There's Something Very Strange-- And Very Dangerous-- Going On In Milwaukee's Republican Suburbs

Back To School With Betsy And Donald by Nancy Ohanian

 

Wisconsin is a thinking state and in 2016 both national parties nominated the worst possible contenders for people accustomed to using their brains. By the end of the campaign thoughtful voters on both sides of the partisan divide were ready to puke. Many sat it out and others were motivated by a lesser of two evils strategy. In the end Trump narrowly flipped Wisconsin, startling the terribly-run and completely inept Clinton campaign. Trump had fewer votes than Romney and Hillary had far fewer voters than Obama. In 2012, 3,028,951 cheeseheads voted. in the presidential race. In 2016 just 2,787,820 did. Most abstainers were Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who just could not stomach Hillary.

Wisconsin has been a state leaning blue since the mid-80s. Even Michael Dukakis, while losing nationally to George H.W. Bush, won Wisconsin-- 51.4% to 47.8%. That was followed by 2 wins for Bill Clinton, one for Al Gore, one for John Kerry and two for Obama. The Democrats almost had to try to lose Wisconsin. And they did. On primary day, the state belonged to Bernie:

• Bernie- 567,936
• Cruz- 531,129
• Hillary- 432,767
• Trumpy-the-Clown- 386,370

Milwaukee is a very blue city but the Milwaukee suburbs tend to be more red. Let's leave Waukesha County out of this discussion and just look at Ozaukee (north of the city) and Washington (to the northwest) counties. Although Bernie beat Hillary in both counties' 2016 primaries, both were Ted Cruz country. In the general both counties went overwhelmingly for Trump. Washington County gave Trump 67.8% to Hillary's 27.4% and Ozaukee County gave Trump 57.1% to Hillary's 37.8%. In the two counties combined 82,187 people voted for Trump. These are both well-off and well-educated counties. Ozaukee County, for example, is the 25th wealthiest county in the country with the second lowest poverty rate in America. But something is very, very, very wrong with the people there. The only Democrat to win a presidential race in the two counties since 1940 was LBJ in his contest with Barry Goldwater.

Yesterday, writing for the Washington Post, Tim Elfrink reported that this wealthy white elite GOP parents are sending their COVID-infected kids to schools in Washington and Ozaukee counties. They may be educated and wealthy-- but they are classic "idiots" by the Greek origins of the word.

"As authorities in suburban Milwaukee gamed out the complex preparations to allow children back into classrooms amid the coronavirus pandemic," wrote Elfrink, "they didn’t plan for one scenario: parents deliberately sending infected kids to school. Yet that’s exactly what’s happened multiple times in Washington and Ozaukee counties, health officials said this week."

“Something that happened and continued to happen … which I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would happen, is people sent their known positive kids to school,” Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department Officer Kirsten Johnson told television station WISN.

As health officials investigate cases in more than two dozens schools in the counties, some are demanding harsh repercussions for any parent caught sending a child to class after they test positive.

“When you have parents lying to contact tracers, refusing to get kids tested, that’s just beyond the pale,” said Washington County Board member Don Kriefall, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. “That becomes very problematic for the health department to manage this whole situation. The hammer may have to be dropped.”

Wisconsin, which has recorded more than 1,200 covid-19 deaths, isn’t the only place struggling to cope with parents who purposely evade the safety systems set up to prevent school outbreaks of a virus that has killed at least 201,000 Americans. In Massachusetts last week, a student attended the first day of high school despite a positive test, sending dozens of classmates into quarantine. A similar situation in Oklahoma forced 17 students into quarantine.

In Washington and Ozaukee counties, which sit just north of Milwaukee, a patchwork of school districts have adopted a range of back-to-school plans, but many have offered students the option of going to school in person five days a week.

Health officials already know of at least three cases where students have tested positive and showed up to class anyway, Johnson told the Journal Sentinel. One student who tested positive felt so sick after coming to school that they went to the school nurse.

In several other cases, Johnson said, parents have lied to contract tracers about test results and about whom their child had contact with. Other parents have also refused to test children, even when they are obviously ill.

