Category: Corona Virus

Within the span of about five days in March, our nations school system moved from the unthinkable to the inevitable. To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, schools closed, and millions of students from kindergartners to high schoolers moved to a fully remote learning model. Now, as a new school year begins, districts are grappling with how to reopen, while remote learning has left students, especially the most vulnerable learners, even further behind.Its a crisis for education, but its also an opportunity to put everything on the table and consider ideas that would have been impossible before COVID. Outdoor school, long relegated to the Waldorf fringe, is getting a serious look. The pandemic is forcing conversations about equity in education, and both parents and teachers are asking how we can reimagine the school day to prioritize student well-being and mental health.In other words, as schools adapt to COVID, what changes could actually transform education for the better?

COVID-19 is an airborne pathogen, meaning that one of the best ways to mitigate risk is to step outside into the open air. Yet, rather than move in-person school outdoors, districts have doubled down on virtual learning.

On Monday of the week everything shut down, 100% distance learning seemed preposterous. By Friday, it was inevitable, says Vanessa Carter, an environmental literacy content specialist at San Francisco Unified School District. The pivot was, lets get everyone in front of a screen. Is it any crazier to try to get kids 100% outside?

(Carter notes that the ideas here are her own, and not meant to represent SFUSD decisions or current planning.)

Research shows that spending time in nature builds resilience and self-confidence in kids; reduces obesity and attention deficit disorder symptoms; and improves focus, behavior and learning. During the pandemic, it would also mean giving students in-person instruction rather than teaching via screens.

Just to get kids back to in-person learning would be huge, for our youngest learners especially, says Carter. To start, use what you have. Move whiteboards and tables and chairs outside. Dont reinvent the wheel.

Carter acknowledges that there are challenges to taking learning outside. Not all schools have outdoor campuses or parks nearby, not all parks are created equal, and not all neighborhoods are walkable.

To make outdoor learning sustainable, schools would need infrastructure like tents and outdoor furniture, as well as more staff.

Dont leave it to schools to figure out how to pay for this, says Carter. Could a government stimulus program support outdoor learning? Corporate sponsorships? With so much philanthropy being directed to COVID response right now, perhaps districts could appeal directly to environmental nonprofits and donors.

Hopeful: Given the renewed attention education has received in recent months, these potential fixes dont feel as fictional as they once did.

And if outdoor learning starts by moving the classroom model into a yard or a park, it can grow beyond teaching regular curriculum in a new environment.

We have this pretty remarkable workforce of environmental and outdoor educators and science educators in the Bay Area, says Carter, pointing to staff members from childrens museums, science museums and organizations like the YMCA and NatureBridge who are cleared to work with children. What if some of the funding to support education during COVID was routed through these organizations to redirect staff to schools, to support teachers with outdoor learning?

Then the question becomes: How do we get kids outdoors? For schools near the Presidio, its easy; for campuses in the Tenderloin or Chinatown; its more challenging. Given that many tech companies have announced they will work from home for at least the next year, could there be a way to redeploy the fleet of tech buses that shuttles city dwellers to Silicon Valley? There are a mountain of obstacles to this making sure buses are certified to transport kids, finding the funding to hire more drivers, especially since SFUSD just laid off all its bus drivers. But if this would allow in-person learning to take place, and potentially enable the district to rehire essential bus drivers, its a challenge worth tackling.

And when school finally goes back to normal, we should still think twice before herding kids back into the classroom all day.

Being outside more I think youll see students are more calm and that there are tremendous mental health benefits, says Carter, who also believes that truancy rates would decrease.

Weve tried the more, more, more approach, she says of the conventional classroom. Its not working.

That may be the strongest argument for a long-term shift to more outdoor learning that it actually improves outcomes for kids. After the pandemic, lets try to remember that.

We wont know the full mental health toll of the pandemic on children for years to come, but we do know this: As millions of families face financial hardship, the illness or loss of loved ones, prolonged uncertainty and the complete obliteration of normal routines, its a recipe for increased rates of anxiety and depression in kids and adolescents.

Its also an opportunity for schools to rethink how they support students mental health.

Some schools are already doing this by building social-emotional learning (SEL) lessons focused on how to manage and regulate emotions, build relationships and show empathy into their curricula. But the pandemic is a chance to try bolder ideas. Especially since there is evidence that for some kids, getting a break from the pressure cooker of academic expectations and after-school commitments has been better for their mental health.

Even as we long to get back to before, its important to ask if before was really that great. We already had an epidemic of anxiety among children, teens and college students in the United States. This forced pause could be a time for educators and school administrators to reconsider how we support mental health at school.

Wendy Mogel, clinical psychologist and author of the parenting book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, suggests an approach that is radical in its simplicity: Talk to the children. If the question is, How can we redesign the school day or focus on social-emotional learning to make kids less stressed? talk to them and see what they have to say.

Mogel offers a set of questions that focus on student well-being: What do you miss most about school? What are you relieved about not having to do? What was the hardest part about the school shutdown, and what did you enjoy? What did you discover about the way you like to learn? You need someone who is really good with kids a youth pastor, the school psychologist to ask the questions, she says.

In Mogels experience, one of the biggest contributors to anxiety and stress in students is schools focus on conventional academic learning over creative intelligence, experiential learning and citizenship.

Ideally, art, science and SEL would be woven into an integrated curriculum, says Mogel. And adding SEL to the Core Curriculum would give it both pride of place and legal standing.

