Re-opening Schools in the era of COVID

gwb-trading · Feb 8, 2021

Once again... Kids bring COVID home from school and infect the entire family.

First their 5-year-old got COVID-19. Then the whole family got hit
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...t-covid-19-then-the-whole-family-got-hit.html

Five-year-old Zachary Frohwein shuffled into his parents’ room in the middle of the night. He was wearing his favourite pyjama shorts when he tapped his dad’s shoulder. “My room is warm,” he said.

It was the pre-morning hours of Dec. 15, just four days after Zachary and his big sister, Mikayla, 7, were sent home from school. There had been COVID-19 cases in each of their classes on Dec. 11 — the kids’ second day back in school after a two-week isolation period due to an earlier case in Mikayla’s class.

Effi Frohwein scooped up his son and tucked him back into bed, realizing then, it wasn’t the room that was warm, it was Zachary.

“We took his temperature and realized he had a low-grade fever,” said mom Hilary Edelstein. “In the morning, we followed public health policy and made the appointment for a COVID-19 test. A day later, we found out he was positive.”

That was the start of a six-week-long quarantine full of COVID-19 tests and anxious trips to hospital for the Thornhill family of five. The virus swept through the home, infecting everyone and leaving the family frustrated and isolated.

Theirs is not an uncommon story. Some 117,257 of all COVID-19 cases recorded as of Feb. 6 in Ontario have been due to close contact. Compared to 63,630 linked to community spread and 54,155 cases in an outbreak setting, close contact remains a major source of transmission. And with the presence of more contagious variants, children returning to in-person classes and people advocating for loosening lockdown measures, the risk rises.

“We’ve seen enough instances of cases where an entire family is infected that it should be obvious it’s very difficult to keep COVID-19 from spreading within nuclear households,” said Dr. Abdu Sharkawy, internal medicine and infectious diseases specialist at the University Health Network. “It’s a very contagious virus.”

The Frohwein family anticipated this might happen following Zachary’s positive test. Edelstein, 36, works in health-care research and program management and Frohwein, 42, has a background in health care and sales. Despite Mikayla testing negative and then-nine-month-old Koby being seemingly fine, “we knew it was only a matter of time,” said Frohwein.

Still, the family took measures to try to prevent transmission: they opened windows, put humidifiers in every room and initially wore masks around each other. “We have a very long dining room table. We would sit on one end of the table and Zachy would be all the way at the other end,” said Frohwein. “He didn’t like it.”

It would take a pretty big house and “perfect compliance” — including eating separately and using a different bathroom — to effectively stop the spread of the virus, notes Sharkawy. “Ideally, the infected person should be in a completely isolated part of the home ... they should be on their own floor.”

Frohwein and Edelstein knew those measures weren’t realistic for their family. The children have separate rooms, but they share a bathroom. Mikayla used her parents’ bathroom so Zachary could have the children’s bathroom to himself. But it was “impossible” to confine Zachary to his room.

“We weren’t going to treat him like a prisoner … he’s a five-year old,” Edelstein said. “Five-year-olds want to rip off their mask and hug you and kiss you.”

When the kids wanted to play in shared spaces, the parents moved them into the dining room where windows could be opened. Arts and crafts activities were set up so the children could maintain a two-metre distance.

“The reality,” noted Sharkawy, “is despite whatever public health recommendation we can provide, they simply can’t be exercised all the time.”

Despite their efforts, the family couldn’t prevent the domino effect of symptoms that came after Zachary’s infection. On Dec. 20, just five days after Zachary tested positive, Frohwein was giving Koby a bath when he noticed hives all over his baby son’s body.

“He had spots head to toe,” Frohwein said, adding that Koby had been feverish the previous week, but they figured it was because he was teething. Frohwein quickly finished the bath and took pictures to send to Koby’s pediatrician, who said the hives were probably due to a virus, but not necessarily COVID-19.

The family decided to have Koby tested, just in case. He tested negative.

“We knew it would move from one person to the other. But we were worried about how Hilary and I would react to the virus,” Frohwein said. “We’re in our 30s and 40s … are we going to have a mild flu? Or are we going to have to go to the hospital because we can’t breathe?”

Frohwein, who usually gets on the indoor spin bike every morning, found himself tired and achy on Dec. 26. “I knew something was up,” he said. By that afternoon, his stomach was hurting.

“I got tested and the very next morning I had a positive result,” Frohwein said. “My symptoms were changing daily. One day I would be good. One day it would feel like a bad cold. One day it felt like the flu.” The flu-like symptoms were the worst — runny nose, eyes watering, sneezing. “On the flu-like days, I felt like crap.”

