The U.S. now has more than 4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. The grim milestone is a reminder of how much more rapidly the virus is spreading this summer, having gone from 3 million cases to 4 million in just 15 days.
Washington state is reacting to its own recent uptick in infections by imposing expanded mask requirements and stricter limitations on bars, restaurants, gyms and other places people congregate. Plus, more schools are announcing theyll teach mostly or completely online this fall.
Throughout Friday, on this page, well be posting updates on the pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Thursday can be foundhere, and all our coronavirus coverage can be foundhere.
The coronavirus transformed Floridas nursing homes into closely guarded fortresses beginning in March, with the state banning family visits, isolating infected residents in separate wings and now requiring staff be tested every two weeks. But the explosion of cases statewide is proving that is not enough.
The numbers are already showing the grim reality, underscoring how mask compliance and restrictions in the outside world impact the states most vulnerable. In the past three weeks, cases have gone from about 2,000 to some 4,800 at Florida nursing homes. Roughly 2,550 long-term care residents and staff have died overall, accounting for about 45% of all virus deaths in Florida.
Where you see COVID hot spots, our anxiety level in our centers automatically goes up. Our vigilance goes through the roof, said Luke Neumann, a vice president at Palm Garden, which has 14 facilities across Florida.
Thats how societies are judged in part by how you care for the weak and aged, Neumann said.
Florida recorded 173 new coronavirus deaths Thursday, a daily high that pushed its toll from the pandemic to more than 5,500. Deaths inside nursing homes have also been on the rise, averaging about 40 per day in the last week after those numbers had dropped in mid-June to lower than 20 deaths per day.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
The top U.S. public health agency issued a full-throated call to reopen schools in a package of new resources posted on its website Thursday night that opened with a statement listing numerous benefits for children of being in school, while downplaying the potential health risks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the new guidance two weeks after President Donald Trump criticized its earlier recommendations on school reopenings as very tough and expensive, ramping up an anguished national debate over the question of how soon children should return to classrooms. As the president was criticizing the initial CDC recommendations, a document from the agency surfaced that detailed the risks of reopening and the steps that districts were taking to minimize those risks.
Reopening schools creates opportunity to invest in the education, well-being and future of one of Americas greatest assets our children while taking every precaution to protect students, teachers, staff and all their families, the new opening statement said.
The package of materials began with the opening statement, titled The Importance of Reopening Americas Schools This Fall, anddescribed children as being at low risk for being infected by or transmitting the coronavirus, even though the science on both aspects is far from settled.
The best available evidence indicates if children become infected, they are far less likely to suffer severe symptoms, the statement said. At the same time, the harms attributed to closed schools on the social, emotional, and behavioral health, economic well-being, and academic achievement of children, in both the short- and long-term, are well-known and significant.
Read the story here.
The New York Times
New rules on wearing masks in England went into effect Friday, with people entering shops, banks and supermarkets now required to wear face coverings, while Romania reported a record for daily infections and new cases nearly doubled in France.
People in England can be fined as much as 100 pounds ($127) by police if they refuse. The British government had given mixed signals for weeks before deciding on the policy. Places like restaurants, pubs, gyms and hairdressers are exempt.
John Apter, the national chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said officers would be available as a last resort but added that he hopes the public will continue to do the right thing to protect other citizens.
In Belgium, health authorities said a 3-year-old girl has died after testing positive for COVID-19 as new infections surged 89% from the previous week.
Belgian authorities have bolstered up restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus, including making masks mandatory in crowded outdoor public spaces. Belgium has been hard hit by the pandemic, with 64,847 cases and 9,812 deaths registered so far.
Overall, Europe has seen over 201,000 deaths in the pandemic, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the true toll from the coronavirus worldwide is much higher, due to limited testing and other issues.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
Nearly half of Americans whose families experienced a layoff during the coronavirus pandemic believe those jobs are lost forever, a new poll shows, a sign of increasing pessimism that would translate into about 10 million workers needing to find a new employer, if not a new occupation.
Its a sharp change after initial optimism the jobs would return, as temporary cutbacks give way to shuttered businesses, bankruptcies and lasting payroll cuts. In April, 78% of those in households with a job loss thought theyd be temporary. Now, 47% think that lost job is definitely or probably not coming back, according to the latest poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The poll is the latest sign the solid hiring of May and June, as some states lifted stay-at-home orders and the economy began to recover, may wane as the year goes on. Adding to the challenge: Many students will begin the school year online, making it harder for parents to take jobs outside their homes.
Honestly, at this point, theres not going to be a job to go back to, said Tonica Daley, 35, who lives in Riverside, California, and has four children ranging from 3 to 18 years old. The kids are going to do virtual school, and there is no day care.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor COVID-19 stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Except for the pandemic mention, these words have long been the unofficial motto of U.S. Postal Service letter carriers. They were chiseled in granite on the monumental 1912 New York General Post Office. They are lived daily by hundreds of thousands of postal workers.
For their fellow citizens, the mail has assumed new importance, with millions shut in by the pandemic.
The Postal Service,the most popular of federal agencies, is essential, affordable and goes everywhere. As in the 1918 influenza pandemic, the agency has continued its logistical feat during COVID-19. Meanwhile, at least 12,000 of its workers have been infected and 67 have died.
Columnist Jon Talton writes that unfortunately, President Donald Trump has long been an enemy of the Postal Service, repeatingthe false assertionthat it loses money by delivering for Amazon, calling the agency a joke and threatening to strangle its funding.
Now, his new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, isimposing draconian cutbacks, including eliminating overtime.
Inan internal memoobtained by The Washington Post, DeJoy states that USPS must make immediate, lasting and impactful changes in our operations and in our culture.
Read Talton's column here.
Jon Talton
Kris Higginson
No matter how you feel about it, the humble mask is now the worlds most ubiquitous accessory, both a practical safeguard and a political symbol for many.
Fashion designer Luly Yang and other Seattleites are on the cutting edge, "so excited" about a chance to make things better with their creations which are quickly becoming a lifeline for the industry.
Not since humans invented shoes and undies has a single item of dress caught on so quickly, spanning borders, cultures and generations.