She also advocates for more time outdoors and in nature, more hands-on learning through all five senses and learning through fellowship. Weve taken this whole complicated, rich creature, which is a child, and distilled it into numbers and rankings. It causes so much anxiety and depression in both kids and parents.

Leyla Bologlu, a pediatric neuropsychologist in San Francisco, notes that for children with learning differences, anxiety and self-doubt are heightened in classroom settings, and for some, during remote school as well. However, distance learning has forced educators to pace differently and shorten instruction periods for younger students. The benefits of that suggest better ways to support differentiated learners when in-person classes restart.

We need to rethink how scheduled children are, she says. How many adults work more than 8 or 10 hours? We ask our children to work those hours.

Because motor skills and cognitive skills develop in tandem (Its not uncommon to see language bursts follow a major motor milestone, Bologlu says), Bologlu has been excited by the increase in physical activity on her street. In some ways we are getting back to important developmental basics, she says. She suggests schools add more body breaks into the school day and longer transition times between academic subjects.

To pull all of this together and create accountability, Mogel says schools should create a position of director of mental health. Think of it as a sanity czar.

This person would need to be really adept at interviewing kids and handling parents, she says, and to show that the position is truly valued, pay them a lot of money.

From access to high-speed internet to proximity to outdoor space to the scramble to form learning pods, almost every COVID adaptation has exposed inequities in education.

Lately, the conversation has turned to an uncomfortable question: How do we feel living in a country where private schools can potentially reopen with heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, as well as COVID consultants while public schools cannot?

This is an opportunity for everyone public schools and independent schools to rethink how we educate, teach and learn, says Deborah Sims, a former Bay Area school administrator and superintendent, who now works as an education consultant. She notes that all the things that disadvantage kids during remote learning not having a private place to work, access to WiFi or an adult at home able to help also make regular school harder.

Schools were already starting to have these conversations around equity, but the pandemic has accelerated them, says Sims. When schools return in-person, it could be an opportunity to rethink how much work students are asked to do at home now that we are more aware of the ways that privilege plays a role.

Just consider the inequity baked into a school rite of passage: the elaborate science or history project. One childs parents go out and get all sorts of supplies and help their kid build a pyramid that could go in a museum, says Sims. The other child doesnt even have access to materials or an adult at home during the day to help.

The solution is not to stop doing projects. Its to restructure the school day so that more of the work can be collaborative and done during school hours.

Heres the good news: Local districts are already thinking hard about how to tackle many of these challenges. SFUSD is working to make sure that every student in the district has a device and hot spot for remote learning. Educators are recognizing that outdoor education and a stronger focus on SEL may be key to getting through the pandemic, and when its over, well have what amounts to data from thousands of mini pilot programs.

At that point, schools will need to ensure that the changes that have positive benefits for kids more unstructured time during the day, outdoor learning, SEL and wellness as part of the curriculum dont fall away as soon as we go back to normal. This is a chance to rethink education for the better. For all kids.

Anna Nordberg is Bay Area feelance writer. Email: Culture@sfchronicle.com

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Could the coronavirus pandemic change education for the better? - San Francisco Chronicle

Lock down the village, test everybody, and isolate the positives. It really works, Andrea Crisanti says.

By Douglas StarrAug. 27, 2020 , 12:00 PM

Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

Andrea Crisanti was on a 30-hour flight from Italy to Australia for a conference on 22 February when some disturbing news appeared on his phone. Italy had just had its first COVID-19 death, and more cases were accumulating fast. He asked conference organizers to move his talk to the first day, and made the grueling trip back home after that. Its something I do not recommend, he says.

Crisanti, head of the microbiology department at the University of Padua, already knew trouble was coming and had geared up his lab to do large-scale testing for the new coronavirus. As it began to devastate his nation, Crisanti put his university and region at the forefront of the fight with an all-out campaign of testing and quarantine, even when that meant defying conventional wisdom.

A soft-spoken 65-year-old with graying hair and soft brown eyes, Crisanti has a matter-of-fact way of stating his opinionseven when he opines that something is bullshit. Hes an innovative person who knows his own worth and has confidence in his judgments, says Jules Hoffmann, a Nobel Prize winner and professor of integrative biology at the University of Strasbourg. His decisiveness helped rein in his regions outbreak and show the rest of Italy how to tame the virus, which hit the country early and hard.

Crisanti, who trained in immunology and biotechnology in Rome before spending 25 years at Imperial College London, was used to fighting another scourge: malaria. Last fall, the University of Padua recruited him to continue his research on genetic strategies to block mosquito reproduction. But when news about the coronavirus began to emerge from China, Crisanti immediately shifted his focus.

In late January, when Chinese scientists published the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus, Crisanti began to test university students returning from China, symptomatic or not. He had conducted a few hundred tests when the regional health department told him to stop. Guidelines from the World Health Organization and Italys National Institute of Health said to test only patients with symptoms, he was told. Crisanti says the restriction made no sense: I know very few infectious diseases where asymptomatic people do not play a major role.

Thats where things stood when he got word of the first Italian COVID-19 fatality. The patient was from Vo, a prosperous village in the region of Veneto, about 50 kilometers west of Venice. The regions governor ordered a 2-week quarantine of the town and testing of almost all 3300 residents. Anyone who tested positive was put on lockdown.

