CDC Warps the Science to Support the Demands of Capitalism

 

CDC Warps the Science to Support the Demands of Capitalism

 

Joe Biden promised all schools would reopen within his first 100 days in office. The major teacher unions have jumped on board, mandating that their affiliates subordinate the needs and concerns of their members to those of the Democratic party. Consequently, we have seen Chicago, the 3^rd largest school district in the nation, forced back into operation by its own union, even though many teachers say they have no functioning air filtration systems in their classrooms and that their own administrators are so ill-informed about the safety protocols that they’re asking the teachers to explain them.

 

On Friday, the CDC published their latest update on “safe” school reopening, demonstrating their willingness to subordinate science and the public’s health to the demands of capital. In this publication, they insist on using the word SAFE (as in “schools can safely open”) even though this is impossible to assert. In a pandemic, even in communities with low infection rates, it is still easy for an asymptomatic or presymptomatic student or staff member to squeak past the ubiquitous wellness checks and potentially infect dozens of students and staff members. It only takes one person to die or suffer serious complications for the claim of “safe” to be proven false. Furthermore, it is not just a question of whether kids and/or staff members get seriously ill or die. If a child catches the virus at school, then takes it home and a family or community member gets seriously ill or dies, that, too is evidence that reopening the school was not safe.

 

Semantics aside, the meat of the CDC’s plan should give pause to anyone who has been paying attention to the Covid news over the past year. First, they say that even when communities are at 100 or more new daily infections per 100,000 residents (i.e., completely out-of-control spread), K-5 schools can still safely open with proper mitigation. But there is no mitigation that can keep the highly infectious asymptomatic people out of school. Young kids can still transmit the virus readily to family and community members. Even if no K-5 children die, their teachers and their family and community members can. The more people congregate in crowded indoor environments during a surge, the worse the surge gets and the longer it lasts. And with the highly infectious UK variant expected to become the dominate strain in the U.S. by mid-March, it seems scientifically irresponsible and criminal to be encouraging any sort of indoor gatherings, including K-5 schools. Indeed, Michael Osterholm and many others are predicting another new surge to start in the next week or two, and that it will be worse than the last one because of these new variants.

 

The CDC also strongly encourages communities with infection rates as high as 10-49 new daily infections per 100,000 residents to “fully open” for in-person learning (i.e full classrooms). This implies that physical distancing measures will be abandoned and it's an internal contradiction. If physical distancing is considered one of the keystone mitigation measures, how can a school “safely” open with proper mitigation if they have classrooms filled with 30-40 students, sitting elbow to elbow?

 

The CDC cited 2 studies (schools in North Carolina and rural Wisconsin) that suggested that infection rates within schools was lower than the rate of community infection, as if this proved schools were safe. But this reasoning is fallacious on two counts: First, no one can get infected at school unless at least one person who is already infected (i.e., picked it up in the community) brings it to school. Therefore, it is irrelevant if school infection rates are lower than community infection rates. Both are places were Covid spreads. People infected at school can bring it back to the community and vice versa. If our goal is to reduce infections, flatten the curve, get this pandemic under control, then, logically, we should be reducing our number of indoor interactions with those outside of our household. We should be reducing all indoor contacts (see Stop Swapping Air campaign), including school. Opening schools, regardless of the reasons why, only serves to increase our indoor air exposure and, thus, our risk of getting sick, which is the opposite of safety.

 

Second, if anyone gets infected at school, even just one person, we have, by definition, proven that the school was NOT safe. For, if it truly was safe, if all the mitigation efforts were working, no one would catch it from the individual(s) who brought it in from the community. Yet, in the North Carolina study, 32 kids still got infected at school, proving that the schools failed to prevent kids from getting infected (i.e. failed to keep them safe).

 

Both studies were also biased in a significant way. The studies were done between August and October, when community infection rates were comparatively low. In North Carolina, there were ~14 new daily cases per 100,000 in mid-September. While this would still be within the most restrictive Purple Tier if it were in California, it is far lower than the infection rates the CDC cited as safe for reopening. And it is only logical to assume that with higher community infection rates, there will also be higher school infection rates, since it would be easier for kids to get infected outside of school and then bring it with them to school. So, even if school infection rates are lower than community infection rates, that does not mean that schools are safer. Schools simply add yet another crowded, indoor environment in which to swap germs and spread the disease.

 

There are other problems with the claim that school infection rates were lower than the community infection. First, if a community is doing little to mitigate spread (e.g., not enforcing mask and distancing mandates, allowing in-person activity in crowded indoor environments, like gyms, salons, retail stores), then it stands to reason they will have higher infection rates. But what about in communities, like the San Francisco Bay Area, where community mitigation is fairly strict and well adhered to? Opening schools in places like this could see the inverse occurring, with kids spreading the virus in schools and then bringing it back home, precipitating new community outbreaks. Indeed, a recent Canadian study found that recent community outbreaks there were caused by schools. And this study found that that Covid transmission among kids is NOT a consequence, but a cause of community outbreaks.

