I find articles like these so deeply frustrating: nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/… So much parsing and dancing around the point that schools are safe and we should open them everywhere.
That evidence has been with us for months. And it’s not just when community spread is moderate or low. Look at Europe when they had high spread and yet schools saw few cases—even without these mitigation strategies!
The very next paragraph (which also jumps from elementary to high school without pointing out these are very different) muddles this point. Yes, when transmission goes up in communities, it goes up in schools. But it’s still super low. Say it.
The idea that deep blue city school districts would have listened to the Trump administration’s guidelines to reopen schools is fantasy.
This needs context. Public schools in our big cities did not open. Private schools in cities did open, public schools in suburbs & smaller cities opened. Teachers unions kept big city publics closed & hurt the most vulnerable. Democrats who run these cities let it happen. Say it.
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We threw out every single thing we know about human nature in order to fight COVID and this is where it led us. Pieces like this crush me because it was so, so obvious this would happen. I could have predicted this piece in May. nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/…
If I told you that teenagers would be kept from seeing friends, learn only online, have their social lives conducted only on social media, not have any in-person interaction with supportive grown-ups, wouldn't I be drawing you a picture of rising suicide rates? Yet we did this.
I have been screaming from the rooftops that schools will not reopen in Sept. So many ppl have told me that's crazy, so crazy. I have pointed out that literally nothing changes for kids in Sept. No vaccine for them, social distance requirements still mean no full-time school.
Success Academy declaring that they will open in a "hybrid" (part-time in-person) model in September is absolute worst news for people (like me) who are worried about schools not reopening in the fall. SA is being honest while all of our officials are not. Nothing will change.
We need to say, today, that there is no reason for children to be social distancing. None. No one else is doing this. Look at countries around the world that have opened their schools without social distancing (and largely without masks under 12yo!) while we have not.
Your occasional reminder that Governor Cuomo destroyed NYC's restaurant industry for no reason and your NYC City Council members, with very few exceptions, looked the other way.
"He closed restaurants to keep us safe!" FOH. Cuomo didn't want to keep Buffalo safe? He was willing to risk Albany? Somehow Long Island's restaurants aren't an immediate danger to the lives of residents there?
Yes, of course Mayor Bill de Blasio looked the other way too. But he's three quarters asleep on a good day.
Middle of the night thought: there's a lot of speculation as to *why* so many NYC parents chose remote for their kids instead of the crazy sometimes-school option. Assumption, with no data of course, is that people are afraid that going to school is dangerous.
I can only tell you anecdotally majority of ppl I know who chose remote did it because they A) got more actual academics w/remote. So if your kid goes to in-person school 1-2 days/wk and has remote art/music/gym rest of time vs 5 day remote school but with actual math/English/etc
Or B) found the part-time in-person schedule too hard to manage with childcare so simply found someone to oversee remote learning instead of someone to sometimes take the kid to school/pick them up, stay with them when schools inevitably closes, etc.
It is extremely difficult to get a COVID vaccination appointment in NY and anyone who isn't extremely online (and able to refresh all day) will find it impossible. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Having to check multiple sites for vaccination appointments (and answer all the questions before you actually reach the calendar that tells you no appointments are available) is the opposite of making appointments "easily accessible to New Yorkers."
I got Debbie Gibson tickets in 7th grade, using the payphone at my school and my parent's credit card. This seems harder.