Showing posts with label Coronavirus. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Apparently Marco Rubio is an essential worker?

Marco Rubio Slammed for Criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci After Receiving a COVID-19 Vaccine Himself

Saturday, July 18, 2020

Monday, July 13, 2020

A few questions for Betty DeVos

Miles Kurland

27 mins

Good Questions for School Openings:

• If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks? Is their sick leave covered, paid?

• If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days?

• Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested? Who pays for those tests? Are they happening at school? How are the parents being notified? Does everyone in each of those kids' families need to get tested? Who pays for that?

• What if someone who lives in the same house as a teacher tests positive? Does that teacher now need to take 14 days off of work to quarantine? Is that time off covered? Paid?

• Where is the district going to find a substitute teacher who will work in a classroom full of exposed, possibly infected students for substitute pay?

• Substitutes teach in multiple schools. What if they are diagnosed with COVID-19? Do all the kids in each school now have to quarantine and get tested? Who is going to pay for that?

• What if a student in your kid's class tests positive? What if your kid tests positive? Does every other student and teacher they have been around quarantine? Do we all get notified who is infected and when? Or because of HIPAA regulations are parents and teachers just going to get mysterious “may have been in contact” emails all year long?

• What is this stress going to do to our teachers? How does it affect their health and well-being? How does it affect their ability to teach? How does it affect the quality of education they are able to provide? What is it going to do to our kids? What are the long-term effects of consistently being stressed out?

• How will it affect students and faculty when the first teacher in their school dies from this? The first parent of a student who brought it home? The first kid?

• How many more people are going to die, that otherwise would not have if we had stayed home longer?
30% of the teachers in the US are over 50. About 16% of the total deaths in the US are people between the ages of 45-65.

We are choosing to put our teachers in danger.

Saturday, July 11, 2020

Teachers hold our society together

Alison Hoeman

July 8 at 7:12 PM

Society: In the richest country in the world, between 11 and 13 million children live in food insecure homes.

Schools: We can help..... Kids can eat breakfast and lunch at school, and in many places, teachers will spend their own money on snacks. For the most needy, we will send food home for dinner and weekends.

Society: Over 4 million children in the US do not have health insurance or adequate healthcare.

Schools: We can help..... we will bring doctors to do free physicals, eye exams, and dental treatments right at school. In many places, school nurses will spend their own money on sanitary supplies for girls.

Society: Over 17% of US children live without basic necessities.

Schools: We can help.... we will install washers and dryers in schools. We will hand out clothes, school supplies, shoes, and winter coats for free. Many of these items are purchased by school nurses and teachers.

Society: There are 5.5 million reports annually of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect of minors.

Schools: We can help.... schools will be safe places and teachers will be safe people. We will have some counselors, but not enough.... some therapists, but not enough, right in the schools. Teachers with minimal training in trauma will come to school early and stay late to mentor these children. Teachers will spend more time with their students than with their own children. Teachers will cry and sometimes crumble at the thought of not being able to do more for the innocent children in their care.

Society: Almost 25% of US children have parents that work past school hours.

Schools: We can help.... we will install before and after school programs in thousands of schools where kids can get another meal, get help with their homework, and participate in organized activities.

Society: Almost 14 million children in the US are obese.

Schools: we can help... Physical Education classes will be mandatory and we will incorporate lessons about healthy food choices.

Society: The US averages one school shooting every 77 days.

School: We can help... we will do lock down drills and train our students to hide and be quiet. And if need be, teachers will literally die for their students.

Society: We are in the midst of a global pandemic which our government has failed to control. Almost 130,000 Americans are dead and the numbers are rising, not declining, in many places. Because we have chosen to ignore, for decades, the racism, inequality, and discrimination that is at the root of all the aforementioned problems, we now need schools to reopen so that kids can eat, get healthcare, get clothes, shoes, and school supplies, be safe, be healthy, and be supervised. Oh, and so that they can get an education. It appears that COVID doesn’t affect children, so let’s go back to school.

Teachers: We can help.... of course we will help, that’s what we do. We miss our students and want to be back at school with them.... but what about the 25-30% of us that are over the age of 50? What about those of us who are immunocompromised or live with someone who is? What about those of us who are pregnant... we still have very limited data on what COVID does to unborn children. Will you have PPE for us? Will you have hand sanitizer for us? What if we get sick, and don’t have enough sick days to cover the time that we are out? What if a family member gets sick and we need to care for them?

Society: Wow, why are you suddenly being a bunch of crybabies? Before you were always willing to sacrifice your time, your money, your mental health.... and now when we need you, you aren’t willing to sacrifice your health and possibly your life? But 75% of you are women.... and that’s what we, as a society, expect women to do... sacrifice yourself for others.