“The biggest challenge for us that we’re experiencing right now is people are just being dishonest,” Johnson told the Journal Sentinel. “They don’t want their children to be quarantined from school. They don’t want to have to miss work. In doing that, they’re jeopardizing the ability to have school in person and other people’s health.”

Health officials are urging schools in Washington and Ozaukee counties to use attendance software to keep track of students who test positive for the virus, and to ensure they don’t show up for class when they’re supposed to be at home in quarantine.

The counties also plan to hire more contract tracers and will consider ordering schools to close if cases rise. As of Tuesday, the two counties were investigating cases at 25 schools.

While early evidence suggests schools have not become hot spots for coronavirus transmission so far, health officials said they will have no choice but to take drastic action if sick kids keep coming to school.

“We’re not going to be able to keep our schools open,” Kriefall told WISN. “It’s going to, I mean, just a few parents that are irresponsible are going to affect the entire school district.”

How many of these parents have heard the Trump propaganda and decided to take matters into their own hands with some good ole fashioned Republican herd mentality in furtherance of misguided concepts of herd immunity? Yesterday, Wisconsin reported another 1,762 cases (5th most in the U.S.), bringing the state's total to a rapidly-rising 105,932.

The other day we first met Richland County Supervisor Shaun Murphy-Lopez, an Assembly candidate in a rural district in the southwest corner of the state. Today he noted that "In rural Southwest Wisconsin, we have a high percentage of residents who are seniors. Unfortunately we've lost several beloved friends, neighbors, and relatives to COVID. In my travels around Assembly District 49, I see a growing number of residents who are following guidance from our local health care professionals. That's welcome news, because we need a healthy and thriving rural population. If a parent were to send their COVID-positive kid to school, they would put other students, educators, and community members at risk of severe illness or death. My hope is that this type of activity will be non-existent in rural Southwest Wisconsin. I encourage quarantined people who need help with getting groceries or other supplies to contact me at 608-462-3715. We'll make sure people get the help they need until they recover from the virus."

Emily Voight is running for an Assembly seat in the northeast part of the state, south of Green Bay. She reminded me that she's "a mom of three children, two of which are still in elementary school. My middle child is attending school virtually but my youngest is going to school in person 3 days a week and doing online school 2 days at home. I never send my kids to school when they are sick, and it completely blows my mind that anyone would send their child to school with Covid-19! Scientists have said that Covid-19 is not the flu, that it is much more dangerous and deadly than the typical seasonal flu. Schools have always had the rule in place that children need to be healthy (24 hours fever free) while attending. We need to hold these parents that send their children to school with COVID-19 accountable."

Jacob Malinowski is running in a suburban Milwaukee district that is adjacent to... Waukesha County, even worse than Washington and Ozaukee counties! A school board member himself, he's the youngest Democrat running for the Assembly this cycle. He told me that "Parents and administrators were both forced to make tough choices because the Wisconsin State Assembly has refused to show up for work in over 155 days. With no guidance, no plans, and absolutely no assistance, students and teachers are struggling to figure out the new school year. Our politicians failed to step up, and our families are paying the price-- and every day I'm praying for the safety of everyone inside of our schools and throughout our communities."

Europe Is Closing Up Again, While Trump Under-Boss Mobster William Barr Compares Quarantines To Slavery

 

Magical Mystery Cure by Chip Proser

I can remember back in mid-March thinking how horrible the pandemic was for Italy and being certain would never been that bad for us over here. (That Trump is in charge must have slipped my mind.) Yesterday Italy reported 1,585 new cases of COVID, bringing the country's total to 293,025 (4,848 cases per million residents). 4,848 cases per million residents is, at least relative to the U.S. pandemic, a very small number. Italy, in fact, is better off than every American state other than Maine (3,691 cases per million residents) and Vermont (2,732 cases per million residents). You want to see tragedy? Look at these ghastly numbers from the dozen worst-hit states in the U.S., which helps explain why Americans are banned from virtually every country on earth:

• Louisiana- 34,268 cases per million residents
• Florida- 31,403 cases per million residents
• Mississippi- 30,891 cases per million residents
• Arizona- 29,079 cases per million residents
• Alabama- 28,911 cases per million residents
• Georgia- 28,167 cases per million residents
• South Carolina- 26,050 cases per million residents
• Tennessee- 26,085 cases per million residents
• New York- 24,709 cases per million residents
• Texas- 24,460 cases per million residents
• Iowa- 24,425 cases per million residents
• Nevada- 24,218 cases per million residents

The U.S. average is 20,706. Italy is in another-- more habitable-- universe entirely. Except... It looks like Europe's second wave has begun, not just in Italy, but all across Europe. CNN reported that the World Health Organization warned that coronavirus cases are surging alarmingly in Europe, as a 'very serious situation' unfolds across the continent. As Covid-19 infections spike to record numbers, European governments are imposing strict local measures and weighing up further lockdowns in a bid to halt a second wave of the pandemic. But WHO regional director Hans Kluge said at a Thursday news conference that the increase in cases should serve as a warning of what is to come. 'Weekly cases have now exceeded those reported when the pandemic first peaked in Europe in March,' Kluge said. 'Last week, the region's weekly tally exceeded 300,000 patients.' More than half of European nations have reported an increase of more than 10% in new cases in the past two weeks, Kluge added. 'Of those, seven countries have seen newly reported cases increase more than two-fold in the same period,' he said."

There are now full blown emergencies unfolding across the continent. These were the reported new cases on Tuesday ---> Wednesday and ---> yesterday (along with cases per million residents):

• Spain +9,437 ---> +11,193 ---> +11,291 (13,380 cases per million residents)
• Belgium +851 ---> +489 ---> +1,153 (8,271 cases per million residents)
• Russia +5,529 ---> +5,670 ---> +5,762 (7,436 cases per million residents)
• France +7,852 ---> +9,784 ---> +10,593 (6,362 cases per million residents)
• Romania +1,111 ---> +1,713 ---> +1,679 (5,658 cases per million residents)
• U.K. +3,105 ---> +3,991 ---> +3,395 (5,615 cases per million residents)
• Netherlands +1,379 ---> +1,542 ---> +1,753 (5,138 cases per million residents)
• Italy +1,229 ---> +1,450 ---> 1,585 (4,848 cases per million residents)
• Ukraine +2,905 ---> +2,958 ---> +3,584 (3,806 cases per million residents)
• Czechia +1,674 ---> +2,136 ---> _1,707 (3,989 cases per million residents)
• Germany +1,623 ---> +2,021 ---> +1,393 (3,200 cases per million residents)

Kluge told CNN that "In the spring and early summer we were able to see the impact of strict lockdown measures. Our efforts, our sacrifices, paid off. In June cases hit an all-time low. The September case numbers, however, should serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Although these numbers reflect more comprehensive testing, it also shows alarming rates of transmission across the region. This pandemic has taken so much from us... And this tells only part of the story. The impact on our mental health, economies, livelihoods and society has been monumental."

While there was an increase in cases in older age groups, those aged 50 to 79, in the first week of September, Kluge said, the biggest proportion of new cases is still among 25- to 49-year-olds.

Countries across the continent have been easing lockdowns and reopening their economies, but governments are now scrambling to avert further outbreaks.

In France, Covid-19 hospitalizations have risen in recent days in large cities such as Paris, Bordeaux and Marseille.

Earlier this year, the first coronavirus wave spiked fast in France, but it was cut short by a strict nationwide lockdown. In total more than 31,000 people died there from the disease, out of more than 443,000 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

Now, the number of new infections is rising fast. A record was set over the weekend with more than 10,000 new cases in a single day. The number of clusters has been rising steadily and, most worryingly, nationwide, the number of people in intensive care has risen 25% in the past week.

Cases in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Italy have also increased.

New restrictions were imposed across England this week barring people from meeting socially in groups of more than six, of all ages, indoors or outdoors. Scotland and Wales have also tightened their social distancing rules.

From Friday, even stricter measures will apply in the northeast of England amid a "concerning rise" in Covid-19 infection rates there, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced in Parliament on Thursday.