At the time, anecdotal reports were emerging from China about asymptomatic transmission, but no one had produced definitive evidence. Crisanti saw Vo as an ideal place to conduct an epidemiological experiment: a small population, universally tested, whose progress could be monitored closely. He got approval to retest everyone in the village 9 days after the first round of testing.

The numbers confirmed his thinking about asymptomatic transmission. In the first round of testing, 73 residents were positive for the virus. More than 40% of them had no symptoms yet had levels of the virus similar to those who were visibly ill. The Vo study also confirmed that isolating people helps stem transmission. Everyone who had tested positive was confined to their home, regardless of whether they had symptoms. By the second round of testing, a week and a half later, the number of positives had dropped to 29; they, too, were isolated. A third round of tests 2 months after the second found no positive cases.

If you want to eliminate a cluster you have to lock down the village [or neighborhood], test everybody, and isolate the positives, Crisanti says. It really works.

Crisanti persuaded the regional government of Veneto to test anyone with even the mildest of symptoms, and to trace and test their contacts as well. The effort targeted medical personnel and essential workers, such as supermarket cashiers. It helped that Veneto has a long tradition of taking strong public health measures, dating back to the invention of the quarantine during the 14th century plagues. (The word quarantine is derived from the word for 40 days in an old Venetian dialectthe period for which incoming ships had to anchor in the harbor to avoid bringing in plague.) The regions infrastructure was ready for a pandemic, with a health care policy that emphasizes decentralized primary care. In this case,that meant sending well-equipped nurses to test people at home or admitting them to small local hospitals with dedicated COVID-19 units.

In contrast, neighboring Lombardy, the prosperous region in which Milan is located, has emphasized large, urban hospitals offering first-rate surgical and specialty care. That system backfired in the pandemic, funneling sick people into the hospitals, which in turn became sources of infection. Lombardy became the worst affected region of Italy, with 2.5 times the number of cases and four times the number of deaths per capita as Veneto.

From the beginning, Crisanti was prescient. In late January he ordered enough reagent to process half a million swabs; then had his lab analyze the reagents and begin to produce its own. Thus, when other regions were running short, Veneto had a surplus of reagents. Later he ordered a piece of equipment that could process tests at high speed, tracking down a demo machine in London when he couldnt procure one through the usual means because of heightened demand from the pandemic. We got the only one in Italy, he says. The machine quadrupled his laboratorys throughput to more than 6000 swabs per day. Along the way, Veneto became an example of the value of extensive testing, tracing, and isolationand ensuring the means to do it.

Newspapers hailed Crisanti as the father of the swabs, and the rebel scientist, for his defiance of official policy in the early days of the pandemic. He received the Lion of Veneto award for his service to the region, the seal of the city of Padua, and was honored by a special concert in Vo. Yet it hasnt all been smooth. As the outbreak began to abate, the regions governor, Luca Zaia, downplayed Crisantis contribution in comments to the press and claimed that he and his government deserved credit for taming the virus. Eager to reopen Veneto for tourism, Zaia became irritated by Crisantis insistence to go slow and turned to other scientists for advice. The freeze-out became so severe that in July, Crisanti said he would resign from the regions advisory board, only to be talked out of it by colleagues and admirers.

Now, theres a truce between the scientist and the politician. It may have been a joint effort, says Antonio Cassone, professor emeritus of medical microbiology at the University of Perugia. But Andrea proved essential.

Moving forward, Crisanti is analyzing the genetic and blood samples his team collected during the Veneto outbreak to learn more about individual susceptibility and antibody response. He remains undaunted by his encounter with politics. The most important thing is to convey simple, clear, and honest messages, he says. And if you dont know something just say it openly. People need to know the truth.

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How Italy's 'father of the swabs' fought the coronavirus - Science Magazine

Although scientists are racing to develop treatments that will fight the coronavirus, only a handful are considered promising, and all need further study. No drugs have been found to be safe and effective treatments for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, by the Food and Drug Administration.

The president declared, We developed a wide array of effective treatments, including a powerful antibody treatment known as convalescent plasma, which he claimed will save thousands and thousands of lives.

In fact, convalescent plasma has been used by doctors for decades, and with coronavirus patients since the early days of the outbreak. Its effectiveness, however, is still in question and has most likely been exaggerated by the administration, and because it must be made from blood donations from Covid-19 survivors, its availability is expected to be limited.

As for a vaccine, it is impossible to predict when one will become availability with certainty. A few drug makers are far along in testing their vaccines, but the process then includes securing F.D.A. approval, ramping up manufacturing and setting up a distribution system an awful lot to pack into the next four months.

Paul Mango, an official at the federal Department of Health and Human Services who is helping to lead the vaccine effort, told reporters Friday that while hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine will indeed be manufactured by the end of the year, what is uncertain is whether or not they will be F.D.A. approved.

Nevertheless, Mr. Trump sounded an optimistic note, saying that there would be a vaccine before the end of the year or maybe even sooner.

The coronavirus pandemic shows little sign of abating in the United States, with nearly six million total cases and an average of 42,000 new daily cases. The campaign of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. noted Friday that at least 3,525 Americans had lost their lives to the coronavirus since the Republican convention began on Monday. (The New York Times counted 4,037.)

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For Trump, G.O.P. Created an Alternative America Beyond Covid-19 - The New York Times

A worker disinfects the inside of a bus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Transit agencies are taking new steps to reduce the risks for riders during the pandemic. Michael Tewelde/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images hide caption

A worker disinfects the inside of a bus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Transit agencies are taking new steps to reduce the risks for riders during the pandemic.

