Update on Covid and schools

New: Schools with no masking requirement are about 3.5 times more likely to experience Covid-19 outbreak than schools w/universal masking, a CDC study in AZ found. CDC assessed masking & Covid-19 outbreaks in about 1,000 K-12 schools in Arizona’s Maricopa and Pima Counties.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) September 24, 2021

Pediatric covid-19 cases rose faster in counties without school mask requirements, CDC says https://t.co/4Wr6pV9rE0
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 24, 2021

An entire middle school in Carroll County is switching to online learning for 2 days, because so many people there got covid or were close contacts with someone who tested positive. @kris10griffith with the latest:https://t.co/17IP6hxMSb
— Pamela Wood ☀️ (@pwoodreporter) September 20, 2021

Texas A&M is keeping its count of on-campus positive students low by kicking them out of the dorms. There are no online class options, and their families live hours away. So the students are not reporting themselves, because they’d have to drop out. https://t.co/Eclk0odbyl
— Stephanie Leary (@sleary) September 18, 2021

Four kids in the class have tested positive so far. TK = pre-K, so they're under 4 yo. This should be a crime. https://t.co/Ou4rmOp9hw
— Dr Red Bison, PhD 💉💉😷 🆘🔥🌎 🏳️‍🌈♀⚖️ #RESIST (@RedBison) September 13, 2021

A Texas school district that closed for a week after two junior high school teachers died from COVID within a few days is now requiring masks inside all of its facilities as the community is seeing surge of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. https://t.co/gYFmFiULz0
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 12, 2021

“Across the country, frustrated college faculty are reaching a breaking point, furious about being forced to teach in person on campuses where COVID regulations are non-existent or barely enforced.” https://t.co/QWBnr6W0sM
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) September 12, 2021

Just a few weeks into the new school year, thousands of students and teachers across the Washington region have been quarantined for potential exposure to the coronavirus https://t.co/3nslKPyu3J
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 12, 2021

There have been no COVID-19 outbreaks in San Francisco schools since students and educators went back into classrooms on Aug. 16, the San Francisco Department of Public Health has announced.

About 90% of children ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated. https://t.co/RmRKKlJdzI
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 11, 2021

DeSantis mask policies are not supported in polls

DeSantis appointed a mask opponent as Florida’s Surgeon General. However, the public does not agree with DeSantis on his mask views and policies.

.@GovRonDeSantis appointing Dr. Joseph Ladapo — an anti-masker and vaccine skeptic — as surgeon general is a complete slap in the face to the families of the more than 50,000 Floridians who have died from COVID.https://t.co/e0HvZQmjXZ
— Charlie Crist (@CharlieCrist) September 21, 2021

A new poll finds strong support for mask mandates in schools and opposition to Ron DeSantis‘ policies. 73% of Florida voters say local school districts should be allowed to implement mask mandates.https://t.co/D5ATYSJ09k
— Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) September 16, 2021

The new Quinnipiac poll of Florida is amazing: Large majorities reject just about everything Ron DeSantis is saying and doing to block mask mandates. Wholesale rejection. Biden and Dems must lean much harder into speaking to this neglected silent majority:https://t.co/1YH2LrFFWY
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) August 24, 2021

Florida starts turning on DeSantis:

COVID infection rates are climbing.
Child infection rates are up.
School districts are rebelling against his anti-mask mandates.
Cruise lines are resisting his vaccine passport ban.
Even his poll numbers are slipping.https://t.co/0VyRFMZKyU
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 29, 2021

FLORIDA
Do you think schools should be able to require masks for all students, or do you think parents should decide whether or not their own student will be wearing a mask?

Schools 54%
Parents 44%

(Quinnipiac U. Poll, 8/17-21/21)
— PollingReport.com (@pollreport) August 25, 2021

Tweet thread by Jeff Yang on Covid in his family

This personal story thread is well worth reading. Read the whole thing.

So I’ve alluded to what’s been going on with my family and people have reached out with concern. I figured I should just explain.