The measures include a ban on socializing outside households or "support bubbles" and a mandated closing time of 10 p.m. for all bars, pubs, restaurants and leisure centers. They will apply to seven areas-- including the cities of Newcastle, Sunderland and Durham-- and will affect more than 1.5 million people.

Hancock stressed the need to take "immediate action" against the virus with winter approaching.

At least 41,773 people have died with coronavirus in the UK, according to JHU, the highest toll in Europe and fifth-largest number of any country in the world.

The UK government has come under pressure over recent failings in its coronavirus testing system, with some people-- including health care workers-- experiencing difficulty in accessing tests or being directed to testing sites far from home.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended Britain's coronavirus testing record Wednesday, saying it compared favorably to other European countries and that recent problems were due to a "colossal spike" in demand.

Authorities in the Spanish capital of Madrid are to announce new coronavirus restrictions on Friday as the country also responds to an uptick in the number of cases.

Spain has now recorded more than 30,000 deaths since the start of the outbreak, with more than 600,000 total cases.

Madrid accounts for approximately a third of all new cases, according to data from the country's health ministry.

The president of Madrid's regional government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has suggested that migrant populations are partly to blame.

"(The outbreaks are partly) due to the way of life of Madrid's immigrants and the population density of these districts," she said Tuesday. "It is a way of life in Madrid."

Meanwhile, German authorities have imposed new restrictions and ordered more testing in a popular Bavarian ski resort after a coronavirus outbreak that has been linked to a US citizen working at a lodge operated by the US Army.

The state prosecution service in Munich said it had launched an investigation into the American who may have caused the surge in cases.

New regulations imposed in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen over the weekend mean local bars will now close at 10 p.m. Parties are limited to 100 people-- down from 200-- and groups eating indoors are capped at five, down from twice that.

In America... it's all denialism from the nation's leaders-- pretending. Trump and the Trumpist governors first and foremost. Oh... and the goons I hope to see at Nuremberg-like trials one day, like his consiglieri William Barr. He likened the effort to protect the country from a pandemic he doesn't understand to slavery. Watch the idiot:





New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio thought again about opening up his city's schools. He was smart to do so, while most "leaders" are trying to shove decisions like that off on anyone they can. The NY Times' Eliza Shapiro reported that he acknowledged that "the system had still not fully surmounted the many obstacles that it faced in bringing children back during the pandemic." Shapiro is too dull-witted to understand that DeBlasio was doing the right thing and the courageous thing and she slanted her entire piece to disparage him. What a piece of crap this one is! Most of her writing made me want to vomit. It could have been written by anyone from inside the Trump Regime.

She did note, however that "The mayor said that he decided to delay the start of the school year and opt instead for a phased-in reopening after a three-hour conversation at City Hall on Wednesday with the leaders of the unions representing the city’s principals and teachers, along with senior mayoral aides. Those union leaders have been explicitly warning for weeks that schools were not ready to reopen for myriad reasons, from poor ventilation in some aging buildings to a severe staffing crunch that the principals’ union estimated could leave the city needing as many as 10,000 educators. A Thursday report from the city’s Independent Budget Office put that number closer to 12,000. Some principals have said in recent days that they lacked dozens of teachers for their schools. Mr. de Blasio said that the teacher shortage was his main reason for again delaying in-person classes. But he did not explain why he waited until just before the start of the school year to acknowledge the seriousness of the staffing issue, even though union leaders and his own aides have been raising alarms about it for weeks... No large district in the country has yet attempted to reopen schools on a hybrid basis, and New York’s challenges may discourage other systems from trying a similar approach. The nation’s other large school systems decided earlier in the summer to start their school years remote-only, but none have a virus transmission rate as low as New York’s." I hope the school's in L.A. get a clue. God knows they have no leadership worth calling a leader. And the teachers' unions' officials in California need to grow some balls or step aside for younger members.

The Pandemic Turns Out To Be Bad For Drunks And School Kids-- Who Could Have Imagined?