Around the same time, Edelstein started experiencing a faster heart rate, tightness in her chest, nausea and she developed what felt like a sinus infection. She too tested positive for COVID.

Having developed symptoms in the same week, the couple worried about how they were going to manage parenting. “We would trade off who got to lay down and rest and who was sitting with the kids,” Edelstein said. “We focused on making really simple, easy meals that didn’t take a lot out of either of us.”

They also relied on their support network for help; family members left meals in their garage, friends dropped off groceries and art supplies and one of the kid’s teachers even brought colouring books and food.

“Everybody was so nice and so kind,” Edelstein said. “We were able to save enough of our energy that we could maintain things in our household to a certain extent.”

On Jan. 3, more than halfway into his 14-day quarantine period, Frohwein lost his sense of smell and taste. In the afternoon, he had no issues with his coffee and he had suggested a “date night” cocktail with his wife. But by that evening, when he went to try his daiquiri, “I couldn’t detect anything. It was super weird.”

That same week, Mikayla was covered in hives and developed a low-grade fever and what seemed like a cold. She tested positive on Jan. 7.

“We’ve had so many tests,” Frohwein said. “We’ve all had at least four or five tests.”

And while the testing was tough for them all, some tests were harder than others: Mikayla “freaked” during her first nasal swab. “I’m holding her down, another doctor is holding her head back. She’s frothing at the mouth and nose and crying,” Frohwein said. “It was terrible.”

Koby was retested, for the third time, on Jan. 11. The result was invalid. He was tested two days later. The result came back positive.

COVID-19 had made its way through every family member.

Today, the family is out of quarantine, but they express frustration around the mixed-messaging they received about the contagious stage of COVID-19. The answer was always different, depending on who they spoke to, they said.

Asked about what guidelines people should follow, Sharkawy, of the University Health Network, told the Star epidemiology recommendations have been fairly consistent, whether they come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or Health Canada.

“The science tells us that if you’re asymptomatic 14 days after a known exposure, then you are unlikely to transmit the virus,” Sharkawy said. People exhibiting symptoms 14 days following an exposure are unable to transmit the infection to anyone after 10 days of symptom onset, he added. “You should be free and clear.”

Though the family has been given the all clear, Frohwein still has a persistent cough, and his sense of smell and taste have yet to make a full recovery. But the family is slowly returning to a sense of normalcy. Edelstein is nearing the end of her maternity leave. Frohwein, the designated “errand-runner” has picked up groceries a couple times. On drier days, the kids put on their masks and go scootering and biking up and down their street. They’re also planning for a return to the place they think the chain of infections began: school.

Last fall, the couple determined in-person classes were the right choice for their family because it was better for their children’s learning styles. They took that risk, recognizing their children could be sent home at some point.

While the Ministry of Education has promised enhanced measures to protect students and staff from COVID-19, Sharkawy says, it is “pure speculation” to suggest schools are actually safe. “In the absence of a testing strategy that is widely deployed ... we don’t know how many kids are going back to school unknowingly carrying the virus.”

With York Region schools returning to class on Feb. 16, the family is prepared to take the risk again.

“Are we still nervous? Yes. The variants out there are way more contagious, and we are not immune to catching it again,” Edelstein said. “But it’s for their sanity.”

Tsing Tao · Feb 8, 2021

gwb-trading said:
Once again... Kids bring COVID home from school and infect the entire family.

First their 5-year-old got COVID-19. Then the whole family got hit
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...t-covid-19-then-the-whole-family-got-hit.html

Five-year-old Zachary Frohwein shuffled into his parents’ room in the middle of the night. He was wearing his favourite pyjama shorts when he tapped his dad’s shoulder. “My room is warm,” he said.

It was the pre-morning hours of Dec. 15, just four days after Zachary and his big sister, Mikayla, 7, were sent home from school. There had been COVID-19 cases in each of their classes on Dec. 11 — the kids’ second day back in school after a two-week isolation period due to an earlier case in Mikayla’s class.

Effi Frohwein scooped up his son and tucked him back into bed, realizing then, it wasn’t the room that was warm, it was Zachary.

“We took his temperature and realized he had a low-grade fever,” said mom Hilary Edelstein. “In the morning, we followed public health policy and made the appointment for a COVID-19 test. A day later, we found out he was positive.”

That was the start of a six-week-long quarantine full of COVID-19 tests and anxious trips to hospital for the Thornhill family of five. The virus swept through the home, infecting everyone and leaving the family frustrated and isolated.