Chris Talbott / Special to The Seattle Times
A series of jaw-dropping new numberssuggests America isbadly losing the fightagainst the coronavirus.
Gov. Jay Inslee has announced sweeping new restrictions on bars, restaurants, fitness centers and more as coronavirus cases rise, and a stricter mask order takes effect tomorrow. Here's what you need to know, and where that leaves us on the activities you can (and can't) do in each Washington county.
A Renton doctor knew she had COVID-19 and kept working at a nursing home, telling nobody that she was infected while she spread the virus, a lawsuit alleges.
The virus killed one Floridian every eight minutes yesterday, on average, leaving residents of one retirement community fearing who will be next. And how did things get so dire in California, where coronavirus cases have rocketed past 400,000? "We got impatient," an epidemiologist explains. This is a health expert's "worst nightmare," and we might not even be halfway through it, Dr. Anthony Fauci said yesterday.
An Eastside tech executive took $5.5 million in fraudulent virus relief funds, federal officials say.
President Donald Trump has scrapped plans for a four-night Republican National Convention celebration in the pandemic hot spot of Florida.
The school year will begin remotely, the Lake Washington and Tacoma districts have announced, joining other major public-school systems around the region. WSU and Seattle U will teach almost all classes remotely this fall as well, and UW is working on sharply limiting its in-person classes. Meanwhile, as Trump calls for schools to fully reopen, his son's school will not.
Want major coronavirus stories sent to you via text message?Text the word COVID to 855-480-9667 or enter your phone number below.
Seattle Times staff & news services
During his briefing on COVID-19 response, USA TODAY
It's time to hit the reset button: Shut it down and restart. That's whatmore than 150 health professionals are urging government leaders in an open letter published earlier this week.
"Tell the American people the truth about the virus, even when its hard. Take bold action to save lives even when it means shutting down again," the letter, spearheaded by the nonprofitU.S. Public Interest Research Group, says.
Public health leaders argue in the letter that the U.S. reopened too quickly, nonessential businesses should close again, Americans should mostly stay home, and government officials need to invest more in testing, contact tracing, and personal protective equipment capacities.
"If you dont take these actions, the consequences will be measured in widespread suffering and death," according to the letter addressed to President Donald Trump, federal officials and governors.
Here are some significant developments today:
Today's stats:The U.S. has surpassed 4 million confirmed cases and has more than 144,000 deaths,according to John Hopkins University data. Worldwide cases have surpassed 15 million with more than 633,000 deaths.
What we're reading: When will a vaccine be available to the general public?To understand when pre-COVID-19 life in the U.S. can resume, USA TODAY created a panel of experts who estimate we're almost halfway to an available vaccine.
Our live blog is being updated throughout the day. Refresh for the latest news, and get updates in your inbox withThe Daily Briefing.
A staff member for Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., died of COVID-19 in a Florida hospital, the congressman announced in a statement released Friday.
Buchanan expressed his condolences and hailed Gary Tibbetts, who had worked for the congressman since 2011, as a "consummate professional and true public servant in every sense of the word."Tibbetts is the first congressional aide known to have died from COVID-19.
Nicholas Wu
Despite President Donald Trump's pleas for schools to reopen, his son's private school in the Maryland suburbs will not be welcoming students back fully onto its campus in the fall.
St. Andrews Episcopal School said it was considering whether to take a hybrid model approach, allowing some students back to campus some days, or be fully remote to startthe school year.
"As we prepare to make a decision the week of August 10 about how to best begin the school year, we will continue to follow guidance of appropriate health officials and refine both our hybrid and distance learning plans," the school said in a letter to parents.
Under its hybrid model, students in grades 7 to 12 would rotate weekly between on-campus and remote learning. According to the New York Times,Barron, 14, Trump's youngest child, has attended the school for three years.
McDonald's will require customers to wear masks or face coverings when entering its 14,000restaurants nationwide starting Aug. 1. The fast food giant is the latest business to announce it will mandate masks to help stop the spread of COVID-19 as cases spike.
"While nearly 82% of our restaurants are in states or localities that require facial coverings for both crew and customers today, its important we protect the safety of all employees and customers," McDonald's said in its statement Friday.
Kelly Tyko
Authorities faced with limited space to store bodies awaiting autopsies are now bringing in a refrigerated cooler to help as the coronavirus pandemic surges in a Mississippi county.
Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart said Thursday that without a morgue space is running out to store victims of homicides, car crashes and other fatalities that require autopsies.
The surge in coronavirus cases and deaths in the county is also having an impact as bodies can no longer be sent to hospital morgues for temporary storage. Private facilities are also at capacity, the coroner said.
Justin Vicory, Mississippi Clarion Ledger
Washington, D.C., will require travelers coming to the city to self-quarantine for14 days if they are arriving from a high-risk area on nonessential travel.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Friday that the self-quarantine requirement would take effect next week.Maryland and Virginia, which border D.C., are exempt from the order, but other states that see a seven-day moving average of new COVID-19 cases at 10 or more per 100,000 people will be affected.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut jointly announced self-quarantine requirements last month for travelers arriving from states with high numbers of positive cases. Their hot-spot list has grown to31 states. Many other states have quarantine requirement. Read the full list here if you're planning travel.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, recently talked about heightened threats to him and his family and his security detail.Fauci made the comments on CNN's"The Axe Files" podcastand said that many of the threats come from people who are angry and believe, "I'm interfering with their life because I'm pushing a public health agenda."
In April, media outlets reported that the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Marshals Service had stationed agents at HHS to protect Fauci.
The longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseasessaid he has been a target since the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as the first government official speaking out about the virus. He said he received hate mailthen but could largely ignore it. The backlash he's received during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, is ofa different magnitude, he said.
"The kind of not only hate mail but actual, serious threats against me are not good," Fauci said. "It's tough. Serious threats against me, against my family, my daughters, my wife. I mean, really? Is this the United States of America? But it's real. It really is real."
Fauci added: "Weare all trying to open up American again in away thatis safe, that we can do it in a measured fashion. But the hostility against public health issues is difficult to not only understand but difficult to even process."
In a recent interview with thebusiness news outletMarketWatch, Fauci also saidhe would not eat inside a restaurant or get on a flight given the current state of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.
