Archives for category: Safety
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Dana Milbank: Our “Wartime” President Declares Victory After Two Months and Gives Up

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2020 //
95

During the Vietnam War, some critics used to say, “Why don’t we just declare victory and go home.”

That’s what Trump is doing after declaring himself a “wartime president.” Two months of battle was enough for him.

Dana Milbank writes that the United States has decided to abandon the war on COVID-19.

Now is the spring of our disgrace.

Around the world, countries are winning the battle against the coronavirus and beginning a responsible return to work, school and leisure, confident that their governments have the deadly virus in check.
But the United States plays the loser. Unwilling to do the hard work needed to beat the pandemic, we are quitting: forcing people back to work without protections people in other countries enjoy. The most powerful country in the world is failing.

In October, Johns Hopkins University rated the United States the country best prepared for an epidemic, as President Trump boasted in February. But this week, a Hopkins scientist told Congress we are “the worst affected country in the world.” How did the best become the worst?
Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

Trump has abandoned attempts to control the pandemic, though there is no downturn in cases. His administration ignores its own reopening requirements and shelves guidelines written by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead Trump applauds reckless reopening in a way that, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, admitted, “will lead to an increase and spread. It’s almost ipso facto.”

This is state-sanctioned killing. It is a conscious decision to accept 2,000 preventable deaths every day, because our leaders believe the victims are the poor schlubs who work in meat-processing plants, not “regular folks,” as Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack memorably put it this week.
It is deliberately sacrificing the old, factory workers, and black and Hispanic Americans, who are dying at higher rates. This comes after “stimulus” programs passed by Congress proved a bonanza to big business and billionaires but offered little to the nearly one-fifth of American children who are not getting enough to eat — a rate three times as high as during the Great Recession, a Brookings Institution study found.

The mindless reopening is as stupid as it is immoral. Does anybody truly believe Americans will return to work while the virus rages? Send our kids to schools without tools in place to stop outbreaks? Put our parents in retirement homes that, without adequate testing, are often death traps? Enjoy a restaurant, theater, flight to Disney World or trip to the mall, knowing it could kill us? Reopening masquerades as a political cause — LIBERATE! — but it is really a lazy unwillingness to do the hard work to defeat the virus, and to restore our economy.

Categories Accountability, Health, Safety, Trump

How New Zealand Effectively Eliminated Coronavirus

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2020 //
14

An article in the National Geographic describes how New Zealand effectively eliminated coronavirus.

New Zealand has had a small number of infections and fewer than two dozen deaths.

Travel journalist Aaron Gulley was in New Zealand when the pandemic was recognized.

He writes:

If there is a bright spot in the global response to the pandemic, it is surely New Zealand. While governments worldwide have vacillated on how to respond and ensuing cases of the virus have soared, New Zealand has set an uncompromising, science-driven example. Though the country didn’t ban travel from China until February 3 (a day after the United States) and its trajectory of new cases looked out of control in mid-March, austerity measures seemingly have brought COVID-19 to heel.

The country began mandatory quarantines for all visitors on March 15, one of the strictest policies in the world at the time, even though there were just six cases nationwide. Just 10 days later, it instituted a complete, countrywide lockdown, including a moratorium on domestic travel. The Level 4 restrictions meant grocery stores, pharmacies, hospitals, and petrol stations were the only commerce allowed; vehicle travel was restricted; and social interaction was limited to within households.

“We must fight by going hard and going early,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement to the nation on March 14.

My wife and I tumbled into these restrictions unwittingly. She, an editorial photographer, and I, a travel writer, flew to New Zealand for assignments on assurances from the U.S., Kiwi, and Australian governments that no controls were afoot. But between the time we left home and the time we landed, New Zealand enacted quarantines for visitors. Before we could get new tickets home, the country halted all travel completely. Like an estimated 100,000-plus international visitors, we were stuck.

The sudden austerity could have been a cause for panic. But each day, the 39-year-old Ardern, or “Jaz” as she’s popularly known, made clear, concise statements about the situation to the nation, bolstered by a team of scientists and health professionals. A few days after the lockdown, she announced that instead of just slowing the transmission of the virus, New Zealand had set a course of eradicating COVID-19 from its shores, by cutting off the arrival of new cases and choking out existing ones with the restrictions. “We have the opportunity to do something no other country has achieved: elimination of the virus,” said Ardern at one of her daily briefings.