Theirs is not an uncommon story. Some 117,257 of all COVID-19 cases recorded as of Feb. 6 in Ontario have been due to close contact. Compared to 63,630 linked to community spread and 54,155 cases in an outbreak setting, close contact remains a major source of transmission. And with the presence of more contagious variants, children returning to in-person classes and people advocating for loosening lockdown measures, the risk rises.

“We’ve seen enough instances of cases where an entire family is infected that it should be obvious it’s very difficult to keep COVID-19 from spreading within nuclear households,” said Dr. Abdu Sharkawy, internal medicine and infectious diseases specialist at the University Health Network. “It’s a very contagious virus.”

The Frohwein family anticipated this might happen following Zachary’s positive test. Edelstein, 36, works in health-care research and program management and Frohwein, 42, has a background in health care and sales. Despite Mikayla testing negative and then-nine-month-old Koby being seemingly fine, “we knew it was only a matter of time,” said Frohwein.

Still, the family took measures to try to prevent transmission: they opened windows, put humidifiers in every room and initially wore masks around each other. “We have a very long dining room table. We would sit on one end of the table and Zachy would be all the way at the other end,” said Frohwein. “He didn’t like it.”

It would take a pretty big house and “perfect compliance” — including eating separately and using a different bathroom — to effectively stop the spread of the virus, notes Sharkawy. “Ideally, the infected person should be in a completely isolated part of the home ... they should be on their own floor.”

Frohwein and Edelstein knew those measures weren’t realistic for their family. The children have separate rooms, but they share a bathroom. Mikayla used her parents’ bathroom so Zachary could have the children’s bathroom to himself. But it was “impossible” to confine Zachary to his room.

“We weren’t going to treat him like a prisoner … he’s a five-year old,” Edelstein said. “Five-year-olds want to rip off their mask and hug you and kiss you.”

When the kids wanted to play in shared spaces, the parents moved them into the dining room where windows could be opened. Arts and crafts activities were set up so the children could maintain a two-metre distance.

“The reality,” noted Sharkawy, “is despite whatever public health recommendation we can provide, they simply can’t be exercised all the time.”

Despite their efforts, the family couldn’t prevent the domino effect of symptoms that came after Zachary’s infection. On Dec. 20, just five days after Zachary tested positive, Frohwein was giving Koby a bath when he noticed hives all over his baby son’s body.

“He had spots head to toe,” Frohwein said, adding that Koby had been feverish the previous week, but they figured it was because he was teething. Frohwein quickly finished the bath and took pictures to send to Koby’s pediatrician, who said the hives were probably due to a virus, but not necessarily COVID-19.

The family decided to have Koby tested, just in case. He tested negative.

“We knew it would move from one person to the other. But we were worried about how Hilary and I would react to the virus,” Frohwein said. “We’re in our 30s and 40s … are we going to have a mild flu? Or are we going to have to go to the hospital because we can’t breathe?”

Frohwein, who usually gets on the indoor spin bike every morning, found himself tired and achy on Dec. 26. “I knew something was up,” he said. By that afternoon, his stomach was hurting.

“I got tested and the very next morning I had a positive result,” Frohwein said. “My symptoms were changing daily. One day I would be good. One day it would feel like a bad cold. One day it felt like the flu.” The flu-like symptoms were the worst — runny nose, eyes watering, sneezing. “On the flu-like days, I felt like crap.”

Around the same time, Edelstein started experiencing a faster heart rate, tightness in her chest, nausea and she developed what felt like a sinus infection. She too tested positive for COVID.

Having developed symptoms in the same week, the couple worried about how they were going to manage parenting. “We would trade off who got to lay down and rest and who was sitting with the kids,” Edelstein said. “We focused on making really simple, easy meals that didn’t take a lot out of either of us.”

They also relied on their support network for help; family members left meals in their garage, friends dropped off groceries and art supplies and one of the kid’s teachers even brought colouring books and food.

“Everybody was so nice and so kind,” Edelstein said. “We were able to save enough of our energy that we could maintain things in our household to a certain extent.”

On Jan. 3, more than halfway into his 14-day quarantine period, Frohwein lost his sense of smell and taste. In the afternoon, he had no issues with his coffee and he had suggested a “date night” cocktail with his wife. But by that evening, when he went to try his daiquiri, “I couldn’t detect anything. It was super weird.”

That same week, Mikayla was covered in hives and developed a low-grade fever and what seemed like a cold. She tested positive on Jan. 7.