Read this: Straight-talking Anthony Fauci has been the nation's voice on the coronavirus. Who is he?
Days from the end of enhanced unemployment benefits and a federal eviction moratorium, 24 million Americans say they have little to no chance of being able to pay next months rent, a U.S. Census Bureau survey shows.
A disproportionate share of those in danger come from Black and Hispanic households, two groups who have borne the brunt of negative health and economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Congress works to negotiate a new stimulus, experts warn the time to ward off an eviction and foreclosure crisis has almost run out.
We're about to fall off a massive cliff and see a major spike in evictions, said Alanna McCargo, vice president of housing finance policy at the Urban Institute.
A look atAmericans' confidence in being able to pay August rent:
Kevin Crowe, Theresa Diffendaland Carlie Procell
An overwhelming 3 out of 4 Americans support requiring people to wear masks in public, a new poll found.
Almost 90% of Democrats as well as nearly 60% of Republicans support requiring masks outside of people's homes. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll was conducted before President Donald Trump, who had been dismissive of wearing masks despite public health officials' support, tweeted earlier this week that wearing a face covering is patriotic.
Although partisan rhetoric around masks has undermined what public health officials say is a simple step thatcan save lives,95% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans say theyre wearing face coverings when leaving the house.
The poll also foundabout two-thirds of Americans disapprove of howTrump is handling the pandemic.
The coronavirus continued rampage through the southern and western United States is almost certain to leave an especially deadly trail among Latinos, who not only represent a significant percentage of the population in those regions but often face structural conditions that make them more vulnerable.
A new study published Thursday, the first nationwide analysis of COVID-19 cases and deaths among Latinos, concludes that crowded housing arrangements and high-risk jobs in industries like meatpacking, poultry and hospitality are among the major reasons Latinos have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
As the virus extracts a heavy toll on California, Texas and Florida the three states with the largest Latino populations the death count among the countrys biggest minority group could be staggering.
My prediction is that its very likely because the policies and practices that are needed to prevent infections and deaths are not in place, said Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz, the study's lead author.
Jorge L. Ortiz
R-0 may be the most important scientific term youve never heard of when it comes to stopping the coronavirus pandemic. USA TODAY
Parent check-list for back-to-school: Label your child's face mask with permanent marker. Have them practice putting on and taking off their mask without touching the cloth. Make a labeled, resealable plastic bag to store their mask during lunch time.Those are among thesuggestions the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has for school administrators and parentsas families prepare for school to resume in the fall.
Students should wear masks, wash their hands frequently and socially distance to protect against COVID-19 as schools reopen this fall, CDCurged in new guidance documents for administrators published Thursday. It is critically important for our public health to open schools this fall, said CDC Director Dr. RobertRedfield in a release.
CDC, the nation's top public health agency, has faced considerable political pressure from President Donald Trump and others to get schools reopened.
A key consideration for school administrators, CDC said, was COVID-19 transmission rates in their communities. But the CDC guidance offered no specific metrics for what transmission rates would require specific actions.
Elizabeth Weise
Senate Republicans were scrambling Thursday to finalizea $1 trillioncoronavirusreliefpackage that will include another round of $1,200 stimulus checks and additional funding to help schools recover from the pandemic.
GOP leaders and the White House said lateWednesday that they had agreed on key parts of the legislation, which will serve as a starting point for negotiations withDemocrats, who have already passed their own bill in the House.
But Republicans are still strugglingto put the finishing touches on the package.Congress and the White House are under pressure to clinch a deal on a freshpandemic aid package;a federal program of expanded unemployment benefits is set to run out within days.
One item that will be missing from the GOP plan isTrumps demand for a payroll tax cut. Republicans abandoned that proposal even though Trump had suggested he might not sign any bill that doesnt include it.
People who have had mild to moderate COVID-19 can come out of isolation after 10 days and don't need to be retested before going back to work, new CDC guidelines say. Symptoms, not testing, are the guide.If patients had a fever, it needs to have been gone for at least 24 hours.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document, published Wednesday,says symptoms are a bettergauge of how infectious someone is so they are"not kept unnecessarily isolated and excluded from work or other responsibilities."
The document acknowledges that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is so new that doctors are still gathering evidence for how it works.As more data becomes available, the medical community is gaining a better understanding of how people who are infected can avoiding passing on the disease. Thenew guidelinesreflect the latest thinking.
Elizabeth Weise
PresidentDonald Trump announced Thursday he is cancelingthe Jacksonville portion of the Republican National Conventionbecause of the coronavirus pandemic, a major setback in his effortto energize his struggling bid for reelection. "The timing for this event is not right," Trump told reporters at the White House. "There's nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe."
Trump said that he would deliver remarks to formally accept his party's nomination for president but offered no detailon where or when that will happen.The abrupt decision was not only a significant blow to his campaign but also raised questions about the president's narrative that the country is ready to reopen for business.
Trump said convention delegates will still gather in North Carolina, where the official business of the convention was set to take place, and formally nominate him for reelection.
Late Thursday,Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez reaffirmedthat his party will holdits national convention next month in Milwaukee, with a mostly virtual event. Delegates will vote remotely.Joe Biden has said he intends to accept the nomination in Milwaukee
John Fritze, Courtney Subramanian, Michael Collins andBill Glauber
A USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data through late Wednesday shows 12 states set records for new cases over a seven-day period whilesix states had a record number of deathsover the period. New case records were set in Alaska, California, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. Record numbers of deaths were reported in Florida, Idaho, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
In Florida, the week's death toll was 824, more than twice the number of any week during the spring COVID-19 surge. Still, Gov. Ron DeSantis continued to press for in-classroom learning when schools open, some in less than three weeks. DeSantis stressed that young people face the least risk from the virus.
"It is our kids who have borne the harshest burden of the controlled measures instituted to protect against the virus, DeSantis said Wednesday.
Michael Stucka
On Facebook:There's still a lot unknown about the coronavirus. But what we do know, we're sharing with you.Join our Facebook group, "Coronavirus Watch,"to receive daily updates in your feed and chat with others in the community about COVID-19.
