine new battle force ships, $1.4 billion more than the Trump administration requested. The shipbuilding money would buy one Columbia-class submarine, one Virginia-class submarine, two Arleigh Burke destroyers, one Constellation-class frigate, one amphibious transport dock, one Expeditionary Fast Transport ships and two tug boats.
Let them keep the tug boats.
Pentagon spending is out of control in so-called normal times.
The election of Joe Biden is a call for defunding the Pentagon now.
I’m sure that Biden already has teams of people trying to identify monies that can be reallocated to weather and recover from the pandemic. I really hate the term “defund” which seems designed to scare the bejeesus out of people who depend on our military or police or whatever else someone decides should be “defunded.”
speduktr :
I agree that Defund the Police scares people who don’t know what the phrase means. Should have been worded much better.
People who read this blog know what DEFUND means. Allocate some money to better uses.
Is this acceptable?
The Senate’s bill would also fund 96 F-35 fighter jets, 17 more than the administration requested and five more than the House bill would buy.
The bill also includes $21.35 billion to build nine new battle force ships, $1.4 billion more than the Trump administration requested.
Yeah, and when you have to spend time explaining what a slogan means, that’s bad.
Who supported the bill? Sounds highly suspicious to me. Military-Industrial complex?
As a teacher, I resent any epidemiologist making recommendations that don’t begin with “robust testing and tracing.” This should be followed by a recommendation for transparent decision-making for all staff at the school.
These conditions are certainly not being met in my rural area. My trust is daily eroded by how this is being handled in my rural area of my blue state. I envy the epidemiologists their remove from the daily reality of school during a pandemic.
agreed
nice summary
These are very good recommendations and, if I understand correctly, they should all be done simultaneously. Read the whole thing before getting your knickers in a twist.
Well-said. What Linas says should happen would be great–if it did happen, but it’s pure fantasy in these Untied States. The layers of bureaucracy (& downright inadequacy of most of the U.S. school buildings) involving education just doesn’t fit the blueprint.
And–how many times need we say this?–evenONE death is too many.
Does it have to be your teenager, your wife, your mother, your son, your uncle before it matters?
(Tonight, on the news, a woman was interviewed who had just lost SIX close family members…SIX.)
This “well-said” comment was meant for jjensch200, WordPress!
NEA School Covid Reporting Site:
https://app.smartsheet.com/b/publish?EQBCT=00a2d3fbe4184e75b06f392fc66dca13
The federal government, Washington, can offer guidance, aka, suggestions, the regulations are a state responsibility, it is highly unlikely that Congress would pass the suggested requirements, and, Biden cannot impose.
And, frighteningly large percents of the populace indicate they do not intend to be vaccinated
Uh oh, an epidemiologist talking like an economist . . . .
“Covid-19 is always a question of risk and benefit.”
“By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.”~Mark Twain
Seems applicable here somehow.
It is the only rational way to think about things like Covid-19.
What has surprised me is that the some of the teachers on this blog see so little benefit from in person teaching that they think any risk at all from Covid-19 outweighs the benefit from in person teaching.
How easy it is to recommend others put their lives at risk so you can make a buck.
Don,
I have often had that same type of thought about those that pay others to take the risk of infection for them when they pay others to purchase and deliver food to them. The modern mercenaries I suppose.
I will think more about it as I walk in to teach tomorrow. For me, the semester is coming to an early end (we are not bringing the students back to in person class after Thanksgiving), but the cycle begins again in January, where I will once again be in the classroom.
“…some of the teachers on this blog see so little benefit from in person teaching…”
Looking for a cat fight, huh TE? Silly boy!
Speduktr,
If i am defending the value of in person education, I am happy to take on any number of cats. It is interesting that the teachers here do not argue that in person education is particularly valuable.
TE, I don’t believe anyone said in-person education is not valuable. I think what you read is teachers fearful for their own health.
That’s a given, TE. It’s how to do it safely and even what that means.
