https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfQXQ7OpnF8
Friday, September 11, 2020
Spanish government demands schools reopen as COVID-19 deaths surge
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/11/spai-s11.html
By Alice Summers
11 September 2020
The Spanish government’s politically criminal decision to reopen schools amid a massive wave of COVID-19 infections will lead to countless unnecessary deaths. Both ruling parties, the “left populist” Podemos and the social-democratic Socialist Party (PSOE), are acting with complete indifference to the health and lives of millions of teachers, children and their families.
Spain remains the epicentre of the coronavirus resurgence in Western Europe. This weekend, the country reached a grim milestone, passing half a million infections after recording 26,560 new cases between Friday and Sunday. The officially tally now stands at 543,379. Friday also saw 184 new deaths, the highest number of daily fatalities since the end of May. While the manipulated official death toll stands at 29,516, analyses by major newspapers indicate that at least 45,000 people have died of the virus in Spain.
The ruling class is gloating, however, that the school re-openings will allow them to implement its fascistic “herd immunity” policy—allowing the virus to run its course through the population with no regard for the death and destruction that will follow.
On Wednesday, the right-wing regional premier of Madrid, Isabel Ayuso, told Es Radio: “It is likely that practically all children, one way or another, will be infected with coronavirus.”
Ayuso made clear her contempt to the fate of schoolchildren and their families. “Perhaps they will become infected over the weekend at a family meeting,” she stated dismissively, “or in the afternoon in the park or catch it from a classmate. We just don’t know, because the virus can be anywhere.” Nevertheless, she stressed “children must return to school,” to “be with children of their own age,” get back to “their routines,” and “be socialised.”
Aware of explosive opposition among teachers and parents, Ayuso arrogantly demanded that there be “no strikes or threats,” claiming that “This is not the time for ‘me, me, me’ ” from workers.
Ayuso’s fascistic rant is, however, the key to understanding the policy of the PSOE-Podemos government. Speaking to the daily El País, PSOE Education Minister Isabel Celaá parroted anti-scientific, discredited claims that opening schools will not lead to an increase in infections. “Today it is being established in the field of science that closing schools does not bring any benefit to the evolution of the pandemic in terms of the reduction of cases,” she stated. “And the benefits of school are far greater than the risks. …”
In a separate interview with Radio Nacional de España (RNE), Celaá declared that for children, “the safest place is at school,” insisting that school re-opening will go ahead as planned against all scientific evidence and popular opposition.
“As long as there is no uncontrolled transmission,” she stated, “which will have to be determined by the Ministry of Health, schools must remain open because we are all living with the pandemic.”
On this basis, the PSOE-Podemos government is threatening to sue all parents who do not send their children to school to be infected with COVID-19. The Attorney General’s office announced on Thursday that it will initiate “criminal proceedings” against any parent of a child aged 6 to 16 who does not attend school. It declared that in-person school attendance is an “inescapable obligation,” accusing parents who wish to keep their children at home of neglect.
It threatened that parental “voluntary, unjustified and persistent neglect will lead to legal consequences stemming from their failure to fulfil the inherent duties of parental authority.”
The PSOE-Podemos government is acting with open contempt for the lives and health of teachers as well as of students and their families.
Ayuso’s prediction that almost all Spanish children will contract COVID-19 testifies to a staggering contempt for the health and lives of not only their parents and older relatives, who more often contract deadly forms of the illness, but also of the children themselves. It is now scientifically documented that COVID-19 can frequently cause serious and lasting heart damage and diseases such as Kawasaki’s syndrome in children.
Moreover, Spain has one of the highest proportions of older teachers in Western Europe, with 38.2 percent of teachers over 50 and with an average age of 46. There are 22,127 teachers over age 60 in Spain (nearly 5 percent of all education workers); nearly 2,000 of these are over 65. Thousands of educators are therefore being put in severe risk, as individuals above 60 are known to be one of the groups most vulnerable to dying of coronavirus.