“We’ve had so many tests,” Frohwein said. “We’ve all had at least four or five tests.”

And while the testing was tough for them all, some tests were harder than others: Mikayla “freaked” during her first nasal swab. “I’m holding her down, another doctor is holding her head back. She’s frothing at the mouth and nose and crying,” Frohwein said. “It was terrible.”

Koby was retested, for the third time, on Jan. 11. The result was invalid. He was tested two days later. The result came back positive.

COVID-19 had made its way through every family member.

Today, the family is out of quarantine, but they express frustration around the mixed-messaging they received about the contagious stage of COVID-19. The answer was always different, depending on who they spoke to, they said.

Asked about what guidelines people should follow, Sharkawy, of the University Health Network, told the Star epidemiology recommendations have been fairly consistent, whether they come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or Health Canada.

“The science tells us that if you’re asymptomatic 14 days after a known exposure, then you are unlikely to transmit the virus,” Sharkawy said. People exhibiting symptoms 14 days following an exposure are unable to transmit the infection to anyone after 10 days of symptom onset, he added. “You should be free and clear.”

Though the family has been given the all clear, Frohwein still has a persistent cough, and his sense of smell and taste have yet to make a full recovery. But the family is slowly returning to a sense of normalcy. Edelstein is nearing the end of her maternity leave. Frohwein, the designated “errand-runner” has picked up groceries a couple times. On drier days, the kids put on their masks and go scootering and biking up and down their street. They’re also planning for a return to the place they think the chain of infections began: school.

Last fall, the couple determined in-person classes were the right choice for their family because it was better for their children’s learning styles. They took that risk, recognizing their children could be sent home at some point.

While the Ministry of Education has promised enhanced measures to protect students and staff from COVID-19, Sharkawy says, it is “pure speculation” to suggest schools are actually safe. “In the absence of a testing strategy that is widely deployed ... we don’t know how many kids are going back to school unknowingly carrying the virus.”

With York Region schools returning to class on Feb. 16, the family is prepared to take the risk again.

“Are we still nervous? Yes. The variants out there are way more contagious, and we are not immune to catching it again,” Edelstein said. “But it’s for their sanity.”
More...

Kids get sick and infect their family?

Holy shit!
Stop the press!

Only someone who has never had kids would find this "news".

wrbtrader · Feb 8, 2021

gwb-trading said:
Once again... Kids bring COVID home from school and infect the entire family.

First their 5-year-old got COVID-19. Then the whole family got hit
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...t-covid-19-then-the-whole-family-got-hit.html

Five-year-old Zachary Frohwein shuffled into his parents’ room in the middle of the night. He was wearing his favourite pyjama shorts when he tapped his dad’s shoulder. “My room is warm,” he said.

It was the pre-morning hours of Dec. 15, just four days after Zachary and his big sister, Mikayla, 7, were sent home from school. There had been COVID-19 cases in each of their classes on Dec. 11 — the kids’ second day back in school after a two-week isolation period due to an earlier case in Mikayla’s class.

Effi Frohwein scooped up his son and tucked him back into bed, realizing then, it wasn’t the room that was warm, it was Zachary.

“We took his temperature and realized he had a low-grade fever,” said mom Hilary Edelstein. “In the morning, we followed public health policy and made the appointment for a COVID-19 test. A day later, we found out he was positive.”

That was the start of a six-week-long quarantine full of COVID-19 tests and anxious trips to hospital for the Thornhill family of five. The virus swept through the home, infecting everyone and leaving the family frustrated and isolated.

Theirs is not an uncommon story. Some 117,257 of all COVID-19 cases recorded as of Feb. 6 in Ontario have been due to close contact. Compared to 63,630 linked to community spread and 54,155 cases in an outbreak setting, close contact remains a major source of transmission. And with the presence of more contagious variants, children returning to in-person classes and people advocating for loosening lockdown measures, the risk rises.

“We’ve seen enough instances of cases where an entire family is infected that it should be obvious it’s very difficult to keep COVID-19 from spreading within nuclear households,” said Dr. Abdu Sharkawy, internal medicine and infectious diseases specialist at the University Health Network. “It’s a very contagious virus.”

The Frohwein family anticipated this might happen following Zachary’s positive test. Edelstein, 36, works in health-care research and program management and Frohwein, 42, has a background in health care and sales. Despite Mikayla testing negative and then-nine-month-old Koby being seemingly fine, “we knew it was only a matter of time,” said Frohwein.