In your inbox:Stay up-to-date with the latest news on the coronavirus pandemic from the USA TODAY Network.Sign up for the daily Coronavirus Watch newsletter here.
Tips for coping:Every Saturday and Tuesday we'll be in your inbox, offering you a virtual hugand a little bit of solace in these difficult times.Sign up forStaying Apart, Togetherhere.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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This story will be updated.
Another 26 cases of the new coronavirus have been reported in Maine, health officials said Friday.
Fridays report brings the total coronavirus cases reported in Maine to 3,757. Of those, 3,357 had been confirmed positive, while 400 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
New cases were reported in Androscoggin (12), Cumberland (6), Kennebec (1), Sagadahoc (1), Somerset (1) and York (5) counties, Maine CDC data show.
The agency revised Thursdays cumulative total to 3,731, down from 3,737, meaning there was a net increase of 20 over the previous days report, state data show. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus or coronavirus case not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.
No new deaths were reported Friday, leaving the statewide death toll at 118. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.
So far, 378 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, 12 people are currently hospitalized, with nine in critical care and three on ventilators.
Meanwhile, 20 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 3,259. That means there are 380 active and probable cases in the state, which is unchanged from Thursday.
A majority of the cases 2,089 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Friday, there have been 153,565 negative test results out of 158,838 overall. Just under 3 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 1,990 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 68 have been concentrated. It is one of four counties the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 527, 136 and 609 cases, respectively where community transmission has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.
There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel. That second condition has not yet been satisfied in other counties.
Other cases have been reported in Aroostook (31), Franklin (45), Hancock (19), Kennebec (154), Knox (25), Lincoln (31), Oxford (48), Piscataquis (3), Sagadahoc (39), Somerset (33), Waldo (60) and Washington (5) counties. Information about where another two cases were reported wasnt immediately available Friday morning.
As of Friday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 4,039,523 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 144,308 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Since early in the COVID-19 pandemic, California health officials have required nursing homes to bar entry to outsiders who might bring the coronavirus in with them and trigger a deadly outbreak among the elderly, vulnerable residents.
As a result, aging parents havent seen their families in months. Many have died without a final embrace from the people they loved.
But despite requiring routine testing of residents and employees, theres one group California health officials have knowingly sent from nursing home to nursing home without first testing them for the lethal virus: state inspectors.
Interviews with eight registered nurses working as inspectors for the California Department of Public Health all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation revealed that the department has not provided coronavirus testing for the very people it is sending to make sure facilities comply with rules on infection control.
The inspectors said they are exposed to the virus on an almost daily basis and could easily be spreading the disease. One said she came down with a bad cough and tested positive for COVID-19 soon after visiting more than a dozen nursing homes in two days.
Public health officials said they had sent about 500 inspectors to the states roughly 1,200 skilled nursing facilities. Some with the worst outbreaks were visited multiple times. California was inspecting homes at triple the rate of other states, officials said.
For them to send us in without testing or screening is unconscionable, said an inspector in Southern California. I think nursing homes shouldnt let us in.
Most of the inspectors interviewed also said they have not been provided with properly fitting personal protective equipment. One inspector said she refuses to spend more than a few minutes in a nursing homes red zone, the quarantine wing reserved for COVID-positive residents, because every time she exhales wearing her ill-fitting masks, her glasses fog up.
In a brief email response to questions from The Times, California Department of Public Health Deputy Director Heidi Steinecker wrote, We do supply our staff with proper PPE, and testing; our staffs safety is important to us. She did not respond to further questions.
Tony Owens, vice president of the union that represents nursing inspectors, said he was outraged at the claim that the department was providing his members with tests and adequate protective equipment.
It doesnt square with what we hear from the field, from the nurses themselves, he said.
Later, health department spokeswoman Kate Folmar acknowledged that the department has not provided systematic testing but has encouraged inspectors to use their personal health insurance to seek testing on their own.
The failure to provide reliable, systematic testing for inspectors is crazy, just really alarming, said David Grabowski, a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School. It makes basically no sense that weve locked these facilities down since March, keeping families out, only to learn inspectors have been moving from facility to facility without being tested.
Inspectors told The Times they have faced serious obstacles when they tried to get tested on their own just like the general public. In some cases, their primary care physicians told them they didnt meet the criteria for testing. In others, their doctors said there werent enough tests available.
Why is the testing not coming to us? one inspector asked. Were government employees. Were doing this infection control ... for the government.
Nursing homes have been ground zero for the pandemic in the United States, suffering a staggering proportion of the deaths from COVID-19. As of Monday, nearly 3,000 nursing home residents and more than 100 staff had died of COVID-19 in California, accounting for nearly 40% of the deaths statewide.
Many nursing home outbreaks are believed to have been sparked by asymptomatic spread, in which people who do not know they have the virus unwittingly infect others.
Some nursing home officials said they were shocked by the states lack of a comprehensive testing regime and worry that inspectors could be dangerously efficient spreaders of the disease.
Im blown away, said Dr. Michael Wasserman, medical director of the Eisenberg Village nursing home in Reseda and president of the California Assn. of Long Term Care Medicine, which represents doctors, nurses and others working in nursing homes. So you have inspectors going around to different facilities who havent been tested? It just makes no sense.
Wasserman is not alone.
When nursing home administrators find out the inspectors havent been tested, they are absolutely, visibly shocked, an inspector from Southern California told The Times. They only let us in because were the state; theyre scared to say no.
An inspector working in Central California added: Were missing the whole point of public health 101, and were the public health department.
The lack of testing for nursing home inspectors marks the latest failure by California health officials to take the necessary measures to prevent the coronavirus from spreading to some of the states most vulnerable institutions.
Last month, a Times review of inspection records found that state health inspectors had carried out more than 1,700 COVID Focused Surveys at skilled nursing facilities but had issued just 14 infection-control citations as a result of those visits. Time and again, inspectors sent to assess nursing homes ability to contain the virus found no deficiencies at facilities that were in the midst of deadly outbreaks or about to endure one.
In early April, for example, state inspectors completed a survey of Magnolia Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Riverside and found nothing wrong. The next day, a fleet of ambulances lined up outside the home to evacuate all 83 residents after the staff refused to show up for work, terrified of the deadly infection already spreading within the facility.
