Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, told educators in a virtual town hall that when it comes to reopening school buildings for in-person instruction, there are still many unanswered questions about how the coronavirus is spread by children.
"As you try to get back to school, we're going to be learning about that," he said. "In many respects, unfortunately, though this may sound a little scary and harsh—I don't mean it to be that way—is that you're going to actually be part of the experiment of the learning curve of what we need to know. Remember, early on when we shut down the country as it were, the schools were shut down, so we don't know the full impact, we don't have the total database of knowing what there is to expect."
Further on:
"The default position is you should try, to the best of your ability, to get children back in school, but you've got to put the however in there," Fauci said. "The however means you have to be concerned always about the safety, the health, and the welfare of the children, the teachers, and the personnel."
As for the accoutrements for work:
What protective personal equipment should teachers be wearing?
"There is not an absolute pristine, perfect answer to that question," Fauci said. But at minimum, teachers should wear a mask and something to protect their eyes, which are also susceptible areas for virus transmission. That could be goggles or face shields, he said.
Teachers should "possibly" also wear gloves, he said, adding that washing hands frequently (or using hand sanitizer if there's not easy access to a sink) is just as effective.
"Based on what we know now, should the teachers be dressing up in full PPE like someone who is an intensive care unit? I'd have to say the answer to that is no," he said, adding that the risk is relative for teachers since they don't know if they will be interacting with someone who has the coronavirus.
It would be reasonable, but not essential, for teachers to wear something they can dispose or wash immediately after work, so they don't have to bring their clothes home, he said. Some teachers have been purchasing scrubs for this purpose.
We learned yesterday that UFT President Michael Mulgrew is down to three unanswered bullet points remaining for the reopening in the fall and he's not promising anything on further accommodations to work from home. After what happened in the spring where 75 NYC school based staff and another dozen School Safety Agents died of COVID-19 and even Mulgrew admitted it was logical to think some of those 87 were infected at work, it is sometimes hard to believe this is the direction the conversation is headed. I should know better by now.
I keep hearing anecdotals of teachers practically begging doctors to find anything in their chart so they can work exclusively from home. It shouldn't have to be like this. Welcome to Dr Fauci's experiment.
BREAKING NEWS: In a long-awaited and much anticipated decision, Miami-Dade County Public Schools will start the school year remotely and at a later date of Wednesday, Aug. 31.
ReplyDeleteThey have a higher infection rate than us. A few more of us have to be killed first and then we go remote.
ReplyDeleteTeachers should all wear black welding masks. That will scare the kids so much that they will not want to come back to school after the first day.
ReplyDeleteFull hazmat suits please.
ReplyDeleteI bought a tyvek suit months ago for this very purpose.
ReplyDeleteFauci as usual doesn't know what he's talking about. Many countries such as Sweden (where they don't wear masks) and Taiwan never closed their schools and didn't suffer for it, and others like the UK and Germany have reopened successfully. For all their talk of equity the DOE is going to give kids a half education at most but my kids in a suburban school are going every day.
ReplyDeleteWaPo
ReplyDeleteYoung people with coronavirus are infecting older family members in shared homes
Front-line caregivers, elected officials and experts in Houston, South Florida and elsewhere said they are seeing patterns of hospitalization and death that confirm fears this would happen.
Let's open schools so we can do this again in NY.
Our kids riot better than they can read. Why bother opening? Nice job uft.
ReplyDeleteCity Hall will unveil its official school reopening plan Friday, as dazed parents gird for an uncertain start to the new academic year.
ReplyDeleteMayor de Blasio said the guidelines will give families a general sense of what to expect with the coronavirus crisis still wreaking havoc on building schedules and instructional formats.
“A lot of work has gone into that plan over the last few months, we’re going to be ready,” de Blasio said Wednesday.
Individual schools are slated to submit their own designs in two weeks.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1277646436847570944
ReplyDeleteYet another report on kids and #Covid, this one from the Dutch public health institute, finds children are at ~0 risk from #SARSCoV2 and at miniscule risk of spreading it. Schools are now fully open in the Netherlands.
From Science Magazine
ReplyDelete"Elsewhere, officials are more cautious. Taiwan, which has largely suppressed the virus, kept schools open after one case but said it would close them for two or more, a situation it hasn’t yet faced. In Israel, schools closed for a single case, and close contacts of every infected individual were tested and quarantined, Aflalo says. By mid-June, 503 students and 167 staff had been infected, and 355 schools had closed temporarily."