Still, the family took measures to try to prevent transmission: they opened windows, put humidifiers in every room and initially wore masks around each other. “We have a very long dining room table. We would sit on one end of the table and Zachy would be all the way at the other end,” said Frohwein. “He didn’t like it.”

It would take a pretty big house and “perfect compliance” — including eating separately and using a different bathroom — to effectively stop the spread of the virus, notes Sharkawy. “Ideally, the infected person should be in a completely isolated part of the home ... they should be on their own floor.”

Frohwein and Edelstein knew those measures weren’t realistic for their family. The children have separate rooms, but they share a bathroom. Mikayla used her parents’ bathroom so Zachary could have the children’s bathroom to himself. But it was “impossible” to confine Zachary to his room.

“We weren’t going to treat him like a prisoner … he’s a five-year old,” Edelstein said. “Five-year-olds want to rip off their mask and hug you and kiss you.”

When the kids wanted to play in shared spaces, the parents moved them into the dining room where windows could be opened. Arts and crafts activities were set up so the children could maintain a two-metre distance.

“The reality,” noted Sharkawy, “is despite whatever public health recommendation we can provide, they simply can’t be exercised all the time.”

Despite their efforts, the family couldn’t prevent the domino effect of symptoms that came after Zachary’s infection. On Dec. 20, just five days after Zachary tested positive, Frohwein was giving Koby a bath when he noticed hives all over his baby son’s body.

“He had spots head to toe,” Frohwein said, adding that Koby had been feverish the previous week, but they figured it was because he was teething. Frohwein quickly finished the bath and took pictures to send to Koby’s pediatrician, who said the hives were probably due to a virus, but not necessarily COVID-19.

The family decided to have Koby tested, just in case. He tested negative.

“We knew it would move from one person to the other. But we were worried about how Hilary and I would react to the virus,” Frohwein said. “We’re in our 30s and 40s … are we going to have a mild flu? Or are we going to have to go to the hospital because we can’t breathe?”

Frohwein, who usually gets on the indoor spin bike every morning, found himself tired and achy on Dec. 26. “I knew something was up,” he said. By that afternoon, his stomach was hurting.

“I got tested and the very next morning I had a positive result,” Frohwein said. “My symptoms were changing daily. One day I would be good. One day it would feel like a bad cold. One day it felt like the flu.” The flu-like symptoms were the worst — runny nose, eyes watering, sneezing. “On the flu-like days, I felt like crap.”

Around the same time, Edelstein started experiencing a faster heart rate, tightness in her chest, nausea and she developed what felt like a sinus infection. She too tested positive for COVID.

Having developed symptoms in the same week, the couple worried about how they were going to manage parenting. “We would trade off who got to lay down and rest and who was sitting with the kids,” Edelstein said. “We focused on making really simple, easy meals that didn’t take a lot out of either of us.”

They also relied on their support network for help; family members left meals in their garage, friends dropped off groceries and art supplies and one of the kid’s teachers even brought colouring books and food.

“Everybody was so nice and so kind,” Edelstein said. “We were able to save enough of our energy that we could maintain things in our household to a certain extent.”

On Jan. 3, more than halfway into his 14-day quarantine period, Frohwein lost his sense of smell and taste. In the afternoon, he had no issues with his coffee and he had suggested a “date night” cocktail with his wife. But by that evening, when he went to try his daiquiri, “I couldn’t detect anything. It was super weird.”

That same week, Mikayla was covered in hives and developed a low-grade fever and what seemed like a cold. She tested positive on Jan. 7.

“We’ve had so many tests,” Frohwein said. “We’ve all had at least four or five tests.”

And while the testing was tough for them all, some tests were harder than others: Mikayla “freaked” during her first nasal swab. “I’m holding her down, another doctor is holding her head back. She’s frothing at the mouth and nose and crying,” Frohwein said. “It was terrible.”

Koby was retested, for the third time, on Jan. 11. The result was invalid. He was tested two days later. The result came back positive.

COVID-19 had made its way through every family member.

Today, the family is out of quarantine, but they express frustration around the mixed-messaging they received about the contagious stage of COVID-19. The answer was always different, depending on who they spoke to, they said.

Asked about what guidelines people should follow, Sharkawy, of the University Health Network, told the Star epidemiology recommendations have been fairly consistent, whether they come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or Health Canada.

“The science tells us that if you’re asymptomatic 14 days after a known exposure, then you are unlikely to transmit the virus,” Sharkawy said. People exhibiting symptoms 14 days following an exposure are unable to transmit the infection to anyone after 10 days of symptom onset, he added. “You should be free and clear.”