 

Another problem with these studies is that they represent only a few schools from only two states. It is a form of data cherry-picking. With millions of public school children in the U.S., it stands to reason there’d be many examples in which a school seemed to reopening “safely.” However, it would be scientifically and ethically irresponsible to extrapolate the results of these two studies to all schools and districts throughout the nation, as many scientists and pundits are doing. First, kids did get contract the virus at school in these studies and we don’t know the extent to which they infected family and community members, or how many people subsequently suffered severe illness or death. Second, these two studies may represent anomalies. In science, we cannot confirm a hypothesis without considerable data. Furthermore, the results must be consistent, even when the study is repeated by other researchers. Yet, there are ample cases where the results have been different, where lots of kids and staff members were infected by school outbreaks. While not exactly the same scientific methodology, there is this example, where, despite social distancing, Nearly an Entire Class Contracted Covid. Or this one: Schools Are Now the 2nd Biggest Source of New Covid Outbreaks in England.

 

The CDC identified “five key mitigation strategies” which they claim make in-person learning safe: Universal and correct use of masks; physical distancing; handwashing and respiratory etiquette; cleaning and maintaining healthy facilities; and contact tracing in combination with isolation and quarantine, in collaboration with the health department.

 

Yet how can we expect any, let alone all, schools to adhere to these? Administrators are notoriously weak in the enforcement of discipline. Indeed, at my own school, our union rep told us that if kids refuse to wear their masks, admin will be applying a “3 strikes” rule. But how can that be considered “good mitigation” when it allows people to break the rules 3 times before getting some form of discipline. We’re talking about a deadly disease. Even if they were expelled from campus, that would still provide 3 opportunities for them to get infected or to infect others. Would we give a kid three chances with a loaded weapon? With the current moratorium on suspensions and expulsions that are occurring in many school districts in the name of racial equity, it is likely that students who break the rules will not even be sent home, let alone the principal’s office. Additionally, many teachers (like the Americans, in general) are conflict adverse and will go to great lengths to avoid calling students and peers out for misbehavior. This also suggests that many of these “safety” rules will be routinely violated.

 

One could argue that I’m being unduly suspicious and negative. However, I have taught high school for 23 years and these observations are what I have seen at both low-income urban districts and wealthy suburban districts in which I’ve taught. Furthermore, it is more prudent to assume that violations will occur and have a plan, than to assume everything will workout and be unprepared when it does not. Take masks, for example. How can we expect students or staff to keep them on for 8 hours a day, especially in rooms with lousy HVAC systems or during hot spring months? How can we expect kids, who’ve been denied live social interactions with their peers for the past year to always keep 6 feet apart and refrain from handholding, fist-bumping and high-fiving each other? And I’m just talking about teenagers here. The idea of 6-7-year-olds refraining from hugging and taking masks off is just plain delusional. And, of course, there are many special needs students for whom these rules will be particularly difficult to enforce.

 

According to the Covid Monitor (2/13/21), which tracks Covid outbreaks at schools, there have been 643,610 school infections, 382,264 of which occurred in students. This can hardly be considered “safe” or an indication of success. Evidence indicates that household spread is common. Therefore, while many of the infected individuals likely picked up the virus at home and then infected peers at school, we can safely assume that thousands of others were infected at school and then brought the virus home. If we traced all the people who contacted the students who got their infections at school, and all the contacts of those contacts, those 600,000 school infections likely led to millions of other infections. This, too, can hardly be defined as “safe.”

 

The CDC guidelines say that contact tracing and quarantining need to be part of the mitigation plan, but these have rarely been consistently done anywhere in the country, at any time during the pandemic. The guidelines say nothing about where the funding would come from. Indeed, perhaps if the funding existed, these programs would have been in place last year and we could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

 

Another problem is that schools vary dramatically in terms of the age and safety of their facilities. A US Government Accountability Office report from June 2020, said that 54% of public school districts needed to update or replace their HVAC systems. This is a significant factor in Covid mitigation. How will dilapidated old schools in the midwest or east coast keep the students warm in snowy winter months while maintaining a safe airflow with broken down, ancient HVAC systems? Even in my wealthy district, many classrooms have dysfunctional HVAC systems that keep the rooms in the 90s, even when it’s a cold winter day, or that have broken air filtration systems.

 

Contrary to the CDC’s recent proclamation that schools can be safely opened, there is considerable evidence that the opposite is true, that keeping schools closed is far safer than opening them. Here are just a few examples:

·        Osterholm Says the Data is Clear: It is Unsafe for Kids Age 10-19 to Be in School

·        Studies show that Keeping Schools Closed Significantly Reduces Transmission rates.

·        This study shows a 40-60% reduction in infections when schools are closed.

·        And this one, by pandemic expert Dr. Howard Merkel, shows that closing schools early and keeping them closed is one of the best ways to curtail a pandemic.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it is possible to operate schools “safely” during a pandemic, assuming full compliance with every one of the CDC’s mitigation recommendations. But why should anyone believe that full compliance will happen at all, let alone most of the time? Schools are bureaucracies with lots of competing interests within them. Compliance requires the full cooperation of dozens to hundreds of individuals who must all be fully versed in the logic behind the rules and provided the power to enforce them. Yet there are countless examples over the past year where this has failed. Dozens of districts and entire countries that have insisted they were doing it safely, only to see surges in new infections occurring at school. The following are just a few of the many examples of these failures, but they should be sufficient to make everyone skeptical that it will somehow be done right in their own community, with their own children or adult family members who work in schools.

