Virus cases rise among school-age children in Florida; state orders some counties to keep data hidden
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – One month into the forced
reopening of Florida’s schools, dozens of classrooms – along with some
entire schools – have been temporarily shuttered because of coronavirus
outbreaks, and infections among school-age children have jumped 34%. But
parents in many parts of the state don’t know if outbreaks of the virus
are related to their own schools because the state ordered some
counties to keep health data secret.
Volunteers across Florida have set up their own school-related coronavirus dashboards, and one school district is using Facebook after the county health department was told to stop releasing information about cases tied to local schools.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has pushed aggressively for schools to offer in-person classes, even when Florida was the hot spot of the nation, and threatened to withhold funding if districts did not allow students into classrooms by Aug. 31. In the state guidelines for reopening schools, officials did not recommend that coronavirus cases be disclosed school by school. In fact, the DeSantis administration ordered some districts, including Duval and Orange, to stop releasing school specific coronavirus information, citing privacy issues.
The state also left it up to districts to decide whether masks should be worn by students and staffers. Some require it, but many don’t.
Department of Health spokesman Alberto Moscoso said in an email last week that “the Department is currently working to determine the best and most accurate manner in which to report information regarding cases of covid-19 associated with schools and daycares.” He said the information will be available “in the coming days or weeks.”
Florida is further into the reopening process than most other states, and DeSantis has been more aggressive than other governors in pushing schools to reopen and setting a deadline. The Texas state government wanted schools to open buildings but are allowing districts to operate remotely for some time. In Iowa, where schools are reopening this month – some remotely for two weeks with state permission – Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, ordered districts to open buildings for families that wanted in-person instruction. The order is being challenged in court.
Florida school districts began opening in early August, and by mid-month about half the state’s 4,500 public schools had students in their buildings. Three large districts were permitted to stay online because of high coronavirus infection rates – those of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Parents could choose between keeping their children at home or sending them to school, and about half of the states’s 2.8 million K-12 students opted to return to bricks-and-mortar classrooms.
Since Aug. 10, at least 1,210 students and teachers have been sent home to quarantine because they were exposed to the novel coronavirus, according to the Florida Education Association, the teachers union.
The Florida Department of Health reported that 10,513 children under age 18 have tested positive since schools started reopening for in-person teaching, an increase of 34%. The state is not saying how many of those children were in school or doing remote learning.
“I have filed public records requests like we were told, but no one will even fill them,” said Bridget Mendel, a parent in Manatee County in southwest Florida. “This is outrageous, and I am worried for my teacher friends and our children in Manatee.”
With the dearth of reliable school-specific information on coronavirus cases, teachers and parents are trying to fill in the gap. Anonymous Twitter accounts have sprung up since school began, started by Florida teachers who want to report what’s happening in their schools but who say they are afraid of being fired if they do so publicly.
“Transparency is a huge issue,” said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, which represents 150,000 teachers and school staff and has sued the DeSantis administration over opening schools too soon. “Parents like myself who have kids in the classroom are wondering, are they safe? And we want answers from the governor, but instead he’s quashing information.”
Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson ruled in favor of the teacher’s union, agreeing that the state had “disregarded safety” in the order. Dodson cited evidence that showed state health officials were told not to give their opinions on the safety of reopening schools in their counties. Dodson’s decision is being appealed by the state.
Across the country, there is a patchwork of requirements on the release of school-related coronavirus data. In Texas, for example, the state this week just started requiring districts to disclose to state agencies which schools have cases. The data will be published, but it is unclear whether it will be school-level or district-level. California does not require that districts disclose school-by-school information but recommends it.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the World Health Organization, recommend a local positivity rate for the coronavirus that is below 5% for the safe reopening of schools. But many of Florida’s 67 county school districts opened with higher positivity rates. The overall child positivity rate in the state is 14.5%.
Volunteers across Florida have set up their own school-related coronavirus dashboards, and one school district is using Facebook after the county health department was told to stop releasing information about cases tied to local schools.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has pushed aggressively for schools to offer in-person classes, even when Florida was the hot spot of the nation, and threatened to withhold funding if districts did not allow students into classrooms by Aug. 31. In the state guidelines for reopening schools, officials did not recommend that coronavirus cases be disclosed school by school. In fact, the DeSantis administration ordered some districts, including Duval and Orange, to stop releasing school specific coronavirus information, citing privacy issues.
The state also left it up to districts to decide whether masks should be worn by students and staffers. Some require it, but many don’t.
Department of Health spokesman Alberto Moscoso said in an email last week that “the Department is currently working to determine the best and most accurate manner in which to report information regarding cases of covid-19 associated with schools and daycares.” He said the information will be available “in the coming days or weeks.”
Florida is further into the reopening process than most other states, and DeSantis has been more aggressive than other governors in pushing schools to reopen and setting a deadline. The Texas state government wanted schools to open buildings but are allowing districts to operate remotely for some time. In Iowa, where schools are reopening this month – some remotely for two weeks with state permission – Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, ordered districts to open buildings for families that wanted in-person instruction. The order is being challenged in court.