Though the family has been given the all clear, Frohwein still has a persistent cough, and his sense of smell and taste have yet to make a full recovery. But the family is slowly returning to a sense of normalcy. Edelstein is nearing the end of her maternity leave. Frohwein, the designated “errand-runner” has picked up groceries a couple times. On drier days, the kids put on their masks and go scootering and biking up and down their street. They’re also planning for a return to the place they think the chain of infections began: school.

Last fall, the couple determined in-person classes were the right choice for their family because it was better for their children’s learning styles. They took that risk, recognizing their children could be sent home at some point.

While the Ministry of Education has promised enhanced measures to protect students and staff from COVID-19, Sharkawy says, it is “pure speculation” to suggest schools are actually safe. “In the absence of a testing strategy that is widely deployed ... we don’t know how many kids are going back to school unknowingly carrying the virus.”

With York Region schools returning to class on Feb. 16, the family is prepared to take the risk again.

“Are we still nervous? Yes. The variants out there are way more contagious, and we are not immune to catching it again,” Edelstein said. “But it’s for their sanity.”
More...

Thanks for the article. It's a common problem with many families when one member becomes Covid-19 positive...

Extremely difficult or impossible to self isolate the member within the home from the rest of the family.

wrbtrader

gwb-trading · Feb 8, 2021

Additional Note - the Biden administration is expecting the CDC to put out national guidance on the safety measures necessary to open schools on Wednesday of this week.

Reopening of schools emerges as complex flashpoint for Biden administration
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/06/politics/covid-school-reopenings-biden-cdc-guidance/index.html

President Joe Biden's team is promising new guidance on school reopenings next week. But even as more Covid-19 vaccine shots go into arms two and half weeks into his administration, there is growing impatience and frustration among parents about the biggest question looming over their lives: when their children can get back in the classroom.

The issue of school reopenings emerged as a central flashpoint this week as the anger that many parents and teachers are feeling is spilling into courtroom battles and potentially headed toward the picket line in Chicago, home to the third-largest school district in the country. Biden has said he wants to open the majority of K-8 schools within his first 100 days, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the CDC will provide more advice on how they can safely do so next week.

But reopening policies and the readiness of campuses to usher children back through their doors currently vary wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction -- a legacy of the Trump administration's decentralized approach to managing Covid-19. And the ability of schools to reopen hinges on the coronavirus transmission rate in each locality -- meaning that the CDC's advice next week is unlikely to offer anxious parents any immediate, one-size-fits-all answers that bring clarity to when their lives will get back to normal.

Even after Biden set his 100-day goal for reopening, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said achieving that goal "may not happen because there may be mitigating circumstances."

Meanwhile, governors and county health officials are struggling with agonizing ethical decisions about whether to use the scarce doses of vaccine they have to vaccinate teachers while simultaneously rushing to vaccinate adults 65 and over, the group that is most at risk of severe illness and death.

And the administration created fresh confusion this week over the direction its school guidance is headed when Walensky said during a briefing Wednesday that "safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely" -- only to have White House press secretary Jen Psaki walk that back Thursday by stating that Walensky was speaking "in her personal capacity."

Currently, 24 states and Washington, DC, are permitting some teachers and school staff members to get the vaccine.

Taking a cautious line on Friday, Psaki underscored that vaccination programs for teachers will be important but sought to highlight the funding for other school resources that is part of Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief proposal, known as the American Rescue Plan. In addition to scaling up testing and contact tracing -- a key element for reassuring teachers that they will be safe as they return to the classroom -- the President's plan would provide $170 billion for K-12 schools, as well as colleges and universities. That money could be directed toward a wide array of mitigation measures including reducing class sizes, modifying crowded spaces to allow greater social distancing for students and teachers, improving ventilation, hiring janitors and even ensuring that each school has immediate access to a nurse.

"We're looking at vaccines; that's an important part of keeping teachers and the American public safe. But we also need to look at other mitigation steps... including masking, social distancing, proper ventilation in schools," Psaki said Friday. "The urgency should prompt Democrats and Republicans ... to come together to support the American Rescue Plan so we can get schools the funding they need. Schools are planning, but many of them don't have the funding they need to take the steps necessary to reopen."

Tensions rising among parents, educators and local officials
But many parents are not going to be satisfied waiting to see how Biden's funding proposals shake out during marathon negotiations in Congress. And as federal officials sort out their guidance, smaller battles are erupting in cities and school districts all over the country.
Republicans have already signaled they hope to use school reopenings as a wedge issue, blaming Democrats and teachers unions for closures, in their quest to win back suburban voters in next year's elections. But the disagreements are creating unusual political crosscurrents even in the most liberal cities in the country -- sometimes pitting traditional allies against each another.