·        70 New Infections Causes France to Reclose Schools After Only 1 Week.

·        Covid Outbreaks Force Israel to Close  Schools Immediately After Reopening 

·        Canadian Study Finds That Schools Were Cause of Recent Community Outbreaks

·        Study of 41 Countries Finds Closing Schools Reduced Covid Spread by 38%

·        3 Arizona Teachers Shared a Room for Summer School & Caught Covid, 1 Died

·        NY Has 78 Educator Covid Deaths So Far

·        Even the CDC said that Reopening Schools is Highest Risk for Spreading Covid (but this was back in July, before they were under as much pressure from the politicians and Wall Street to justify reopening the schools)

·        3 More Teachers Die

·        Over 2,000 UK Schools Have Covid Outbreaks

·        45% of All UK Covid Infections Linked to Schools

·        Reopening German Schools Leads to Explosion of infections

·        1 Student in Israel Infected 25 Teachers

·        Leaked emails Show Sweden Knew in March That Schools Would Spread Covid

·        8 More Teacher Deaths

·        99 School Outbreaks in Michigan

·        2/3 of French Outbreaks are Occurring in the Schools

·        2 Days After Opening, 81 Students Quarantined in Escondido

 

It is also important to recognize that while kids have a lower risk of serious complications and death, they can get seriously ill and die. Indeed, many have. Furthermore, they can also spread the disease as easily as adults. So, even if they aren’t getting seriously ill or dying, they may be contributing to other people’s serious complications and deaths.

·        31,000 Children Have Covid in Florida, 23% Spike in Juvenile Hospitalizations

·        74,000 Kids Infected In 1st Two Weeks of August, 21% Increase

·        Increasing # of Severe Inflammatory & Cardiac Symptoms in Kids With Covid-19

·        Study Indicates That Kids & Adults Have Similar Infection Rates

·        Spike in Fatal Kawasaki-Like Symptoms in Children with Covid-19

·        61,000 Children Infected With Covid Last Week

·        Asymptomatic Patients May Still Have Significant Organ Damage 

·        Another Study Indicates Children Can Transmit Covid as Well as Adults

·        Preliminary Data Indicates Children are Just as Likely to Catch Covid 19 as Adults

·        Surge of Deadly Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Kids (See here & here & here & here & here)

 

It is very clear that the drive to reopen the schools is based almost entirely on the demands of capitalism. Everyone must go back to work now, regardless of whether it is safe for them and regardless of whether there is any work to go back to. Reopening the schools is considered the primary strategy to meet this demand, as teachers provide free (tax-funded) babysitting for parents. But it should also be clear that reopening the schools while the pandemic is still raging out of control will only perpetuate the current surge and doing so, even when we’re back in the orange tier, will only contribute to new surges and perpetuate the needless hospitalizations and deaths.

Fauci, Birx: Chickenshit Accomplices to Mass Murder

What do Fauci and Birx's recent revelations about Trump's Covid policy really tell us? Nothing we didn't already know:

• Trump lied about the science, distorted it, fabricated it
• Trump's policies killed thousands of people unnecessarily

What do their recent revelations really tell us? 

That they are both chickenshit mouthpieces for capitalism. They said and did almost nothing when Trump was in power. Had they made their recent revelations months ago, perhaps some of those tens of thousands of deaths could have been averted. Their jobs were to protect Americans by advising politicians on the scientific facts and making policy proposals that reduce infections and deaths. Instead, they chose to protect their jobs and keep quiet, even when they saw that the facts were being distorted, denied and ignored. They deliberately enabled and facilitated mass murder by Trump, by allowing him to pursue his murderous policy of herd immunity without sufficient criticism or resistance. Their silence encouraged other Covid-deniers, particularly politicians who resisted lock-downs and mask mandates.

Sure, they probably would've been fired for speaking out, but Fauci, in particular, is so well-respected by the media and by the scientific community, that there would've been strong protest. And the media would likely have continued to seek out his opinion on the pandemic, just like they have with Michael Osterholm. And some politicians would have listened to him, even if he was no longer a federal employee.

Biden, Newsom, HIt Men For Capitalism

I'm not sure what more evidence anyone needs to see that capitalism is a piece of shit system for everyone but the richest members of society. The pandemic has enriched the country's wealthiest billionaires by $1 trillion, while the rest of us are suffering the worst levels of unemployment and income loss in a century (possibly worse than the Great Depression). Nearly every major politician, including the Democrats, and especially Biden and California Governor Newsom, have been doing everything in their power to force people back to work, shop and play under unsafe conditions that have led to over 400,000 deaths in less than a year. The message should be abundantly clear to anyone who is paying attention: Human life is irrelevant in the pursuit of profits.

The fact that  Newsom, is ending restrictions for the state, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the state is still in the most restrictive purple tier, has only two logical explanations:

1. He is a multi-millionaire himself and is doing the bidding of his class allies and colleagues: open up the economy, regardless how safe, so the rich can continue to make record profits. Likewise, he doesn't want to piss off his financial backers, who all want the same. 
2. He's scared shitless about the recall campaign coming from his rightwing flank and believes that by sending everyone back to unsafe working, shopping and playing conditions, right when several dangerous covid variants, with far greater transmissibility than good old-fashioned Covid-1.0, are becoming common throughout the state, he will appease them (or kill them through mass infections). 

