Category: Corona Virus

1. How COVID-19 is affecting the world

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now reached more than 22.4 million globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The number of confirmed coronavirus deaths now stands at more than 787,000.

South Korea has reported 288 new cases as of midnight Wednesday, suggesting a new outbreak shows no signs of slowing. This is a grave situation that could possibly lead to a nationwide pandemic," said Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip.

India recorded a record daily jump in COVID-19 cases of 69,672. Total cases have now reached 2.84 million, according to data from the federal health ministry.

New Zealand has also reported new cases - five in total - as part of a fresh outbreak in Auckland. Some lockdown restrictions were reimposed last week.

Germany's environment ministry says it could meet its 2020 climate target, but would have missed the target were it not for the coronavirus pandemic.

Global confirmed cases as of 19 August.

Image: Our World in Data

This crisis has put healthcare workers in harms way at a time when they are needed the most, the head of ICRCs Health Care in Danger initiative, Maciej Polkowski, said in a statement.

These attacks have a devastating impact on access to and provision of healthcare when many health systems are overwhelmed, Polkowski added.

The ICRC added that attacks against medical staff, patients and medical infrastructure are likely driven by a fear of infection, anger at being unable to perform traditional burials or grief related to death.

The first global pandemic in more than 100 years, COVID-19 has spread throughout the world at an unprecedented speed. At the time of writing, 4.5 million cases have been confirmed and more than 300,000 people have died due to the virus.

As countries seek to recover, some of the more long-term economic, business, environmental, societal and technological challenges and opportunities are just beginning to become visible.

To help all stakeholders communities, governments, businesses and individuals understand the emerging risks and follow-on effects generated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Marsh and McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, has launched its COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications - a companion for decision-makers, building on the Forums annual Global Risks Report.

The report reveals that the economic impact of COVID-19 is dominating companies risks perceptions.

Companies are invited to join the Forums work to help manage the identified emerging risks of COVID-19 across industries to shape a better future. Read the full COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications report here, and our impact story with further information.

3. Tough Eurozone economic outlook

A Reuters poll of economists suggests a challenging outlook for the Eurozone economy. Seventy percent of those questioned said it will take two or more years for the bloc's gross domestic product (GDP) to reach pre-COVID levels.

Although there have been encouraging reports with regard to a potential (COVID-19) vaccine by early 2021, as long as there isnt any effective one, containment measures will have to be kept in place regardless," said Elwin de Groot, head of macro strategy at Rabobank. "A second series of partial lockdowns could have some serious economic effects.

Tough times ahead?

Image: Reuters

The poll also warned that job recovery gains could reverse by the end of the year, as short-term work schemes come to an end. Eighty-five percent of those polled thought there was a high risk of this.

Eurozone unemployment almost looks like a Cinderella story. With barely any increase in unemployment, it is currently the belle of the global labour market ball, at least compared to many other developed economies, said Carsten Brzeski, Chief Economist at ING Bank.

When the clock strikes midnight, however, and short-term work schemes come to an end, the fairy tale is unlikely to continue. We expect a second wave of job losses towards the end of the year and going into 2021.

Excerpt from:

COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 20 August - World Economic Forum

As the lone nurse for her school district in central Washington State, Janna Benzel will monitor 1,800 students for coronavirus symptoms when classrooms open this month, on top of her normal responsibilities like managing allergies, distributing medications and writing hundreds of immunization plans.

Ill have to go to these schools and assess every sniffle and sneeze that could potentially be a positive case, she said. I just dont know if I can do it alone.

School nurses are already in short supply, with less than 40 percent of schools employing one full time before the pandemic. Now those overburdened health care specialists are finding themselves on the front lines of a risky, high-stakes experiment in protecting public health as districts reopen their doors amid spiking caseloads in many parts of the country.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that every school have a nurse on site. But before the outbreak, according to the National Association of School Nurses, a quarter of American schools did not have one at all. And there has been no national effort to provide districts with new resources for hiring them, although some states have tapped federal relief funds.