My sister, who’s an urgent care doc and sees multiple (mostly unvaxxed) covid cases a day, got breakthrough covid.

Then my vaxxed parents got it.
— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) September 18, 2021

More on the bad Ivermectin theory

The case against ivermectin isn't that it's horse goo. The case against ivermectin is that we really don't have reason to think it works against Covid-19: https://t.co/jHPgo9fAlF
— Kelsey Piper (@KelseyTuoc) September 17, 2021

Can't stress how wild the ivermectin Facebook groups have become. So many people insisting to each other to never go to an ER, in part because they might not get ivermectin, but sometimes because they fear nurses are killing them on purpose "for the insurance money."
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 13, 2021

A few words about the news media coverage of ivermectin, a drug that some have claimed is a treatment for covid (though experts like the FDA, CDC, NIH and the Amer. Medical Assn. disagree). A few aspects of this coverage might be worth putting in context (a thread):
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) September 10, 2021

—@MattGertz writes about the "strong correlation between partisanship and interest in ivermectin, one that mirrors the correlation between partisanship and rejection of vaccination.” https://t.co/SqBvaHfVYi
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) September 8, 2021

"QAnon supporters have in recent days targeted Amita Resurrection Medical Center with a protest and a flood of phone calls demanding that doctors give a hospitalized ally ivermectin." https://t.co/5Xd2QVCiwJ
— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) September 8, 2021

An Ohio judge reversed a decision requiring a hospital to administer ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, to a patient as a treatment for Covid-19. The FDA has warned that ivermectin, primarily used for deworming livestock, can be toxic in humans. https://t.co/rTI2YrwrqZ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 7, 2021

OK, ENOUGH ALREADY.
Here's the #Ivermectin saga, people.
1.) In the 1960s Japan's Satoshi Omura did chemistry work, trying to find a medicine to kill helminth worms in livestock.
2.) In the '70s he joined forces with Max Tischler at Wesleyan in USA.
3.) They brought…
MORE https://t.co/ja68U2A7oi
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) September 6, 2021

More on delayed returns to the office

Facebook is looking to expand its presence in Manhattan, even as it delays its return-to-office plans https://t.co/cLwTYNbLK0
— Bloomberg (@business) September 10, 2021

As U.S. firms delay their return-to-office plans, the shift has profound implications for state and local finance in general, and for big pockets of the municipal bond market in particular https://t.co/ygKCzspnLj
— Bloomberg (@business) September 10, 2021

Microsoft indefinitely delays employees' return to its offices https://t.co/O2nTWkiA0W pic.twitter.com/3NputrBALS
— Engadget (@engadget) September 9, 2021

Trump voters and online searches for Ivermectin

from the article:

“The states with the most search interest in ivermectin are also ones that voted heavily for Trump in 2020. The six states that have searched for ivermectin the most in the past 90 days supported Trump by an average 27-point margin.”

The states where searches for information about ivermectin are most common have three overlapping things characteristics: recent surges, pro-Trump 2020 votes and low vax rates. https://t.co/QlfPfP4inw
— Philip Bump (@pbump) September 7, 2021

The media won’t tell the truth about Republicans and Covid

They don’t want to look like they’re taking sides. They are cowards. The facts are the Covid situation is generally worse in Republican states because of lower vaccination rates and bad policies by Republican governors.

Republicans have bullied the media into not reporting this. If the media correctly pointed out that Republicans are the biggest problem here, the Trump cult would say they’re biased. https://t.co/CXbJI1TZrD
— Harris Levy (@HarrisL585) September 6, 2021

More on Florida’s terrible Covid policies

83% of Florida Republicans still approve of DeSantis. I guess they’re ok with all of the deaths and hospitalizations. They’re willing to die to prevent Biden from looking good by ending the pandemic,

Florida (right) now accounting for about 21 percent of all reported U.S. (left) covid deaths: pic.twitter.com/iVPKOhCE61
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) September 6, 2021

Florida has 6% of country’s population and 25% of country’s daily COVID-19 deaths. @RemoveRon
— Daniel Uhlfelder (@DWUhlfelderLaw) September 6, 2021

In Florida, new COVID-19 cases have dipped among adults but not for people under 20 https://t.co/LU2hrsMYNF
— Larry Cooper (@coopah) September 4, 2021

“FIFTEEN staff members in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools District have died from COVID-19 in the past TEN days.”