But in his blind allegiance to Capitalism, what he fails to see is that he will also be sickening and killing thousands of his liberal supporters and motivating liberal survivors to join the recall campaign. His policies are tantamount to being a hitman for Capitalism and a mass-murderer. 

What about Biden? Almost all the same points can be made about him, too. He's a millionaire. He continues to insist that all schools will be opened within his first 100 days, regardless of the scientific data and advice from scientists. He continues to insist that 100,000 more Americans must die in the next month and that there's nothing that can be done about it, directly contradicting the advice of his own Covid transition team advisor, Michael Osterholm's, that we must stringently lockdown the entire country for 6 weeks, while providing financial and medical relief for everyone who needs it, in order to bring the pandemic back to being only really terrible, instead of its current catastrophic level.

One important scientific point that the media and politicians have almost completely failed to mention: the greater the percentage of infected people, and the longer high infection rates persist, the greater the chances for new, highly infectious and virulent strains to evolve. Pathogens can share genes. The more concentrated they are (i.e., high rate of community infection), the greater the opportunities to share genes. They also mutate spontaneously, on their own. The greater the rate of infection, the more virus particles there are going through the process of replicating their genetic material, and the greater the number of random mutations.

Therefore, getting the infection rates down significantly and quickly ought to be our primary goal, not only to save human lives and reduce suffering, but to reduce the chances of a far greater surge down the road, due to the proliferation of the British and South African strains, which we already know exist in the U.S. and are far more transmissible than Covid 1.0. California even has its own unique strain, which was nonexistent in October, 2020, but by November, 2020, was responsible for 24% of all Southern California infections. Considering how quickly Los Angeles County lost control of the pandemic, and the fact that 33% of their infections were due to this new, Socal strain, it seems likely that the Socal strain is also more infectious than good, old-fashioned Covid 1.0.

Let Them Eat Vaccines, The Slaughter Will Continue

The vaccine is good news, but it will have little effect on infection rates (averaging around 220,000 per day in the U.S.) or deaths (averaging over 2,500 per day) for many months, or even a year, because it will take that long to get it to all the Americans who say they are willing to take it. Even then, only 71% in U.S. Now Say They'll Get the Vaccine, which is a huge increase over just a few months ago, but possibly still not enough for us to reach herd immunity. Furthermore, if we don’t Vaccinate The World, the virus will persist and continue to be reintroduced into the U.S., starting new outbreaks.

 

But there is a more immediate problem, and it is one that can easily be solved: the government continues to encourage businesses to operate, employees to go into crowded indoor environments, and children to crowd into classrooms, in a deliberate attempt to infect as many people as possible and keep profits high. According to University of Washington’s IHME, there could be 770,000 Deaths By April 1, Even With the Vaccine, If Leaders Don't Impose Mask & Distancing Rules. (Or, a still staggering 540,000 deaths if they do impose new restrictions). Either way, the Covid-19 pandemic could soon become the deadliest event in the history of the country. (The previous record was held by the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919, which killed 675,000 people, followed by the Civil War, which killed 618,000 Americans over the course of four years).

 

One problem with the hypothesis that we can keep the mortality down to a still horrific 540,000 by April 1, by imposing mask and distancing mandates, is that it is too vague and would likely have no teeth. By imposing mask and distancing rules, they most likely mean telling the public to wear masks and keep their distance from others, which they’ve been telling us for the past ten months. These rules have never been enforced with any kind of consistency, or teeth, anywhere in the country. When states like California tried it back in April, morbidity and mortality did, indeed, plummet, but the governor relaxed restrictions way too soon and morbidity and mortality jumped back up again. For the past week or two, we’ve been averaging over 30,000 infections per day in CA, more than almost any other country!

 

People are sick and tired of the restrictions, the social isolation, their businesses floundering, and getting little or no help from the government. And, in many people’s eyes, restrictions don’t work. The 30,000 new infections per day seem to confirm this. Consequently, only 49% of Americans Say They Will Shelter in Place, If the Government Recommends It. I predict that thousands will defy the new rules and travel for Christmas and/or continue to flaunt mask and distancing recommendations, and we’ll see either a continued surge or a bigger one in January.

 

The bigger problem with this hypothesis is that it seems to be universally interpreted by politicians and the media as a mandate to control our voluntary social behavior (e.g., travel, parties, restaurant dining, bars, church). But this just blames the victims and ignores the main cause of the surge: forcing people to return to crowded indoor work environments (e.g., Amazon warehouses, automobile assembly plants, meat processing plants) and classrooms.

 

Yes, the 50 million Americans who travelled for Thanksgiving exacerbated the spread of the disease and those who travel for Christmas will continue that trend. And yes, not wearing a mask and behaving irresponsibly also spread the disease, but why were so many people getting infected prior to the holidays? The answer is: school and work. The 50 million people who travelled for Thanksgiving is a small compared with the number of people still working indoors and attending indoor classes. Furthermore, a majority of those who travelled (or who will travel) had been working in indoor environments and attending indoor classes prior to their travel, thus taking the germs they picked up at work and school and spreading them to family members at holiday gatherings. Swapping indoor air is the number one way to catch the disease (see the Stop Swapping Air campaign). (See also  Studies Show Crowded, Indoor Spaces are High Risk for Covid).

