Join the Pledge to NOT Reopen Schools in the Fall

LAUSD and SDUSD have pledged to NOT reopen in the fall for in-person classes until their budgets are fully restored AND the state implements universal weekly covid-19 testing, contact tracing and quarantines. ALL school districts should join them and here is why:

Racial and Social Justice

As millions of people worldwide continue to risk covid-19 infection, tear gas and beatings in protests demanding racial and social justice, forcing teachers and students back to the classroom would likely have the opposite effect. Consider that the cops kill around 225 African Americans a year, but Covid has already killed around 27,000 African Americans in just three months (roughly 23% of Covid deaths in the U.S. are among African Americans), far higher than their representation in the population. Since African Americans, Latinos and Pacific Islanders are the groups most affected by illness, complications and death from Covid-19, reopening the schools to in-person learning places them at particular risk. For these reasons, reopening the schools would be potentially genocidal.

Another social justice issue in the schools are the rights and the safety of students, staff and teachers with disabilities, many of whom are at increased risk of complications and death from Covid-19, due to age and underlying health conditions (including one-third of all teachers).  Both CDC recommendations for returning to school, and common decency, suggest these people should be allowed to work from home for their own safety. Not permitting this could be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and would certainly undermine the districts’ goal of creating equity and socially just classrooms.

Economic Necessity

School districts across the nation are facing historical budget shortfalls due to the lost tax revenues caused by the pandemic. Up to 300,000 teachers could lose their jobs. Yet all proposals for reopening the schools have included extreme measures of increased hygiene, social distancing and the use of PPE inside the classroom, as well as enforcement of social distancing outside the classroom, temperature checks and screenings before class, and arrival and departure control. All this will require increased staffing and would be impossible with the budget cuts.

In contrast, implementing a 100% Distance Learning (DL) model would save districts tens of thousands of dollars in reduced utility bills and maintenance costs. They would need far less PPE and hygiene equipment and disinfectants. They wouldn’t have to spend any money on screening students and staff and isolating sick individuals.

Furthermore, if one-third of teachers and staff exercised their right to work from home because of their age or underlying health conditions, there would not be enough staff on campus for in-person learning to be possible. Even if the districts had the money to hire more teachers or substitutes and classified staff, there aren’t this many available. On the other hand, if districts compelled teachers and staff to return to their school sites, many might refuse, for their own safety, and the districts would still have a shortage. Or they could sue their districts for violating their rights under the ADA, costing the districts millions in legal expenses at a time they are already facing historic budget shortfalls.

It has been argued by many, most notably Donald Trump and Steve Mnuchin, that the country cannot afford to shut down again. However, just the opposite is true. Without mitigation, the CDC and WHO predict 60-70% of all humans will catch this disease (that’s 196-230 million Americans). At a 3.8% mortality rate, that would be 7.6 million U.S. deaths! Even if only half that number got sick or died, this would still disrupt the production and distribution of food and other basic services because of the lack of sufficient healthy workers, and could result in famine, even here in the U.S.

In contrast, a study of the Spanish flu pandemic showed that regions with the most aggressive social distancing policies had the fewest deaths and the quickest economic recoveries. Keeping schools closed is an essential part of this. The longer you spend indoors with people outside your immediate family, the greater the exposure to germs and the greater your chances of becoming infected. This is true for students and even more so for teachers and aids, who must spend hours inside a potentially infectious room. Studies show that Keeping Schools Closed Significantly Reduces Transmission rates. Closing schools early and keeping them closed is one of the best ways to curtail a pandemic. Keeping them closed reduces infection rates by 40-60%.

Protecting the Mental and Social Health of Our Children

It has been argued that the mental and social health of our children are suffering because of the lock downs, the denial of in-person classes and the opportunity to interact with friends, peers and teachers. It has been further argued that since children do not get as sick or die as often as older people, we are doing them more harm than good by keeping them home.

There are numerous problems with this reasoning, the most significant being that children do get infected and can spread the disease to their teachers, family members and community, thus exacerbating the spread of the pandemic and the devastating social and economic costs, even if they don’t personally die from it. Worse, some of the people who die from the reopening of schools and businesses could be their own family members, turning them into orphans. This would arguably be much worse for their mental and social well being than distance learning.