From an outsider’s perspective, the interesting thing about New Zealand is that the country simply got on board. On day one of the lockdown, the streets and highways were empty, the shops were closed, and everyone stayed home. “I think it’s easier for us Kiwis to fall in line because we trust our leaders,” Sue Webster, the owner of the Airbnb where my wife and I holed up for almost four weeks, told me.

The plan seems to have worked. The daily infection rate in the island nation of 4.9 million steadily dropped from a maximum of 146 in late March to just a few cases a day by mid-April. All told, New Zealand reported a high of 1,476 cases and 19 deaths. On April 26, the country experienced a watershed moment when no new COVID-19 cases and no community transmissions were reported for the first time in over six weeks, though seven new cases cropped up by April 30.

Still, the low number of new cases gave the government the confidence to ease its social distancing restrictions to Level 3. On April 28, Ardern pronounced the virus eliminated, later clarifying that “elimination doesn’t mean zero cases… we will have to keep stamping COVID out until there’s a vaccine.”

Collective action. Social discipline. No armed men storming the government offices.

It worked.

Categories Health, International, Safety

New Evidence That Children Transmit the Virus

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2020 //
61

The New York Times reported two studies that found that children transmit the virus.

Among the most important unanswered questions about Covid-19 is this: What role do children play in keeping the pandemic going?

Fewer children seem to get infected by the coronavirus than adults, and most of those who do have mild symptoms, if any. But do they pass the virus on to adults and continue the chain of transmission?

The answer is key to deciding whether and when to reopen schools, a step that President Trump urged states to consider before the summer.

Two new studies offer compelling evidence that children can transmit the virus. Neither proved it, but the evidence was strong enough to suggest that schools should be kept closed for now, many epidemiologists who were not involved in the research said.

Many other countries, including Israel, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have all either reopened schools or are considering doing so in the next few weeks.

In some of those countries, the rate of community transmission is low enough to take the risk. But in others, including the United States, reopening schools may nudge the epidemic’s reproduction number — the number of new infections estimated to stem from a single case, commonly referred to as R0 — to dangerous levels, epidemiologists warned after reviewing the results from the new studies.

In one study, published last week in the journal Science, a team analyzed data from two cities in China — Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, and Shanghai — and found that children were about a third as susceptible to coronavirus infection as adults were. But when schools were open, they found, children had about three times as many contacts as adults, and three times as many opportunities to become infected, essentially evening out their risk.

Based on their data, the researchers estimated that closing schools is not enough on its own to stop an outbreak, but it can reduce the surge by about 40 to 60 percent and slow the epidemic’s course.

“My simulation shows that yes, if you reopen the schools, you’ll see a big increase in the reproduction number, which is exactly what you don’t want,” said Marco Ajelli, a mathematical epidemiologist who did the work while at the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, Italy.

The second study, by a group of German researchers, was more straightforward. The team tested children and adults and found that children who test positive harbor just as much virus as adults do — sometimes more — and so, presumably, are just as infectious.

“Are any of these studies definitive? The answer is ‘No, of course not,’” said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who was not involved in either study. But, he said, “to open schools because of some uninvestigated notion that children aren’t really involved in this, that would be a very foolish thing.”

The German study was led by Christian Drosten, a virologist who has ascended to something like celebrity status in recent months for his candid and clear commentary on the pandemic. Dr. Drosten leads a large virology lab in Berlin that has tested about 60,000 people for the coronavirus. Consistent with other studies, he and his colleagues found many more infected adults than children.

The team also analyzed a group of 47 infected children between ages 1 and 11. Fifteen of them had an underlying condition or were hospitalized, but the remaining were mostly free of symptoms. The children who were asymptomatic had viral loads that were just as high or higher than the symptomatic children or adults.

“In this cloud of children, there are these few children that have a virus concentration that is sky-high,” Dr. Drosten said.

He noted that there is a significant body of work suggesting that a person’s viral load tracks closely with their infectiousness. “So I’m a bit reluctant to happily recommend to politicians that we can now reopen day cares and schools.”

Dr. Drosten said he posted his study on his lab’s website ahead of its peer review because of the ongoing discussion about schools in Germany.

Many statisticians contacted him via Twitter suggesting one or another more sophisticated analysis. His team applied the suggestions, Dr. Drosten said, and even invited one of the statisticians to collaborate.

“But the message of the paper is really unchanged by any type of more sophisticated statistical analysis,” he said. For the United States to even consider reopening schools, he said, “I think it’s way too early.”

Categories Health, Safety

Justin Trudeau Bans All Military-Grade Weapons in Canada

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2020 //
17

After a massacre that took 22 lives, Justin Trudeau announced a complete ban on all military-grade weapons in Canada.