In addition to nursing homes, the untested state inspectors are regularly visiting a wide range of healthcare facilities, including hospitals, surgery centers, dialysis clinics and home health centers.
State health officials said they are not aware of any outbreaks that have been caused by an inspector introducing the virus.
Folmar said the department knows of six inspectors who have tested positive since the beginning of the pandemic. Through contact tracing questions, we learned none had recently been in a facility and were working off-site at home, she said.
But contact tracing has been spotty.
Despite coming and going from buildings with outbreaks on an almost daily basis, none of the inspectors who talked to The Times said they had been interviewed by a contact tracer since the beginning of the pandemic.
Internal emails reviewed by The Times indicate that officials at the Department of Public Health have been aware for months of complaints from inspectors about unsafe working conditions.
In early July, department officials took part in a formal exchange with SEIU Local 1000, the union that represents inspectors. Among the questions presented by the union was whether inspectors would finally get tested, noting, This is a big concern for nurses.
In response, a public health management representative acknowledged that everyone else working in the health facilities visited by the inspectors is required to be tested, so failing to test the inspectors creates an inconsistency. The representative said there was no final plan to begin testing the inspectors.
The documents also discuss a myriad of problems with personal protective equipment, including distribution issues and the lack of fit-testing of medical-grade masks, known as N95s, which are recommended for people working indoors surrounded by COVID-19 patients.
Several of the inspectors interviewed by The Times said they have attended staff meetings in which their colleagues openly discussed the possibility that they are spreading the disease to nursing homes.
Were the public health department; we should be testing our people, one of them told The Times. If it was my family in that nursing home, would I want a nurse to come in, and shes not tested? I dont think so.
Another round of stimulus checks could soon be headed to Americans.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Thursday the Republican stimulus plan includes more direct payments to help Americans struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Our proposal is the exact same provision as last time, Mnuchin said, according to Bloomberg.
That would mean individuals earning up to $75,000 would receive a $1,200 payment for themselves with an additional $500 for dependent children. Couples earning up to $150,000 would qualify for the full amounts. After that, payments drop based on income, capped at $99,000 for singles and $198,000 for couples.
The last round of stimulus money went to 160 million Americans.
See all of AL.coms coronavirus coverage here.
Here are the latest coronavirus headlines:
Mayors urge people to wear masks at home
Two Florida mayors are asking residents to wear masks inside their homes to help lower the spread of coronavirus between families.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami-Dade County MayorCarlos Gimenez said wearing masks inside would protect vulnerable members of multi-generational households.
Because we have such a high level of positivity rate here in Miami-Dade, you also need to start thinking about maintaining a distance also from your loved ones for a while, Gimenez said. Yes, I know Its a sacrifice, but do so because, again, just because its your son or your daughter or your cousin or your mother or your father, doesnt mean they dont have (COVID_19.)
Florida reported another 10,273 new COVID cases and 173 deaths on Thursday.
California reports record number of daily fatalities
California has reported a record number of daily fatalities.
On Thursday, the state reported 157 new deaths, bringing the its total to 8,027. California has now surpassed New York to have the nations highest number of COVID-19 cases.
As of Thursday, California has more than 421,000 cases compared to New York, which has more than 409,000.
County fair tied to 22 cases
At least 22 cases of coronavirus have been linked to an Ohio county fair held at the end of June, officials said.
Health officials said at least 19 attendees of a Pickaway, Ohio fair contracted the virus and three passed it on to another family member. One person who attended the fair died but an investigation is ongoing as to how they contracted the virus.
White House area cafeteria closes over coronavirus concerns
A White House area cafeteria is closed after a worker tested positive for coronavirus.
The cafeteria in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex, was closed this week. It is unclear how long it will remain closed but its believed to be at least two weeks while contract tracing is conducted.
The EEOB cafeteria is located across West Executive Ave. from the West Wing.
Chicago's Little Village neighborhood is 80% Latino and has one of the highest rates of positive coronavirus cases in the city. Across the US, states reporting racial data show overwhelmingly high rates of infection within the Latino population. (May 20) AP Domestic
The coronavirus continued rampage through the southern and western United States is almost certain to leave an especially deadly trail among Latinos, who not only represent a significant percentage of the population in those regions but often face structural conditions that make them more vulnerable.
A new study published Thursday, the first nationwide analysis of COVID-19 cases and deaths among Latinos, concludes that crowded housing arrangements and high-risk jobs in industries like meatpacking, poultry and hospitality are among the major reasons Latinos have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
We had some structural challenges that were there before the pandemic,''said Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz, the study's lead author, "and the pandemic is highlighting those problems.
R-0 may be the most important scientific term youve never heard of when it comes to stopping the coronavirus pandemic. USA TODAY
Looking at the data available through May 11, the study found Latinos accounted for a much higher number of COVID-19 cases than their percentage of the population in the Northeast,Midwest and West.On a national basis, reports cited by the study indicated Latinos accounted for 33% of the cases even though they make up just under 18% of the population.
A New York Times analysis based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released after a lawsuit was filed shows 73 of every 10,000 Latinos contracted the virus, compared to 62 Blacks and 23 whites.
As the virus extracts a heavy toll on California, Texas and Florida the three states with the largest Latino populations the death count among the countrys biggest minority group could be staggering.
My prediction is that its very likely because the policies and practices that are needed to prevent infections and deaths are not in place, said Rodriguez-Diaz, who's an associate professor of prevention and community health at George Washington University. There is nothing that gives us hope that it would be different.
A boy receives a free COVID-19 test at a St. Johns Well Child & Family Center mobile clinic set up outside Walker Temple AME Church in South Los Angeles amid the coronavirus pandemic on July 15, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. A clinic official said most of the residents they are currently testing in their South L.A. clinics are Latinos. According to the California Department of Health, Latinos are currently 2.9 times more likely than white people to test positive for the coronavirus. California reported over 11,000 new coronavirus infections today, the most in the state in a single day since the pandemic began.(Photo: Mario Tama, Getty Images)
Rodriguez-Diaz and his colleagues found other factors that contribute to putting Latinos at increased risk of developing COVID-19, like a lack of access to health care and living in areas with high levels of air pollution, especially in the Northeast.