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions."

Is it safe to take public transit?

It's one of those tricky COVID-19 things to navigate ... no pun intended.

On the one hand, data reveals that people are staying away from mass transit in huge numbers compared to before the novel coronavirus. In New York City, for instance, subway ridership is at just 20% of its 5.5 million weekday riders pre-pandemic.

Transit, a mobile app providing real-time public transit data, analyzed 139 transit agencies spanning 68 metro areas and 6 countries and found that demand for public transit has dropped 53% since the onset of the pandemic.

People are understandably worried about the risks of contagion and being trapped in an enclosed space for the duration of a trip.

But ridership is beginning to rebound. Since April, the Transit app data shows, the number of those taking public transit has slowly but steadily increased.

Plus, for many, like essential workers, stopping commuting wasn't a choice, as Stephen Morse, professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Medical Center points out.

"Many of us may have no alternative especially when it comes to essential workers, who, in New York, travel from various boroughs to work," says Morse. "There's no alternative to mass transit."

Unfortunately, few academic studies have systematically looked at the risk of mass transit although case studies from public health authorities in Paris, Austria and Tokyo have been unable to tie any group of outbreaks to rail lines or city public transportation.

Nonetheless, Morse and other public health specialists urge that mass transit be approached with caution.

Morse says that with all public transit buses, subways, trains there is always some risk of infection. After all, you are entering a public space. But he says it's possible to reduce that risk significantly by wearing a multi-layered mask and maintaining good hand hygiene in other words, doing the 20-to-30 second wash before and after.

Robyn Gershon, a clinical professor of epidemiology and public health disaster researcher who has studied the impact of COVID-19 on transit workers, says you can divide the safety of motorized transit options into tiers.

Safest is driving your own car, but of course, not everyone owns or can even afford a car.

Rideshare apps like Uber come next, but they're a little challenging in terms of evaluating risk, Gershon says. It's a good sign when your driver has put up panels that create a barrier between the front and back of the car, wears a mask and keeps the windows open to encourage ventilation and airflow. Such measures help reduce the risk of viral particle exchange between you and your driver.

Buses and subways represent the final and greatest tier of risk. Gershon says buses might pose even more potential risk, because it could be harder for passengers to maintain distance from each other while subways tend to have several cars on a train, offering a greater opportunity to stay 6 feet or more from others.

"I think you can prudently ride the subway if you're reasonably healthy and have no other risk factors," Gershon says. "But also, where are you going? to a bar? To your workplace? This also matters in terms of assessing risk."

Part of the reason Gershon and Morse feel more confident about the subway: Transit agencies around the world are taking impressive efforts to get squeaky clean.

Gershon gives the example of New York's MTA: "They started a very extensive and exhaustive program of deep cleaning those subways have been more clean than, like, forever," she says. "They shut them down every day from 2 to 5 a.m. to clean."

In addition, the New York subway system uses HVAC systems in each individual car, which turn over air quickly and filter out viral particles, Gershon says. That may aid in mitigating some of the risk associated with a respiratory disease.

These protective efforts are going on around the world. In Ethiopia, authorities have begun disinfecting public buses to reinstill confidence in transit. Hong Kong has successfully used a disinfection robot to spray bleach in train waiting areas. In Prague, authorities disinfect 10 to 12 trams a day with a deep cleaning. And Seoul has set up isolation rooms in case transit workers develop symptoms.

Meanwhile, transit agencies are taking other steps besides cleaning and mandating face masks. Some systems are increasing service to reduce overcrowding.

You can read more about steps taken by different transit authorities in this report from the International Association of Public Transport.

Wherever you are, if you're taking public transit, Gershon recommends wearing a mask with at least four layers for example, both a cloth and surgical mask and to avoid touching your cellphone or face once you board. (If you can't keep your hands off your phone, wipe it down with a sterile alcohol wipe and wash your hands with soap and water after disembarking.)

"The first thing to think about is: How are you going to protect your nose, mouth and eyes," Morse says. "The main concern is that you might pick up the virus from your fingers, whether [by touching] a floor, a pole on the subway, something you hold onto or an inanimate object" and then touch your face.

Another point to consider before riding: local rates of transmission.

"You should see: Are cases high or are they coming down?" Gershon says. She urges transit patrons to tailor their behaviors to regional trends.

"Quite frankly, I feel the subways [in New York] now are relatively safe," Gershon says. "It's definitely better than a bar where people are chewing or talking that's probably the riskiest thing right now."

Pranav Baskar is a freelance journalist and U.S. national born in Mumbai.

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In A Pandemic, Is It Safe To Ride A Bus Or Subway? : Goats and Soda - NPR

And they come in a statistical joint last place with the British on whether their country has handled the pandemic well, the poll finds.

In the United States, fewer than two in 10 people (18%) said the country is more united now.

That's a full 21 percentage points below the next lowest-ranking countries, Germany and France, where just under four in 10 (39%) respondents expressed that opinion. Denmark had the highest percentage saying their country was more united now, with more than seven in 10 (72%) giving that answer.

As with so many questions these hyper-partisan days, there's a gigantic gap between Republican and Democratic views of whether the Trump administration has handled the pandemic well.

Three quarters (76%) of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the government has done a good job. Only one quarter (25%) of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents agree.