 

To see just how significant this problem is, consider that Meatpacking Plants Have Been Linked To 6-8% of All Covid Infections & 3-5% of Deaths, nationwide. A single indoor Boston Biotech Industry Convention Spread Covid to 245,000 People. And nearly 400,000 Covid Infections have occurred on U.S. College Campuses, as of December. Those who still believe that children don’t catch and spread the virus, should keep in mind that over 150,000 New Juvenile Covid Cases occurred just in the Last Week of November, Bringing the Total to More than 1.3 Million Kids Infected Since January. Michael Osterholm, the nation’s leading pandemic expert says the Data is Clear: It is Unsafe for Kids Age 10-19 to Be in School because they contract and spread the disease at the same rate as adults. One study Found that 40,600 Lives Were Saved By Closing Schools in March. Another study found that School Closures Reduced Transmission by 40-60%.

 

Osterholm, who is Biden's Covid Adivisor, Proposed a 6-Week National Lockdown (which, of course, Biden flatly rejected). Yet, if we kept all nonessential workers home, infection rates would plummet. If we get infection rates down to 1 new daily infection per 100,000 people, it becomes possible to do contact tracing and quarantining to prevent small outbreaks from spreading, as they’ve successfully done in China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, each of which has kept total infections down to around 1,000 per 1 million residents, or less. “Essential worker” needs to be defined as literally essential to survival (medical workers; emergency responders; food production workers). No one will starve to death or bleed to death if teachers, bankers, autoworkers stay home. But, of course, they must be paid so they aren’t forced to defy the stay at home orders to prevent starvation. Small business owners must be paid to keep their empty properties afloat until the pandemic ends. Renters must be given money for rent or extended a rent moratorium until the pandemic ends. Landlords must be given mortgage relief if they were relying on rental income to make their mortgage payments. Essential workers must be provided adequate PPE and their workplaces modified to reduce infection (e.g., fewer workers on site; more spread out; HVAC systems that adequately filter the air). And everyone must be given free health care, since so many would lose their employer-paid healthcare while sheltering at home. Paid Sick Leave Helped Reduce Covid Infections, According to this Study.

 

Until we have reached herd immunity (i.e., enough people have immunity that the virus can no longer spread in the community), these other measures are still necessary in order to save tens of thousands of lives, to keep the healthcare system from collapsing,  and to prevent thousands from suffering the long-term and possibly permanent organ damage that often occurs with Covid-19.

Pandemic May Not End If We Don't Address Anti-Vax Hysteria

The quickest way to end the Covid-19 pandemic is by reaching herd immunity, which is to say, getting enough people immune to the disease that it no longer spreads easily, thus protecting everyone, including those few who still haven't acquired immunity. Typically, there are two ways to reach herd immunity: mass vaccination programs, which have effectively eradicated many deadly diseases in the U.S. (e.g., small pox, tetanus, polio, diphtheria) and mass infection. Problem is, unlike influenza, chickenpox, mumps, measles and many other familiar diseases, Covid-19 infection does not appear to produce long-lasting or robust immunity, meaning people could, theoretically, catch it multiple times and continue spreading it through the community. This leaves mass vaccination as our best hope.

Anthony Fauci said he was cautiously optimistic that by the end of 2020, we would have data confirming that at least one of the current vaccines being tested for Covid 19 was safe and effective. In theory, that could mean we'd have enough doses by mid-2021 to vaccinate a sufficient number of Americans to reach herd immunity, thus bringing an end to the pandemic. (For the current status of vaccine trials, click here).

Problem is, 20% of Americans say they will refuse to take the vaccine, and another 31% say they are unsure. So, even if the vaccine was 100% effective (no vaccine is), that would mean only 49% of American would develop immunity, which is not enough to reach herd immunity. Consequently, the virus would continue to spread through communities, sickening and killing people. In reality, a vaccine could be approved if it is at least 50% effective. So, worst-case scenario, we get a 50% effective vaccine, with only 49% of Americans taking it, and we end up with only 24.5% immunity, far far away from the 60-75% needed to reach herd immunity.

While it is easy to disparage these anti-vaxxers as stupid or selfish (the behavior certainly is), doing so won't browbeat or shame them into changing their behavior and is, therefore, unproductive. And at this critical time, it is imperative to find solutions that are effective. If the 31% of Americans who are on the fence can be convinced to change their minds, we'd have 80% of Americans willing to take the vaccine, and that COULD bring us to herd immunity (assuming the vaccine was 75% effective).

Part of the problem, of course, is STUPID and SELFISH behavior by politicians, particularly Trump, which have contributed to the misperception that this disease is not that serious or that it's a hoax. As long as people believe this, why should they want to do anything inconvenient or unpleasant (like wear masks & socially distance themselves), or that they erroneously believe is risky (like get vaccinated)? So, the first challenge will be getting all leaders and media to start listening to, respecting and complying with the health experts and encouraging the rest of us to do so, too.