Florida school districts began opening in early August, and by mid-month about half the state’s 4,500 public schools had students in their buildings. Three large districts were permitted to stay online because of high coronavirus infection rates – those of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Parents could choose between keeping their children at home or sending them to school, and about half of the states’s 2.8 million K-12 students opted to return to bricks-and-mortar classrooms.
Since Aug. 10, at least 1,210 students and teachers have been sent home to quarantine because they were exposed to the novel coronavirus, according to the Florida Education Association, the teachers union.
The Florida Department of Health reported that 10,513 children under age 18 have tested positive since schools started reopening for in-person teaching, an increase of 34%. The state is not saying how many of those children were in school or doing remote learning.
“I have filed public records requests like we were told, but no one will even fill them,” said Bridget Mendel, a parent in Manatee County in southwest Florida. “This is outrageous, and I am worried for my teacher friends and our children in Manatee.”
With the dearth of reliable school-specific information on coronavirus cases, teachers and parents are trying to fill in the gap. Anonymous Twitter accounts have sprung up since school began, started by Florida teachers who want to report what’s happening in their schools but who say they are afraid of being fired if they do so publicly.
“Transparency is a huge issue,” said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, which represents 150,000 teachers and school staff and has sued the DeSantis administration over opening schools too soon. “Parents like myself who have kids in the classroom are wondering, are they safe? And we want answers from the governor, but instead he’s quashing information.”
Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson ruled in favor of the teacher’s union, agreeing that the state had “disregarded safety” in the order. Dodson cited evidence that showed state health officials were told not to give their opinions on the safety of reopening schools in their counties. Dodson’s decision is being appealed by the state.
Across the country, there is a patchwork of requirements on the release of school-related coronavirus data. In Texas, for example, the state this week just started requiring districts to disclose to state agencies which schools have cases. The data will be published, but it is unclear whether it will be school-level or district-level. California does not require that districts disclose school-by-school information but recommends it.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the World Health Organization, recommend a local positivity rate for the coronavirus that is below 5% for the safe reopening of schools. But many of Florida’s 67 county school districts opened with higher positivity rates. The overall child positivity rate in the state is 14.5%.
“It seems more like information is leaking out instead of coming from the school board,” said Dawn Herring, a suburban mother in Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg. She and her husband opted for virtual classes for their two elementary-school-age children.
“Our family would have to see some more information on the case numbers, and on mask compliance and social distancing, before we send our kids back,” Herring said.
A number of school districts have published specific coronavirus infection rate data on their websites, but the state pushed back. After the Duval County school district in northeast Florida published a coronavirus dashboard during the first week of school, the state ordered it shut down within days, citing privacy concerns. The district launched a new dashboard Tuesday and the state did not intervene.
In Orlando, the Orange County health department was told Sept. 3 to stop releasing information about coronavirus cases tied to local schools. But the school district began listing schools with positive cases on its Facebook page within days. “Olympia High School will temporarily close and pivot” to a virtual platform, the district reported on its Facebook page Monday. It said six people had tested positive.
The Florida Department of Health released a report that detailed coronavirus cases linked to schools on Aug. 24 – reporting that 194 students tested positive in cases associated with primary and secondary schools – but it was quickly removed from public view. Moscoso said the report was released “inadvertently,” and DeSantis said the report “was not necessarily accurate.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/virus-cases-rise-among-school-age-children-in-florida-state-orders-some-counties-to-keep-data-hidden/
The head of Israel’s first coronavirus ward in Sheba Medical Center slammed the Israeli public for disregarding human lives by failing to adhere to health regulations, Yediot reported.
ReplyDeleteDr. Gadi Segal wrote a post on Facebook urging Israeli to start viewing the coronavirus pandemic more seriously.
“I’ve posted the names of the people who have died as a result of the disease,” Segal wrote. “Many of them I knew, some died in my arms,”
“Their blood is on the head of anyone who thinks that his theories, his parnassah, his personal liberty, his freedom of speech, his right to refuse and in general, he himself, is more important than the lives of others. As a human being and a doctor, I’m ashamed of the society I live in.”
“And perhaps this is the main problem – there’s no shame left in the world. Perhaps that’s the cause of all the tragedies we see around us.”
In an interview with Ynet, Segal said that denial of the pandemic and non-adherence to simple health guidelines will bring about a lockdown.
Dr. Segal also noted that “underlying illnesses” are far more common than the public is willing to believe. “In Western society, starting at age 50, the proportion of people with underlying illnesses is huge. These are not sick people, but functional people who live normal lives but they have diabetes or high blood pressure. There are so many people in the population who have high blood pressure.”
“All that’s necessary is to realize the fact that there’s a very problematic illness here and use a mask and avoid gatherings. There’s a very simple equation here. There’s a pandemic. A lockdown has devastating and damaging results and people don’t want it but instead of adopting steps that will prevent infection, they deny the pandemic. It’s a catastrophe.”