The virus is spreading rapidly across Spain. In an indication of the widespread community transmission in Spain, between 2,000 and 2,500 of the 67,000 educators tested (over 3.5 percent) came back with a positive antibody test. Those with a positive result now must be checked to ascertain whether they remain infectious.
Limited measures that have been announced in some of Spain’s 17 regions, such as reducing class sizes, requiring children over age six to wear masks, and implementing social distancing measures, are derisory on the face of it, and in many cases have not even been implemented.
Last week, Ayuso announced at the 11th hour that all teachers in the Madrid region should undergo a coronavirus antibody test before the start of term. Educators were summoned by e-mail on less than 24 hours’ notice to undergo testing, leading to chaotic scenes of thousands of people queuing on the streets of Madrid, with social distancing measures all but impossible.
On Saturday, it was announced that 30 percent of classrooms in Catalan primary schools have as yet failed to meet class-size reduction policies, less than a week before schools are set to reopen. The government of Catalonia had pledged that no more than 20 pupils would be allowed in each classroom, but this ratio, in itself insufficient to prevent the spread of the virus, has not been met in many public schools. There is no pupil limit at all for secondary school classrooms.
The Association of Families for a Safe Education Choice, a Catalan-based parents’ group, condemned the Catalan government for the lack of safety measures in schools, denouncing them for “turning education centres into slaughterhouses.” Schools, the Association declared, “are the ideal setting for a new general outbreak in terms of public health,” with the “use of masks serving no purpose at all in enclosed, restricted spaces, without ventilation or cleaning equipment.”
Around 39,000 more teachers will be needed across the country to keep to the Ministry of Education’s recommendation that class sizes should not exceed 20 children, according to Spain’s regional governments. The Workers Commissions (CCOO) union estimates this figure to be around 70,000. Many regions are far from reaching these hiring requirements.
In an early indication of the disaster which is about to sweep across Spain as schools reopen, one nursery in Seville, in the province of Andalucía, has already been forced to close after a staff member tested positive. Sixty infants between the ages of zero and three who attended the nursery must now self-isolate at home.
Parents who cannot work or bring in an income while their children are quarantining will receive nothing from the state. Despite previously pledging to cover sick leave costs for parents staying at home to care for quarantining or infected children, PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has now backtracked, declaring that parents would have to rely on existing unpaid sick leave programmes.
On Friday, Sánchez declared that “there is no zero risk” with opening schools, but that he wanted to convey a message of “reasonable safety” to educators. Spain’s 17 autonomous regions must not close schools “unilaterally,” he stated, whatever the public health dangers.
11 September 2020
The Spanish government’s politically criminal decision to reopen schools amid a massive wave of COVID-19 infections will lead to countless unnecessary deaths. Both ruling parties, the “left populist” Podemos and the social-democratic Socialist Party (PSOE), are acting with complete indifference to the health and lives of millions of teachers, children and their families.
Spain remains the epicentre of the coronavirus resurgence in Western Europe. This weekend, the country reached a grim milestone, passing half a million infections after recording 26,560 new cases between Friday and Sunday. The officially tally now stands at 543,379. Friday also saw 184 new deaths, the highest number of daily fatalities since the end of May. While the manipulated official death toll stands at 29,516, analyses by major newspapers indicate that at least 45,000 people have died of the virus in Spain.
The ruling class is gloating, however, that the school re-openings will allow them to implement its fascistic “herd immunity” policy—allowing the virus to run its course through the population with no regard for the death and destruction that will follow.
On Wednesday, the right-wing regional premier of Madrid, Isabel Ayuso, told Es Radio: “It is likely that practically all children, one way or another, will be infected with coronavirus.”
Ayuso made clear her contempt to the fate of schoolchildren and their families. “Perhaps they will become infected over the weekend at a family meeting,” she stated dismissively, “or in the afternoon in the park or catch it from a classmate. We just don’t know, because the virus can be anywhere.” Nevertheless, she stressed “children must return to school,” to “be with children of their own age,” get back to “their routines,” and “be socialised.”
Aware of explosive opposition among teachers and parents, Ayuso arrogantly demanded that there be “no strikes or threats,” claiming that “This is not the time for ‘me, me, me’ ” from workers.