Washington State is one of the places where nurses are a rarity in school hallways, with 7 percent of schools employing one full time, and nearly 30 percent of districts having one available for no more than six hours per week. Like Ms. Benzel, many are being asked to do more than ever before, with little in the way of new resources, training or backup.

In some places, administrators have been scrambling to get more nurses into schools. New York City, the nations largest district and one of the few big cities planning to physically reopen its schools on the first day back, went on a hiring spree after the citys powerful teachers union said its members should not return to classrooms without a nurse in each of the citys roughly 1,300 school buildings.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that the city had finally secured enough nurses to fulfill that demand, less than a month before the scheduled start of in-person instruction.

Those nurses will be charged with evaluating children for coronavirus symptoms and determining whether they should report to an isolation room away from other students and staff members, and communicating with parents already anxious about dropping their children off at school.

Its weird that it takes a pandemic for people to be like, Oh, look at that, what you do is useful, said Tara Norvez, a school nurse in Queens. Ms. Norvez said she was looking forward to the start of the school year, as long as there was enough personal protective equipment and other safety measures in place.

What we are going to do is just step up our game, she said.

Across the country, though, concerns are growing over the ability to prevent the spread of infections, with outbreaks already emerging in schools that have reopened, requiring mass quarantines and even shutdowns.

Nurses fear they may contract the virus, and worry whether specially designated isolation rooms and personal protective equipment will be enough to contain outbreaks.

Most school nurses are the only health care experts in their school community able to understand infection control and do disease surveillance, said Linda Mendonca, president-elect of the National Association of School Nurses. But not every school has a nurse whos going to look after the children and staff. You need that expertise as a resource to safely reopen schools.

In Washington, some nurses have been actively involved in the planning process for reopening schools, but most have been called in only after the decisions were made, or were asked to review plans already in motion, said Amy Norton, an administrator with the states school nurse corps, which helps provide smaller districts with nursing services.

School districts are going, Oh yeah, our nurse can do that, and just keep adding on these responsibilities, Ms. Norton said. They dont understand that we dont have a nurse in every building. We dont have the staffing to cover all of these new needs, like training staff on P.P.E. and educating families on how to check for symptoms.

In Enid, Okla., where schools reopened last week with five-day in-person instruction, Karry Easterly, the head nurse at an elementary school, said she was confident in the districts plan despite a growing number of positive virus cases in the community.

To prepare, she said, the district spent about $200,000 on protective equipment, installed plexiglass around the desks of school secretaries, ordered thermometers for teachers, and worked with nurses to create isolation rooms for sick students.

We know things are going to happen, but the kids need to get back in school, she said. But Ms. Easterly voiced concern about schools in nearby districts where the health protocols were considerably more lenient, including the school that her son attends, which lacks a nurse.

To me, its unreasonable, she said.

School nurses in Suffolk County on Long Island are better prepared for the new academic year than most. Every building has a nurse on site, and they have worked closely on reopening protocols, said Holly Giovi, an elementary school nurse in the Deer Park Union Free School District.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said schools across New York can reopen in the fall, and Ms. Giovi expects her district to offer in-person, remote and hybrid instruction models, with strict social distancing and face mask requirements. A plan is still coming together, even though were at the 11th hour, she said.

Ms. Giovi has already divided her nurses office into separate areas for triage, assessment and isolation. Her district appears to be on track to have enough protective equipment, and she supports the federal recommendations for children to be screened at home each morning before school, even though I know that parents can lie, she said.

Updated Aug. 20, 2020

The latest on how schools are reopening amid the pandemic.

But Ms. Giovi said she remained concerned about ventilation in older school buildings that lack air-conditioning, despite the districts promises to ensure sufficient filtration and fresh air through open windows.

Im worried Im going to be taking care of teachers passing out from heat exhaustion as much as I am about them coming down with symptoms of Covid, she said.

Not all school nurses are willing to wait and see how things play out.