On Friday night, Chicago was bracing for a potential teachers strike after what Mayor Lori Lightfoot described as 80 sessions with the Chicago Teachers Union to try to reach agreement over safety protocols, personal protective equipment, testing and vaccination plans.

Lightfoot and the school district's chief executive officer, Janice K. Jackson, sent a letter to teachers Friday evening stating that employees required to report to work Monday who fail to do so will be locked out of the school's online systems -- a move that was viewed as likely to provoke a strike.

Pressing her case during a news conference this week, Lightfoot made a personal plea by noting that all children are not benefiting from remote learning, particularly "Black and brown kids who look like me, coming from circumstances like the one that I grew up in."

"We are failing those children by not giving them the option to return to school. Failing grades, depression, isolation and so much more," Lightfoot said. But the teachers' union has maintained that the schools are not yet safe enough for staff to return and previously told its members to be prepared to strike if the district retaliated against them.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Mayor London Breed announced this week that they were suing the San Francisco Unified School District for "failing to come up with a reopening plan that meets state requirements" -- calling the plans "woefully inadequate" and noting that the city has offered resources, logistical help and public health expertise.

"Unfortunately, the leadership of the school district and the educators' union can't seem to get their act together. The Board of Education and the school district have had more than 10 months to roll out a concrete plan to get these kids back in school. So far they have earned an F," Herrera said in a statement.

Searching for clarity amid a maze of authorities
Los Angeles City Council member Joe Buscaino, whose wife is a teacher, said this week that Los Angeles should follow San Francisco's lead, announcing that he would introduce a resolution next week asking the city council to order the city attorney to file a lawsuit modeled on the one in San Francisco to force the Los Angeles Unified School District to reopen its campuses.

"I stand with the 1,500 pediatricians in Southern California as well as the Director of the CDC who are calling for the safe reopening of our schools," Buscaino said in a statement. "It has been nearly a year since our students have attended classes in person, giving the district ample time to prepare."

But LA Schools Superintendent Austin Beutner responded that it would be unlawful for LA schools to reopen because the level of community spread in Los Angeles is still far above the state standard that allows schools to reopen.

"Not even for one day since March has the community of Los Angeles met the thresholds set by the governor of California for schools to reopen," Beutner said in an interview Friday.
He noted that the LA school district has done everything recommended on the CDC's list for reopening schools -- from upgrading air filters to obtaining the necessary personal protective equipment to constantly deep cleaning and sanitizing schools and setting up what he calls a "nation-leading, school-based Covid testing and tracing system" that has now administered nearly a half-million tests to children, staff, their families and any other household members across the district since early fall.
But even with all of those pieces in place, there is no way to predict when transmission rates will reach a threshold that allows schools to reopen. Beutner said he and fellow school leaders across the country are feeling the same frustration as parents as they search for some sense of certainty or clarity — particularly as the entire country struggles with the question of how to get teachers and school staff vaccinated as quickly as possible.

School officials are still facing a maze of different decision-making authorities at the federal, state and county level. Teachers are being vaccinated in Long Beach, for example, but are not yet eligible to make appointments in Los Angeles County, which is right next door -- and that lack of a coordinated strategy is being replicated all over the country.

"I wish this emerging consensus around the need for schools to be open was made coherent in everything that government is doing," Beutner said, noting that clear and consistentguidance needs to come from the top, but then be translated clearly through the state and local levels. "If there's not a whole-of-government response supporting the goal of reopening schools, then you get these conflicting tides and currents and statements and admonitions."
"Let's not make the next 10 months look like the last 10 months," he added.

El OchoCinco · Feb 8, 2021

On Friday night, Chicago was bracing for a potential teachers strike after what Mayor Lori Lightfoot described as 80 sessions with the Chicago Teachers Union to try to reach agreement over safety protocols, personal protective equipment, testing and vaccination plans.

Los Angeles City Council member Joe Buscaino, whose wife is a teacher, said this week that Los Angeles should follow San Francisco's lead, announcing that he would introduce a resolution next week asking the city council to order the city attorney to file a lawsuit modeled on the one in San Francisco to force the Los Angeles Unified School District to reopen its campuses.

It is not trump or biden with any power over school systems.......the media was non stop talking about the president and schools (trump was begging for schools to be open since last April and shit happened). it is a local government issue and as you can see from the two quotes above that is who is controlling it.

