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For a second day in a row, lawyers for the Florida Education Association clashed with the governor's lawyers Thursday over plans to resume in-person teaching by the end of the month.
“We believe we laid out a convincing case to protect students and the people who work in our schools,” FEA vice president Andrew Spar said in a statement Wednesday after the first day of the legal battle ended without a compromise.
Arguing for the state, attorney David Wells said the Florida Constitution requires schools to provide students with a high-quality education and the best way to ensure that is via “face-to-face learning,” The Tampa Bay Times reported.
A Tallahassee judge is not expected to rule until next week.
IMO this new study that came out today (see link below) is why Governor Desantis recommendation of using "surgical strikes" to send children home if they exhibit symptoms of Covid-19 (along with notifying their close contacts) isn't likely to work well in controlling the spread of the virus in Florida schools.
A new study adds to growing evidence that children are not immune to COVID-19 and may even play a larger role in community spread than previously thought.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Mass General Hospital for Children found that among 192 children, 49 tested positive for the coronavirus and had significantly higher levels of virus in their airways than hospitalized adults in intensive care units, according to the study published Thursday in the Journal of Pediatrics.
“Kids are not immune from this infection, and their symptoms don’t correlate with exposure and infection,” said Dr. Alessio Fasano, senior author and director of the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Researcher Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Study authors challenged the current hypothesis that children are less likely to get sick from COVID-19 because they had fewer virus receptors than adults. The receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), binds to the coronavirus and enables it to infect healthy cells.
While they found younger children did have fewer receptors, they still carried high levels of virus. This led researchers to believe children are more contagious, calling them "silent spreaders" of COVID-19, regardless of their susceptibility to developing infection.
Scientists also discovered that only half of the children who tested positive for the disease had a fever, leading experts to question the heavy reliance of non-contact thermal scanners at building entrances.
"How likely are you to pick up every case of COVID? The answer is only 50% of the time," DeBiasi said. "You still have to put in all those other measures to try to prevent spread (because) children will be missed from screening methods."
Last edited by wondermint2; 08-20-2020 at 01:56 PM..
New guidance from President Donald Trump's administration that declares teachers to be “critical infrastructure workers” could give the green light to exempting teachers from quarantine requirements after being exposed to COVID-19 and instead send them back into the classroom.
Keeping teachers without symptoms in the classroom, as a handful of school districts in Tennessee and Georgia have already said they may do, raises the risk that they will spread the respiratory illness to students and fellow employees. Multiple teachers can be required by public health agencies to quarantine for 14 days during an outbreak, which can stretch a district's ability to keep providing in-person instruction.
“It essentially means if we are exposed and we know we might potentially be positive, we still have to come to school and we might at that point be carriers and spreaders,” said Hillary Buckner, who teaches Spanish at Chuckey-Doak High School in Afton.
At least five Manatee County schools have now reported COVID-19 cases and campus exposures after the return of students on Monday.
Tara Elementary School had “a couple” cases of COVID-19, according to the message received by parents on Wednesday evening. The message, signed by Principal Laura Campbell, said there were also “direct exposures” to the infected person.
Manatee Technical College also had a confirmed COVID-19 case on its main campus, 6305 State Road 70 E. in Bradenton. There were “direct exposures” to the infected person, according to an email received by employees on Wednesday.
“Direct exposure” means someone had close and prolonged contact with an infected person, meaning less than six feet of separation for at least 15 minutes. The definition is used by Manatee schools and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Direct exposures point to a breakdown in social distancing, one of the key safety measures advertised by the school district.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday, district employees and local families received notices about COVID-19 exposures at Ballard Elementary and Parrish Community High School, along with Rowlett Academy for Arts and Communication, a public charter school.
It was clear that people were exposed to the COVID-19 cases at each school, but the true impact was not made publicly available.
IMO the only way to effectively keep Covid-19 out of schools is if the schools utilize some of the new rapid test methods such as the new saliva test or lateral flow tests. All students and school employees will need to be tested every two days (even if they don't show symptoms). For reasons that I've mentioned in previous posts looking for "symptoms" and using temperature checks isn't going to cut it.