*For decades, schools and teachers have been the band-aid on society’s failings, because we care about children.... because we know that in society’s failings, it is almost always the children that suffer the most. Schools and teachers are not responsible for, or capable of, the repair of our broken America. Make no mistake that going back to school has very little to do with education and much more to do with the other social services that schools provide... we need children’s to return to school so that they are fed, cared for, and supervised... so that their parents can go back to work and participate in the economy. While it literally breaks the heart of every teacher in America to think of all of the children that they know who are not eating enough, not being well cared for, and not safe in their home, teachers will not be the lambs sent to slaughter because no one else cared enough to actually address the racism, discrimination, and inequality that is at the root of our problems, while schools and teachers were picking up all the slack and holding it all together with a band-aid that is growing very thin.

Thursday, July 09, 2020

Trump and DeVos almost literally throwing children under the bus to save Trump's reelection

Tom Sibley

Via friends:..So, if you didn’t catch this mornings shitshow, it went basically like this:

The CDC put out its official recommendations and requirements states should meet before reopening schools.

Trump went to twitter, shitted on the CDC recommendations, demanding that k-12 schools fully open up in the fall. He threatened to cut federal funding if they do not.

Then the coronavirus task force held a press conference, minus Fauci, because he’s on the President’s shit list.

Betsy Devos said they really really really wants kids back in school. She does not know how to do this, offered no suggestions. Just that they need to open, and leaves it up to local officials to figure it out.

Vice President Pence said children are resilient. Basically made out of cartilage with healthy lungs. They probably won’t get sick, so we shouldn’t worry about them. There is also no disagreement between the CDC and Trump. Trump wants schools to open, and just doesn’t want the CDC’s guidelines to be the reason for schools not opening?

Yes, he actually said he doesn’t want states to keep their schools closed just because their own CDC says it is not safe to open.

So the VP says, don’t worry, let’s bring up the Director of the CDC to clarify. -And I could‘ve sworn I heard this guy gulp off camera.

But the director of the CDC comes up and says he also wants schools to open safely. He said he likes his job and wants to keep it, therefore, he is also in full agreement with Trump, despite the guidelines they released hours before.

So then Dr. Birx comes on and says half the country has seen a surge of new cases. The country is worse off than it was back at the start of all this. She said they should return to phase 1 and start all over.

Now, an astute reader may wonder how do half the states return to phase 1, and still expect to open by fall? Good question. ..... And while you were thinking about it, Birx tries to leave the podium.

But before she gets away, Pence stops her, suggests she ‘talk about that other thing about the children’. She hesitates, then agrees.

She comes back up to the mic, says most children probably won’t die. Maybe 0.02%. And usually the ones who die were already sick, so you parents at home may want to keep an eye on them. Oh- and we have virtually no data on how transmissible the virus is in children because we’ve barely tested any of them, but let me get out of your hair.

Pence comes back and says, see, we’re good here.

————————-

So while all that is going Cuomo is holding his own press conference.

He says I don’t even give a shit what Trump is saying. It’s not worth responding to the clown. States control school openings, and we will do it as safely as possible, end of discussion.

Other states blew off our warnings, and now they are paying the price. You want to fix your states? Pull your heads out of your asses and follow our example.

—————————

And Fauci has gone total rogue. He has been giving interviews across the media spectrum, politely telling anyone who will listen that following trump’s orders regarding the Coronavirus will lead to certain doom. Death and economic disaster on a scale never seen before. Please turn back while you still can.

And now you are filled in.

*feel free to copy/paste*

Sunday, June 28, 2020

For thee, but not for me.

Saturday, June 27, 2020

I guess yelling through a mask makes facts hard to hear

Friday, June 26, 2020

Besides, sheep don't wear masks.

LEWIS COUNTY, Wash. — The video, shot by the Daily Chronicle newspaper is short. In it, Sheriff Robert Snaza addresses a small crowd through a bullhorn. “In case you guys didn’t hear, Governor Jay Inslee, in his infinite wisdom, had decided after over a hundred some-odd days that we should all wear face masks inside and out. Here’s what I say. Don’t be a sheep,” Snaza said to applause.

Afterward, he shook hands, no one wore a mask and there was no social distancing. On Wednesday, Snaza went into more detail about his statement.

“When I said don’t be a sheep it means you don’t have to be a follower, it’s OK to be a free thinker. It’s OK to ask questions. It’s OK to say why,” Snaza said in an interview in his office in Chehalis, where he wore a protective face mask.