CPS classes canceled Wednesday after CTU votes to refuse in-person work

[BumRushDaShow]

4. The one big thing that is happening is the "clash of the medical titans"

I.e., there is one very vocal group of psychologists and pediatricians who have laser-focused on the "socialization needs" of children versus the epidemiologists and virologists focus on the "physical hazards" of respiratory viruses.

The whole pandemic has essentially been guided by whichever school-of-thought becomes the "squeaky wheel".

So when the former group yells - CHILDREN MUST BE IN-PERSON IN SCHOOL OR THEY WILL HAVE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS!!!111!!!!!!11 you have your elected and school leadership officials echo this, knowing that the mitigation to make this possible and viable is sorely lacking, particularly in the big school districts.

We have the same issue here in Philly where the School Superintendent loudly proclaimed that schools WILL OPEN for "in person" and the night before (Monday night, since schools started Tuesday) - literally some time after 9 pm because I heard the breaking news on the radio - they announced that 77 schools would be forced to shift to "virtual" on Tuesday due to 1,100 teachers having contracted COVID-19 over the holiday break and were in quarantine and thus could not staff those schools. The next morning (yesterday), they announced the number of schools going virtual was up to 81. And this morning, I heard they added 3 more schools to the list.

I really don't know how you can reconcile this battle of "psychological danger" vs "physical danger".

IMHO, I wonder if you had a radiation hazard in a school, would they demand "in person" in that instance? As it is, when there is an asbestos hazard, they MUST close the building and make other arrangements.

Perhaps the only way to give some of these people some perspective IS to compare COVID-19 in a closed environment to asbestos contamination (which seems to be a more "tangible" concept to people) and work from there on mitigation and handling. I will say that in this specific situation, the post-holiday surge has been the cause of staffing shortages and it was pretty much anticipated, but they forged ahead anyway and have been forced to make "on-the-fly" decisions, over and over and over and over.