In July, Amy Westmoreland resigned as an elementary school nurse in the Paulding County School District in Dallas, Ga., because of its decision to make masks optional, while requiring that she tend to both healthy and symptomatic students in a small clinic room.

How could I do my job protecting children if I were to have been infected and made them or their family sick? she said. I would not be able to live with myself.

This month, widely shared photos showed students without masks in packed hallways in the districts North Paulding High School, and nine students and staff members tested positive for the virus, prompting the school to shift classes online.

Its truly my worst fear that I knew would probably happen, Ms. Westmoreland said.

In some districts that are not planning to teach in-person classes, nurses are out of work for the time being. The Palm Beach County Health Care District in Florida furloughed about 140 school nurses and health technicians this month, after the county school district decided to teach online until further notice.

But some other large districts set to teach only online are continuing to provide health care. As the school nurse administrator for Columbus City Schools, Kate King is responsible for the health of 50,000 students and 10,000 staff members in Ohios largest district.

Aided by more than 100 nurses, she has created immunization plans and developed online platforms for connecting with families so students, especially those with chronic illnesses like asthma and diabetes, can remain healthy while learning remotely.

When school buildings are shut, she said, were still reaching out to make sure their health care needs are met.

Eliza Shapiro contributed reporting.

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School Nurses Are on the Coronavirus Front Lines. But Many Schools Dont Have One. - The New York Times

At least one case of coronavirus has been linked to an off-campus party at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, according to officials -- and results are pending on several other potential cases.

College safety officers broke up the party Saturday night at an off-campus apartment rented by Holy Cross students.

There were more than 25 people at the party, according to officials, which exceeds the state limit for gatherings indoors. Party-goers were not wearing masks, nor adhering to physical distance guidelines, the officials said.

Holy Cross has told students who attended the party to immediately get tested and quarantine for 14 days.

The behavior violates the Holy Cross Community Commitment, college officials said, which students acknowledged and agreed to in July.The students responsible for the party will be held accountable under the schools Community Standards process, they added.

In its letter to students, Holy Cross wrote: We will not be able to welcome back the entire campus community, or even a larger cohort than we have this fall, if students cannot demonstrate the self-discipline, mutual respect, and care for others by following requirements to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The college semester, which will begin remotely, has not yet started.

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Holy Cross Off-Campus Party Tied to at Least 1 Coronavirus Case - NBC10 Boston

Health officials are urging people to get flu shots this year in an effort to avoid the seasonal illness exacerbating issues caused by coronavirus.

But when should you be vaccinated? The Centers for Disease Control has a recommendation.

Getting vaccinated in...August is too early, especially for older people, because of the likelihood of reduced protection against flu infection later in the flu season. September and October are good times to get vaccinated. However, as long as flu viruses are circulating, vaccination should continue, even in January or later, CDC said.

Manufacturers are expected to provide as many as 194-198 million doses of flu vaccine this year, more than the 175 million dose record set during the 2019-2020 flu season.

And while a flu vaccine wont protect your against COVID-19, there are other health benefits.

Flu vaccines have been shown to reduce the risk of flu illness, hospitalization and death. Getting a flu vaccine this fall will be more important than ever, not only to reduce your risk from flu but also to help conserve potentially scarce health care resources, CDC said.

Here are more coronavirus headlines across the country:

Vaccine by spring?

A coronavirus vaccine will likely be widely available next spring, according to Operation Warp Speed chief adviser.

Moncef Slaoui, who is heading the White Houses accelerated vaccine program, said he expects the coronavirus vaccine to be offered between April and June of 2021. The immunizations will initially focus on the high-risk individuals, such as those with underlying health conditions and the elderly.

I feel pretty confident we will be there, Slaoui said about the vaccine.

Latest numbers

Latest data shows172,418 people in the U.S. have died from coronavirus with 5,505,074 documented cases. On Wednesday, the U.S. reported 22,658 new cases and 597 new deaths.

2,000 Mississippi students quarantined

Just under 2,000 K-12 students in Mississippi have been quarantined due to possible exposure to COVID-19.