While it’s true that children tend to not get as sick or die as often as older adults, some still do, particularly if they have underlying conditions. About 3.6% of all U.S. cases have been in children. Their illness can last for up to two weeks, and 20% of them required hospitalization, either of which can severely impair their performance in school. And, of course, there’s the rare, but deadly, Kawasaki-like syndrome that has affected dozens of kids so far.

But even if an individual student made it through the school year without any family members getting sick, it is still unclear that the social benefits of being in the classroom would outweigh the costs. Under the strict rules required for in-person learning, schools will feel unfriendly, scary, and dystopian to children. After waiting in long lines to take their temperatures, instead of being greeted by a warm smile or touch, they will face adults who repeatedly warn them to stay 6 feet apart from their friends and to keep their masks on and their hands away from their faces. They’ll have no idea what their peers or teachers might be thinking or feeling with their faces hidden behind masks. They won’t be able to sit together at lunch, or hug or high five each other. And what about K-5 students? Do we really think they will be able to keep their hands off their own faces, let alone those of their peers and teachers? When they fall down and get hurt, will their teachers stand with their arms crossed, admonishing them to suck it up and get back to work because there can be no touching during a pandemic?

Even if we could make a strong case for reopening the schools, they will almost certainly have to shut down again, well before the end of the semester, forcing everyone back into a full-time distance learning (DL) model. This would be much more disruptive to their learning and social development than starting with DL in the fall and sticking with it until the pandemic ends. We already know this will happen based on the many countries that have tried it. Israel was prompted to reclose their schools because of renewed Covid outbreaks, including 130 cases at a single school. France had a similar experience when they reopened their schools. In the town of Skellefteå, Sweden, a teacher died and 18 of 76 staff tested positive at a school with only 500 students. Preliminary results from an antibody study in Sweden showed high rates of infection among children, suggesting there was significant spread in the schools. And in Montreal, nearly an entire class tested positive after one student fell ill, despite social distancing. Health authorities believe this was a case of classroom transmission.

Frankly, as a teacher and a parent, I am appalled and perplexed that my district has not already announced its intention to implement 100% DL for the 2020-2021 school year. We know we are still at the beginning of this pandemic. We know that it will get worse, particularly when schools and businesses open up further. We know people will continue to die at rates far exceeding seasonal flu. We know that the deaths, critical illness and long-term organ damage will disproportionately affect people of color and poor people and that this will be exacerbated by anything that increases the spread of the disease, like opening schools. And we know our children’s education and social-emotional health will suffer throughout this pandemic, no matter what we do, but will certainly suffer worse if the pandemic spirals out of control because we have irresponsibly and prematurely opened everything up. 

So why aren’t we doing the one thing we know will save lives: Distance Learning?

Careful Which Health Experts You Follow—Many are Charlatans

America has a long history of misology (hatred of knowledge). Our anti-intellectual streak goes back to the colonial days, with the lynch mob murders of accused witches, and our forebears’ love of snake oil, and it continues to this day with climate-deniers, anti-vaxxers, and most of all with President Trump and his followers.

Perhaps at no time in our lives, though, as there been a greater urgency for reason, and evidence to support it. Yet quacks, fakes and posers are coming out of the woodwork to tell us that it’s safe to go back to school and work, that Covid-19 is just a “bad flu,” that maybe we can just inject bleach or irradiate ourselves to overcome this plague.

So How Do We Distinguish Real Experts From Fakes?

Sophisticated thinkers know to examine the credentials of so-called experts to determine whether they have standing or credibility on the subject. Obviously, if both a pharmacist and a basketball star are discussing the safety and effectiveness of a prescription medicine, the pharmacist has more  expertise on the subject. But we need more than credentials to really trust an expert. Scientists and doctors are humans. They are subject to the same biases, fears, and political, economic and religious influences that affect the rest of us. Consider the scientists who’ve shilled for Big Tobacco.