Ayuso’s fascistic rant is, however, the key to understanding the policy of the PSOE-Podemos government. Speaking to the daily El País, PSOE Education Minister Isabel Celaá parroted anti-scientific, discredited claims that opening schools will not lead to an increase in infections. “Today it is being established in the field of science that closing schools does not bring any benefit to the evolution of the pandemic in terms of the reduction of cases,” she stated. “And the benefits of school are far greater than the risks. …”
In a separate interview with Radio Nacional de España (RNE), Celaá declared that for children, “the safest place is at school,” insisting that school re-opening will go ahead as planned against all scientific evidence and popular opposition.
“As long as there is no uncontrolled transmission,” she stated, “which will have to be determined by the Ministry of Health, schools must remain open because we are all living with the pandemic.”
On this basis, the PSOE-Podemos government is threatening to sue all parents who do not send their children to school to be infected with COVID-19. The Attorney General’s office announced on Thursday that it will initiate “criminal proceedings” against any parent of a child aged 6 to 16 who does not attend school. It declared that in-person school attendance is an “inescapable obligation,” accusing parents who wish to keep their children at home of neglect.
It threatened that parental “voluntary, unjustified and persistent neglect will lead to legal consequences stemming from their failure to fulfil the inherent duties of parental authority.”
The PSOE-Podemos government is acting with open contempt for the lives and health of teachers as well as of students and their families.
Ayuso’s prediction that almost all Spanish children will contract COVID-19 testifies to a staggering contempt for the health and lives of not only their parents and older relatives, who more often contract deadly forms of the illness, but also of the children themselves. It is now scientifically documented that COVID-19 can frequently cause serious and lasting heart damage and diseases such as Kawasaki’s syndrome in children.
Moreover, Spain has one of the highest proportions of older teachers in Western Europe, with 38.2 percent of teachers over 50 and with an average age of 46. There are 22,127 teachers over age 60 in Spain (nearly 5 percent of all education workers); nearly 2,000 of these are over 65. Thousands of educators are therefore being put in severe risk, as individuals above 60 are known to be one of the groups most vulnerable to dying of coronavirus.
The virus is spreading rapidly across Spain. In an indication of the widespread community transmission in Spain, between 2,000 and 2,500 of the 67,000 educators tested (over 3.5 percent) came back with a positive antibody test. Those with a positive result now must be checked to ascertain whether they remain infectious.
Limited measures that have been announced in some of Spain’s 17 regions, such as reducing class sizes, requiring children over age six to wear masks, and implementing social distancing measures, are derisory on the face of it, and in many cases have not even been implemented.
Last week, Ayuso announced at the 11th hour that all teachers in the Madrid region should undergo a coronavirus antibody test before the start of term. Educators were summoned by e-mail on less than 24 hours’ notice to undergo testing, leading to chaotic scenes of thousands of people queuing on the streets of Madrid, with social distancing measures all but impossible.
On Saturday, it was announced that 30 percent of classrooms in Catalan primary schools have as yet failed to meet class-size reduction policies, less than a week before schools are set to reopen. The government of Catalonia had pledged that no more than 20 pupils would be allowed in each classroom, but this ratio, in itself insufficient to prevent the spread of the virus, has not been met in many public schools. There is no pupil limit at all for secondary school classrooms.
The Association of Families for a Safe Education Choice, a Catalan-based parents’ group, condemned the Catalan government for the lack of safety measures in schools, denouncing them for “turning education centres into slaughterhouses.” Schools, the Association declared, “are the ideal setting for a new general outbreak in terms of public health,” with the “use of masks serving no purpose at all in enclosed, restricted spaces, without ventilation or cleaning equipment.”
Around 39,000 more teachers will be needed across the country to keep to the Ministry of Education’s recommendation that class sizes should not exceed 20 children, according to Spain’s regional governments. The Workers Commissions (CCOO) union estimates this figure to be around 70,000. Many regions are far from reaching these hiring requirements.