Taiwan had basically kept the virus out.Sweden is a COVID-19 disaster.
Taiwan was ready to close with two cases. We still get hundreds of new cases a day in NY. Remote only until the vaccine is widespread.
@5:21- what surburb are you?
ReplyDeletemy long island district is every other day in person.
assignements are to be done at home on off days
5:47 I'm just over the Jersey border in PA. My sister in Jersey also is getting 5 full days but they're doing hybrid for HS. My mother in law is still on LI, in Suffolk, no kids in school anymore of course, but full open is part of the menu they're voting on in her district, and I already said she should demand a tax rebate on her insane (well) over 10K property tax if they do remote. Maybe she'll make the move too sooner rather than later.
DeleteTime Magazine
ReplyDelete"The best we do have so far comes from a large South Korean study published earlier this month. After contact tracing about 5,700 COVID-19 patients, researchers found that kids under the age of 10 spread the virus at about half the rate of adults, but kids between 10 and 19 spread it at a similar rate as adults (although the study included fewer people from that age group than adults). That suggests administrators and policymakers need to think differently about middle and high schoolers than they do younger students. “My take home from that is that it’s an age continuum,” says Dr. William Raszka, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Vermont. “The older you are, the more likely it is you’re going to have transmission similar to adults.”
The findings out of South Korea comport with those of other, smaller studies."
Just go in once every two weeks and self quarantine with symptoms. Make sure to cough on everyone going out the door, so they can follow suit and quarantine also. Play the DOE and UFT like the mindless morons they are.
ReplyDeleteIf members of Congress can’t follow basic public health guidelines, I am not sure that it is reasonable or fair to expect children in school to do so.
ReplyDeleteOnly 3 unanswered bullet points? That must have been a short list.
ReplyDeleteStart praying. It's all we have left.
TJL. I am also in a Long Island suburb and my son is going every other day ( if we send him at all). Please check your facts before spouting about equity please.
ReplyDeleteWhen I go back, I'm going to say 2 weeks later, oh by the way did I tell you about the trip I took to Disney right before school started!!!
ReplyDeleteMy Long Island district already said that unless Cuomo says no, they are all back and open on a staggered A/B schedule.
ReplyDeleteNO.
ReplyDeleteHere on Long Island things are different. About 10 (ten) Long Islanders (Nassau Suffolk) have died of Covid-19 in the past 30 days. And trending down. Probably about 1500 folks have died of other causes on LI the last 30 days and the population is 2.9 million - to keep it in perspective.
ReplyDeleteMy home district is opening daily for K-8 (w/face coverings when social distancing is not possible) and 9-12 attend every other day (w/face coverings when social distancing is not possible). 9-12 teachers, as I understand it, will teach remotely from their otherwise empty classrooms the days their kids are not there. I think the 9-12 scheduling cuts the density in hallways, etc. Daily temperature checks upon entry for all (staff and students) and nobody comes and goes during the day.
One supposes that as deaths of Covid-19 on LI become the same as seasonal flu on Long Island that there will be a reevaluation. We're about at that number now. Of course, seasonal flu deaths might be on the radar now so we might see face coverings/ social distancing in the schools #forever.
Hey Unity, How many teachers and paras died from your LI district in the spring? We lost 75 school based people in the spring. Not a second time.
ReplyDeleteThis is a serious and concerted attack on the schools. The end result will be massive resignations, just what they want.
ReplyDeleteNo ones resigning. There will be layoffs. Just play the game. They’ll shut the schools down again right before the election. Halloween is the true New Year’s Eve.
ReplyDeleteI thought Cuomo said he had the last say on whether school districts open or stay closed. How are L.I. districts able to make up their own rules then?
ReplyDelete“There is no way in hell that I am sending my child back to in-person public schooling in this city and I am advising all public school parents to do the same,” says a Bronx nurse and parent.
ReplyDeleteUS: 5% of global population, 25% of global covid deaths, disproportionate like the black crime rate.
ReplyDeleteSo we are off tomorrow because of muslim holiday, but had to work on Passover and Good Friday?