Teachingeconomist: It is interesting that the teachers here do not argue that in person education is particularly valuable.
There isn’t ONE teacher on this site who would say that in-person teaching isn’t valuable. You are missing the whole point. That is a very ignorant, rude, crude thing to say.
We value all students and all adult personnel who work in a school. VALUE is the key word. We don’t want children to get sick and some will get sick…some will have permanent damage to their health for the rest of their lives. Some will die.
We value EACH adult who has to come into a school…be that administrators, teachers, aides, social workers, nurses, cooks, maintenance people or some parent. ONE life lost is too many. The fear that COVID-19 is putting into normal teaching is making life inside schools extremely difficult.
Life in schools isn’t the same as before this pandemic. That is being realistic. Being fearful of having your family die is being realistic. Watching children mingle and know that some will get infected is realistic.
Stop putting down teachers who are fearful for their lives. How many have gone to see a lawyer to make up a will “just in case”?
NOBODY on this site is saying the answer to all educational problems is staying home and having virtual schools forever.
SDP,
Good to see yet another sexual reference. Dr. Ravitch does have an interesting living room. Any thoughts about the importance of in class education?
I don’t dare say anything.
Dr. Ravitch,
I think I am seeing teachers who say that in person education is not important enough to have even the slightest risk to their own health. They, like Don, must certainly think me a great fool for teaching in person.
TE, Diane has already said it in her succinct way but I feel I must add verbiage 😉
You said, “some of the teachers on this blog see so little benefit from in person teaching that they think any risk at all from Covid-19 outweighs the benefit from in person teaching.”
I am picturing blind Justice, measuring the feel of the weight in her two hands. On one side is an unknown scourge which presents a real but unquantifiable physical threat to her life/ health & that of her spouse, children, aged parents, her students and their families, and others with whom she is in fleeting but frequent contact in order to procure necessities for her family. On the other side is the supposedly greater benefit to her students from in-person teaching, tho that’s undermined by regular school quarantines/ closures, and minimized social contact via masks/ distancing/ no mixing outside of classroom, while knowing all that can be replaced by live virtual classes which many find rewarding, especially because it protects all involved—they find it less than desirable compared to pre-covid ed, but understand that there will be a return to normalcy post-covid.
TE, p.s: I am wondering whether you yourself are teaching in-person right now, and whether you have a spouse or other family in your household that you would thus be potentially exposing to covid. As a visiting teacher [for-lang special to 5 PreK/K’s] I am verboten. But I have wondered what my response would be if I were asked nevertheless to return. Though I miss my students terribly, I wouldn’t do it: I am 71yo, thus at a relatively high risk. I see that as an irresponsible choice v-a-v family commitments. My husband too, tho he still works online, goes into the office only briefly & rarely, w/distance & masked, for the same reason. I think your premise is judgmental & broad-brush.
P.P.S, TE, I read the intervening post & see you indeed are teaching in person classes. And you may be as old as I: if so, kudos for bravery! I do not begrudge you your choice, just suggest you consider everyone has their own context. We are a very small family who already lost one of our kids: that sort of thing makes a difference in how you choose. As do other factors like health issues, health ins coverage, etc etc
TE is just baiting people. (And that’s a fishing term)
And he clearly DOES get perverse pleasure from doing so. It’s just weird.
He makes claims without backing them up .
He should either point out the specific “teachers on this blog [who] see so little benefit from in person teaching that they think any risk at all from Covid-19 outweighs the benefit from in person teaching.”
He should do so by giving a LINK to the comments that indicate as much.
Or he should simply NOT make such claims which are clearly meant to do nothing other than “bait” people into responding to his idiocy.
I have asked in the past for a link when TE made such a claim and got only silence.
What a surprise.
The fellow is full of himself. I wonder if he treats his own students with as much condescension and disdain as he treats the teachers here.
My bet is that he does and that they probably have some very “interesting” things to say about him when he is not around. Young people are actually very good at seeing through “false geniuses”.