Dr. Thomas Dobbs of the Mississippi Department of Health said 1,970 students and 328 school staff are quarantined. The state is also watching two outbreaks at universities in the state - the University of Mississippi and Mississippi University for Women.

Mississippi reported 1,348 new COVID-19 cases and 31 new deaths today.

Appalachian State University suspends football practice

Appalachian State University has suspended football practice after seven students and four teachers at the North Carolina university tested positive for COVID-19. The outbreak has been linked to the schools football team, officials said.

The infected individuals are recovering in isolation as contact tracing continues.

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Coronavirus update: When should I get my flu shot this year? Is it too early? - AL.com

Another 27 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine, health officials said Monday.

Mondays report brings the total coronavirus cases in Maine to 4,197. Of those, 3,767 have been confirmed positive, while 430 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

New cases were reported in Androscoggin (3), Cumberland (4), Penobscot (13), York (4) counties, Oxford (1), Piscataquis (1), Waldo (1) and Washington (1) state data show.

The agency revised Sundays cumulative total to 4,170, up from 4,168. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.

No new deaths were reported Monday, leaving the statewide death toll at 127. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

So far, 399 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, 10 people are currently hospitalized, with three in critical care and one on a ventilator.

Meanwhile, 14 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 3,638. That means there are 432 active and probable cases in the state, which is up from 417 on Sunday.

A majority of the cases 2,357 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Monday, there have been 215,426 negative test results out of 221,384 overall. Just over 2.3 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.

The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 2,130 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 69 have been concentrated. It is one of four counties the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 580, 191 and 693 cases, respectively where community transmission has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.

There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel. That second condition has not yet been satisfied in other counties.

Other cases have been reported in Aroostook (33), Franklin (47), Hancock (40), Kennebec (172), Knox (28), Lincoln (35), Oxford (59), Piscataquis (12), Sagadahoc (58), Somerset (40), Waldo (63) and Washington (15) counties.

As of Monday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 5,406,625 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 170,005 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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27 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine - Bangor Daily News

Coronavirus cases are already surfacing in K-12 schools that have reopened, but the federal government is not tracking these outbreaks, and some states are not publicly reporting them, making it more difficult to determine how the virus is spreading, experts say.

Scores of students and staff members have been quarantined because of potential COVID-19 exposure in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Indiana, among other states.

But there is no official national tally of school-linked COVID-19 cases, and some states are not reporting how many outbreaks have occurred or how many students and staff members have been infected. Instead, they are leaving it up to local officials to decide which information to make public and which information to share more narrowly with affected students and families. Researchers say the absence of a comprehensive accounting is hampering efforts to identify which safety practices can best prevent cases in schools from spreading.

Without good data that tracks cases over time and shows how one case turns into many cases there's just no way to answer that question, said Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University and co-founder of COVID Explained, a team of researchers studying the pandemic. In January, we'll be in the same position that we are in now, and kids still won't be in school.

At least nine states including Alabama, California and Pennsylvania are tracking school-linked coronavirus cases and outbreaks, but wont make this data public, according to an NBC News tally of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Many of these states cited privacy concerns for withholding the data. Some claimed that coronavirus data on schools was not critical to protecting the broader public, and said their policies might change in the future if there was a clear public health reason for providing such information.

At least 15 other states have begun publishing data on school-based outbreaks, or have committed to doing so, according to the NBC News survey. Seven states said they were still deliberating their plans, and the remainder did not respond to a request for comment.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Even among the states that have committed to sharing data, there are major gaps and inconsistencies in reporting policies. Each state sets its own definition for an outbreak usually a certain number of cases linked to a single site. Most said they would not specify the district or school that was affected, citing privacy concerns. And only a handful of states said they would report the actual numbers of infected students and staff.

A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the agency was not tracking school-based COVID-19 cases, and the Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.