The findings come from a Pew Research Center survey of 14 advanced economies in North America, Europe and Asia. The Washington, DC-based think tank interviewed 14,276 adults by telephone from June 10 to August 3.

A clear majority of people across the 14 countries said their own nation had handled Covid-19 well: 73% agreed, while 27% disagreed.

But in the United Kingdom and the United States, the figures were much lower: 46% and 47% respectively. They're the only two countries where a minority of people said the government had done well. In every other country polled, most people said their government had done well, from Japan with 55% up to Denmark with 95%.

The United States is not the only country where support for the government's coronavirus response broke along partisan lines -- the Pew survey detected the same pattern in the UK and in Spain.

Those results show it's not a matter of whether you're on the left or the right of the political spectrum that predicts whether you think your government has done well. The US and UK have right-leaning governments, while Spain has a left-leaning one. In each country, people with the same political bent as the government tend to say it's done well in the crisis.

John Curtice, one of Britain's leading polling experts, said that phenomenon is well understood by social scientists.

"Generally speaking, it doesn't matter what you're asking: the government in power is more likely to be seen well by people who voted for it than people who didn't," said Curtice, a professor at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

But he pointed out that the findings do make it possible to compare how well each government is doing among its own supporters.

In Spain and the United States, about three-quarters of government supporters say their country has handled the coronavirus well -- but in the UK, the figure is just over half.

Pew Research Center research associate Kat Devlin pointed out that not all countries polled had a political divide over views of the government response, "especially in countries with high levels of overall satisfaction with how their nation has dealt with the COVID-19 outbreak."

"In Denmark, currently led by the center-left Social Democrats, and in Australia, whose leader Scott Morrison belongs to the center-right Liberal Party of Australia, at least nine-in-ten adults on both the political left and political right believe their country has done well against the coronavirus," Devlin, one of the report authors, told CNN by email.

Economic confidence is also linked to the belief the government is doing well. In all 14 countries in the survey, people who said the current economic situation is good were more likely to say the government was doing a good job on coronavirus.

Again, the US is the most extreme example of the trend: There's a 44-point gap between those who say the current economic situation is bad but the government is handling the crisis well (34%) and those who say the economic situation is good and the government is handling the crisis well (78%).

One possibly surprising area where the United States falls smack in the middle of the pack is on the question of whether more international cooperation would have reduced the number of coronavirus cases in their country. Across the whole 14-country survey, 59% of people said it would, while 36% said it would not. In the United States, 58% said more cooperation between countries would have helped and 37% said it would not.

Among other findings in the survey, women in every country are more likely than men to say their lives have changed because of the crisis, with a gap as high as 15 points in the United States, France and Sweden.

And perhaps most surprising of all, in Sweden -- which famously put almost no restrictions in place to stop the spread of the virus -- more than seven out of 10 people (71%) said their lives had changed a great deal as a result of the outbreak. That's the second highest percentage of any country in the survey, behind South Korea (81%), which put sweeping restrictions in place.

The Pew Research Center conducted nationally representative telephone surveys of adults in the United States, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

The study was conducted only in countries where nationally representative telephone surveys are feasible.

"Due to the coronavirus outbreak, face-to-face interviewing is not currently possible in many parts of the world that we have previously included in our research," report co-author Devlin said. "We have surveyed in 12 of these nations virtually every year since 2016, and they represent some of the world's largest economies and traditional allies of the US."

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US and UK are bottom of the pile in rankings of governments' handling of coronavirus pandemic - CNN

MinnPost provides updates on coronavirus in Minnesota Sunday through Friday. The information is published following a press phone call with members of the Walz administration or after the release of daily COVID-19 figures by the Minnesota Department of Health.

Here are the latest updates from August 28:

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Four more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Friday, for a total of 1,810.

Of the people whose deaths were announced Friday, three were in their 80s and one was in their 70s. Two of the 4 deaths announced Friday were among residents of long-term care facilities. Of the 1,810 COVID-19 deaths reported in Minnesota, 1,333 have been among residents of long-term care.

The current death toll only includes Minnesotans with lab-confirmed positive COVID-19 tests.

MDH also said Friday there have been 73,240 total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota. The number of confirmed cases is up 850 from Thursdays count and is based on 16,319 new tests. You can find the seven-day positive case average here.

If you read Thursdays coronavirus update, you may remember that the case count was high because MDH added in tests from a provider that neglected to report on time.

Data fluke notwithstanding, officials are worried about recently increased case counts.

Many cases reported recently come from social gatherings a big wedding, big funerals, off-campus house parties and the like. The number of cases associated with Sturgis attendees is now at 46, and some secondary infections have been reported, some related to a wedding. Two Sturgis cases have been hospitalized, including one in the ICU.

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Since the start of the outbreak, 6,357 Minnesotans have been hospitalized and 301 are currently in the hospital, 137 in intensive care. You can find more information about Minnesotas current ICU usage and capacity here.

Of the 73,240 confirmed positive cases in Minnesota, 65,204 are believed to have recovered.

More information on cases can be found here.

Minnesota has signed up for a FEMA-administered program that will bring an extra $300 a week to people on unemployment.

The $300 per week payments will be retroactive to Aug. 1. The CARES Act supplemental benefits program, which provided an extra $600 per week, expired at the end of July.

The Star Tribune reports Minnesotans on unemployment could start seeing the extra payments by the end of next week or the following week, and DEED estimates the funds could be available for between five and eight weeks.