The corrupt Board just announced that Yudi Frankel wants to resign but they are begging him to hang on just a bit more until they get R' Yitzchok Grossbard from Detroit to replace him.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened? Is Frankel pulling a Shea Fishman after he was exposed on the blogs as a willing tool for the achzoriyus of the Board?
Did the Board already tell Grossbard or will he get the news after moving cross country that to be the YSV figurehead you must do the Board's dirty work?
I'll just have to see if Groiss Bard passes my inspection. As President Emeritus of YSV, I have a say on anyone putzing around there who has a koyach to be, well, a putz.
ReplyDeleteThat's how we like it in YSV, the crueler to certain mishpochos and the biggest lekker to certain others, the merrier!
By the way, I've got a really amazing price on katchkas for Yomtov that I sourced in the Dominican Republic. Shoyn gekoift?
Haaretz reports that in supposedly locked down Jerusalem, businesses remain open in defiance of curfew & police manning roadblocks barely prevented anybody from passing.
ReplyDelete“A walk around Jerusalem ‘red’ neighborhoods show the curfew airy & seen by the public as illogical & unsustainable.”
Yediot in Beit Shemesh: cops enforcing curfew attract a crowd themselves with kids around them. The kids, who sometimes throw rocks or call cops Nazi, are mollified by popsicles handed out by cops: “Beyond that, it's a normal night, public transport ran normal & at a yeshiva on Hazon Ish St, learning continued. Partial enforcement, travel as normal & the school question: This is how night ‘curfew’ looked,” reads a headline in Walla.
The story notes police expect to augment their numbers with 1,000 troops & the focus will be preventing gatherings.
Too many mitzvah men: Perhaps they should start with deputy education minister Meir Porush, who's given a chiding from Channel 12 for attending a large wedding in Haifa.
A video by the channel shows 100s close together on bleachers & cheering on a “mitzvah tanz” hootenanny.
“At the request of organizers, many wore masks, but you can see many not covering mouths.”
Haaretz: Anshel Pfeffer writes that anyone who thinks a yeshiva can social distance has never been inside one.
“A visit to the main yeshivas in Bnei Brak reveal makeshift gaps for passing between capsules. Outside study halls there's nothing to separate students crowding narrow corridors & lining up for food to take to the dorm,” he writes, pointing out schools aren't cloistered but built in the fabric of the city, sometimes in apt buildings.
“Visiting yeshivas & talking to staff, it’s clear nothing prevents students from roaming streets, or shopping. Some teenagers are capable of not leaving yeshiva through 40 days between Elul & Yom Kippur, but they’re rare,” he adds.
Kikar Hashabbat: Rabbi Zion Boaron calling on the masses to come to synagogue to pray synagogues be kept open over the High Holidays, showing a Mr. Magoo-esque lack of understanding how pandemics work.
“We need to pray to G-d. People leave synagogue, it’s not right. There’s no danger,” he’s quoted saying.
Even those trying to keep rules, or say they are, are stymied by confusion, which is rampant.
Chanan Bleich for Israel Hayom: “instructions from authorities are contradictory. Girls schools canceled, but the city announced heads of Talmud Toras for boys could decide to open. Daycares open, but nursery schools not. Tues night, streets of Bnei Brak were quiet, sad & empty because we Bnei Brakites have been singled out. Elsewhere everything's open, but for us everything's closed.”
Haaretz from Jerusalem's Sanhedria: residents are convinced they're mistakenly lumped with Greater Sanhedriya, a different neighborhood.
“In Greater Sanhedria, there’s a compound for the elderly, so they put down there are many sick there,” a shopowner tells the paper, adding he tried to explain it to virus czar Gamzu. “He don't know Jerusalem like I don’t know Dimona. I told him ‘you look like a fool.’”
It’s not only the Orthodox who're unhappy. A bakery in Druze Daliyet al-Carmel tells Army Radio, “They close me the most critical hour, as if virus is rampant at night.”
Kan reports schools in Ashdod under curfew were open Wed. A teacher tells the channel: “I didn’t hear schools need to close.”
With schools continuing as normal elsewhere, initial numbers raise alarms about them being vectors for disease.
“Sharp rise in infected young people,” reads a Channel 13 headline. Over the last week, 19 & under represent 35% of those getting infected.
Walla: 1,817 students infected since the start of the school year.
Channel 12: “Almost all new serious cases are young people.”
“We’re majorly overcrowded, staff are tired & frustrated. We’re 7 months in & can’t see a horizon,” Rambam hospital head Michael Halbertal tells Army Radio.
A new low for yeshivos following the Philly-Agudah pied pipers to make life MISERABLE for remote learners!
ReplyDeleteNever mind the fake frumkeit to asser dedicated video link that can't be repurposed for anything else. In some cases they are not even providing a phone hook up - AFTER they said they would! You see, IMPOSSIBLE is a dargah beyond MISERABLE.
https://nypost.com/2020/09/10/its-not-just-the-lungs-how-covid-19-attacks-the-brain/
ReplyDeleteFor those not already brain dead, perhaps Philly-Agudah want to make sure so that no one dare question them?