ReplyDelete@ 11;10 , Crime shouldn’t be correlated to race - it’s American crime. They used to do the same thing to the Irish, Italians and Jews from the 1840s - 1950s. (It was much higher with those groups than with Blacks or WASPs.) Those ethnic groups also weren’t considered White. The Irish weren't classified as White until 1900 - I’m not sure if the Italians and Jews ever got to join the club. Race creates a completely false narrative and classification system used for control.
ReplyDeleteSome folks always need to incorporate race into discussions. God protect each of you, this country and our world. The greatest country in the world just can't figure out how to save the lives of its citizens. Capital over compassion. What a testimony.
ReplyDeleteWe saw what high stakes testing did for the schools.
ReplyDeleteNow get ready for a high stakes experiment.
Sweden has 5,700 deaths, 10 million population. US has 150,000 deaths, 328 million population. Sweden has a higher death rate than us.
ReplyDeleteLet's follow Sweden then if they did it totally wrong.
ReplyDeleteOh, I thought pinpointing and stopping crime was good for all of us.
ReplyDelete@6:43: stopping crime would be great. did you pinpoint something?
ReplyDeleteIsn't it known, as fact, blacks commit and are harmed by a disproportionate amount?
ReplyDelete#7:38 pm: Let me take a page from Pres. Clump: You are spewing news from a skewed lens. whites commit crime. Whites have terrorized blacks, indians, asians,irish,italians,and schools via mass shootings. Research jim crow. Research black wall street. Research kkk. Even folks praying in their own church have been massacred. People of all races and ethnicities commit crime. Isn't THIS known. Are you saying the intrarace white victims don't matter? I guess I should be afraid of all white people. Isn't it known at 7:38pm? You don't see the beauty of blacks. You see crime. All law abiding people want to just live their lives and be respected. When you see black, you see criminal. Let me help you out: The majority of my beautiful black folks are smart,honest, strong,fabulous, hardworking, loving, resilient, loyal,God fearing and all around amazing people. We are not afraid to march and yell when sh%$ isn't right. That's why you have civil rights. However, we are not alone. Folks from every other race are just as good. No decent person supports crime.
ReplyDeleteWell stated Waiting.
ReplyDeleteIt is 2020. The writer must be referencing the news he sees everyday, same people commit the crimes. Do you need stats per capita?
ReplyDeleteYou asked for me to pinpoint...Blacks make up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population
ReplyDeleteBlacks make up about 40% of the jailed population, but only 13% overall.
Waiting, instead of arguing with the guy, why not discuss how to improve the minority failing in schools that has been going on for decades or the fact that they have the lowest hs and college grad rate? Aren't we supposed to help them? teach? Improve? If one groups always lags, how do we change that?
ReplyDelete@10:41: It's a discussion. I agree that crime is exploding and needs to be addressed and curtailed. The guy has his points and so do I. Different perspectives. The guy is pointing out what he sees and i took issue with his lens. Is that allowed? Now about the "minority failing in schools". Absolutely black and brown children have struggled in education. So do white,asians, Hispanics and others. However, Blacks also do well in school. Our many contributions (math,science, engineering, tech, the arts, sports) to society are vast. What are too many educators doing that doesn't help? Passing children who should not pass. You know how I feel about this topic because it's my biggest concern. You ask how do we change it? Too many issues to address: social,economic, discrimination,etc. However let's start with educators standing up to the doe and say no more passing failing students. Obviously if the diplomas are useless why would the college grad rate be high? People are gullible and naive if they believe that all students who fail in school are stupid. They are also not taking accountability of their own behavior of passing all students. You aren't teaching but you expect the students to sit in your class to play along with the sham. Then the same educators go home to talk with more like minded people. It seems like some folks continuously point out black crime and education stats. This is why the entire US and Global history curriculums need to be scrapped. Each generation is taught a cleaned up version of reality. Trump said "they want to indoctrinate our children" but he left out "by teaching the true history". Indoctrination does occur. If you're a product of the US school system you too have been indoctrinated with the watered down version of how we got here and who we all are. Look at white history/crime in America and around the world. You're talking about black crime? Spend some time researching white folks. Education? Just because others get into great colleges and graduate and go on to live a comfortable life doesn't mean they are smarter. We don't know who is the best and brightness.