And with regard to TEs request for my “other thoughts” I would just say that I try not to respond to baiters with anything other than mockery because that is precisely what they deserve.
But for some reason they expect to get a dignified response for their own indecency.
What TE is doing here is FAR more indecent than anything I have said.
But his widdle feelings are hurt, the poor dear.
As they say, if the Peewee Herman shoe fits…
I would just note that if TE did his baiting and BSing on most other blogs he would get the boot in pretty short order. Especially if he did it on a science related blog, where he would be laughed off even before he got the boot.
Diane actually has far more patience with cheerleaders of obvious nonsense (the VAManology of Raj Chetty and crapidemiology of Emil Oster) than most blog hosts.
I am actually of the view that it is better to allow someone to keep opening their mouth — letting everyone know they are a fool — than to ban them, at any rate.
By now, most people here know that TE is just a cranky fool with nothing better to use teachers as a punching board — and to make up for his own intellectual insecurities by pretending to be the smartest person in the room.
I have booted TE a few times but when he makes non-incendiary comments, it’s okay.
Bethree5,
I certainly agree that everything is a tradeoff. The riskiest thing I do is not teach, but my biweekly grocery shopping trips. Still, the benefits of shopping outweigh the risks, so I shop.
My point is simply that many teachers here argue that ANY risk of being infected requires the end of in person teaching. Requiring such a high level of safety suggests that the cost of not having in person teaching (both in terms of student learning and student safety) is seen as very low.
TE claims “Many teachers here argue that ANY risk of being infected requires the end of in person teaching”
Now, the claim has gone from “some teachers” (just above) to “many teachers”??
Ha ha ha.
What a clown.
Many teachers?
Which ones specifically?
Links to comments proving that?
Yeah, right. Fat chance.
I’m still waiting on my two previous requests for links.
But I won’t hold my breath.
The proof will not be forthcoming because TE is just making stuff up.
The most pathetic part is that he actually seems to believe his own BS.
I think that state-wide recommendations ignore the fact that the virus does not care about those. For an understanding for the risks in any community, some data is needed on that population’s mobility, sites where many people gather to work or buy necessities, where and how they travel and how often, plus up-to-date histories of where hot-spots have been. In other words, we are data-thin for making localized decisions that hold some promise for guidelines at a finer grain. This is not to say that some national guidance from experts is useless. The unspoken fear of many is that contact tracing and surveillance schemes for compliance will evolve as it has in China, with scores and perks for individuals and communities who escape from the virus and comply with the rules.
Scientists are already at work trying to figure out why some people get much sicker and die from Covid. They also want to know why men are at higher risk than women. It has to do with individual immune response to the virus, and men are more likely to carry a defective immune-response unknown to them. Scientists around the world are investigating these phenomena. It is a complicated article, but interesting. Perhaps Covid will help scientists better understand a number of autoimmune disorders like Diabetes I and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Science matters! https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/breakthrough-finding-reveals-why-certain-covid-19-patients-die-n1247576
The author’s conclusions are right on, though hardly groundbreaking. Yes [re: blue states], indoor dining, bars, gyms, non-essential stores should be shuttered before schools. That this is not the practice gives the lie to governors “following the science.” And obviously [re: red states], schools should not open when community spread is beyond the pale.
The epidemiologist would be better off leaving out the educational pros/cons of schools being open or closed. There are many factors to be untangled here. The assumption that schools should be open is broad-brush, ignoring realities of “opened” schools in covid-era, as well as widely-varying quality of remote instruction. Science could help untangle the factors, but this writer just summarizes reductive MSM articles. For example, citing NYC schools’ low transmission rate ignores that only 26% of their 1.1million students are onsite, and for only 2 days/wk. Both here and in the section on what red states are getting wrong, there’s no attempt to compare stats on the various degrees schools are actually “open”: % school body in attendance, for how many hrs/ day & how many days/ wk.