One of the studys most surprising findings was the Midwest, where only 4% of the counties are predominantly Latino,was the one region where their coronavirus-related deaths were higher than their representation.
We found access to health care was harder in the Midwest, so its very likely people only accessed care when they felt really bad, and as the disease progresses it gets more difficult to manage, Rodriguez-Diaz said. Theres also the fact they need to continue working.
Think twice: Rethinking college, or at least fall semester, during coronavirus? You risk not graduating
And often in unsafe jobs. According to the CDC, 87% of the workers at meatpacking plants where social distancing is extremely difficult are minorities, more than half of them Latinos. Through the end of May, there had been more than 16,000 infections and 86 worker deaths at those facilities, the CDC said.
Large plants in South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Minnesota had to close because of outbreaks.
John Mckiernan-Gonzalez, an expert on public health and Latino social movements who teaches history at Texas State University, was not taken aback by the high incidence of Latino mortality due to COVID-19 in the Midwest.
In Midwest counties, theyre being recruited by meatpackers and living in really crowded conditions, Mckiernan-Gonzalez said.
He has observed a somewhat similar phenomenon in his home city of Austin, where mostly Latino construction workers have contracted the virus at a high rate. In his own neighborhood, Mckiernan-Gonzalez said he noticed a house meant for five to seven people is home to as many as three families, with perhaps 12 of them construction workers.
Deacon Jose Garza presides over the burial service for Mark Anthony Urquiza at Holy Cross Cemetery in Avondale, Ariz. on July 8, 2020. Urquiza of Phoenix, died June 30, of COVID-19. He was 65. (Photo: David Wallace, Arizona Republic)
Construction jobs often dont include health insurance or sick days, prompting employees to go to work when theyre ill. Living in close quarters, one infection could quickly spread. Another consideration: Undocumented Latinos may be reluctant to seek health care for fear of being discovered and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, making it even more likely they could unwittingly transmit the virus.
Rodriguez-Diaz said organizations in Latino communities need more resources so they can provide information on prevention and access to care to help stem the pandemic. Mckiernan-Gonzalez said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) should establish COVID guidelines for employers.
Moreover, Mckiernan-Gonzalez said there needs to be an outreach to the communities of color that have been so harshly impacted by the virus so they feel like part of the group effort to curb the spread.
It would help to have hospital directors, mayors, churchgoers coming out and saying, If you have COVID-19, it isnt just you who has it, its a whole community. So please come into the hospital and get treated so you dont pass it on to other people. Well make sure you will be safe in the hospital, Mckiernan-Gonzalez said. That should be made clear every time, that in pandemic times we cant have ICE lurking in the hallways in hospitals.
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Thousands of Texas prisoners are stuck in limbo during the public health disaster, approved for parole yet still sitting inside disease-prone lockups as the coronavirus rages across the state.
Many have been waiting six months or longer for release. During that time, Texas has seen more state prisoners die with the virus than any other state prison system in America.
Theyve been told theyre still behind bars because theres nowhere to send them, they need to finish a life skills program or they cant leave until the new coronavirus is done and over with, according to prisoners responses to questionnaires sent by advocacy groups. Sometimes the prisoners arent told anything at all, the elation of winning parole morphing into dread as they watch prison coronavirus infections and deaths rise.
Some of these people were eligible [for release] months and months and months ago, and theyre still there, said Jorge Renaud, southwest regional director of policy and advocacy for LatinoJustice, one of the advocacy groups. They are putting these people at risk unnecessarily.
In May, more than 15,000 Texas prisoners had been approved for parole but were not yet released, according to records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Thats about 12% of the state prison population. About 4,300 prisoners had been granted parole at least six months earlier.
Parole releases are never immediate, and its a common requirement for prisoners to first undergo in-prison education or rehabilitation programming before their release. But the coronavirus has delayed some of those classes and also pushed back release for an unknown number of people who have already completed such programming or never needed to take it.
Jon Reynolds, an inmate at the geriatric Pack Unit, where state attorneys say at least 19 men have died with the virus, testified in federal court last week that he finished his board-required programming in May but has remained in the highly infected prison. He said thats because the units parole officer, who approves housing plans, hasnt been there. State attorneys questioned if his delay was instead because his housing plan was not adequate, but Reynolds denied that.
People are still getting sick over and over, the 51-year-old said at a videoconference trial in a case over TDCJs handling of the pandemic. Im not understanding what it is that is keeping TDCJ from letting people go that have already completed their program.
Other inmates whose required programming was unavailable at their prisons had to wait months while transfers between units were stopped to limit the virus spread. And units confirmed to have active infections nearly 3,000 inmates had recently tested positive at dozens of prisons Wednesday are locked down, restricting activity within and halting movement in and out of them, including releases into the free world.
A TDCJ spokesperson said that although the agency cant release inmates during lockdowns, it has started directly releasing inmates at prisons without known infections to family instead of first moving them to a transfer facility. He added that he did not think any prison had been consistently restricted since the virus first hit the prison system in March, saying most cycled on and off lockdown, which allows for some releases. Several units have been on lockdown because of the virus for more than a month at a time, according to agency reports.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, there became more and more issues with the way that we would normally transport folks, spokesperson Jeremy Desel said. We move to process them as quickly as we can, but theyre still going to need to uphold whatever conditions are set.
More than 13,500 of about 130,000 TDCJ inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Wednesday, according to agency reports. At least 94 have died with it, the highest death toll in the country among state prison systems. The virus has also infected nearly 2,900 prison employees and killed 14 people who worked in state lockups.
But despite continued pleas from inmates, their loved ones and advocates for immediate release of those who are granted parole during the public health disaster, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has repeatedly said it has not changed how it makes parole decisions. A board spokesperson said Wednesday that parole approval rates rose in the last year to an average of about 39%, but state data indicates a slight decrease in the average rate since March. The board still sets release dates far in the future or requires monthslong, in-prison programming before an inmate can be released.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who oversees the board, said in March that releasing dangerous criminals wasnt the answer to controlling the virus in prison hot spots and has since remained silent on the issue. A spokesperson has not responded to repeated questions, including on Wednesday, on whether his stance changed as cases and deaths have risen behind prison walls.
