From the NY Post:
The CUNY and SUNY systems will cancel all in-person classes beginning next week and institute remote learning due to coronavirus fears, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday afternoon.
Pressure on the massive systems to shutter mounted quickly this week after a student at John Jay College tested positive for the contagion.
“This will help us reduce density and reduce the spread of this virus,” Cuomo’s Twitter account posted Wednesday.
The switch to “distance learning” will begin March 19.
Cuomo said some campus facilities will remain operational to accommodate students.
Administrators initially held out on a systemwide closure but eventually deferred to growing student demand to scrap classroom learning.
A petition to close all campuses drew more than 45,000 signatures in just the past three days.
The CUNY system is the largest urban university system in the nation, with roughly 254,000 students and 50,000 teachers.
SUNY enrolls about 420,000 students across the state has more than 90,000 employees.
What about prek-12? It will be much more difficult to do online learning for elementary and secondary schools and of course public schools provide meals for many children and that must continue. However, if containing the spread of this disease is our primary goal, the schools are places where this disease can spread rapidly. Isn't the time to contain it before thousands are sick like in Italy?
From the University of Minnesota:
COVID-19 can be spread before it causes symptoms, when it produces symptoms like those of the common cold, and as many as 12 days after recovery, according to a virologic analysis of nine infected patients published today on the preprint server medRxiv.
Also, in a study published in today's Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers at Johns Hopkins found a median incubation period for COVID-19 of 5.1 days—similar to that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
This bolsters the argument that now is the time to shut New York City down to the maximum extent possible before the COVID-19 outbreak multiplies exponentially. On the other hand, some say we should not be panicking.
In the Washington Examiner we hear from Doctor Drew Pinsky:
The celebrity doctor urged people to listen and heed Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on ways to prevent the spread of the virus.
“Do what he tells you and go about your business. That’s the story. Do not be alarmed by the word ‘pandemic,'” he said.
He did add that the virus should be approached differently by older people and smokers.
“If you are over the age of 70, maybe the age of 75, particularly if you have any chronic medical conditions and if you are a smoker over 50, you should be behaving differently than the rest of us," Pinsky said.
“The rest of us? Go about your business,” he said. “Wash your hands, get your flu shot. That should be the story. Because you are way more likely, orders of magnitude, more likely to die of the flu than the coronavirus.”
Pinsky previously said the media was stoking the flames of coronavirus "panic" in the United States, and the industry should "be held accountable," during an interview with CBS.
“What I have a problem with is the panic and the fact that businesses are getting destroyed, that people’s lives are being upended, not by the virus, but by the panic,” Pinsky said last week. “The panic must stop. And the press, they really somehow need to be held accountable.
Doctor Anthony Fauci testified before a Congressional Committee today.
From NPR:
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warns that the number of cases of the COVID-19 viral disease will continue to grow because containment measures and contact tracing have failed to prevent community spread of the virus.
"Is the worst yet to come, Dr. Fauci?" Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, asked Fauci on Wednesday.
"Yes, it is," Fauci replied.
While this coronavirus is being contained in some respects, he testified, the U.S. is seeing more cases emerge through community spread as well as international travel.
"I can say we will see more cases, and things will get worse than they are right now," Fauci said. "How much worse we'll get will depend on our ability to do two things: to contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country."
Further down:
"As we experience the growing community spread in the United States, the burden of confronting this outbreak is shifting to states and local health professionals on the front lines," the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, said during Wednesday's committee hearing.
To counter Dr. Drew, I refer you to the National Review, no liberal publication, describing what is occurring in Italy.
A doctor who asked not to be named because of potential repercussions painted a dire picture of the situation in a hospital in Milan. While the coronavirus is best known for causing severe disease in elderly patients, even some young people are affected, the doctor said, and without sufficient beds and ventilators, some can’t be treated.
The hundreds of patients needing treatment for pneumonia have swamped the supply of available specialists, the Milan doctor said. Physicians such as gastroenterologists, who normally focus on the digestive system, have been conscripted to help out with lung patients, and they’re still not enough, the doctor said.