I have an acquaintance with a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who has done years of biomedical research, who told me that “the stats” indicate Covid-19 is like a “new flu,” not a “virus of unparalleled danger.” Clearly, this is someone who should know better. The absurdity of his statement is obvious when one considers that in a bad flu season (Oct-April), 60,000 Americans die, but Covid-19 has already killed 80,000 Americans in just 3 months.

Is he stupid? No. Does he want his personal liberty restored? Yes. He told me as much.

What I think is happening is that he is cherry picking his evidence and experts to support his desires. This is known as the Fallacy of Incomplete Evidence, and it’s completely understandable, even sympathetic, at a time like this, as it gives one the perception of safety and security when surrounded by so much fear and uncertainty.

Much less sympathetic are all the charlatans and snake oil peddlers making it onto mainstream media, since they are potentially tricking millions of Americans into supporting or doing dangerous and stupid things.

Dr. David Katz is one of these quacks and he has found success on both right wing Fox and liberal Bill Maher’s Real Time show on HBO, precisely because his lies and distortions promote hope that the worst of our fears are unwarranted and that it is safe to return to our normal lives.

Katz sounds like he has valid credentials. The Bill Maher program starts by discussing his volunteer work at a front line Bronx Covid ward, and the fact he’s a Yale professor and physician. However, about 20% of the way into the broadcast, they flashed on the screen that he is founder and CEO of Diet ID Inc., which ought to draw everyone’s suspicions. When I looked deeper into who this Katz character was, I discovered that the overwhelming bulk of his professional career has been dedicated to nutrition and how lifestyle influences health, not the epidemiology of infectious diseases. Another red flag is that he promotes himself with 5 or more acronyms after his name. Nobody who is really good at what they do bothers to mention the lesser degrees and affiliations. At a certain point in one’s career, the high school diploma and bachelor’s degree gets dropped. More importantly, nobody who is really good at what they do has time for 5 fields of expertise.

This is an example of the False Authority Fallacy. David Katz is so desperate to get us to trust him that he tacks acronyms and degrees onto his name like medals on a general's breast. But he is NOT an authority on infectious diseases, nor pandemics.

But let’s look at the meat of what he has to say, since one doesn’t have to be an expert to have something valid to say.

Like Trump, Boris Johnson and many Wall Street leaders, he has suggested that the “cure is worse than the disease.”

Worse for whom?

The “Cure” of sheltering in place is bad for profits, but it will also save thousands, possibly millions of lives. How could staying home from work and surviving be worse than going to work and dying?

He argues that flattening the curve doesn’t reduce the number of deaths; it only delays when people die. This is a Straw Man Fallacy (defeating an argument that was never made; vanquishing a false enemy). The primary goal of flattening the curve is to reduce the burden on hospitals and the medical system so they aren’t overloaded and can continue treat patients, not to prevent deaths. So, to claim it doesn’t reduce deaths is blaming it for something it was never intended to do, at least not as its primary objective.

However, flattening the curve does save lives indirectly, because when the medical system is overloaded, people die from neglect and abandonment, as happened in NY, Italy, Spain, even Detroit, where patients were triaged and allowed to die because there weren’t enough hospital beds and ventilators. So, flattening the curve does save some lives, even if that isn’t the main goal.

He says that flattening the curve doesn’t allow people to gain immunity, but there’s no indication that people gain any lasting, robust immunity to this disease. It may turn out they do, but so far, the data does not show this to be the case. Low level, short-term immunity might be enough to slow down the pandemic, or it might not. We won’t know for a long time, probably years. Therefore, letting the disease run rampant could result in millions of deaths. That’s just plain cruel and, for young people like Dr. Katz, selfish, too, since he’s less likely to die from it. But it’s also stupid and short-sighted, because if millions of people get sick, even healthy young people with mild cases will still suffer from mass shortages and possibly famine.

Bill Maher, his interviewer, says that Sweden, which did not implement strong social distancing policies, had numbers that weren’t much different from countries that locked down, but this is not true. If you look at the data from Worldometer (as of 5/8/2020) Sweden had 314 deaths/million people and 2500 infections/million people, more than triple the mortality of Denmark, and nearly 8x the mortality of Norway. (Denmark had 90 deaths/million people and 1764 infections/million people. Norway had 40 deaths/million people and 1489 infections/million people. And Finland had 47 deaths/million people and 1036 infections/million people. Clearly, Sweden is being hit much harder than its neighbors who implemented social distancing policies.

