Hey, there! Log in / Register

Baker orders schools shut through end of school year

COVID-19 Update: April 21, 2020

Gov. Baker made the announcement at his daily press conference; said there's no way to assure a safe environment for students.

But, he warned students, this doesn't mean an early summer vacation: You're still going to have to do your work remotely.

He acknowledged the sting for high-school seniors: "The end of the year may not end proceed as planned but there will be as there always are, brighter days ahead."

He added that non-emergency childcare centers are now ordered shut through at least June 29.

Baker said that educators wanted to see their kids before the end of the year, but in the end, there just was not enough data to figure out how to do it safely - think of all the kids piling on top of each other on school buses as just one example, he said.

Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley said that planning for re-opening schools in the fall already under way - with such possible steps as temperature checking students, keeping desks 6 feet away, staggering hours, based on evidence from other countries that have re-opened schools.

He added that he expects Massachusetts to come out ahead in this whole experience because "in my opinion, we have the best teachers and principals in the country."

Barbara Murphy responds:

As a BPS educator, I predicted this would be the case, but it sure still stings to hear the official announcement.

Caroline Chrisom adds:

It’s the right move with all that’s going on as a Brookline teacher but still heartbreaking.

Baker said that announcements on how the state can begin to ease restrictions on businesses could come within a few days, but he cautioned that there are still too many unknowns about the "insidious" virus. He said that while the state has seen a drop in new cases in recent days, that's not enough data to prove a trend yet.

"Right now, Massachusetts is still in the surge," he said.

"Doing it wrong could create more hardship in the long run. ... We are all in this together, Massachusetts," and at the end, we will come out stronger than ever, he added.

Baker continued that more than half the available hospital beds in Massachusetts remain open, which means the state can help weather increased Covid-19 hospitalization - and provide care for people who have other health issues who have stopped going to hospitals or even their doctors for care. Baker urged people with non-Covid-19 illnesses or symptoms to contact their doctors - the state has a strong telemedicine system and people should not worry about not getting a hospital bed if they need one.

Baker got personal, in response to a question from a reporter that only people in the State House room where he was speaking could hear: He wants to see his dad, 91, again. Also, his favorite part of the job was meeting with hundreds, thousands of people. "We don't do that anymore. At all! ... We're not going to shake hands anymore, we not going to hug, we're not going to do any of those things."

But Baker said he can't let his personal feelings interfere with the steady work against Covid-19. "We've gotta do this right, and we've gotta respect this virus - big time. ... When we're ready to come back, we'll start to do that. This is like the third or fourht quarter and we are holding our own here. Don't let the virus win the game. Play it all the way to the end."

Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

I agree ,but this is nuts.

up
Voting closed 0

Charlie - are you going to come to my house and watch my two year old every day once my wife and I go back to work since you closed daycares for the next 2+ months? We can’t just stay home to watch her because our jobs are “essential” so that we can all continue to eat. You need to come up with a better plan.

up
Voting closed 0

It would be great if Baker and DESE actually, you know, coordinated before making announcements like this. Maybe its better in BPS, but in some districts (like across the river *cough*) we teachers are getting contradictory messaging every couple of days- not great when parents are overwhelmed as is with closures, but teachers are left trying to figure out how the hell we reach kids who were hard to reach as is, never mind engage them. I've got kids who barely can read cvc words left home alone; who's going to log them in for our virtual sessions?

People joke about teachers deserving 'millions of dollars' for what we do on regular basis during this, but at the same time demanding we be responsible for making sure our students are making goals when we're learning along with everyone else is batsh*t. Yeah, wealthy districts can get all their kids on laptops and have virtual classrooms, but for those of us at title-1 schools, we just got laptops to some of our students last week.

Sorry, I'm on a rant; the schools should be closed, and we do need to flatten the curve, but anyone thinking Baker and DESE know what they're doing are nuts.

up
Voting closed 0

If it makes you feel any better, and it shouldn't, plenty of wealthy school districts can't distinguish their ass from their elbow right now and are doing a few hours of teleclassroom per week.

up
Voting closed 0

Can people like the Globe and Baker's other supporters please beg him to make masks mandatory, like several other states have? While we are hunkering down and many of us out of work, it makes the most sense to have this time be as beneficial and short as possible. Everyone wearing masks reduces transmission. It makes no sense to just advise it, and have the outcome be, as it is, that many customers in stores aren't wearing them. This puts workers in harms way for vanity and prolongs the high infection period. Why not make this period have the most impact!?

up
Voting closed 0

School's Out

Out for summer
Out 'til fall
We might not go back at all

Yikes.

up
Voting closed 0

After this the daycare will realize they can charge whatever they want.

up
Voting closed 0

They already do charge whatever they want.

up
Voting closed 0

Magoo gets sad thinking about this. But then Magoo considers history. Victims of the Huns; smallpox laden blankets passed out to Native Americans, those destroyed by the Roman Legions; current Syrian civil war and so on and so forth, and Magoo thinks it could certainly be a lot worse. Magoo.

up
Voting closed 0

The people in them are not always symptomatic when shedding viruses, and they are also in close quarters much of the time with dubious hygiene even when there is hot water and soap available.

I could come up with a number of historical examples and studies showing how schools act like landlocked cruise ships when it comes to brewing pandemic illness, but this CDC flu guide gives some lay level detail on the subject.

up
Voting closed 0

CDC seems to have a totally anachronistic understanding of how virons hitch a ride on what we are exhaling -- MIT seems to have found the key

As a result -- I think almost everything we have been told about how respiratory virus diseases propagate in public is questionable including the 2m [aka 2 arms length or 6 feet] social distancing

Based on MIT's fluid dynamics and high speed photography -- what we most need to worry about is breathing in the cloud of warm moist exhalations in the still air indoors filled with SARS-COV-2 virons.*1

So what's the solution -- well a bandana or a surgical type cloth mask will trap a lot of the drips and drabs of moisture emitted by people talking and screaming, etc. -- but it will still let pass the warm moist exhalations with their cargo of invisible virons.