I don't know how feasible it will be for the schools to transition away from traditional tests to rapid tests "soon" - or what time frame this will likely take place. IMO possibly a month or more away.
*This post has 2 links - the first explaining the new rapid tests. The 2nd post shows that basically the current procedures in place for Manatee County weren't very effective in keeping Covid-19 away during the first week back to school.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb believes Yale University's saliva-based coronavirus test is an important development in the United States pandemic response.
"It's something that we can roll out on a very wide fashion," Gottlieb said CNBC on Monday.
Gottlieb also expects to see "a real explosion" in coronavirus testing opportunities coming onto the market soon.
Beyond Yale's saliva test, Gottlieb said he anticipates other additional variants of coronavirus tests to be available in the U.S. "within the next month."
Specifically, Gottlieb said that lateral flow tests, which provide a readout on a device like a pregnancy test, could be coming onto the U.S. market soon. He said they are popular in other countries and, because they can deliver results in 10 to 15 minutes, could be used to test for the coronavirus in schools and offices. "You put a sample" on a piece of paper, and then you drop some liquid on paper, he said.
"What you're going to see is a lot of this innovation come on the market all at once. This has been worked on for months, and it takes time to move this through the development process," Gottlieb said.
At least nine Manatee County schools have reported COVID-19 cases since the start of school on Monday. In most cases, an untold number of people were exposed to the respiratory illness.
W.D. Sugg Middle School had a confirmed case and no direct exposures to the infected person, according to a message sent to employees and families. A similar notification informed parents that Willis Elementary School had a case of COVID-19 and “direct exposures” to the infected person.
In total, at least nine campuses faced COVID-19 cases during the first week of school for students. They were:
- Ballard Elementary School.
- Tara Elementary School.
- Willis Elementary School.
- Moody Elementary School.
- Bayshore Elementary School.
- W.D. Sugg Middle School (no exposures).
- Parrish Community High School.
- Manatee Technical College (Main Campus).
- Rowlett Academy for Arts and Communication.
Last edited by wondermint2; 08-21-2020 at 03:36 PM..
Apparently Manatee County notifies the families of confirmed Covid-19 cases and (those that had "direct contact" with the exposed case(s)). Then Manatee County has a weekly press release where they report "basic" information to the media. However in all cases, it's unclear if the infected people were students or employees, or how many people were exposed on each campus. The district recently stopped providing that information, citing privacy laws.
Some states and school districts provide detailed data on school outbreaks. Others choose to keep such information under wraps.
In many places, reopening schools has taken on a distinctly partisan bent, with President Trump and Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis of Florida urging in-person instruction. A constant flow of information about positive cases in classrooms and quarantined students could hinder those efforts, experts said.
“When schools have to shut down after students test positive, that doesn’t look good politically on governors and lawmakers who have advocated for opening up,” said Clay Calvert, director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida. “So the potential is there to hide behind privacy laws.
“There are definitely battle lines drawn, and the release of information can sway public opinion.”
Last edited by wondermint2; 08-22-2020 at 01:04 PM..
Good news! The Covid-19 test positivity rates continue to trend down in Florida.
*(As you can see from the link below the Florida Department of Health uses two different methods to calculate their test positivity rate. They are both declining - but one method has the test positivity rates about 40% to 50% higher than the other method):
**(I'll report my weekly numbers tomorrow for Sarasota & Manatee Counties. Keep in mind that for my numbers I use the data from the Florida Dept. of Health PDF file for individual Florida Counties. This file uses their low method of calculating the test positivity rate. However I use the same data method every week - so it's still very valid for examining the trend.)
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida health officials reported a 4.89 positivity rate among new cases of coronavirus Saturday, the lowest rate since June 13. *(This is the FDH "low" method). Percent positivity for new cases is the number of people who test PCR (nose swabs) or antigen-positive for the first time divided by all the people tested that day. That does not include people who already tested positive once and have been re-tested to see if they’re still infected.
and:
Of the test results received Friday, 7.09% were positive, the lowest since June 14. *(This is the FDH "high" method). This includes people who have been tested multiple times.
Then there is a third way that John Hopkins University calculates the test positivity rate. They don't use the result of antigen tests in their calculations. As you can see from the John Hopkins data the Florida test positivity rate is also trending down - but their method of calculation gives a higher test positivity rate then the two methods provided by the Florida Department of Health.