Gallera said about 150 more acute care places will open up in the next week. Whether this will be enough to keep up with the spread of the contagion depends on how effective the government’s containment measures prove to be.
Italy is a case study in why the “just the flu” argument doesn’t work, at least not if the virus runs out of control.
For those who want to see the petition to close the NYC schools that as of now over 145,000 have signed, here it is.
For anyone who wants the official UFT perspective, go to NYC Educator for a report on today's Delegate Assembly and also there is the UFT Coronavirus page that is updated frequently.
Your thoughts:
22 comments:
Thank you James. Petition signed and shared.
This is crazy to take such chances with our faculty, students and schools. We all know it's coming.
LOL>
Ilhan Omar
@IlhanMN
·
3m
As hundreds of public schools close, *22 million* children who count on their schools for free or reduced-price meals don’t know when they’ll eat next.
I introduced the #MEALSAct to make sure no child goes without food. History will judge us if we don’t pass it immediately.
Online learning will never work with our students. They will come up with every excuse to not do the work. "My laptop broke," "We don't have a computer," "My mom needed the computer for her job," "I didn't want to use the internet on my phone." etc...
But at least we would be safer.
The NBA announced on Wednesday that it is suspending its season until further notice after a player tested positive for the coronavirus.
“The NBA announced that a player on the Utah Jazz has preliminarily tested positive for COVID-19,” an NBA statement reads. The test result was reported shortly prior to the tip-off of tonight’s game between the Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder at Chesapeake Energy Arena. At that time, the affected player was not in the arena.
“The NBA is suspending game play following the conclusion of tonight’s schedule of games until further notice. The NBA will use this hiatus to determine next steps for moving forward in regard to the coronavirus pandemic.”
But keep the schools open.
You act as if students learn something when school is open. Most dont. Be serious. Thd excuses have always been that we need to babysit them and they need to eat. Get real. HS graduates cant write a sentence. I see teachers saying that they need to start preparing online lesson plans and powerpoints in case schools close. Zero percent of my students would do the work if schools close.
But this would give the city a reason to let kids graduate without passing Regents exams or their classes saying "Well, we didn't have school for x amount of weeks, so we can't hold that against them." The graduation rate would probably soar, but again, how would they squeeze in the 180 days. A lot of people already have plans for Spring Break. Another concern is all the testing done in May like AP exams and the NYSESLAT. That's another issue there.
Agree with 842. Students tell me,IN CLASS, that I should know that if I give them any take home work that they will not do it and I still must pass them. Schools open, those threats and demands and refusal to do work. It's all a fraud.
2 schools in bronx closed, here we go...
News from a high ranking NYC official stated that if NYC closes the NYC schools then:
1. NYC will slow down as many parents are single parents who are bus drivers, transit workers, nurses and nursing assistants, etc. Therefore if these single parents are forced to stay home to watch their kids the city of new york services would slow down significantly
2. many of the school kids who attend NYC schools are poor. roughly 700,000 of the 1.1 million students are from families classified as poor
3. the poor status of NYC students would mean many kids would have food deficiencies due to lack of food at the home
4. the baby sitting factor is certainly in place as well as the feeding
5. the possibility of any on line learning then is a challenge with students not having access to internet or computers at the home
So what to do? THe city of New york has been caught in a pickle jar and exposed for what it has become
I think our safety is more important than any of this shit.
Dont need 180 days in a crisis. Because schools close, student fault or not, I thought they had to do the work, regardless of attendance. Of course we know they dont do any work and pass.
And mulgrew blames lack of equity, student in poverty with $800 cell phones dont have internet.
Lol. So it our job to feed students?
Where are the parents? Why no investigations?
Closures will be handled "not with a sledgehammer but with a scalpel."
-"Many families have no alternative" for food, basics.
How so many unnecessary material goods like sneakers if no money for food?
Are schools a gathering of 500 or more?
Yes. Some get that in cafeteria.
So why is Gov closing everything except schools?
Because the UFT is a shit union.
Is it my wishful thinking or do other people also think School will close starting Monday?
The governor's announcement caught many by surprise. The school I attend is still trying to finalize arrangements.
Can't the governor override the mayor and can't the president override the governor?
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