ReplyDeleteTeachers need to use their professional skills and teach. If a student doesn't come to school/class or learn in your class. They have to fail. Create a classroom that is challenging and has structure. Push your students. If a student is struggling talk with parents, the school's support team and so on to develop a real plan. The plan needs to be a living document. These students undoubtedly entered school at a disadvantage. There can be a family history of not seeing education as a way out. You said it above "minority failing in schools that has been going on for decades". These are possibly the parents of your students. The "game" of school got them too. Fake diploma got them but so far. This is part of the social problem. The cycle continues. Some folks bring up Asians. Asians were never slaves. America was not built on their back. However, white folks treated them horribly. Even today,look at Trump's comments. Some asians method of dealing with discrimination and disrespect is by remaining quiet. Thankfully they are not perceived as a threat. They are seen as quiet, smart and easy going. Blacks are seen as criminals and failures. Look at what some posters stay on: black criminals and failing in school. They don't recognize the successes and contributions of blacks. Thank God we are resilient and strong. The majority of us know the history of this country and the role everyone has played. We need to make America great--once and for all. It has always been like a tv show: producer, director and actors. Let's get it done right so that we can soar like the eagle. You asked? I answered.
If everyone is fake passing, why is the success order asians, whites blacks, always? Dont you think there is a reason why they end up with low paying jobs, like the poor HS and college grad rate? Have you read how they write in HS? Do you see a grammar issue? Proper English? Spelling?
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that nobody is trying to push asians into brooklyn tech? Because they earn entrance. Why special rules for blacks and hispanics? You like quotas? Standardized tests are taken, that is not someone thinking blacks are bad. Asians cant even speak English when they get here and they manage to succeed.
Why is the single parent household % so much higher?
Did you watch the looting, what was the makeup of the looters? Yes, we understand that everyone commits crime, but 13% of the population making 40% of the jail population?
Didnt you say you consult for extra money? Why no changes? What have you suggested?
@12:52: My consultation is school specific i.e. based on the needs of that school. Here is a suggestion: ALL teachers in every school will start teaching and not playing teachers. We know the grad rate will drop for a while. However true learning will occur and hopefully a challenging educational experience will be the norm in every school. There will be no need to change specialized hs admissions if ALL schools provide challenging school work. A strong populace is beneficial for all. It's like if all teachers actively decide to vote in the next union election and vote out Mulgrew--if you don't like his stance--and vote in someone else, change will occur. It's not novel, it's common sense. If you want to see a change, you have to make changes. Why blame the kids? Why leave the union? You have power to be treated like the professional you are and receive the union leadership that you want. The DOE,mayor, Gov, president are making decisions for your life but you're on a blog talking about black crime. All over the country other educators are actually DOING. So you've read my suggestion. What is your suggestion? How do you plan to keep yourself, your loved ones, colleagues and students safe? I have a serious question: Why is it your compulsion to bring in race on every topic? It's disrespectful to James and the other bloggers. It doesn't help your current situation i.e. the return to school in September.
DeleteWhat is your opinion of cops getting hit with rocks and hammers?
ReplyDeleteWaiting just makes excuses about factual numbers, offers no answers.
ReplyDeleteTypical double standard, why is everyone so into social everything, but dont say a word about slaves in china, sweatshops in china, people on the ground blindfolded in china? No comment from waiting or lebron or aoc or biden? And this directly benefits nike and lebron...financially. I bring this up because waiting is quick to point out ills, but then calls racism. Loads of facts prove that the biggest harm to blacks is blacks.
ReplyDelete@1:56...who's stopping you or anyone else from saying something about those causes? You are upset because people are protesting being treated wrong? Puh-lese. It's pointless addressing topics with you. American citizens have a right to protest. I don't get you: You're upset about how no one is doing anything about injustice in other areas of the world but are up in arms when black people (and others) protest injustice in their own land. Im responding. I didn't start the fire. You're confused
Delete@steve: my opinion of cops getting hit with rocks and hammers is the same as opinion i have about racism.
ReplyDeleteWho is doing this, who does it hurt the most? Do you not care? “As a result of the outrageous attacks on law enforcement, violent crime has surged in certain Democrat-run cities...look at New York it’s up 348%...because you have a radical left mayor who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
ReplyDeleteumbrella man is doing it
Delete