Assault-style weapons are banned in Canada effective immediately, the country’s prime minister said Friday.

The move comes less than two weeks after Canada’s deadliest rampage in modern history, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 22 people after a 12-hour reign of terror.

“You don’t need an AR-15 to bring down a deer,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a news conference in Ottawa. “So, effective immediately, it is no longer permitted to buy, sell, transport, import or use military-grade assault weapons in this country.”

Police said the gunman had several semi-automatic handguns and at least two semi-automatic rifles, one of which was described by witnesses as a military-style assault weapon.

“These weapons were designed for one purpose, and one purpose only, to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada,” Trudeau said.

Categories Guns, International, Safety

GregB.: Do We Really Care About Life?

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2020 //
116

In the midst of the pandemic, with the death toll rising, there are insistent calls to reopen the economy and get back to work, to reopen schools so parents can leave home to go to work, to return to business as usual. The president himself has encouraged his supporters to “liberate” their states (but only in states with Democratic governors) from restrictions meant to save lives. Recently a large number of armed men, many carrying not only guns but Trump insignia, barged into the Michigan State Capitol to demand an end to the emergency restrictions whose purpose is to slow the transmission of the virus. These are the same people who oppose abortion and noisily claim to be pro-life.

Our reader GregB. explored this paradox in his comment:

The quote that has most impacted me and that I hold sacred does not come from a theological text, it comes from the most profound writer of whom I am aware, Friedrich Dürrenmatt: “The fate of humanity depends upon if Politics finally becomes comfortable to take every life as sacred, or if the whore decides to continue to go on the street to service anything that is not sacred. The lady must decide.” (“Der Schiksal der Menschen wird davon abhängen, ob sich die Politik endlich bequemt, das Leben eines jeden heilig zu nehmen, oder ob die Hure weiterhin für jene auf die Straße geht, denen nichts heilig ist. Die Dame muß sich entscheiden.”)

Do we, as liberals, equivocate? Are we as people who value the education of each individual, no matter their exceptional, individual skills, talents or potential, no matter their disabilities, no matter anything, ready to equivocate and rationalize according to our fears, prejudices or misconceptions? If we are, then how is that better or different from the Nazi T4 program that forcibly took children and adults with developmental disabilities from their families to be executed? If we are willing to rationalize and accept this pandemic with willful ignorance to consign children, or at the very least, children who will never suffer the effects of disease but may still transmit it to others, most likely elderly persons or those with systemic immunodeficiencies; is that the acceptable trade-off to “restart the economy?” If yes, then we are truly whores of the worst kind, willing to let anyone die if it alleviates our short-term economic pain, even if it means our economic livelihoods? Are we pro-humanity or pro-life in the literal sense that our societal obligations end with births carried to term?

Or do we ask fundamental questions about why those who have great wealth continue, who live only on capital and dividends, who don’t work or make the effort, however it may manifest itself, to avoid contributing effectively to the greater good with taxes (like public school teachers) with progressive taxation, actually defines and reflects the times, or off of well-paying clients with narrow, selfish hoarding interests continue paying apparatchiks of the status quo to work in their favor? It seems to me, the American lady must decide. In my opinion, she is and always will be a whore who will continue to serve lazy capital and authoritarian power. The most discouraging thing is that few, if any, understand this, which is why they continue to devalue life, which, for them are only political pawns they call fetuses. The glacial reality of now informs me that scapegoating and rationalizing death is as strong as it has ever been in any age of fascist ascendancy. Is the life of each living being sacred or not? Persons, not fetuses for fertilized eggs. It is we who live who pay the economic price, like it or not.

Categories Accountability, Health, Safety

Edweek: A Third of Teachers Are at Risk of Severe Illness from COVID-19

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2020 //
52

Education Week warns that almost a third of teachers are at risk of severe illness if schools reopen before COVID-19 is contained.

Madeline Will writes:

As states begin to consider what reopening schools might look like, a new analysis of federal data warns that teachers could be more susceptible to severe illness from COVID-19.

About 29 percent of teachers are aged 50 and older, federal data show. Older adults are at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19—92 percent of deaths related to the disease in the United States were of people aged 55 and older, and that age group also has higher rates of coronavirus-related hospitalizations than younger adults. And as the brief report by the research group Child Trends points out, teachers have significantly more social contact than the average adult, since they’re in close quarters with dozens of students every day.