In an early indication of the disaster which is about to sweep across Spain as schools reopen, one nursery in Seville, in the province of Andalucía, has already been forced to close after a staff member tested positive. Sixty infants between the ages of zero and three who attended the nursery must now self-isolate at home.
Parents who cannot work or bring in an income while their children are quarantining will receive nothing from the state. Despite previously pledging to cover sick leave costs for parents staying at home to care for quarantining or infected children, PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has now backtracked, declaring that parents would have to rely on existing unpaid sick leave programmes.
On Friday, Sánchez declared that “there is no zero risk” with opening schools, but that he wanted to convey a message of “reasonable safety” to educators. Spain’s 17 autonomous regions must not close schools “unilaterally,” he stated, whatever the public health dangers.
Bernie Slams GOP Over Garbage Relief Bill, Offers Actual Vision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqjWFHBGfHE
Over 10,500 Florida children test positive for COVID-19 after schools reopen
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/11/flor-s11.html
By Matthew MacEgan
11 September 2020
According to a report published in the Washington Post earlier this week, cases of COVID-19 among school-aged children in Florida have increased by 34 percent since schools started to reopen in early August. More than 10,500 children under the age of 18 have tested positive since August 10, when about half of the state’s 4,500 public schools began ushering students back into their buildings.
On Wednesday, the Orlando Sentinel reported that more than 800 students and staff in Central Florida schools were now under quarantine orders after potentially being exposed to COVID-19. On Tuesday, a separate report emerged that 500 students and staff in Pinellas County schools also faced a possible quarantine after similar exposures.
Olympia High School in Orange County, Golfview Elementary School in Brevard County, and Harmony Middle School in Osceola County have all recently been closed after reports surfaced that teachers tested positive for COVID-19. At least nine Manatee County schools reported positive cases between Friday and Tuesday.
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, has not held an in-person Cabinet meeting since February. The Capitol in Tallahassee has remained shut to the public, despite DeSantis’ rabid efforts to reopen schools and loosen restrictions on businesses throughout Florida in the middle of a raging pandemic.
A spokesperson for DeSantis recently stated that “the state’s economic engine needs to start running again. While the symbolism of the Capitol opening will be welcome, the fact is, essential work is getting done with essential personnel. In the meantime, we are starting our economic engines.”
On Thursday morning, Florida reported 2,583 new cases of COVID-19 and 211 new deaths from the virus. This brings the state’s official totals to more than 654,000 confirmed cases and over 12,300 deaths. The new deaths reported Thursday include 49 in Miami-Dade County, 14 in Broward County, and 9 in Palm Beach County—all southern counties hardest hit by COVID-19.
The declining number of positive cases over the past two months is entirely the result of a similar decline in testing statewide. In July, the daily average of tests given was 54,400; in August it was 32,000; and so far in September it is 23,000. This is about half of the number of daily tests given two months ago, when the daily number of new cases was also more than twice as high. About 4.8 million people have been tested in Florida—not even a quarter of the recorded 2019 population of 21.48 million.
When it comes to schools, the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) has been directing some districts to shut down their individual COVID-19 dashboards, effectively leaving entire communities in the dark about new cases and deaths in their region. This includes Duval County, where a group of courageous educators and parents have launched a rank-and-file safety committee to demand that schools be closed immediately.
The Duval committee invited two local doctors to speak at a virtual meeting this past Tuesday: Dr. Mohammed B. Reza, an infectious disease specialist in Atlantic Beach who is affiliated with the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, and Dr. Nancy Staats, a retired anesthesiologist who has been active in pressuring local politicians and administrators to enforce CDC policies. The meeting was attended by teachers, parents, school counselors, and other workers from Duval and surrounding counties.
Dr. Reza began by exposing the official positivity rate currently being reported by the State of Florida—between four and six percent depending on the day—as a sham. He pointed to a resource independent of the influence of the state that shows the real positive test rate is 13.5 percent, a number which indicates insufficient testing.
“Hiding information like the rate of infection and the positive test rate is just mind-blowing to me,” Reza stated. “Not only this, but the governor has cut down the number of tests being given since the recent hurricane by half. We all know it’s going to get worse. It’s like watching a train crash.”