As we reported yesterday, the number of people on unemployment has declined faster than at any time since the pandemic in recent weeks, but is still very high.

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As college students go back to campus, coronavirus cases at colleges and universities are on the rise.

MDH said there were 254 COVID-19 cases among people associated with colleges or universities in Minnesota the week of Aug. 17, when students at some schools went back to campus.

Of those cases, 206 were students, 39 were staff. Thirty were living on campus.

Of 90 who were on campus while infectious, 62 were students and 24 were staff.

Fifty-one colleges in Minnesota had at least one reported case of COVID-19 in the last week, and seven schools had five or more cases.

MDH Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann reiterated the importance of limiting spread; With nearly 200 colleges and universities in the state of Minnesota, theres a lot of potential new cases, she said.

This week, the CDC alarmed many public health officials by changing its testing guidelines and saying that asymptomatic contacts of COVID-19 cases no longer need be tested.

Ehresmann said the state is not changing its guidelines. She said testing close contacts of COVID-19 cases, even if they are asymptomatic, is critical for catching cases earlier.

Every case was once a contact, Ehresmann said.

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She also reminded Minnesotans that if they are contacts of known COVID-19 cases they should quarantine for 14 days even if they test negative. Because the incubation period for the novel coronavirus is 14 days, someone could test negative on day seven and still develop an infection inside that 14-day window.

Ehresmann acknowledged that 14-day quarantines can be a big burden on Minnesotans and their families, but said it is critical that residents follow guidance in order to slow the spread and keep places like schools open and communities safe.

Public health and safety officials will increase checks on bars and restaurants starting Friday to ensure they are following executive orders on safe operation during COVID-19, Ehresmanns said.

State agencies have received complaints from both customers and owners and operators of bars and restaurants about noncompliance with executive orders.

Ehresmann said most establishments are following guidelines, but its hard for them to compete or explain to customers why they are following the guidelines when other establishments arent. When bars and restaurants dont follow the guidelines, it has resulted in COVID-19 outbreaks.

Walz addressed the crackdown in a press conference Friday afternoon.

Some of these businesses, and its a small number of them, if they choose not to follow the best health guidance, they put all of the businesses at risk, they put all of our health at risk, Walz said.

He said that while the state is hovering at a positivity rate between 4.8 percent and 5 percent, We need to keep the lid on this.

In this environment, Walz said he had the choice to either tighten restrictions on bars and restaurants levels of openness or push for better adherence to health requirements.

MDHs coronavirus website: https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/index.html

Hotline, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.: 651-201-3920

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The daily coronavirus update: 4 more deaths; unemployment add-on could be ready next week - MinnPost

The Oregon Health Authority reported Friday that a 29-year-old Multnomah County man with no underlying conditions died of coronavirus on Aug. 22 at Oregon Health and Science University.

The agency also reported 301 new confirmed or presumptive cases of COVID-19 Friday -- up from 212 cases reported Thursday -- and a total of nine new deaths.

The total number of reported cases in Oregon now stands at 26,054.

Multnomah County had the most reported cases Friday -- 72 -- followed by Marion county with 43 cases, Malheur County with 37 cases, Clackamas County with 27 cases and Umatilla and Washington County with 20 cases each.

As of Friday, 447 people were confirmed to have died from the virus in Oregon.

State officials also reported an outbreak of 25 cases at Milgard Windows and Doors in Washington County. According to a press release from OHA, the case count may include household members and close contacts of employees.

Where the new cases are by county: Baker (1), Benton (1), Clackamas (27), Coos (4), Deschutes (7), Douglas (3), Jackson (14), Jefferson (3), Josephine (1), Klamath (4), Lane (10), Lincoln (4), Linn (5), Malheur (37), Marion (43), Morrow (9), Multnomah (72), Polk (9), Umatilla (20), Union (2), Washington (20), and Yamhill (5).

New fatalities: The states 439th reported COVID-19 death was an 84-year-old Marion County man who died at Salem Hospital. He tested positive on Aug. 20 and died on Aug. 27. He had unspecified underlying conditions.

A 50-year-old Washington County man was the states 440th reported death from the virus. He tested positive on June 4 and died on Aug. 23. OHA is still confirming his place of death. He had unspecified underlying conditions.

A 73-year-old Umatilla County man in Umatilla County who tested positive on Aug. 9 and died on Aug. 23 was the 441st death. He died at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, Washington. OHA has not confirmed the presence of any underlying conditions.

Oregons 442nd death was also in Umatilla County. On Aug. 26, 54-year-old man from that county died at St. Anthony Hospital. He tested positive on Aug. 23. OHA has not confirmed the presence of any underlying conditions.

A 94-year-old man in Polk County died in his residence on Aug. 25 after testing positive on Aug. 11. He is Oregons 443rd death and he had unspecified underlying conditions.

The states 444th COVID-19 death is a 73-year-old Malheur County woman who died on Aug. 1. According to OHA, her death certificate listed COVID-19 disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death.

A 78-year-old man in Multnomah County died in his residence on Aug. 15 after testing positive on July 26. He had unspecified underlying conditions and was the states 445th death.

Oregons 446th COVID-19 death was a 97-year-old Malheur County woman. She died at at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho. The woman tested positive on Aug. 11 and died on Aug. 13 and she had unspecified underlying conditions.

A 29-year-old Multnomah County man with no underlying conditions died of coronavirus the same day he tested positive, Aug. 22, at Oregon Health and Science University. He was the states 447th death from COVID-19 and had no underlying conditions.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.