Already, teachers’ workplaces rank among the “germiest”—one study found that teachers have nearly 27 times more germs on their computer keyboards than other professions studied. Teachers report that they frequently come down with colds and other garden-variety illnesses over the course of the school year. After all, children are “effective transmitters of respiratory germs,” Donna Mazyck, the executive director of the National Association of School Nurses, told Education Week earlier this year.

The immune system naturally deteriorates with age, the Child Trends report notes. Also, teachers are more likely to report being stressed at work than average people, and some research suggests that stress can weaken the immune system.

Decisionmakers “responsible for reopening schools should weigh not only the health of their students, but also that of their teachers who are at elevated risk,” wrote Renee Ryberg, a research scientist at Child Trends. “Education administrators who choose to proceed with reopening should coordinate closely with health agencies to enact policies to keep teachers, as well as students, safe.”

Categories Health, Safety, Teachers

AFT Releases Guidelines to Reopen Schools

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2020 //
22


For Immediate Release
April 29, 2020

Contact:
Andrew Crook
607-280-6603
acrook@aft.org
http://www.aft.org

AFT Launches Landmark Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities

Union issues blueprint for imagining a new normal for public education, public health
and our economy in the age of COVID-19

WASHINGTON—The American Federation of Teachers has released a detailed road map that, in the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, charts a path to safely and responsibly reopen school buildings and other institutions crucial to the well-being and economic vitality of our communities.

The 20-page, science-based “Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities” sprung from an intense collaboration of public health professionals, union leaders and frontline workers to prepare for what happens next in the period between flattening the curve and truly eradicating the virus.

It features five core pillars that inform our decision to reopen the country based on the science as well as educator and healthcare expertise—not on politics or wishful thinking.

To gradually reopen, we need to:

1. Maintain physical distancing until the number of new cases declines for at least 14 consecutive days. Reducing the number of new cases is a prerequisite for transitioning to reopening plans on a community-by-community basis.

2. Put in place the infrastructure and resources to test, trace and isolate new cases. Transitioning from community-focused physical distancing and stay-in-place orders to case-specific interventions requires ramping up the capacity to test, trace and isolate each new case.

3.​ Deploy the public health tools that prevent the virus’ spread and align them with education strategies that meet the needs of students.

4. ​Involve workers, unions, parents and communities in all planning. Each workplace and community faces unique challenges related to COVID-19. To ensure that reopening plans address those challenges, broad worker and community involvement is necessary. They must be engaged, educated and empowered.

5.​ Invest in recovery: Do not abandon America’s communities or forfeit America’s future. These interventions will require more—not less—investment in public health and in our schools, universities, hospitals, and local and state governments. Strengthening communities should be a priority in the recovery.

The blueprint acknowledges Americans’ eagerness to return to some semblance of “normal.” But to do so, we must meet an unprecedented challenge: figuring out how to reimagine our society and the physical places we hold dear—public schools, places of worship, workplaces, restaurants and more—in ways that put our ultimate priorities first: the safety and well-being of working families, especially frontline workers, and the economic health of society.

Our schools, in addition to educating students and acting as centers of the community, enable parents to work outside the home, meaning their safe reopening is a pivotal—if not the most pivotal—factor in remaking the country.

The comprehensive document addresses complexities and provides specific guidance for transitioning from lockdowns to other public health approaches. And it is the only plan we know of that marries the instructional and social-emotional needs of students and the logistics of programming in schools with the imperative to adopt public health tools that prevent viral transmission.

It shows how, in response to the crisis, we must plan and align logistics, educational strategies and public health approaches into one coherent response. And it is expected to evolve as the data, and the facts, change.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said: “America is staring down a singular challenge that will require all of us to come together and negotiate a safe path forward. By drawing on facts and science, and the expertise of educators and healthcare practitioners, we have drafted a bold five-point plan that aligns necessary public health tools, student instructional needs and logistics to gradually—but safely, equitably and intentionally—reopen our schools and communities.

“Our blueprint serves as a stark contrast to the conflicting guidance, bluster and lies of the Trump administration. The input of educators and healthcare workers, as well as parents, is crucial in making any reopening plan work. They are the eyes and ears, and are indispensable in making any plan work safely and effectively. We hope this blueprint will be the start of a real discussion on reopening schools, universities and other workplaces that allows our workers and families not only to dream of a safe and welcoming future, but to realize it.”

The plan can be read here.

Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten

The American Federation of Teachers is a union of 1.7 million professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do.