When asked to discuss some of the science behind how the virus infects people, Dr. Reza explained that there is no defined data on how much of a “viral load” is necessary to cause infection. “In other viruses, there is a certain ‘load’ that you need to be exposed to that can cause you to become infected. With HIV, for instance, you need a viral load of about 200 copies to be able to transmit it to another person. Since COVID-19 is aerosolized, the viral load is likely thousands of copies in just a single cough or sneeze from one infected person to another.”
Dr. Reza also explained that excessive cleaning means very little when students, teachers, and staff are being forced into shared spaces. “Cleaning is of course a good idea, but when you have 500 people coming together, that cleaning goes out the door. We’re not even sure if it’s really surfaces that are the main transmitter of the virus. It’s more likely that most infections come from face-to-face interactions. On top of this, children are known to be petri dishes of infections. They touch their faces; they sneeze and cough. Trying to keep a mask on is just not possible in these school settings.”
Dr. Staats reported to those present at the Duval committee meeting that one county inadvertently released data showing that the rate of staff-to-student cases is in the range of 60 to 80 percent. “What this means is that most of the positive cases are among staff and faculty, which tells us that students are not being tested. This could be due to the children being asymptomatic or parents not wanting their kids to be tested.”
“Sadly, children are the Trojan horse in this situation,” Dr. Reza added.
Parents and educators in Osceola County, like their compatriots in Duval, have also been making efforts to fight their school reopenings. Several community members, including Christina Stewart, who sent a statement to the World Socialist Web Site last week, attended their school board meeting on Tuesday to denounce the reopening policies and relate how frightened educators are to speak out on conditions for fear of losing their jobs.
Megan Carter, a daycare worker, chastised the school board: “I think it’s very disingenuous to pretend that opening schools was going to be less disruptive than going into schools knowing that there were going to be cases and knowing that there were going to be people who would get infected and have to quarantine. With a little creativity, we could’ve gone back to school 100 percent virtually. We could’ve planned for this. It’s a shame that we haven’t.”
Carter demanded that the school board explain why Poinciana High School had its entire cafeteria staff absent from school that day without any explanation or notice that they were being quarantined. She was never answered except with a boiler-plate response later in the meeting from the board and Superintendent Debra Pace that “we are putting all the information that we legally can put on [our] web site.”
The FDOH, which has suppressed public knowledge of COVID-19 infections in schools, has told news outlets that it is working to release data about schools and daycare centers, but has not given a timetable on when this vital information will be made public, saying vaguely that it could take days or weeks. The state’s existing COVID-19 dashboard has been mired in controversy throughout the year. In May, Rebekah Jones, the state’s top COVID-19 researcher who developed the dashboard, was fired after she refused to manipulate data.
Despite having the highest numbers of cases and deaths in the state, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, which remain in “Phase 1” of reopening, are also discussing a deadly return to in-person learning. Broward County School Superintendent Robert Runcie held a news conference Tuesday saying that schools in his county will be reopening in October “if the current trends continue,” a reference to the incomplete data being issued by the state.
“We need to be prepared for a challenging school year which could be a roller coaster when it comes to the virus,” Runcie stated. His comparison of this deadly situation to an amusement park ride sums up the disdain of the ruling class and its lackeys for the lives of students, teachers, staff, and their loved ones.
The Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee has been formed to coordinate and facilitate the building of a network of rank-and-file safety committees in every school and neighborhood, to organize the immense opposition to the murderous plan to reopen schools. All those who agree with this perspective should contact us today, join our Facebook group and make plans to attend our next online call-in meeting Saturday, September 12. Register today and share the event widely with your coworkers and friends!
The author also recommends:
Health disaster and class conflict on horizon as millions of students return to US schools
[8 September 2020]
Opposition to school reopenings mounts across Florida as spread of COVID-19 deepens
[5 September 2020]
Florida parent denounces Osceola County public school system’s unsafe reopening
[5 September 2020]
11 September 2020
According to a report published in the Washington Post earlier this week, cases of COVID-19 among school-aged children in Florida have increased by 34 percent since schools started to reopen in early August. More than 10,500 children under the age of 18 have tested positive since August 10, when about half of the state’s 4,500 public schools began ushering students back into their buildings.