To really clear all the virons from the air -- you need filtering not hospital-style but semiconductor fab-grade -- that is not going to happen.

However, we have considerable evidence that Sunlight will disable or "kill" the SARS-COV-2 virons. So we need artificial sunlight and some filtering.

Back some time ago there once was a device called a Puritron which featured some UV lamps and some early-gen HEPA filters -- its target was seasonal allergies -- you can still buy old ones on e-Bay

Today, there's something called the

Germ Guardian Large Room Air Purifier:
HEPA Filter, Large Rooms, Filters Allergies, Pollen, Smoke, Dust, Pet Dander, UVC Sanitizer
Eliminates Germs, Mold, Odors, Quiet 28 inch 4-in-1 filter AC5350B
by Guardian Technologies

It features:
4 IN1 AIR PURIFIER : True HEPA air filter reduces up to 99.97% of harmful dust, pollen, pet dander, mold spores, and other allergens as small as .3 microns from the air
KILLS GERMS : UV C light helps kill airborne viruses such as influenza, staph, rhinovirus, and works with Titanium Dioxide to reduce volatile organic compounds
TRAPS ALLERGENS : Pre filter traps dust, pet hair, and other large particles while extending the life of the HEPA filter
REDUCES ODORS : Activated charcoal filter helps reduce unwanted odors from pets, smoke, cooking fumes, and more
QUIET MODE : Ultra quiet sleep mode with a programmable timer helps you get a good night?s rest with cleaner air
SETTINGS : Choose 5 speed settings, customizable timer settings (up to 8 hours) and an optional UV C light
ROOM SIZE : Filters air 4x per hour at max speed in medium to large rooms up to 167 square feet CADR RATING: Dust (114) Pollen (127) and Smoke (108) *2

There are others similar in features and performance

What we need is not more ventilators for ICU's -- but industrial quantities of air cleaning tech designed to filter and disable SARS-COV-2 virus*3 in ambient room air for rooms of all sizes

Then we can get back to school, libraries, and shops, bars, restaurants, factories, and places to get a haircut, etc.

*1
Airborne COVID-19 transmission
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763852

JAMA Insights
March 26, 2020
Turbulent Gas Clouds and Respiratory Pathogen Emissions
Potential Implications for Reducing Transmission of COVID-19
Lydia Bourouiba, PhD1
Author Affiliations Article Information
JAMA. Published online March 26, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4756
The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak vividly demonstrates the burden that respiratory infectious diseases impose in an intimately connected world. Unprecedented containment and mitigation policies have been implemented in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19, including travel restrictions, screening and testing of travelers, isolation and quarantine, and school closures.

A key goal of such policies is to decrease the encounters between infected individuals and susceptible individuals and decelerate the rate of transmission. Although such social distancing strategies are critical in the current time of pandemic, it may seem surprising that the current understanding of the routes of host-to-host transmission in respiratory infectious diseases are predicated on a model of disease transmission developed in the 1930s that, by modern standards, seems overly simplified. Implementing public health recommendations based on these older models may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions.

*2
https://www.amazon.com/Germ-Guardian-Purifier-Allergies-GermGuardian/dp/...

*3

UV-C LEDs and COVID-19
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200414173251.htm

Ultraviolet LEDs prove effective in eliminating coronavirus from surfaces and, potentially, air and water
Date: April 14, 2020
Source: University of California - Santa Barbara
Summary: Researchers are developing ultraviolet LEDs that have the ability to decontaminate surfaces -- and potentially air and water -- that have come in contact with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Seoul Semiconductor in early April reported a "99.9% sterilization of coronavirus (COVID-19) in 30 seconds" with their UV LED products. Their technology currently is being adopted for automotive use, in UV LED lamps that sterilize the interior of unoccupied vehicles.

up
Voting closed 0

We would pray for snow days...If we had only known we would prayed for a pandemic!

up
Voting closed 0

Governor Baker on his ban on public schools

"It doesn't make any sense and I don't think it makes us any safer."

Oops that was Governor Baker on something else

Well the reality is that when you look at the Commonwealth's own data [04/21/20] there is virtually 0 chance of a school age kid getting sick enough to be hospitalized let alone dead from the COVID-19

From several other sources [mentioned in this space by several posters over the past few days] there is a whole lot of "anecdotal information" that many more of a given population have come in enough contact with the SARS-COV-2 virus to show antibodies in the bloodstream than will test positive. So the virus is around and if we are to expose any people to the virus as part of the "Opening-up" it should be young, healthy people -- aka school kids.

Obviously, there needs to be protection in the form of masks for staff when appropriate and possibly thermoscans of everyone entering the school and plexiglass partitions in the cafeteria lines.

Perhaps when the kids visit their grandparents -- they should exercise a certain amount of social distancing. However, even having contact with their parents should make only a minimal difference in overall infections, and hardly amount to anything in the "serious" category.

The decision by the Governor to ignore the "real science" to make some "scientist-guides" happy to be leading the Governor around based on models and jargon is as unscientific as encouraging people to stay home instead of practicing safe low density outdoors activities.

Time for the nanny-state to relax its hold on us -- and let us

live and have the liberty be able to pursue our own happiness without the heavy hand of government on our necks

as was exhorted by our "fore-leaders" back a couple of centuries ago.

Nowy Liberté!

up
Voting closed 0