So the trend is clearly lower (as confirmed by all three models) - but which method of calculating the test positivity rate you want to rely on the most Is a personal preference. IMO it might be more prudent to go by the John Hopkins numbers because they are an independent third party. With the Florida Department of Health it's in their best interest to use methods that tend to show a lower (more favorable) result.
Last edited by wondermint2; 08-22-2020 at 02:51 PM..
Dry air and air-conditioned rooms can help spread the coronavirus, according to an Indian-German research team that looked at the role of relative humidity in the transmission of infections.
For office workers and students worldwide, the findings are important as they head back to their desks after months in lockdown.
“The role of humidity seems to be extremely important to the airborne spread of COVID-19 in indoor environments,” the researchers reported. on the website of Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS).
The scientists, who reviewed 10 international studies of swine flu and other infectious diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, found humidity affects a virus in three ways: droplet size, how droplets float and how droplets land on surfaces.
In more humid rooms, virus droplets become heavier and fall faster in higher humidity, “providing less chances for other people to breathe in infectious viral droplets,” the team wrote, according to DW, a German news website.
For the past week in Sarasota & Manatee Counties we saw good declines for Covid-19 in the number of new cases, test positivity rates and hospitalizations. Compared to Sarasota County the weekly test positive rate was about one percentage point higher for Manatee County - but both counties saw their weekly test positive rates decline.
On August 14th Sarasota County hospitalizations for Covid-19 stood at 81 - while today Sarasota County has 67 Covid-19 hospitalizations. For Manatee County on August 14 there were 67 Covid-19 hospitalizations - while today Manatee County has 39 hospitalizations for Covid-19. (This is per the state data-base that lists hospitalizations with a primary diagnosis of Covid-19).
total positive cases = 342 (48.86 cases per day on average)
total tests = 9336 (1333.71 tests per day on average)
test positivity rate = 3.66%
weekly count of ED & FSED (emergency room visits with Covid-19 symptoms) held steady at 50 for the week beginning August 16th
Manatee County
total positive cases = 388 (55.43 cases per day on average)
total tests = 8256 (1179.42 tests per day on average)
test positivity rate = 4.7%
weekly count of ED & FSED (emergency room visits for Covid-19 symptoms) fell from 75 on the week beginning August 9th to 60 on the week beginning August 16th.
(July 19th - July 25th) total positive cases = 873 (124.7 cases per day on average)
(July 19th - 25th) total tests = 11, 217 (1602.4 tests per day on average)
(July 19th - 25th) test positivity rate = 7.78%
(July 12th -18th) total positive cases = 1123 (160.4 cases per day on average)
(July 12th - 18th) total tests = 15,758 (2251 tests per day on average)
(July 12th - 18th) test positivity rate = 7.12%
Manatee County
(July 19th - July 25th) total positive cases = 1264 (180.57 cases per day on average)
(July 19th - July 25th) total tests = 12,515 (1787.85 tests per day on average)
(July 19th - July 25th) test positivity rate = 9.9%
(July 12th - 18th) total positive cases = 1448 (206.85 cases per day on average)
(July 12th - 18th) total tests = 14,386 (2055.14 tests per day on average)
(July 12th - 18th) test positivity rate = 10%
Last edited by wondermint2; 08-23-2020 at 02:15 PM..
Saying the state has “essentially ignored the requirement of school safety” in its requirement that campuses reopen in August, Leon County Judge Charles Dodson on Monday ruled in favor of the Florida Education Association’s legal challenge of that action.
In his order, Dodson also found that the Department of Education’s order, issued July 6, essentially overrode school boards’ constitutional authority to operate their own school systems.
“An injunction in this case will allow local school boards to make safety determinations for the reopening of schools without financial penalty,” he wrote. “This is what the local school boards were elected to do.”
He ruled that the order would become constitutional if the unconstitutional portions were deleted, as the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued during their closing comments. So he struck out the order language relating to reopening plans and funding waivers.
The state is expected to appeal, which would lead to an automatic stay of the ruling. The plaintiffs would then be likely to seek an order overturning the automatic stay.
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