On Wednesday, the Orlando Sentinel reported that more than 800 students and staff in Central Florida schools were now under quarantine orders after potentially being exposed to COVID-19. On Tuesday, a separate report emerged that 500 students and staff in Pinellas County schools also faced a possible quarantine after similar exposures.
Olympia High School in Orange County, Golfview Elementary School in Brevard County, and Harmony Middle School in Osceola County have all recently been closed after reports surfaced that teachers tested positive for COVID-19. At least nine Manatee County schools reported positive cases between Friday and Tuesday.
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, has not held an in-person Cabinet meeting since February. The Capitol in Tallahassee has remained shut to the public, despite DeSantis’ rabid efforts to reopen schools and loosen restrictions on businesses throughout Florida in the middle of a raging pandemic.
A spokesperson for DeSantis recently stated that “the state’s economic engine needs to start running again. While the symbolism of the Capitol opening will be welcome, the fact is, essential work is getting done with essential personnel. In the meantime, we are starting our economic engines.”
On Thursday morning, Florida reported 2,583 new cases of COVID-19 and 211 new deaths from the virus. This brings the state’s official totals to more than 654,000 confirmed cases and over 12,300 deaths. The new deaths reported Thursday include 49 in Miami-Dade County, 14 in Broward County, and 9 in Palm Beach County—all southern counties hardest hit by COVID-19.
The declining number of positive cases over the past two months is entirely the result of a similar decline in testing statewide. In July, the daily average of tests given was 54,400; in August it was 32,000; and so far in September it is 23,000. This is about half of the number of daily tests given two months ago, when the daily number of new cases was also more than twice as high. About 4.8 million people have been tested in Florida—not even a quarter of the recorded 2019 population of 21.48 million.
When it comes to schools, the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) has been directing some districts to shut down their individual COVID-19 dashboards, effectively leaving entire communities in the dark about new cases and deaths in their region. This includes Duval County, where a group of courageous educators and parents have launched a rank-and-file safety committee to demand that schools be closed immediately.
The Duval committee invited two local doctors to speak at a virtual meeting this past Tuesday: Dr. Mohammed B. Reza, an infectious disease specialist in Atlantic Beach who is affiliated with the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, and Dr. Nancy Staats, a retired anesthesiologist who has been active in pressuring local politicians and administrators to enforce CDC policies. The meeting was attended by teachers, parents, school counselors, and other workers from Duval and surrounding counties.
Dr. Reza began by exposing the official positivity rate currently being reported by the State of Florida—between four and six percent depending on the day—as a sham. He pointed to a resource independent of the influence of the state that shows the real positive test rate is 13.5 percent, a number which indicates insufficient testing.
“Hiding information like the rate of infection and the positive test rate is just mind-blowing to me,” Reza stated. “Not only this, but the governor has cut down the number of tests being given since the recent hurricane by half. We all know it’s going to get worse. It’s like watching a train crash.”
When asked to discuss some of the science behind how the virus infects people, Dr. Reza explained that there is no defined data on how much of a “viral load” is necessary to cause infection. “In other viruses, there is a certain ‘load’ that you need to be exposed to that can cause you to become infected. With HIV, for instance, you need a viral load of about 200 copies to be able to transmit it to another person. Since COVID-19 is aerosolized, the viral load is likely thousands of copies in just a single cough or sneeze from one infected person to another.”
Dr. Reza also explained that excessive cleaning means very little when students, teachers, and staff are being forced into shared spaces. “Cleaning is of course a good idea, but when you have 500 people coming together, that cleaning goes out the door. We’re not even sure if it’s really surfaces that are the main transmitter of the virus. It’s more likely that most infections come from face-to-face interactions. On top of this, children are known to be petri dishes of infections. They touch their faces; they sneeze and cough. Trying to keep a mask on is just not possible in these school settings.”