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Coronavirus in Oregon: 9 new deaths, including man in his 20s; 301 new cases reported Friday - oregonlive.com

Phones rang across Pinellas County late Monday afternoon, all receiving the same message from the school district.

Please remember: If anyone in your household has tested positive for COVID-19, no members of your household should come to school until you have received direction from the Department of Health or the School District, said Sara OToole, the districts health services manager.

And if your student has been tested for COVID-19, but is awaiting test results, your student and all other members of the household must not come to school until they receive a negative test result.

The reminder was critical for all families and not just in Pinellas as thousands of masked children are returning to their classrooms this week and next during the coronavirus pandemic. But it particularly resonated for those attending Northeast High in St. Petersburg, where a student attended classes all day before getting a call with positive test results.

A quarantine order quickly followed for the students and staff who had been exposed. A separate email alert arrived soon after.

Chatter ensued on social media, where the order of the day was annoyance.

Its irritating that parents would send a student to school while they were still waiting for results, said Julie Campbell, whose daughter, Cassidy, is a Northeast junior. That just seems irresponsible. Youve now clearly brought it to school, and there are staff members with underlying medical conditions.

Questions also cropped up about how decisions get made regarding who gets sent home, and why, when cases are discovered. Why, for example, did a single case at Clearwater High cause no quarantine while a single case at Carwise Middle lead to seven classrooms being told to isolate?

In Pinellas, as with other Tampa-area districts, the answer lies in the details uncovered through contact tracing.

The student at Clearwater High never came in contact with anyone at school, the district reported, while the one at Carwise Middle attended seven classes.

Its critical that we know every single place the student has been, including whether or not theyve been in the media center, whether or not theyve been in the cafeteria, which hallways theyve been in, said Tracye Brown, chief of climate and culture for Hillsborough County schools, which return to classrooms on Monday. We will look at each situation individually.

Each local district is defining exposure as being 6 feet or closer to a person with the virus for 15 minutes or longer, a guideline set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But, to allow for flexibility, theyre not setting specific rules, such as closing a school after a certain number of cases arise or a designated percentage of students and staff are exposed, said Ray Gadd, Pasco County deputy superintendent.

Were doing it on a case-by-case basis, and it really has to do with containment, Gadd said.

At the same time, he added, everyone has to be reasonable in their reactions. A student who becomes ill from over-exertion during athletic training is not the same as one who is sick from the virus, Gadd noted. If a child exhibits momentary symptoms from explainable events and quickly recovers, then they need to come back to school, he said.

Health department officials play a critical part in determining the response, district officials in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco said. But equally important is the role of students, parents and staff members.

They need to understand that their actions make a difference in how widespread, or how limited, the virus can be in the schools, Pinellas superintendent Mike Grego stressed at a recent School Board meeting.

For us to be successful, every single person in this community has got to chip in, Grego said.

That means staying home if you are running a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher, feel sick, live with someone who has COVID-19, or are waiting for test results. It also means wearing a mask, washing hands and following instructions after youve tested positive or been exposed.

In advance of students return Monday, the Hillsborough district sent parents a letter explaining the basic quarantine and isolation plans for when incidents arise. The Pinellas district rolled out a chart from the state that details the process it will follow. It also waived its attendance rules for exam exemptions, to eliminate incentives for coming to class when ill.

The Pasco district set up its own one-page chart to help its leaders make decisions.

The districts also have started to release basic information about the cases that are reported, school by school. These include instances where students or staff have not made contact with anyone else.

Its better to over share, Gadd suggested, than to under report at a time when everyone is anxious and trying to make good decisions.

Well give you all the information we have, he said. You make the call.

Times staff writer Sharon Kennedy Wynne contributed to this report.

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Theres coronavirus in the classroom. Why isnt everyone going home? - Tampa Bay Times

CLEVELAND, Ohio For the first time Friday, the Cuyahoga County Board of Health disclosed that at least eight suburban school districts have cases of the deadly coronavirus, but refused to identify the districts.

Health Commissioner Terry Allan cited privacy concerns Friday, when asked by cleveland.com for the names of the districts where he reported during a weekly briefing that a total of 19 students and four faculty are infected.

Allan also said his board is monitoring an unspecified number of additional cases, and again withheld the names of the districts.

All of the cases at the eight districts are related to sports activities, he said, adding that the board will continue to keep tabs on transmission among students and school staff as students head back to class this fall.

Last week, county health officials warned that some students were not cooperating with contact-tracing efforts because they didnt want to be barred from participating in extracurriculars and other school activities.

Asked on Friday whether that continues to be a problem, Allan said people generally cooperate with contact-tracers, but some exceptions exist.

The cases affecting students and faculty are among the 10,689 lab-confirmed or probable coronavirus cases reported in suburban Cuyahoga County since the pandemic began.

This week, the board reported 529 new cases, continuing a six-week downward trend from a mid-July weekly high of 919.

Of the 10,689 cases reported so far, 22% are among people between 20 and 29 years old, the age group with the highest number of cases. Forty-six percent of patients are white, 29% are Black, and 3% are Hispanic. People without preexisting conditions comprise 34% of cases to date, while 37% have preexisting cases. (Medical history is unknown for 30% of cases.)

The 32 coronavirus deaths among suburban residents this week more than doubled last weeks total of 14.