I found an example of the complexity in WaPo’s 11/12 “Back in School Buildings.” A surprisingly large number of commenters preferred all-remote to hybrid in-person. These were middle class rather than wealthy people. They cited the consistency of daily routine and the high quality of their districts’ remote instruction. Some mentioned finding sufficient socialization via one or two ‘pod’ neighbor children.. One noted that unfortunately they would soon have to abandon this for childcare-center/ remote [which they felt would be more disruptive], as they couldn’t get along much longer on one salary.
I was just watching Arne Duncan on CNN. His wife, son and he have all been very ill with Covid. He is urging people to stay home for the holidays. It is hard to have sympathy for this bombastic twit, but I am trying.
There must be a national discussion about your freedom to not wear a mask might mean my death, or your children’s deaths, or your parents’ deaths, or your friends’ deaths or other shoppers’ deaths, et al.
Do Trump and his fascist followers think that is what freedom means, the right to murder someone else so you can do what you want?
Yeah, these are the questions I can’t wrap my mind around either, LLoyd.
Of course they know. They don’t care.
Viet Nam was out of sight and out of mind for millions of Americans, mostly suburban and upper middle class.
Ask 70 year olds how many people they knew who were in Viet Nam at the time and how many died, you get very different answers depending on geography, college, and work place.
The virus hospitalizations and deaths are significantly in nursing homes, prisons, and other crowded, confined locations with at-risk residents. AND the hospitalizations for African-American, Latino, and low income in persons than any other group.
So how many folks does this fool in the WH know who are people of color or in a nursing home?
And, how much does he and his angry white (and rich) men care about these people. Collateral damage.
Out of sight and out of mind.
Or as is he and his enablers, our of his mind.
The 6 foot rule is okay for certain situations, but is now known that this virus can hang in the air for hours. If kids are in classrooms like I taught in, 6 feet will be meaningless.
Virtually this entire thread of comments is so disheartening; it’s just another irrational feeding frenzy. Very sad that people who call themselves educators would write these things. I see absolutely nothing controversial, negative, presumptuous, or condescending in any of the recommendations Dr. Linas proposes. All the attacks on him fit nicely in the American tradition of anti-intellectualism discussed in another post today.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/it-s-politicizing-toilet-paper-member-biden-s-covid-19-panel-surveys-task-ahead
I tend to agree with you, Greg, that nothing he says is particularly startling, but the devil is in the details. Schools could use guidelines on what should be considered in order to open. Robust testing and contact tracing is essential. It’s pretty clear that masks protect both the user and others from infection. Social distancing, too. Six feet apart seems to have done a pretty good job of preventing spread in schools that are open in some form and following all the protocols. Do we want to test if 4 feet works as we enter winter when everyone is inside? I certainly see little reason to now tell everyone that 4 feet is okay. You can see where I think the uneasiness comes. Keep it simple. Not everyone is comfortable with the protocols as is. When we can get everyone able and willing to follow the current guidelines effectively, then maybe we can modify them. I suspect that few people who are seriously attempting to follow safety measures are ready to relax restrictions when so many are still pretending this crisis is more a civil rights battle than a public health problem.
I am already forming arguments in my own mind about what I have tried to say. We are still far from understanding this virus. Heck, we still have people who think it is a joke. the report from the nurse in the Dakotas(?) about people critically ill in the hospital still denying that the virus existed and ranting about the lies until silenced by a ventilator.
Wow. I just saw the report on the South Dakota nurse. Hate and irrationalism, what a combo. Insert a nice dose of indignation and resentment and you’ve really got a potent recipe!
Indiana law doesn’t permit teachers to have bargaining rights over working conditions. It is also illegal to strike. Glad I have never worked in Indiana.
…………………………………..
Indiana teachers union calls on lawmakers to expand bargaining rights amid COVID
By Dylan Peers McCoy Nov 16, 2020, 3:56pm EST
At a time when educators’ jobs have become more difficult because of the pandemic, Indiana’s largest teachers union is calling on lawmakers to restore the right to bargain over working conditions, such as hours, prep time, and class sizes.