However, there were already plenty of Americans who were terrified of vaccines well before the current pandemic started. So, even if all leaders were to suddenly start wearing masks and telling everyone to comply with social distancing policies, these people might still refuse to take the vaccine, thus perpetuating the pandemic. Therefore, we also need a well-researched and well-executed public health campaign that acknowledges their fears, but then convinces them of the safety of the vaccines and encourages them to participate in the mass vaccination program, not only for their own health and safety, but because it will help end the pandemic and return us to normal more quickly.

Crisis Continues to Worsen

Over the past week, the U.S. surpassed 4 million covid infections, more than 25% of the world's total, despite having only 4.3% of the world's population. We are also on track to surpass 150,000 deaths by the end of the day. These grim milestones can be blamed on oligarchy's relentless drive to force people back to work under unsafe conditions and their unwillingness to provide any financial relief to the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans, as well as Donald Trump's continual lies about safety, the science of covid, and his undermining of the scientific experts.

There are now 12 states in the Critical Red zone (>25 new daily infections per 100,000 residents), with California poised to join this rogue's gallery soon, and 23 in the orange. According to Harvard's Path to Zero website, regions in the Red need to implement immediate lock downs, and those in the Orange are strongly recommended to do so, both to bring down cases to a manageable level and not overwhelm hospitals, but also to reach the Green zone, where an opening of the economy can be more effectively monitored and controlled. This means that 70% of the country needs to immediately lock down (compared with 64% just 5 days ago). Indeed, health experts have been saying for days that the entire country needs to shut down.

California, which once led the nation in caution, now has had more covid cases than any other state, including New York. 71% of its counties are now in the Critical Red or Dangerous Orange zones and require immediate lock down.

It is clear from the map that U.S. and South America are the hardest hit regions of the world, but the WHO just announced on Friday that Europe's premature lifting of restrictions is driving a resurgence of infections there. Eastern Europe has been particularly hard hit, with record or near record daily infections in Romania and Ukraine, and 5,000 or more daily infections in Russia.

From Bad to Dire: 64% of U.S Requires Immediate Stay-at-Home Orders

As you can see from the map, the U.S. no longer has any green states (On Track for Containing the Virus), whereas less than 2 weeks ago, we still did. 32 states are now in the Red (>25 new daily infections per 100,000 residents) or Orange zones (10-24 new daily infections per 100,000 residents), or 64% of the country, and should implement Stay-at-Home orders, according to Harvard's Path to Zero website. This is a 10% increase over 4 days ago, and a 52% increase in the past week!

California now has 16 counties in the critical red zone (a 33% increase over 4 days ago), and 20 countries in the dangerous orange zone, for a total of 36 counties (61% of the state) requiring immediate mandatory lock downs in order to bring the infection rate back to a manageable rate. Additionally, while the state had 6 counties in the green zone (less than 1 new daily infection per 100,000 residents, and on track for containment) just 4 days ago, it now has only 3, indicating that even its most remote and sparsely populated regions are getting slammed and that the state is moving further away from containment.

U.S. on Track to Hit 8 Million Covid Cases By Labor Day

It took 99 days to reach 1 million Covid-19 infections in the U.S.

It took only 43 days to reach 2 million.

And only 28 days to reach 3 million.

And only 14 days to hit 4 million.

Will we reach 5 million by the end of the month?

Even more alarming, we doubled from 1 million to 2 infections in roughly 40 days, and doubled again to 4 million in roughly another 40 days. Does that mean we'll hit 8 million infections by Labor Day?

Tracking the Covid Surge

In just 4 days, the U.S. has gone from having a total of 21 states in the critical Red/Orange zone (10 or more daily infections per 100,000 residents), to 29 states in the critical Red/Orange zone, as of 7/18/20. This is a 16% increase. Of the states in the Orange zone, California and Arkansas are both poised to enter the Red soon, with over 20 infections per 100,000 each.

California has not changed significantly over the past week: they had 12 counties in the Red as of 7/10. They now (as of 7/18/20) have 13 counties in the Red and 25 counties in the Orange.

Contrary to common misperception, things are not so rosy in the rest of the world. As you can see from this map, most of South America is in the dangerous Orange zone, and several countries are in the Critical red, including Panama and French Guyana. Many people also erroneously believe that Israel has somehow dodged the worst of it, but their infection rate (18.5 new daily infections per 100,000 residents) is nearly identical to that of the U.S. (20.2), and higher than Brazil's 16.5 daily infections per 100,000 residents. Netanyahu is so reviled for his pathetic covid response that thousands of Israelis are braving water cannons and tear gas to protest him. Like Trump, Netanyahu has placed the interests of the oligarchs above the health and safety of the rest of Israel. And like Trump, he has blamed the protests on bizarre conspiracies (in this case, the deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein). Interestingly, the West Bank and Gaza, together, have an infection rate of 8.1, less than half that of Israel. This may be due, in part, to the fact that the West Bank and Gaza have no Ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose infection rate is four times that of the rest of Israel.