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Beyond the researchers concerns, educators and parents are worried about whether theyll be told about positive cases that could threaten their safety not only at their schools, but in neighboring areas as well. School administrators fear the lack of comprehensive data could feed unnecessary panic by making it hard to determine whether a news story about an individual school outbreak is an outlier or a sign of impending danger.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called on all states to gather and release this data, since the federal government is not doing so.

The Trump administration has shamefully tried to keep America in the dark on COVID-19, so it's doubly important for states to ignore the political bluster and commit to delivering the truth about the virus' spread, Weingarten said in a statement in response to NBC News findings. While some school districts are doing their best to inform teachers, families and children, we're hoping states get with the program and deliver the transparency they deserve as schools gradually begin to reopen their doors."

In the absence of comprehensive state or federal data, some researchers are stepping in to gather information themselves.

Oster, the Brown University economist, is working with the School Superintendents Association, which represents school officials, to develop a dashboard that collects the latest information directly from individual districts to help inform administrators and academics. It would include not just the number of positive cases in schools, but also the size of the student body, how many students and staff are in quarantine at a given moment, and changes in cases over time.

The goal is to track infections, and also to discern quickly which regions and schools are faring better at preventing and containing outbreaks and whether their safety procedures were responsible for the difference. Such information could also help parents decide whether to send their children to school or keep them at home for remote learning, Oster said.

The only evidence thats really going to be informative is what happens when we open schools, she said. Whether its the right decision or not, once schools are open it would be a shame not to use that as an opportunity to learn how to do this.

Other institutions are also trying to fill in gaps with their own reporting. The Indianapolis Star launched a searchable database of positive cases at schools after the state government started the school year without making the information public. (Indianas Health Department said it is working on a public dashboard for school-linked cases, but did not provide a timeline or details on what data would be included.)

One Kansas teacher even created a Google spreadsheet for educators and parents to track news reports of cases and quarantines in schools.

While other countries have reopened schools sooner and more widely than the U.S., they also have not comprehensively tracked cases and outbreaks among children, which makes it harder to offer guidance to schools in the U.S., said Annette C. Anderson, an assistant professor and deputy director of the Center for Safe and Healthy Schools at Johns Hopkins University. International studies of COVID-19 spread in classrooms have been limited in scope, typically in countries where the pandemic has been less prevalent than in the U.S.

Were only beginning to start understanding the transmission of COVID in children, Anderson said. Its important for us to have a great assemblance of data.

According to Anderson, researchers have run into trouble in finding data on children that uses consistent standards. A recent American Academy of Pediatrics study of childhood infections noted that states often define children differently in their tracking, with some listing everyone under age 14, for example, and others placing the cutoff as high as 20.

This lack of granular information can matter a lot, because one question scientists urgently hope to resolve is the degree to which younger and older children are affected differently by the virus.

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Without a more thorough snapshot of cases around the country, researchers say its hard to know what to make of individual outbreaks. In northern Alabama, local media reported four coronavirus cases in Morgan Countys school system last week, prompting 25 students and staff members to be quarantined.

A spokeswoman for Morgan County Schools said she could not provide further details about where the cases occurred, or whether it was students or teachers who were infected. Both the county and state health departments declined to release further information.

The Alabama Department of Public Health and its local county health departments do not disclose information related to notifiable disease investigations as a matter of policy and privacy, Dr. Karen Landers, assistant state health officer for the Alabama department of health, said in an email.

By comparison, Georgias Cherokee County is providing regular updates on the number of staff members and students who have tested positive and the name of their school, as well as the number in quarantine because of potential exposure. The countys schools have 120 active coronavirus cases among students and staff, according to the latest report released Friday, and more than 1,100 have been quarantined since the countys schools reopened on Aug. 3.

But the school district stressed that such reporting was voluntary. Its worth noting that this level of public reporting is not required in any way, but is keeping with our longstanding commitment to transparency, Barbara Jacoby, a spokeswoman for Cherokee County School District, wrote in an email.

Danny Carlson, director of policy and advocacy at the National Association of Elementary School Principals, said hes heard from principals who want to see national data to get a sense of whether outbreaks like the one in Cherokee County are anomalies.