The Indiana State Teachers Association, which represents nearly 40,000 educators, said that some districts are deciding how to respond to the coronavirus without substantive input from educators. If unions had the right to bargain for better working conditions, more teachers would have a voice in those decisions.
“The right to come together to negotiate the terms of our work allows us to create better learning conditions for our students and better workplaces for ourselves and those who will follow us as educators in the future,” ISTA President Keith Gambill said at a union press conference Monday ahead of the start of the legislative session.
The state stripped Indiana teachers unions of the right to bargain over most work conditions in 2011, as part of a controversial overhaul of collective bargaining.
It’s not clear whether the Republican majority, which pushed to restrict collective bargaining, would seriously consider reinstating some bargaining rights.
At a legislative preview hosted by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce Monday, lawmakers didn’t address bargaining rights, but did touch on several other education issues, including the need to help students catch up after months of disruption in their education and how to fund virtual instruction.
The coronavirus pandemic is sparking new frustration among educators after a year of pressure on lawmakers to boost school funding and teacher pay.
Pointing to a union survey, Gambill said that 95% of teachers said their workload increased and 86% said they were more stressed during COVID.
Indianapolis teacher Jack Hesser said that while all jobs are more stressful during the pandemic, expectations of teachers have dramatically changed.
“We’ve doubled and tripled the workload given to our educators,” Hesser said. “We’ve given our teachers this impossible choice between … work outside of school for free or fail our students.”
A middle school science teacher from Richmond schools, Tiauna Washington said she spends hours each Sunday at school preparing for the week by making copies, making videos, setting up labs, and planning both in-person and virtual lessons.
“This combination of refusing to pay teachers what they are worth and expecting them to do more and more with less and less is just totally unsustainable,” Washington said.
ISTA is also continuing calls to pay Indiana teachers more, to start salaries at $40,000 per year, and for the state to increase funding for education.
The movement to increase teacher pay and education funding in Indiana gained momentum last year, but whether teachers will be able to sustain pressure on lawmakers is uncertain. A year ago, a Red for Ed rally at the statehouse drew so many teachers that districts canceled school for about half the state’s students.
Lawmakers, however, delayed substantively addressing the issue until the biannual budget is crafted in 2021. Amid the economic toll of the pandemic, the union may have a harder time winning an increase in school funding or teacher pay despite vocal support from the governor.
How to jump out of an airplane safely, without a parachute, at 20,000 feet
Uh, you can’t.
Ofc, TE makes a straw man argument, above. That’s transparently so. On the question of opening schools for in-person instruction, we are faced with weighing one pack of evils against another. But one set of evils contains things that are REALLY evil: a lot more people dying, a lot more people catching the disease and recovering but with serious long-term consequences due to neurological and cardiovascular damage caused by the disease. We’re now bearing down on 200,000 new cases per day. I strongly doubt that the reopening of schools isn’t a factor in this dramatic surge.
And about that parachute. If we want people in schools, then we need to give them adequate protection. And that means N95 masks. And providing those requires using the Defense Production Act to ramp up, dramatically, the production of a) tests and b) machines to make the melt-blown material that constitutes the middle layer of those N95 masks. And, ofc, we need a national mechanism for contact tracing. In the age of computers and with so many people unemployed, it shouldn’t be difficult to create that.
My fear is that all this talk about “safely reopening schools” based on six-foot distancing and temperature checks and mandates that people wear inadequate masks is keeping us from addressing the actual solutions that are staring us in the face.
The Illinois state public health doctor came out to say that from the data they have school does not seem to be a spreader of the Covid virus given that the restrictions are observed. Those restrictions do include going to remote learning when local cases reach a cetain threshold and more districts are doing so in the current climate. Countries that have managed to beat back the virus during previous surges did not provide their entire populations with N95 masks. The combination of precautions served to significantly decrease the risk. You are right there are things we still need to do, but our inadequate measures in the past WHEN FOLLOWED did bring it “under control” (whatever that means). That being said, would I be comfortable teaching now? No! I have too many risk factors. If I was young and healthy would I take one for the team? I honestly don’t know. It would really depend on where and under what conditions I was teaching.