Europe is not escaping the latest surge either, despite having significantly reduced their infection rates since May.  Luxemburg had an infection rate of nearly 13 new daily infections per 100,000 residents (as of 7/18/20), well within the dangerous Orange zone. Montenegro was also in the orange. The UK is still chalking up more than 500 new infections per day. Turkey had over 900 new infections yeasterday. And Sweden, Portugal, Romania and Bulgaria are now seeing new surges, each with more than 4 new daily infections per 100,000 residents over the past 2 weeks, while much of the Balkans is now well over 7 daily infections and approaching the dangerous Orange zone. 

Most of California Now in Danger Zone, Newsom Shuts Down Schools

12 California counties are now in the highest alert red zone (as of 7/16/20), with over 25 new infections daily per 100,000 people, while an additional 28 counties are now in the dangerous orange zone (10-24 new daily infections per 100,000 residents), including San Francisco, which shot up from around 7 last week to well over 10 this week. (Data as of 7/16/20, from Harvard's Path to Zero website)

That's 40 counties in the red/orange combined. Governor Newsom has declared 33 of these counties to be on the "watchlist" severely limiting which businesses can be open. Further, he mandated that all schools, public and private, must be closed to in-person learning if located in one of these 33 counties. That means that both Marin and Orange Counties, which had both recently declared schools to be open this fall, will have to back down and close their schools, since they are both on the watch list.

California has been chalking up over 8,000 new infections daily for the past week and is on track to catch up with New York, though their mortality rate is substantially lower.

Pandemic Spiraling Out of Control

Four days ago, there were 7 states in the critical Red Zone (over 25 daily new infections per 100,000 residents) averaged over the past seven days, a critical situation which researchers at Harvard say should trigger automatic mandatory lockdowns. In none of these states has a statewide lockdown been implemented. Now there are 11 states in the red zone (as of 7/14/20), with Arkansas and California poised to join this group by the end of the week. Yesterday, the nation broke the world's one-day record with 71,750 new infections, according to Worldometer, while California, Florida and Texas chalked up 9,687, 10,181 and 12,235 new infections respectively.

The number states entering the dangerous Orange Zone, where the Harvard researchers say statewide lockdowns are highly recommended, has also been on the rise. Four days ago, there were 14 states in the orange, or 21 states in the red/orange zones combined. Now there are 26 states in the red/orange zones combined, or more than half the country that should be in lockdown.

Why Do the AAP, NEA and AFT Continue to Demand a Reopening of Schools?

This week (7/10/2020), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the two largest teachers’ unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers AFT) released a joint statement calling for the return to live, in-person instruction this fall, even as the number of new covid infections skyrockets throughout the country. “Educators and pediatricians share the goal of children returning safely to school this fall. Our organizations are committed to doing everything we can so that all students have the opportunity to safely resume in-person learning.”

Here is a critique of the AAP’s position and how it is being inappropriately promoted.

The fact they put out this statement now, when daily new cases are rising in 36 states and the country has been recording over 60,000 new cases daily for the past week, shows their complete disregard for the health and safety of the children and teachers for whom they advocate, not to mention a complete disregard for the recommendations of the health experts, and a complete disregard for the health and safety of the students’ family members.

Indeed, pandemic experts at Harvard recommend the immediate lockdown (including schools) of any region recording more than 10 new infections per 100,000 (more than 60% of the states are already at this point). Similarly, pandemic expert, Michael Osterholm, is calling for a complete national lockdown, followed by thorough testing and contact tracing to bring the pandemic back under control and allow for a subsequent gradual resumption of life, as has been effectively accomplished in places like China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy. And, more specifically with respect to schools, the CDC has said that reopening the schools is the highest risk for increasing the spread of Covid-19.

If they were truly concerned with the health and safety of children and their teachers and families, why not put out a statement that says, “We will do everything possible to ensure high quality distance learning until it is truly safe to resume live, in-person instruction,” rather than continuing to push for in-person learning this fall, when it is clear that the pandemic will still be raging?

Even if we locked down the nation now, as Osterholm has recommended, it will take months to bring infection rates down to where they were in May, after the first set of lockdowns were implemented, back when infection rates were only a fraction of what they are today. It should also be clear there is no way to resume in-person learning with all the recent budget cuts. With the myriad logistical problems, like lack of space to physically distance students, lack of sufficient custodians to sanitize rooms, lack of soap, paper towels and PPE, lack of nurses, and lack of money to purchase of these resources. With the unwillingness of teachers to come back under the current, unsafe conditions. With the numerous large districts, including LAUSD, the nation’s largest, already stating they will not reopen this fall. With the likelihood that each positive case that arises will result in scores of teachers, staff and students being sent home and placed in quarantine. With the likelihood that schools will be forced to shut down again soon after reopening because of the surge of new infections.

So, why is the nation’s largest association of children’s doctors still pushing this deadly plan, rather than upholding their oath to do no harm? Why are the nation’s teachers’ unions still pushing for a policy that their members oppose? Why continue promoting a criminal proposal that is starting to die on its own because of the intractable logistical impediments to its implementation?