Renaud said he and other advocates plan to push in the 2021 legislative session for required parole programming, like drug rehabilitation, to be permitted in the community instead of in prison. For Donald Mickens, that would mean his wife would be home with their children.
Mickens wife, serving a three-year stint out of Galveston County on a probation violation, was approved for parole in October. But the 41-year-old first had to complete a six-month drug rehabilitation program, Mickens said. That meant sending her to another unit, according to Mickens, a move that was delayed for months until June because of a halt in unit transfers as the virus swept through the system.
Now she's there and they're not even doing the classes, they're just giving them paperwork underneath the door, he said, because of a lack of counselors at the unit. ... Shes struggling real bad in there because shes so scared shes going to get [the coronavirus].
For Kambri Crews, programming on the outside may have allowed her to say goodbye to her dying father in person instead of on a hard-fought FaceTime call.
Theodore "Cigo" Crews, 73, died in a prison hospital earlier this month after a late cancer diagnosis, 30 days after hed been granted parole after serving 18 years. His daughter believes the harsh conditions and poor food inmates get in coronavirus lockdowns quickened his death. She said he lost 15 pounds from May to June.
He would have died anyway, but it would have been nice for him to die in the free world, Crews said.
Her father was required to take a drug and alcohol program first, she said, but she didnt understand why he couldnt have taken classes any other time in his nearly two decades behind bars, or outside with her.
Inmates who are set to leave on parole and arent required to take programming have been stuck as well during the pandemic. Long-awaited release dates are taken off the calendar when units go on or extend the medical lockdowns, and the parole board has set release dates far in the future, to the dismay of prisoners loved ones.
Debra Boyds son won parole in May, with the caveat that he first had to undergo the prisons life-skills program. The three-month class which Renaud and other prison reform advocates criticize on its effectiveness focuses on managing stress, time and money, and personal assessments. To try to hasten his homecoming, Boyd informed the parole board that her 41-year-old son had already completed the program months earlier.
His parole condition was changed after her phone call so that her son could be released without completing a program but not until January.
It was real exciting, she said, when she first learned her son was approved for parole, even if he had to redo the program. Then when everything switched around to January, its like, Oh my god, what has happened?
The boards chief of staff, Timothy McDonnell, said Boyds sons release was never intended to be before 2021. His release was first set to be after he completed the three-month program, which the board directed to begin in November at the earliest, McDonnell said. A future release date for parole approvals is often issued when the parole panel wants the inmate to serve more time, but not necessarily as long as it would take for the next parole review, he said.
With the second week of trial nearing an end, TDCJ continues defending itself in a case that questions whether the agency adequately protected inmates at the Pack Unit. State attorneys argued that the question of parole, which inmate Reynolds raised in his testimony, was irrelevant to the case since the lawsuit focuses on how TDCJ protects inmates. But advocates and epidemiologists have said for months that releasing inmates and reducing the prison population is the most effective strategy to promote social distancing and keep infections from spreading like wildfire among prisoners and into the community.
There was two ways to go, said Renaud. Either kick everybody out who is on parole or not let anybody go and not take anybody in and hope that little by little that the disease would just wear itself out, that it would just burn out.
Massachusetts announced Friday that it is issuing a new mandatory travel order effective Aug. 1 requiring all visitors and residents returning to the state from high-risk areas, including students, to quarantine for 14 days or produce a recent negative COVID-19 test result
The fine for violating the order is $500 a day.
You can read the full order below:
NEIDL has been working with live samples of the coronavirus since March, when it received a sample that was derived from the U.S.s first diagnosed case: a thirty-five-year-old man in Washington State who had recently returned from Wuhan. But its staff had been making plans to investigate the virus since January, when early reports of its rapid spread convinced them that it would proliferate worldwide and lead to severe outbreaks in the U.S. They immediately began writing protocols for using the virus and submitting requests for approval from B.U. In March, institutions at B.U., including NEIDL, received 1.9 million dollars in funding from the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, part of a hundred-and-fifteen-million-dollar grantcordinated by the Dean of Harvard Medical School and financed by a Chinese investment fundto support researchers working in the Boston area and Guangzhou.
In the U.S., most of the B.S.L.-4 labs are in government or military facilities, but NEIDL, despite its origin as part of a federal initiative, operates on an open academic model. We work with absolute transparency, its director, Ronald Corley, told me. We have to have the trust of the public, so everything we do is known and communicated freely. In the past two years, Corley, a lanky microbiologist in his seventies, has recruited fourteen scientists to join the center, looking for researchers with a wide range of expertise. The staff of NEIDL and its affiliates includes experts in the basic biology of the deadliest pathogens, in animal models that can be used to mimic the progress of human diseases, and in effective treatments and potential vaccines. Corley believes in giving them the freedom to pursue their hunches without being micromanaged. From the outset, he organized the centers COVID-19 research on the presumption that it would be, as recent evidence has borne out, an evolving targetand that progress would more likely come from a cluster of approaches than from a single breakthrough.
Since Donald Trump took office, his Administration has worked to systematically disassemble key elements of federal pandemic planning. In 2018, it largely disbanded the National Security Council unit responsible for pandemic preparedness, which was formed during the Obama Administration, after having ignored the councils playbook for fighting pandemics. It removed Rick Bright, from his job as a Health and Human Services official in charge of vaccine development, after he submitted a three-hundred-page complaint about the Administrations coronavirus response. Most recently, the White House directed the National Institutes of Health to cut off federal grant funding to the EcoHealth Alliance, an organization headquartered in New York that studies the global spread of viruses from animals to humans, and which collaborated on research about coronaviruses with researchers based in China.
But some aspects of the countrys pandemic planning have managed to survive, in large part because they were designed as enduring homes of scientific inquiry into the most dangerous biological threats. NEIDL was conceived to be at once independent of politics and ready to respond in a cohesive way to a national emergency. Its approach represents the polar opposite of the warp speed language popularized for the public.