I seems to me like simple common sense that if people were wearing masks that actually were quite effective, we would have less transmission. I don’t understand–I really don’t understand–why this is so difficult for me to communicate.
South Dakota has a major surge but the Trumper Governor refuses to wear a mask or mandate them or even recommend them. She wants to add Trump to Mount Rushmore. She encouraged him to have a packed, massless rally at Mount Rushmore on July 4.
No argument, Bob, but apparently healthcare professional and first responders don’t necessarily have enough N95 masks. I haven’t seen any evidence that other countries are supplying their entire populations with N95 masks either. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t, just that others have managed to mitigate its impact without them. I believe, but don’t quote me, that rates were well below those found for seasonal flu when the virus was “under control.” I think I remember a rate at one point this summer for .7% in my local community.
The shortage certainly does point to the need to have manufacturing capacity within the U.S. It always seemed rather shortsighted to me to send so much capacity in many industries overseas, another reason not to let CEOs’ influence replace the common good of the country.
I did hear a good argument for (mask wearing and) social distancing on The View this morning. Our service men and women spend long periods of time separated from their families as part of their service to our country. Is it really so much to ask that we stay home during the holidays? I have been hearing a lot about my rights and freedoms lately but not a whole lot about responsibility and duty.
And the information I’ve seen is contradictory. One the one hand, there are folks claiming that schools aren’t contributing to the surge, and on the other, there are studies showing that children 10 and older transmit the virus at the same rates that adults do. Again, it seems simply a matter of common sense that if you have a lot of people in close, confined spaces, you are going to see a lot more transmission, especially if those people cannot maintain distance, are in very confined spaces a lot of the time, and are wearing masks that have minimal effectiveness.
Bob,
I do not think that opening schools for in person instruction is going to be the cause of a lot more people dying. You may doubt that the reopening of schools isn’t a factor in this increase, but do you have any evidence?
My university is doing an excellent job of contact tracing and no cases have been transmitted in any of our classrooms or labs. Our cases come from social interaction outside the classroom, most notably recent Halloween parties.
I think that the most reasonable thing to do is to open K-6 to in person instruction. This has the lowest risk and highest benefit.
For K-6, there is an argument to be made.
Announcement from the Chicago Teachers Union:
Mayor’s arbitrary date to reopen school buildings ignores COVID-19 surge, presents danger to Black and Brown families
Lightfoot won’t lay out public health criteria for proposed return in January as daily COVID-19 infection average nears 2,300 — nearly six times higher than the district’s remote learning cut-off of 400 per day in July.
CHICAGO, Nov. 17, 2020—The Chicago Teachers Union responded today to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s announcement of arbitrary dates to reopen school buildings while COVID-19 cases rise across Chicago and the U.S.
The announcement was made, per usual, without input from parents, students, educators or other critical stakeholders, and is wholly de-linked from any health criteria, including community infection rates.
“Today’s announcement appears to be based on the mayor’s political agenda, because it sure isn’t based on science,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey said. “Just unilaterally picking an arbitrary date in the future and hoping everything works out is a recipe for disaster.”
Since the mayor and Chicago Public Schools ordered school clerks, technology coordinators, security guards and other workers back into largely empty buildings this fall, more than 150 schools have reported COVID-19 cases, according to information reported to the Union. Clerks, principals, assistant principals and lunch staff have become infected with COVID-19. Multiple families have contracted the virus, and at least one teacher and security guard have died.
“You don’t make decisions about somebody’s else’s children in back rooms,” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said. “You need stakeholder input, family buy-in to give parents confidence and a uniform, collaborative plan to make it work.”