To answer this, one might consider last week’s “School Reopening Roundtable,” hosted by the AFT, where Elizabeth Warren dismissed the worries of teachers over the risks of reopening and told them the best thing they could do was vote for Joe Biden in November. Yet why would voting Democrat change anything? All across the country, Democratic governors (including Maine, California, N. Carolina, Kansas), prematurely reopened their economies when infection rates were still on the rise. And House Democrats overwhelming supported the CARES Act’s multitrillion dollar corporate bailout, funded in part through cuts to education and other social services. And what about Biden’s role in the Obama Administration, which slashed education funding and promoted privately run charter schools? Does anyone really believe that, as president, Biden will restore education funding to its pre-2008 levels?

Ironically, Covid-19 is now inversely related to the markets, thanks to the $3 trillion funneled into the markets by the Fed, a policy supported by nearly every Democrat in their support for the CARES Act. The irrational exuberance of traders hinges upon the criminal drive to get workers back to work, which itself is dependent on getting schools to reopen to provide “free” babysitting.

Maybe the AAP, AFT and NEA are okay with a few thousand kids dying, out of the millions who attend K-12 schools, but what about the millions of vulnerable educators and family members who they will infect? Is their goal to help cull America of its older and medically vulnerable workers, so health insurance companies no longer have to pay for their expensive cancer, diabetes, heart, arthritis and blood pressure medicines? Is their goal to help school districts and corporations reduce insurance costs by reducing their share of higher-risk employees? Is their goal to reduce payroll costs by reducing the number of higher wage veteran employees?

The irony is that the more we let this spin out of control, the longer it will take for the economy to recover.

Everyone wants a return to normal, but not at the risk of death. Everyone agrees that live, in-person education is better than remote, online learning, but not when a pandemic is raging out of control.

Unfortunately, we are going to have to suck it up for a while longer and continue living lives of social isolation and privation. It means schools and teachers’ unions must start planning for better quality distance learning than was provided last spring, even though this should have started months ago, as it did with the University of California and CSU systems. It means the pediatricians need to start advocating for ways to improve children’s mental and physical health while sheltering in place, instead of wantonly trying to force them into apocalyptic schools where they won’t be able to see any smiles, touch anyone, get close to anyone, get hugs when they’re hurt, share toys and equipment, interact with friends and family members in other classrooms. Where they’ll have to stand in line daily for temperature checks and have adults constantly warning them to put their masks back on and get away from that person they’ve gotten too close to. It means the politicians, including the Democrats, must commit to providing everyone with the money and resources they need to survive until the pandemic ends, and ensure there is sufficient PPE and safety protocols in place for all truly essential workers. It means implementing a national lock down and mandatory mask-wearing, and spending the money to dramatically increase testing and contact tracing, so that once the infections start to decline, quarantines can be implemented to prevent new flare-ups from turning into full blown outbreaks.

Continued Worsening: 8 States Now in the Red; CA & NV Poised to Join Club

Data from 7/11/20

Things Worsening Quickly: 7 States in Dangerous Red Zone, Require Mandatory Lock Downs

AZ, FL, LA, SC, GA, TX, AL in the red zone (>25 cases/100k residents avg over past 7 days)

According to Harvard's Path to Zero Covid Tracker website, in order to be on track for containing the pandemic, a region must get their rate of new infections down to 1 or less per 100,000 residents, averaged over a 7-day period. Fewer and fewer states and counties are meeting this goal. In the past several days, the number of states in the Dangerous Red zone (25 or more new infections per 100,000 residents) has in creased from 4 to 7. In California, the number of counties in the Red Zone has recently jumped from 7 to 12.  According to the website, regions in the red zone are at the Tipping Point and Stay-at-Home orders are necessary to prevent catastrophe. However, even those regions in the orange (10-24 new cases per 100,000 residents) are strongly recommended to impose Stay-at-Home orders. If we combine those states in the red and the orange, that's 21 states, nearly half the country that should be sheltering place!

Imperial, Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Tulare, Merced, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Fresno, Madera, Colusa, LA counties are now in the red zone

Do Educators Die of Covid? Yes They Do! Do Children Die of Covid? Yes, They Do, Too!

Chalkbeat reports that 78 educators have already died from Covid in NYC, just from the first wave of the pandemic to hit the city. Health experts are warning that NY will likely see a resurgence, like the rest of the country, threatening the lives of countless more educators.

Of those 78 deaths, 38% were among paraprofessionals, even though paraprofessional represent only 17% of the education workforce. They are also disproportionately people of color.

And in Arizona, 3 teachers caught Covid after sharing a classroom for Summer School & one of them died.

Despite the mounting evidence that kids, even very young ones, not only catch covid at the same rate as adults, but can also transmit it to others, and despite averaging close to 10,000 new covid infections daily for the past week, Florida has mandated that all schools be open for live, in-person instruction in the fall. A seventeen-year old has already died of the virus in Florida, and more are likely to die as Governor Desantis allows the pandemic to rage out of control in his state. Florida is also seeing rising numbers of the deadly multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) in children, a problem that will also likely rise with the reopening of schools and the failure to initiate a mandatory state-wide shelter in place, as recommended by many health experts.

In New York, over 80 kids were diagnosed with MIS-C as of early May, and 5 had died. If they reopen their schools to live, in person lessons in the fall, they, too, will likely see a tragic increase in MIS-C diagnoses and deaths, as well as the deaths of more teachers and paraprofessionals.