In his attempt to get us all to relax and learn to love Covid-19, Katz says “There are risks we willing take on each day.” This is another fallacy. Sure, we take risks getting into car or planes, but it’s our own choice, not one forced upon us by the president, our employer, or our desperation to put food on the table. We could choose to take public transit, instead, which is much safer than driving ourselves, or choose not to vacation by plane. Also, a good driver has a lot more control over their own safety than they do in the workplace, where so much of their safety depends on the boss’ willingness to provide safety equipment, and on coworkers respecting safety and social distancing protocols.

Katz argues that people should be allowed back to work because “We don’t want to destroy people’s lives and livelihoods.”

Of course not, but it is not an either/or choice. We should be looking first at people’s survival needs. Contrary to common belief, work and income are not necessary for survival. Food, housing, and medicine are. These 3 necessities can be given to people, even in a system that lacks money or “work.” People’s jobs, businesses, lifestyles, can be rebuilt after the pandemic is over. Dead people cannot be brought back to life. More importantly, though, if too many people get sick or die, everyone’s survival is threatened anyway. This is why suppression of the pandemic is necessary.

Katz suggests that we should all want to get the disease and get over it so we’re immune and can go out, live our lives, without worry, but there is no evidence that people who’ve recovered from Covid-19 have robust, lasting immunity that protects them from catching it again. Worse, there IS evidence that the newer mutant strain that evolved in Europe and has become the dominant strain worldwide, is both more infectious AND makes people prone to 2^nd infections.

His “middle road” hypothesis of only protecting the most vulnerable, and forcing the rest of us back to school and work, is based on the premise that both extremes are wrong (i.e., letting the pandemic run its course, unmitigated, versus a complete lockdown). This notion is NOT supported by scientific data, which shows that 20% of hospitalizations in the U.S. are among people aged 20-44,  and that people from any age group can die. It is premised on the cynical and selfish idea that it’s okay to sacrifice people other than himself, since he presumably wouldn’t die due his youthfulness and good health.

The “middle road” hypothesis is based on another fallacy, that extremism is inherently bad and that moderation is inherently preferable. This is the same argument that gets millions of Americans to vote for the “lesser evil” every four years, instead of for what they really want.

So, are the extremes in this case inherently bad?

Well, locking things down has resulted 30 million unemployed Americans, and mass hunger, despair, fear and uncertainty. The quality of education online is most likely worse than if kids were able to learn in person. But the other extreme of sending them back into schools and workplaces while the pandemic is still running rampant, without PPE, mass testing, contact tracing and quarantines, is genocidal. It will cause infections and mortality rates to skyrocket. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions will die.

Is Katz’ “middle road” the best alternative? NO! 

First, what does he even mean by protecting the most vulnerable? Will everyone over 70, or with an underlying health condition be allowed to continue sheltering in place? If so, that’s a lot of people. Obesity is a risk factor for dying from Covid-19. There are 70 million obese Americans, nearly a quarter of the population. There are 34 million Americans with diabetes and nearly half of all Americans have heart disease. If all of them continue to shelter in place, how much more productive would the economy become?

Katz argues that the middle way minimizes deaths and averts economic ruin. But it doesn’t. Any return to work without first having significant declines in infections, and ongoing testing, contact tracing, quarantines, risks causing new surges in infections and deaths, and potentially far worse economic outcomes than we’ve seen so far. We could easily get to a point where the economy collapses purely from too many people being sick to work and shop.

Extremism is not inherently a bad thing. We are in the worst crisis the world has experience in generations. When all is said and done, this pandemic could turn out to be far deadlier, and far more economically devastating than the Spanish flu. Under such conditions, extremism is exactly what’s needed. It’s the only possible way to slow this thing down and possibly stop it.  Furthermore, if we did ramp up testing to weekly universal tests, combined with contact tracing and quarantines, we could theoretically isolate the vast majority of infections and stop the pandemic that way, or at least slow it down long enough to allow us back to work and give scientists the time to find a vaccine to prevent future outbreaks.