Its really hard otherwise, because take the Georgia example is that noise? Is it a one-off thing? Is it because of mask requirements? Carlson said. I think people are confused they want to know if this is a trend or not.

Link:

Coronavirus is spreading in schools, but the federal government isn't keeping count - NBC News

Five-year-old West Hollywood bar Flaming Saddles has closed as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The country and western-themed gay bar is just the latest COVID-19 related business casualty around greater Los Angeles, but certainly wont be the last.

Owners Jacqui Squatriglia and Chris Barnes announced the closure over the weekend on social media, saying that they could not come to an agreement with their landlord to allow them to remain in the space. As we were drawing close to opening Flaming Saddles after months of being closed during the lockdowns, the statement reads, it was revealed to us that we did not have a secure deal with the landlord, despite believing otherwise. Renegotiation efforts failed, and thus Flaming Saddles is no more, though a New York City location remains.

The full closure statement is below:

Landlords and lease negotiations have been an ongoing hurdle for many small businesses struggling to reopen (or remain open) during the current COVID-19 crisis. Some larger corporations, like the Cheesecake Factory, have publicly acknowledged that they will not pay their due rent for all or portions of the ongoing pandemic, while smaller independent operators with fewer legal resources and less cash flow have relied on individual negotiations with building owners as a way of staying afloat. Sometimes, restaurant owners say, even with well-intended landlords, staying open is simply just not possible.

Like every other municipality in greater Los Angeles, the city of West Hollywood has struggled to keep many of its legacy bars and restaurants alive during such an uncertain moment. The city recently lost the influential Pride Festival too, meaning a further loss of revenue for restaurants and bars in the years to come. In a traditional year, tax revenues for the Pride festival are north of $2 million, with hundreds of jobs created within the city.

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Coronavirus Landlord Dispute Closes One West Hollywood Gay Bar Forever - Eater LA

Meanwhile, as schools across Pennsylvania continue weighing options for in-person instruction, child-care centers are facing costs of $209 million due to shutdowns and regulations put in place due to the coronavirus, according to the state Department of Human Services. That figure includes rent or mortgage payments made while the businesses were closed, payroll to rehire workers, and the expense of sanitizing centers. DHS Secretary Teresa Miller said Monday that the federal CARES Act relief bill has provided much-needed financial relief, but additional funding is required.

Originally posted here:

Battle lines forming over high school sports in Pa. and N.J. as coronavirus cases among young people are on th - The Philadelphia Inquirer

The state of play for K-12

In a typical year, nearly two-thirds of the nations 50 million public schoolchildren have returned to their classrooms by the third week of August. But this year is anything but typical, with many of the nations largest districts delaying the start of school or choosing to open remotely as coronavirus cases surge through their communities.

One thing has become painfully clear: Individual districts have been largely left to chart their own paths, whether its a return to the classroom, remote learning or a mix of the two.

In the map above, our colleagues in Times Opinion looked at which U.S. counties might be able to safely open K-12 schools by examining where the virus is, and isnt, under control. According to their analysis, areas in red should not reopen, those in orange and yellow can partially reopen, and those in green are ready to reopen with conditions, like avoiding high-risk activities, wearing masks and physical distancing. You can search for your areas status here.

Some of those districts in red, however, have already reopened their doors to teachers and students. Schools across the South and Midwest are back in session, with some reporting outbreaks of Covid-19 that have forced them to temporarily move online or to quarantine large numbers of students and teachers.

But be careful about jumping to far-reaching conclusions: Many school outbreaks have taken place in viral hot spots like Georgia, in districts where class sizes have not been significantly reduced and mask wearing is optional, making it difficult to compare to regions like the Northeast, where the infection rate is currently lower and more stringent mask-wearing and social-distancing requirements will be in place for schools that reopen.

The single most important thing is that there is no national reopening strategy, Eliza Shapiro, who covers New York City education for The Times, told us. We have an incredibly regional, fractured, scattershot approach to reopening that has no cohesion. Places like Florida and New York are different countries right now, in terms of the virus.