[emphasis mine because I am yelling]https://t.co/FeCyBJUHAI
— Leta McCollough Seletzky, JD (@LaSeletzky) September 4, 2021

A woman died of Covid, and as her family was planning the funeral, her mother was also struck down. An aunt took over arrangements for the double funeral, only to die of Covid herself 2 weeks afterward.

244 die in Florida over Covid every day on average. https://t.co/STiBipkpwM
— Mahir Zeynalov (@MahirZeynalov) September 4, 2021

A Floridian is dying every 4 minutes from COVID-19
— Daniel Uhlfelder (@DWUhlfelderLaw) September 4, 2021

What has gone so terribly wrong in Florida? pic.twitter.com/2J2itvWXUA
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) September 4, 2021

This week saw even some “conservative [Florida] counties that backed … Trump … defying DeSantis and instituting their own [school mask] mandates.” 1/ #FlaPol #DeathSantis ⁦@RonDeSantisFL⁩ 1/ https://t.co/HF1sPYkxTo
— Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢 (@jennycohn1) September 4, 2021

COVID continues to rage in Florida and @GovRonDeSantis is on the casehttps://t.co/fsmFdjE9zu pic.twitter.com/maUiHEq4g4
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 4, 2021

https://t.co/whZ3bE9RqH
— Nikki Fried (@NikkiFried) September 3, 2021

Florida withholds funds from two school districts requiring masks — despite court decision against state ban on mandates https://t.co/2sxcLb2zGK
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 31, 2021

⚠️BREAKING—Pediatric #COVID19 hospitalizations surging in Florida, now ~4x previous levels. New analysis from our team of HHS hospitalization data shows that as pediatric hospitalizations surge, adult hospitalizations are slowing, but remain at record high. Figure by @wkdragon88 pic.twitter.com/tg8xBVbh6U
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) September 2, 2021

Florida changed its COVID-19 death data just as surge began | Miami Herald https://t.co/BktOrHLhD6
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) August 31, 2021

An average of 11 people in FL have died of covid every single hour for the past two weeks. https://t.co/nwI6oJtWJ2
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 30, 2021

“@GovRonDeSantis is willing to subject his constituents to this life and death gauntlet… He’s willing to watch the deaths mount and morgues fill past capacity for his own personal and political gain.” — LP co-founder @ReedGalen https://t.co/D9nw8vDYg0
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) August 29, 2021

Horror in Florida:

14 portable refrigerated morgues are headed to Central Florida to help beleaguered hospitals store bodies.

"The number of deaths right now is unprecedented."

COVID is unquestionably the "precipitating event."https://t.co/rqGOzf9eOe
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 29, 2021

A radiation oncologist in Florida says his hospital is so overwhelmed with COVID patients that he was forced to turn away a cancer patient who needed to be transferred there — something he has never had to do in 60 years of treating patients.
https://t.co/oJca71OjVK
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) August 28, 2021

The uneducated and unvaccinated led by the unethical and the uncaring…and it leads to a lonely, miserable death.

COVID unit at Tallahassee hospital: The curtain between life, death https://t.co/6cidIo5qCR
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) August 28, 2021

The unexpected and unwelcome coronavirus surge now unfolding in the United States has hit hardest in states that were slow to embrace vaccines.

So what's going on in Florida? https://t.co/rUDYzFphgg
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 28, 2021

More on schools and Covid

Bad Republican policies are making it worse.