The positivity rate of tests conducted by Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth and University Hospitals was 4.3% this week, up from 4% the previous week. Board Medical Director Dr. Heidi Gullet said the board is pleased that rate has remained low in recent weeks, but noted the board is keeping an eye on whether it continues to remain at that level.

About 86% of intensive-care unit beds in Cuyahoga County hospitals are occupied, the highest rate since the pandemic began. But Gullet said only about 10% of those beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, a percentage that she said has remained relatively steady over time.

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At least 8 suburban Cuyahoga County schools have coronavirus cases, but county Board of Health refuses to ide - cleveland.com

The faces flicker across our screens, making a pitch in speech and song to voters who may or may not be listening. To document the national political conventions in this pandemic year, Damon Winter went into ordinary peoples homes in upstate New York and projected images from the live broadcasts across bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, basements wherever the residents typically watch or listen to the news. The photographs he took of these projections capture the strangeness of this years conventions, and how dramatically they differed from the events in a typical year.

Forced by Covid-19 to hold virtual events, the conventions downsized from arena-scale spectacles to meet the way we watch now: on living-room screens and browsers and smartphones, perpetually distracted and multitasking, quickly moved and easily enraged.

In doing so, both parties, to varying degrees, pulled off something that they had tried and failed to do ever since the conventions were first broadcast on the radio in 1924, and on television in 1948. It took nearly 100 years and a global pandemic, but the conventions messages finally matched the medium.

Change was overdue, for the placard-waving and speechifying format had changed little since the first conventions were held in the 1830s. Then, these gatherings were thrilling and consequential, essentially telescoping the entire modern presidential selection process from straw polls to caucuses to primaries to nomination into three or four days of raucous debate and furious backroom dealings. Conventions began with a crowd of candidates vying for the prize, and it usually took multiple ballots and an occasional all-nighter to reach a decision. In 1924, it took the Democrats 103 rounds of voting to settle on a nominee.

This made for irresistible political theater, so radio networks began exhaustive convention coverage. But broadcasting the conventions meant that the gatherings had two, not always compatible purposes: rally the faithful, and sell the candidate to the wider electorate.

When television took over in the 1950s, the conventions shouting, cavernous atmosphere was a mismatch to televisions intimate scale. And after 1970s-era party reforms assured that the nominee would nearly always be known before the convention, their drama disappeared. Modern conventions minted new political stars and produced some memorable television moments, yet they rarely changed minds or decided elections. Conventions are nothing but infomercials, critics grumbled, high on flash and empty of substance.

The 2020 conventions actually were infomercials, but strangely effective ones. They reflected the odd mashup of our current media moment, and more clearly communicated the essence of each party and its nominee than the traditional convention format.

First up came the Democrats. Television celebrities mixed with social media celebrities. Democratic stalwarts blended with disaffected Republicans. Gorgeously shot film clips contrasted with low-fi, gloriously earnest state roll calls. Traditional speeches were rare enough to make the viewer take notice. It was a Facebook-era convention, its pieces tidily packaged to go viral.

Freed from the convention hall, the Democrats staged moments that recalled some of the modern eras most powerful pieces of televised political theater. Michelle Obamas emotional exhortation to act and vote recalled the similarly intimate Checkers speech Richard Nixon delivered in the earliest days of network television, a personal talk that saved his vice presidential spot on the 1952 Republican ticket.

The sparse, quiet audiences before Kamala Harris and Joe Biden had the feel of the rapt group sitting before Ronald Reagan in 1964 as he delivered a televised address in support of Barry Goldwater that turned the actor into a conservative political star. And like the best scripted television, the event was character-driven, telling the story of a son of Scranton named Joe Biden, a good guy wholl protect you from the bad.

Republicans made Donald Trump the good-guy protagonist in this weeks television drama. It was to be expected that a seasoned reality star would pull out all the best hooks of the genre in his partys nominating convention: surprise appearances, plot twists, and the elevation of ordinary folks to celebrity status. No shock, either, that its nightly episodes brimmed with praise for the president.

More surprising was how much the G.O.P. stuck to the classics. Speaker after speaker appeared behind a podium sometimes prerecorded, often without a crowd. The red-meat messaging recalled past G.O.P. convention moments: Herbert Hoover decrying the collectivism of the New Deal in 1936, Nixon vowing to uphold law and order in 1968, Patrick Buchanans fiery exhortation to take back our culture in 1992.

President Trump also followed his predecessors in leaning into the advantages of incumbency, his convention rarely straying from monumental government settings. In the nineteenth century, incumbent presidents rarely engaged in campaigning and ran so-called Rose Garden campaigns by sticking to their official White House duties.

Trump went further, bringing the campaigning into the White House itself, culminating in his 70-minute acceptance speech on the South Lawn and a fireworks display blazing Trump on the National Mall.

With few masks in sight, Trump and his party as thoroughly dismissed the ongoing Covid-19 crisis as Herbert Hoover and the G.O.P. sidestepped mention of the Great Depression at their convention in 1932.

Yet the pandemic persists. So do many other things that pulled voter attention away from the conventions and back to real life. Brutality in Kenosha. The South awash in a hurricane and California on fire. The missed rent checks, the lost jobs, the closed schools.

With all these worries, will Americans even remember these images that flickered into our homes over the last two weeks? What else might happen to change our minds or alter our sense of political possibility? We wait and see, as we always have, one eye on the screen, the other on the future.

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The Strange Success of the Coronavirus Conventions - The New York Times