Theres lots of good work going on across the globe, Corley said. Theres also a lot of junk, because people are rushing. The issue is not just sloppiness; laboratories are inherently artificial environments, and even the most careful work can yield apparent breakthroughs that turn out to be artifacts of the experimental process. When a virus infects human cells grown in a lab, it can mutate slightly. It is possible to spend years developing a therapy for an altered form of a pathogen only to find that that therapy brings no benefit to patients. Corley and his team have been sequencing the genes of their virus samples repeatedly as they work, in order to make sure that the pathogen is not morphing into a form that no longer corresponds with what was originally retrieved from the Seattle patienta time-consuming, but necessary, precaution.
As Corley led me on a tour of the facility and introduced me to its researchers, I got a sense of NEIDLs institutional preference for care over speed. Anthony Griffiths, a virologist and an Ebola expert whose focus is on animal modelling, stated the value of deliberate science plainly. I learned lessons from Ebola. I understand speed, he told me. But, if you do science in a rush, you are at risk of going down the garden path. Griffiths hopes to use observations of the progress of the disease in animal hostsgenetically manipulated mice, golden Syrian hamsters, and rhesus monkeysto learn about its mechanisms and to test possible treatments. This could help determine how much virus has to be present to cause infection, and what the routes to inoculation might be, with the aim of uncovering the dynamics of human immunity against the coronavirus. I would love to be first, but were not going to be, he told me. But we want to put ourselves in the best position to do the kind of work that can help understand the performance of the vaccine, and what its limitations may prove to be.
Griffiths works closely with Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious-diseases physician at Boston Medical Center who is an expert in emerging pathogens. In 2014, during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, she was part of a W.H.O. team that treated patients and training local caregivers. Part of her role is to draw the attention of NEIDL scientists to evolving and unexplained clinical findings of COVID-19, such as those that Fauci highlighted, so that they investigate them in the laboratory. For example, she has observed patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, then repeatedly tested negative, and then tested positive again. Have they become reinfected or has their immunity waned? she said. Or were they just shedding virus from the initial infection? With scientists at NEIDL, she is working to take a chronological sequence of virus samples from such patients. Genetic analysis can show whether a patient was carrying the same pathogen at different times, or whether the virus mutated in a way that outflanked the persons immune response. This work will ultimately make it easier to assess the likely potency of prospective vaccines. Bhadelia has also noted that some patients who were not terribly sick, meaning they werent in the I.C.U, nonetheless appear to have residual problems with cognition. Such persistent effects could potentially be modelled in animal studies at NEIDL.
Rob Davey, an Australian microbiologist with a wry sense of humor and hyperkinetic way of talking, is an expert on discovering novel treatments for pathogens. In 2018, while he was working with the biotech company Regeneron, Davey helped identify a kind of antibody that successfully treated Ebola in animal test subjects by latching onto viral proteins and blocking the microbe from entering cells. These antibodies ultimately became treatments for patients with the infection. Since he began working on COVID-19, he has been looking for agents with the potential to disrupt the progress of the disease. He is currently screening almost seven thousand chemicals that he obtained from the Broad Institute (the joint HarvardM.I.T. enterprise that specializes in assembling large libraries of chemical compounds), along with an additional thirty-two hundred provided by B.U. Some of these compounds are drugs already in use for illnesses including diabetes, hypertension, and migraine. If Daveys screening process indicates that one of them has potential as a COVID-19 treatment, testing on patients could follow quickly, since they already have F.D.A. approval.
Breden said Denver Public Schools has done a lot of planning at the high school level for core subjects like math, English and science but she hasnt seen as much coordination around art and music, which typically involves the sharing of supplies or instruments.
The state has advised cohorts as just one precautionary step districts should take for students to return to school during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr. Alexis Burakoff, a medical epidemiologist with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
What we're hoping is that schools can limit the number of people that each student and staff member interacts with ideally to kind of one closed group so that if there is an illness among a member of that group, it's very clear who has been exposed, she said.
Summer child care is an example Burakoff used to compare the potential spread of COVID-19. If a positive case was found in places where staff and children mixed freely throughout a daycare, the entire location had to stop operations and every individual had to quarantine. In cases where children and staff were around the same 10 people in a single classroom, then only those 10 people had to quarantine for 14 days and the rest of the daycare could run as normal.
Our hope is that by using this strategy, we are both minimizing the spread of disease because we're limiting the number of contacts that each person has, but also really minimizing disruptions to schools, Burakoff said.
As an added layer of defense, the state also asks districts to have people wear face masks and practice social distancing, too.
Burakoff gets how cohorts are a challenge logistically, especially for older students, but she said its important for schools to be creative in how they strategize with things like block schedules.
We understand that this cohorting does not extend to what people do at home and on the weekends, et cetera, and so the best thing we can do is just continue to educate our communities about being safe outside of school hours, she said. What it can really do is help the response in the event that there are illnesses in school, which we know that there will be.
Sarah Christensen Fu of Centennial, a parent of three kids who attend STEM School Highlands Ranch, is fortunate to work from home and have the flexibility to choose how her kids get their education this year. Although the school has an option to do in-person learning or a hybrid of virtual and in-person, Christensen Fu said her kids would be doing online only.
With this pandemic spiking, schools being reopened just seems really rushed, she said. I do feel like most of the people I know are really excited to get their kids back to routine and so I feel like a little stodgier, like a nervous Nellie Going all into a big building seems like a bad choice.
Her 11-year-old son isnt happy about the decision. Christensen Fu said it feels like a choice between her kids seeing their friends or their grandparents.
Nicole Gates, the mother of two boys in Littleton Public Schools, also works from home and wants to get back to the normal routine. She realizes, however, that may not be an option this year.
There's part of me that thinks if we just have to put the school year on hold and it starts in January after a vaccine is available or if they say, Hey, your kid's going to graduate a year later than you thought because this school year, we can't figure it out and we don't know how to keep everyone safe, I'm fine with it, she said. This is a pandemic. We haven't seen anything like it in a hundred years.
So far, her family hasnt come in contact with the virus even with her sons participation in summer activities like baseball and hockey. While it would be nice to send her kids to school a couple of times a week in small groups, Gates understands why teachers would be concerned about their safety and possible exposure.
How do you feel about Colorado schools reopening? Tell us.