Carroll County Public Schools reported Friday that 803 close contact individuals are in quarantine because of possible COVID-19 exposure. @CCPSk12 @CarrollHealthMD https://t.co/FkjO3ntoIp
— Carroll County Times (@CCTNews) September 17, 2021

Texas district closes schools after covid kills two teachers in one week https://t.co/9sEiHyRehw
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 1, 2021

Folks, this is appalling. A school board in rural Adrian, Oregon, fires the superintendent of schools — a 37-year educator — because he follows state law and implements a mask mandate as he is required to do to protect students and the community. https://t.co/lsEHzLkhnd
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) September 1, 2021

An Aiken County Public Schools spokesman confirmed that a fourth-grader with coronavirus died this week. https://t.co/wvZN0irh38
— WIS News 10 (@wis10) September 3, 2021

And then 3 men stormed her office with zip ties prepared to make a “citizen’s arrest” because she required that a child exposed to COVID wear a mask. And the local police only arrested one of them men and charged him with….trespass. https://t.co/ELl12u839Q
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) September 4, 2021

HOUSTON PUBLIC MEDIA: Texas schools have amassed more than 50,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in students in just a couple of weeks. More than a dozen school districts have closed, and Texas is a leader in CHILD deaths from COVID-19 with 59 as of Sept. 3. https://t.co/dnENbILnQH
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) September 4, 2021

NYC kids outpace all other age groups in Covid positivity rates; the three leading age groups in NYC last week were:

➡️ 5-12: 5.78%
➡️ 0-4: 4.88%
➡️ 13-17: 4.67%

Since the city isn't leading the way, families can help by getting their kids tested before school starts. pic.twitter.com/CdrpJDv14j
— Jen Jennings (@eduwonkette_jen) September 4, 2021

Terrible behavior by anti-mandate people at school board meetings

Folks, this is appalling. A school board in rural Adrian, Oregon, fires the superintendent of schools — a 37-year educator — because he follows state law and implements a mask mandate as he is required to do to protect students and the community. https://t.co/lsEHzLkhnd
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) September 1, 2021

I am a scholar of Fascism and this is breaking my brain. https://t.co/JSCS0viq26
— Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) August 31, 2021

School board meetings have become emotional battlegrounds for parents and local officials who disagree over mask and vaccine mandates as children return to brick-and-mortar learning. https://t.co/xZjqLkJw48
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 31, 2021

Another form of compassion fatigue. People will simply walk away from thankless, draining jobs. (And school board folks are usually only doing it out of love and part-time.) https://t.co/wuaK7isLCa
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) August 30, 2021

To those who continue to say people disrupting school board meeting are all just actors:

1. For months I watched Charlie Kirk, Scott Pressler, Michael Flynn and others traveling around the country organizing these. Read their social media posts. I saw the enabling subgroups form
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 1, 2021

Well I just gave testimony at my first school board meeting and the guy after me tore off his mask in the room and called out “MY BODY MY CHOICE”
— Esther Choo MD MPH (@choo_ek) September 1, 2021

Take This: Tempers flare and fists fly over a school mask mandate in Florida’s Lee County. @donlemon has the shocking video from inside and outside the school board meeting. Watch: pic.twitter.com/n38kxLhXbZ
— Don Lemon Tonight (@DonLemonTonight) September 1, 2021

This good “Christian” threatens to kill school board members, cops etc. Jesus saves, huh? pic.twitter.com/EQaveJ4M8H
— Andy Ostroy (@AndyOstroy) August 31, 2021

Out in Bucks County, PA today, reading about the school board members who faced death threats for supporting masks in schools. "I'm done with the bullying," one member said after resigning pic.twitter.com/OrZF4ZgV4j
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 5, 2021

Woman at the Seminole Co (FL) school board meeting today covers concentration camps, ivermectin, Bill Gates, Fauci, NIH, FDA, CDC, Pfizer, then finishes off with Abagail Adams. pic.twitter.com/bAklHQV5XO
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 2, 2021