Tsing Tao · Feb 8, 2021

El OchoCinco said:
On Friday night, Chicago was bracing for a potential teachers strike after what Mayor Lori Lightfoot described as 80 sessions with the Chicago Teachers Union to try to reach agreement over safety protocols, personal protective equipment, testing and vaccination plans.

Los Angeles City Council member Joe Buscaino, whose wife is a teacher, said this week that Los Angeles should follow San Francisco's lead, announcing that he would introduce a resolution next week asking the city council to order the city attorney to file a lawsuit modeled on the one in San Francisco to force the Los Angeles Unified School District to reopen its campuses.

It is not trump or biden with any power over school systems.......the media was non stop talking about the president and schools (trump was begging for schools to be open since last April and shit happened). it is a local government issue and as you can see from the two quotes above that is who is controlling it.
More...

So happy I live in Florida. My kid just got his latest report card - all A's except for his Literature class (he's too lazy to read all the books and thinks he knows the answer) that he got a B in. Soccer starts at the end of the month.

the Teacher's union has no real power here. Thank God.

El OchoCinco · Feb 8, 2021

Tsing Tao said:
So happy I live in Florida. My kid just got his latest report card - all A's except for his Literature class (he's too lazy to read all the books and thinks he knows the answer) that he got a B in. Soccer starts at the end of the month.

the Teacher's union has no real power here. Thank God.
More...

Smart kid...my son has been virtual but doing well (honors and AP classes - Dad's are obligated to brag) and was happy he just finished basketball seasone with no cancelled games. We had to watch the games streaming live as no fans allowed .

In person starts early March DESPITE objections from teacher's union. My son's teachers all happen to be younger this year so doubt they are part of the objection and have been doing really well with virtual teaching. I know it is not easy.

I dont think by march there should be any issue doing a hybrid system for rest of the year. I dont see him doing 5 days a week until Sept. All the private schools in our area are back in person for some time with little to no issues.

I should add that I live in a very densely populated suburban area with schools having decent sized populations. Although my neighbor got Covid and was in hospital for 9 days and the wife took a month to recover and two younger friends were knocked out for a month with it, the spread has slowed down. I dont think school will spike it so hoping the teachers do not push the march start date back any further.

Tsing Tao · Feb 8, 2021

El OchoCinco said:
Smart kid...my son has been virtual but doing well (honors and AP classes - Dad's are obligated to brag) and was happy he just finished basketball seasone with no cancelled games. We had to watch the games streaming live as no fans allowed .

In person starts early March DESPITE objections from teacher's union. My son's teachers all happen to be younger this year so doubt they are part of the objection and have been doing really well with virtual teaching. I know it is not easy.

I dont think by march there should be any issue doing a hybrid system for rest of the year. I dont see him doing 5 days a week until Sept. All the private schools in our area are back in person for some time with little to no issues.

I should add that I live in a very densely populated suburban area with schools having decent sized populations. Although my neighbor got Covid and was in hospital for 9 days and the wife took a month to recover and two younger friends were knocked out for a month with it, the spread has slowed down. I dont think school will spike it so hoping the teachers do not push the march start date back any further.
More...

As you have correctly diagnosed, its all about the unions. I hope your son gets back to his life soon and that the impact of his isolation from this is transient. Kids don't deserve the bullshit the unions and their scaremongers (the media) are pushing.

Fortunately, the narratives are a changin'.

gwb-trading · Feb 8, 2021

Welcome to The Covid Monitor's Map and Data site
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/fb52d598982f41faac714b5ebe32e7d1
Our map and data site tracks the information we receive from states, school districts, individual schools, news reports and media, and the public.

State & District reporting:
643,610 Cases
Students: 382,264
Staff: 187,317
Not specified: 74,029

This data represents only official data issued either by a school, school district, or state agency. To read more about how we collect and report data, continue on this page or click here.

Tsing Tao · Feb 8, 2021

gwb-trading said:
Welcome to The Covid Monitor's Map and Data site
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/fb52d598982f41faac714b5ebe32e7d1
Our map and data site tracks the information we receive from states, school districts, individual schools, news reports and media, and the public.

State & District reporting:
643,610 Cases
Students: 382,264
Staff: 187,317
Not specified: 74,029

This data represents only official data issued either by a school, school district, or state agency. To read more about how we collect and report data, continue on this page or click here.
More...

Why don't they point out any fatality rates from these numbers? It's almost like they don't consider that at all.