“Instead, we have the worst possible leadership at the worst possible time,” Davis Gates added. “Ironically, the mayor is the last person in America listening to the Trump administration when it comes to reopening schools; even the CDC has removed previous guidance from its website, and capitulated that schools are congregant settings where a virus like COVID-19 will spread.”
For weeks, CPS has been ignoring a binding arbitration decision to allow school clerks and others to work remotely, at the same time that the mayor’s handpicked district leaders refused to formally bargain with the Union. Instead, CPS poorly enforced school safety protocols, and unilaterally issued remote learning plans that parents and students say are inhumane and inadequate.
CPS has also refused to spell out its reopening criteria, including the maximum daily COVID-19 caseload that the district considers “safe” to reopen schools.
In July, city officials said a rolling seven-day average of 400 cases per day could trigger remote learning. Today, that rate is nearing 2,400, and rising, with the virus expected to continue surging in the coming months.
While CPS has said schools are safe to reopen, no study to date has examined reopening schools in a city like Chicago, where students frequently live in multigenerational families that rely on public transportation, confront high levels of poverty and with individuals who are essential workers already at higher risk for COVID-19.
“This mayor talks about equity, but where is the equity for the Black and Brown clerks she’s needlessly forcing to work in person, at the same time she’s telling Chicagoans to shelter in place?” Davis Gates said. “We can find the need for equity during a pandemic, but we can’t find it for the West Side, which only has four school libraries, or for predominantly Black schools and communities, which are chronically underfunded and under-resourced compared to others?”
Last week, CPS told the Union that it now considered educators to be essential workers as well, and as such, could unilaterally mandate a return to school buildings.
“Any science that CPS cites is an apples to oranges comparison, because the data about districts like ours remains limited, even as we’re still learning about this disease,” Sharkey said. “This mayor says the buck stops with her, and that she would lead during the pandemic with empathy and science, but returning thousands of people to schools as COVID rages is far from empathetic, and the science is unclear.”
“We know CPS can’t prove its ventilation systems are safe, and yet the mayor insists on pushing us into this cruel and dangerous experiment,” Davis Gates said. “That’s not equity; that’s a death sentence.”
Chicago Teachers Union • 1901 W. Carroll Ave. • Chicago, IL 60612 • 312-329-9100
http://www.ctulocal1.org
for the schools Chicago’s students deserve
This is why Australia’s rate of infections are so low. There is leadership.
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The Australian state that includes the city of Adelaide will go into a six-day lockdown starting at midnight Wednesday, with schools, universities, bars and cafes closed. Only one person from each household in South Australia will be allowed to leave home each day, and only for specific reasons.
Compare the Australian state response with Indiana’s:
Wednesday, November 18, 2020 1:00 am
General Assembly
No mask mandate for legislators
Debate dominates unusual Organization Day
NIKI KELLY | The Journal Gazette
INDIANAPOLIS – Lawmakers returned to the Statehouse on Tuesday to swear in new members and organize for the 2021 session, but the discussion was all about the pandemic – including an attempt to both end the public health emergency and require legislators to wear masks.
Neither measure passed.
House and Senate leaders have no specific protocols in place for handling COVID-19 in the Legislature – no testing, temperature screenings or a threshold for shutdown should there be an outbreak…
Organization Day is usually just pomp and circumstance, but the House spent time debating a proposed rule that would have required members to wear masks and allow a fine, censure or other penalty if they refused to comply.
While other people in the building have to wear masks due to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s order, legislators can’t be governed by a separate branch of government. Leadership in the House and Senate have encouraged but not required masks…
Indiana cases, deaths and hospitalizations have been rising for weeks – hitting records almost every day…
Neither the House nor Senate changed its rules to allow virtual voting members in the case of sickness or quarantine.
“We think right now it’s important that we vote in person,” Huston said. “It’s a bit of a slippery slope to go down that path.”…
https://journalgazette.net/news/local/20201118/no-mask-mandate-for-legislators