Dr. Staats reported to those present at the Duval committee meeting that one county inadvertently released data showing that the rate of staff-to-student cases is in the range of 60 to 80 percent. “What this means is that most of the positive cases are among staff and faculty, which tells us that students are not being tested. This could be due to the children being asymptomatic or parents not wanting their kids to be tested.”
“Sadly, children are the Trojan horse in this situation,” Dr. Reza added.
Parents and educators in Osceola County, like their compatriots in Duval, have also been making efforts to fight their school reopenings. Several community members, including Christina Stewart, who sent a statement to the World Socialist Web Site last week, attended their school board meeting on Tuesday to denounce the reopening policies and relate how frightened educators are to speak out on conditions for fear of losing their jobs.
Megan Carter, a daycare worker, chastised the school board: “I think it’s very disingenuous to pretend that opening schools was going to be less disruptive than going into schools knowing that there were going to be cases and knowing that there were going to be people who would get infected and have to quarantine. With a little creativity, we could’ve gone back to school 100 percent virtually. We could’ve planned for this. It’s a shame that we haven’t.”
Carter demanded that the school board explain why Poinciana High School had its entire cafeteria staff absent from school that day without any explanation or notice that they were being quarantined. She was never answered except with a boiler-plate response later in the meeting from the board and Superintendent Debra Pace that “we are putting all the information that we legally can put on [our] web site.”
The FDOH, which has suppressed public knowledge of COVID-19 infections in schools, has told news outlets that it is working to release data about schools and daycare centers, but has not given a timetable on when this vital information will be made public, saying vaguely that it could take days or weeks. The state’s existing COVID-19 dashboard has been mired in controversy throughout the year. In May, Rebekah Jones, the state’s top COVID-19 researcher who developed the dashboard, was fired after she refused to manipulate data.
Despite having the highest numbers of cases and deaths in the state, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, which remain in “Phase 1” of reopening, are also discussing a deadly return to in-person learning. Broward County School Superintendent Robert Runcie held a news conference Tuesday saying that schools in his county will be reopening in October “if the current trends continue,” a reference to the incomplete data being issued by the state.
“We need to be prepared for a challenging school year which could be a roller coaster when it comes to the virus,” Runcie stated. His comparison of this deadly situation to an amusement park ride sums up the disdain of the ruling class and its lackeys for the lives of students, teachers, staff, and their loved ones.
The Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee has been formed to coordinate and facilitate the building of a network of rank-and-file safety committees in every school and neighborhood, to organize the immense opposition to the murderous plan to reopen schools. All those who agree with this perspective should contact us today, join our Facebook group and make plans to attend our next online call-in meeting Saturday, September 12. Register today and share the event widely with your coworkers and friends!
The author also recommends:
Health disaster and class conflict on horizon as millions of students return to US schools
[8 September 2020]
Opposition to school reopenings mounts across Florida as spread of COVID-19 deepens
[5 September 2020]
Florida parent denounces Osceola County public school system’s unsafe reopening
[5 September 2020]
This Is All We Should Be Talking About
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVB5g0PbW6s&ab_channel=RedactedTonight
Peruvian Congress could remove President Vizcarra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mkjA5A4Awo&ab_channel=TeleSUREnglish
Socialist Appeal weekly bulletin
Boris Johnson's Tory government is one of chaos and crisis. Their reckless reopening of the economy is causing COVID cases to soar. And they are presiding over a sharp economic collapse.
On top of this potential second wave, a tsunami of job cuts and austerity lies ahead for the working class. As the economic life support is removed, a deep depression looms. We are facing an unparalled crisis of the capitalist system.
But Keir Starmer is refusing to provide any real opposition to the Tories. This is why we need to build a strong Marxist organisation - in the labour movement and on the streets. We therefore urge all our readers to join us today in the fight for socialism.
We are also proud to invite readers to Revolution 2020 - a three-day festival of Marxist ideas, hosted online and across Britain from 23-25 October. Buy your ticket now for this exciting and inspiring festival - and join the revolution!
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