Randi Weingarten PRESIDENT Lorretta Johnson SECRETARY-TREASURER Evelyn DeJesus EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
Communications Department • 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W. • Washington, DC 20001 • T: 202-879-4458 • F: 202-879-4580 • http://www.aft.org

AFT Teachers • AFT PSRP • AFT Higher Education • AFT Public Employees • AFT Nurses and Health Professionals

Categories Education Reform, Health, Safety, Unions

Teachers Unions Warn of Strikes and Protests if Schools Are Opened Too Soon

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2020 //
39

Randi Weingarten of the AFT and Lily Eskelsen Garcia of the NEA warned that teachers would take action if schools were opened before it was safe to do so.

The nation’s two biggest teachers unions say they would consider strikes or major protests if schools reopen without the proper safety measures in place or against the advice of medical experts — raising the possibility of yet more school disruptions.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, previewing a reopening plan first with POLITICO, said funding is needed for a host of public health measures for schools, including personal protective equipment. Collective bargaining, strong enforcement of safety standards and protections from retaliation will be important for teachers and staff so they feel safe to speak up as schools try new approaches, she said.

If schools are reopened without proper safety measures, “you scream bloody murder,” Weingarten said. “And you do everything you can to … use your public megaphones.”

Teachers are united after more than two years of strikes for more state funding and they have “tremendous power” as advocates for children’s safety, said Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association. She didn’t rule out strikes if state leaders move prematurely on a reopening of schools, and she said she believes parents would protest too.

Categories Health, Safety, Teachers, Unions

New York City: At Least 40 Educators Dead of Virus But Department of Education Refuses to Release Their Names

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2020 //
8

Chalkbeat reports that at least 40 NewYork City educators have died because of the coronavirus but the Department of Education refuses to release their names or to explain their reticence.

Christina Veiga writes:

Rosario Gonzalez, a 91-year-old paraprofessional who cared tenderly for children in an East Harlem special education program, rarely missed a day of work in more than three decades.

Claudia Shirley continued to teach in Bushwick even after retiring, and loved her job so much that she inspired her two daughters to become educators themselves.

Carol King-Grant, a special education teacher in the South Bronx, was known for her love of sudoku and beautiful singing voice.

All died in recent weeks from suspected cases of the coronavirus, according to the United Federation of Teachers. The union announced that, as of Friday, it knew of more than 40 of its members presumed to have been claimed by the pandemic, including both active educators and retirees.

The union is naming names, and releasing a tally of the lives lost at a time that the education department has refused to do so. The department’s silence has sparked an uproar among teachers, who feel the lack of recognition is a smack in the face, particularly as they continued to report for work even after the danger of COVID-19 was The education department has kept mum on the number of cases within its ranks even as other public agencies, including the police department and transportation authority, have released figures. However, the education department stopped confirming cases as community spread became rampant and the health department told New Yorkers to assume they have been exposed.

“We understand there is a lot of uncertainty across the City surrounding COVID-19,” education department spokesperson Miranda Barbot told Chalkbeat on April 2. “School employees are sometimes reporting information to their principals and superintendents, and we are determining how best to collect this information in one place.”

Teachers have demanded that the city publicly disclose deaths among their colleagues. In the absence of official information about the disease’s spread within school communities, teachers have taken it upon themselves to inform their co-workers of positive cases. They have blasted the city for keeping campuses open even as the number of sickened New Yorkers skyrocketed. well known.

Categories Accountability, Health, New York City, Safety, Teachers

Michigan: District Designs $48 Million High School Anticipating Active Shooter

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2019 //
70

Fruitport, Michigan, will open a new high school designed to offer safe spaces in the event that an active shooter appears on campus.

It is quite a commentary on the state of our society.

The design of the new sections includes subtle safe spaces that can be used to protect students in the event of a shooting, and long curved hallways that would offer protection too.

“To cut down on the sight lines if we have an active shooter in the building,” Szymoniak said.

By reducing the sight lines anyone with malicious intent would be unable to see the entire length of the hallway.

Cement block bump outs are also placed in the curved hallways.

“To cut down on sight lines further, it also gives an opportunity for students to hide back behind and hopefully get help from within the classroom,” Szymoniak said.

Inside the classrooms students can hide in one corner that can’t be seen from the hallway. Access controlled locks on all of the doors in our school district give school leaders the ability to lock down the entire district with the push of one button. And impact resistant film will go on all classroom windows in the new high school.

Szymoniak says by adding layers of safety it will buy students, teachers and staff time and it will protect lives as police respond to the scene.

“These are going to be design elements that are just naturally part of buildings going into the future,” he said.

The new normal?

Categories Education Reform, Guns, Safety
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