Disease Far Worse Than Cure-Just Look At the Numbers

In their attempts to reopen economies and relax social distancing measures, many people (including Trump, Boris Johnson, Dr. Michael Katz, Thomas Friedman) make unfounded claims like Covid-19 is not that dangerous, it's like a bad flu, you can't hide from germs, you're going to catch it eventually, anyway, so why not just go out and get it over with.

Problem #1: We do not currently know if people gain any robust, long-term immunity that protects them from future infections

Problem #2: There is evidence that the newer mutant strain that evolved in Europe and has become the dominant strain worldwide, is both more infectious and makes people prone to 2^nd infections, 

Problem #3: It's already clear that this is much worse than a bad flu. In a bad flu season (Oct-April), we generally get around 50-60,000 deaths in the U.S., primarily among the very old, infants, and immune-compromised. Whereas with covid-19, we already have nearly 80,000 deaths, and that was primarily from Feb-April. Since we know this is going to continue for another 12-24 months, we can assume there will be at least tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of more deaths by the end of the pandemic, even if the nominal mitigation efforts currently in place continue. 

One of the big problems with people like Katz, Friedman, Trump and Johnson, and others who claim the "cure" is worse than the disease, and who are calling for us to just go out there and take our chances with this "bad flu," catch our immunity and move on, is that they don't bother to extrapolate the number of deaths that would occur, let alone put that into a context that is meaningful to the general public.

But here's an attempt:

• Because  Covid-19 a brand new zoonosis, humans have no natural immunity (unlike the flu, where we have been exposed to dozens of different flu strains over our lives and have developed immunity to many of them. And there are vaccines. This gives us the possibility of some protection against novel flu viruses). Consequently, in a typical flu season, 9-40 million Americans catch the disease, which translates to 2.5%-12% of the population.
• With Covid-19, we have no natural immunity, nor a vaccine, which means almost everyone is vulnerable. Consequently, the CDC and WHO predict that, without mitigation, 60-70% of all humans will catch the disease.
• In the U.S., that translates to 196-230 million people getting infected.
• Even if no one died, and if only 10% of these people got too sick to work, that's still 19-23 million people not working. When you consider that we currently have 30 million unemployed (official count), we are now looking at the disease doing as much damage to the economy as the "cure."
• But that's assuming it spreads in a random, heterogeneous manner. In reality, diseases don't spread heterogeneously. For example, Amazon warehouses, food warehouses, grocery stores, nursing homes, meat processing plants, are all places where we've already seen the disease spread rapidly among workers or patients who, by the nature of these facilities, are either crammed close together or have human vectors (eg nursing homes) passing the disease from person to person.
• So, if we let the disease run its course and see millions of people too sick to work, with concentrations in the food industry, we could see severe food shortages, even in a wealthy country like the U.S. In poor countries, particularly war-torn ones, it is nearly certain that we will see famines of biblical proportions.
• Now let's talk about deaths, since that's what really scares people. If we take the WHO-estimate of 3.8% mortality and multiply it times 200 million sick Americans, we're talking about 7,600,000 deaths, which would easily be the deadliest pandemic in history. The Spanish flu, which up until now was the deadliest pandemic in history (at least that we're aware of) killed 675,000 Americans and 50-100 million people worldwide.
• But the true mortality rate is, no doubt, lower than 3.8%. Let's be generous and give Covid-19 the same mortality rate as a bad flu (0.1%). That would still translate into 200,000 deaths, which is far worse than seasonal flu, and serious enough that to suggest we should just let it run its course, rather than doing everything in our power to mitigate it and reduce the deaths, is like proposing premeditated mass murder, just so the economy can reopen.
• The actual mortality rate, however, may actually fall somewhere between 3.8% and 0.1%. We just won't know for a while, probably not for a few years. But let's say it's actually 1%. That would translate into 2 million deaths.

To deliberately send us back into unsafe schools and workplaces knowing that it could result in 2 million deaths--That is Genocide!