Some politicians have tried to impose a more unified approach, with decidedly mixed results.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to withhold up to $200 million in funding from the Hillsborough County School District, which covers Tampa and is one of the nations largest, if it did not reopen for in-person learning.

In Chicago, which had planned to open with a hybrid model, schools will now open remotely after opposition from parents and teachers. But many students have returned to in-person learning centers, which have been linked to few, if any, cases. Across the city, cases are low, and the infection rate remains relatively flat.

In New Jersey, Gov. Philip Murphy reversed his requirement for some form of in-person teaching following sustained opposition from the states teachers union.

At the federal level, President Trump tweeted a demand in July: SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!! But as Eliza has reported, his push seems to have backfired, hardening the view among some teachers and school officials that reopening would be unsafe.

These political and policy decisions are taking place as we are slowly learning more about the coronavirus and how it affects children.

Its kind of all over the place, but the only thing that people are really clear about is that most kids dont get very sick, Apoorva Mandavilli, a science reporter for The Times, told us. Even though we think of kids as germ factories, they themselves are not the ones who are going to take the biggest hit.

The bottom line: The problems with schooling during the coronavirus are systemic, but the angst is personal. Teachers and families are being forced to choose between imperfect options based on factors including health, socioeconomic status and tolerance for risk.

Whats next? Claire Cain Miller wrote for The Upshot about how families are navigating an impossible dilemma.

The one way to help parents most is to get the virus under control, Claire told us. The countries that have done that have been able to open schools. There could be things like sending a check to parents to use on tutors or day care or whatever is needed, but Congress hasnt shown much of an appetite for that. So it really just leaves parents on their own.

A rebellion against the high cost of a bachelors degree, already brewing before the coronavirus, has gathered fresh momentum. Some students and parents are rejecting paying face-to-face prices for education that is increasingly online.

Some are demanding tuition rebates, increased financial aid, reduced fees and leaves of absences, our colleague Shawn Hubler reports.

At Ithaca College (student population: 5,500) the financial services team reports more than 2,000 queries in the past month about financial aid and tuition adjustments.

Updated Aug. 17, 2020

The latest on how schools are navigating an uncertain season.

Some 340 Harvard freshmen roughly a fifth of the first-year class deferred admission rather than possibly spending part of the year online. A parent lobbying group, formed on Facebook last month, has asked the administration to reduce tuition and relax rules for leaves of absence.

And its not just about paying the usual. Faced with extra expenses for screening and testing students for the virus, and for reconfiguring campus facilities for safety, some colleges and universities are asking students to pay additional coronavirus fees.

Other higher ed news:

A school district outside Phoenix canceled plans to reopen schools after teachers staged a sick out in protest. Teachers are also planning to strike in Detroit to protest safety concerns.

The Cherokee County School District in Georgia said Sunday that it would close a third high school because of an outbreak of the virus after 25 students tested positive, NBC reports.

Parents are pulling students out of the public school system in favor of home-schooling or pandemic pods. One advocacy group in Texas is fighting the trend with a simple message: A strong Texas recovery requires strong Texas schools.

Many first-year college students will start school from home, without all-night dorm room talks, the rush of a snappy seminar discussion or the sweaty euphoria of a first football game.

As a family, you can help ease their disappointment. Here are some suggestions for how to help build independence for students who are starting college from their childhood bedrooms.

When students return to school, however they return to school, every one should have some kind of student newspaper, Lara Bergen, an educator, wrote in an opinion piece for The 74 Million.

We agree. Student journalists, wed love to hear from you about how youre planning your first few weeks of coverage. What are the obstacles? What has surprised you? We may feature some responses in the coming days.

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Schools Reopening in the Covid-19 Pandemic: The State of Play for K-12 - The New York Times

President George W. Bush delivered words of comfort and encouragement at the packed National Cathedral in Washington, where four former US presidents as well as political and religious leaders gathered on a gray cloudy morning that gave way to bright sunshine.

"Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time," Bush said. "But goodness, remembrance and love have no end. The Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn."

For days mourners poured into houses of worship. Church bells tolled. The dead were remembered at candlelight vigils across the country.

Nearly two decades later, in the midst of another national tragedy that has the US surpassing 170,000 deaths from Covid-19, there have been few signs of collective mourning among Americans.

Hospitals and nursing homes shut its doors and placed Covid-19 patients in isolation. Priests administered last rites over the phone. Helpless families said farewells the same way. Funerals were canceled, postponed or held online. Mass gatherings were prohibited.

"Without a way to gather with others to mark a loss, to acknowledge the loss, we are left with an intensified sense of isolation and also, often, a heightened sense of self reproach, anxiety, and what used to be called melancholy," says Judith Butler, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of "Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence."

"Gathering gives people a way to acknowledge the loss, to test the reality of the loss with others, to bring back the memory of the person in the context of the living, and to affirm the possibility of living on. But to deal with loss in utter isolation, or to have loss sanitized through curves and graphs, leaves us without the means we need to affirm life in the wake of loss."

'An enormous sadness'

"The marshaling of the war metaphor ... is consistent in an attempt to rally the American people to unify but to unify around very specific things," said Micki McElya, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and author of "The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery."

"And that has been largely not marking death, marking tragedy or marking the horror of the ongoing lack of a meaningful response or any attempt to remedy the mistakes of earlier aspects of the response, but to really focus on, 'This is what Americans do." And to kind of appeal to patriotism and nationalism, frankly, in order to encourage people to rally and feel united in shopping and in the economy, in the things that the administration is choosing to push forward."

Still, focusing solely on Washington's response to the pandemic would be letting the American public broadly off the hook, McElya said.

"We need to really consider this and talk about this as a collective national failure," she said. "One certainly encouraged by our leadership. But people have to submit or commit to that narrative, and so many have, and that's an enormous sadness."

Protests as a public act of mourning

"Our tendency to honor the deceased is also related to who is lost," he said.

"And when those figures who die are celebrities, when they are young people, children and so on, when they are heroic figures -- think of the death of the first responders from collapsed World Trade Center in New York -- it's easy to valorize, to validate and collectively mourn such losses."

That the deaths of members of disenfranchised and marginalized communities do not generate the same "upwelling of compassion and concern" as that of a child or first responder "requires us to seriously scrutinize our values," Neimeyer said.

Butler said the victims of the pandemic have come to be recognized in the ongoing national protests over the deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans.

"I think Black Lives Matter is in some ways about mourning," she said. "They were mourning those lives, standing for the value of those lives, publicly gathering in sorrow and in rage... I think that is a public act of mourning at the same time that it is a public act of protest."

The pandemic is 'a rolling thunder'

Americans have also navigated profoundly unsettling times in recent months -- the loss of jobs and everyday routines, social isolation and the disappearance of support networks.

"At some level, we are grieving much that we cannot even easily name, and for which there are no rituals of support," Neimeyer said. "There's no High Mass offered for your loss of security, or there's no ritual by which we bury or inter a career or a job that we lost."

The trauma is compounded by the fact that no end to the pandemic appears in sight.

"It's not that we have suffered these losses and are now trying to take stock of them," Neimeyer said. "We continue to suffer them. It's a rolling thunder. It's not a storm that has passed through. We're in the thick of it."

Butler said the statistical curves and graphs counting the dead inform people about "what is an acceptable level of illness and death in order to reopen the economy."

"We are thus asked to accept that death is necessary, to agree to 'an acceptable level of death' and business and universities that reopen in the midst of a surge are also reckoning on how much death is acceptable," she said.

"It leads us to accept deaths that are preventable ... and it makes us cold, if not cruel, in the face of calculated levels of acceptable death. So, in my mind, it is the absence of collective mourning, forms of gathering, and acknowledgment in conjunction with this calculation of acceptable death that leaves us without a sense of the value of life."

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Few signs of collective mourning as the US tops 170,000 coronavirus deaths - CNN