Back To School With Betsy And Donald by Nancy Ohanian

Reporting from Martin County on Florida's Atlantic coast yesterday, CNN warned that since Trump and his puppet governor, Ron DeSantis, stampeded Florida schools into opening prematurely last month, "the number of children under 18 who have contracted Covid-19 statewide has jumped 26%." DeSantis then tried hiding the data from the public. Before the opening there were 42,761 school aged kids with COVID-19. A month later, the number is 53,717. The rate of infection is even worse in Martin County than in the rest of the state. DeSantis is still hiding the results from the public.

Some say Katherine Norman's state Senate race is one of the two or three most important legislative races in Florida this year. Her opponent is top Trump /DeSantis ally, Joe Gruters, chair of the state GOP. Today, Katherine told us she finds it "incredibly sad to see Governor DeSantis and others like my opponent who campaigned by lying and deceiving the public so egregiously because of their loyalties to this administration. They have had to lie for this administration so many times they either don’t even mark it is significant, can no longer discern fact from fiction, or don’t care anymore as long as it is for political gain. My opponent, Florida Republican Party chair Joe Gruters lied to CBS news reporter Jim DeFede claiming Black Lives Matter protestors were armed and threatening the McCloskeys who spoke at the Republican National Convention. Deliberately inflaming the incident and amplifying it by alleging that BLM protestors were some how responsible for or an aggressive force in this instance is a deliberate attempt to smear the movement, which is peaceful and asking for basic compassion in response to police violence and justice in excessive force cases. I am not sure why anyone would try to take opposition to confronting racial bias in our communities or law enforcement agencies, or why an elected official would ignore the pain from constituents wrongly harmed. The blind loyalty to this administration has cost these elected officials connection with actual voters in our area and the issues that matter here. Voters can no longer trust the Florida GOP."

  Kind of related in a weird way, Washington Post reporters Rachel Weiner, Chris Alcantara and Andrew Ba Tran wrote yesterday how political pressures on weak and incompetent leaders are forcing bars and restaurants open, even though rates of infection in cities, counties and states that open bars immediately rises. New York City is opening restaurants for in-door dining and Florida started re-opening bars Monday. Our trio of Post writers reports that "One decision appears to be riskier than the other... States that have reopened bars experienced a doubling in the rate of coronavirus cases three weeks after the opening of doors, on average. The Post analysis-- using data provided by SafeGraph, a company that aggregates cellphone location information-- found a statistically significant national relationship between foot traffic to bars one week after they reopened and an increase in cases three weeks later... [T]here is not as strong a relationship between the reopening of restaurants and a rise in cases."

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of nearly 300 adults who tested positive for the coronavirus found that they were more than twice as likely to have dined at a restaurant in the two weeks before getting sick than people who were uninfected. Those who tested positive and did not have close contact with anyone sick were also more likely to report going to a bar or coffee shop. The same effect was not seen in visits to salons, gyms and houses of worship, or in the use of public transportation.

“You’re sitting there for a long time, everyone’s talking,” said Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech. “And that’s just a recipe for spread.”

Few states make their contact-tracing data available, but in two that do-- Colorado and Louisiana-- bars and restaurants are responsible for about 20 percent of cases traced to a known source. San Diego traced nearly one-third of community outbreaks to restaurants and bars, more than any other setting.

But Louisiana’s experience suggests bar patrons contribute more to the spread of the virus than restaurant diners. There have been 41 outbreaks tied to restaurants and the same number of outbreaks associated with bars, but bar outbreaks appeared to result in more infections, with 480 cases traced to those establishments compared with 180 from restaurants.

Marr said indoor dining can be reasonably safe in a restaurant operating at 25 percent capacity and with a ventilation system that fully recirculates air every 10 minutes. New York City’s policy will allow for only 25 percent capacity at first, with a scheduled increase to 50 percent in November if transmission rates remain low.

Still, Marr said, she “will not eat inside a restaurant until the pandemic is over.” As one of the first scientists to begin emphasizing that the virus was spread primarily by air, she has been concerned about indoor drinking and dining since March.

“People go to restaurants to talk,” she said, “and we know that it’s talking that produces a lot-- 10 to 100 times more-- aerosols than just sitting.”

Other countries facing outbreaks imposed stricter and longer shutdowns on bars and restaurants. Ireland has yet to open its pubs. Countries that did reopen bars and restaurants have, like American states, scaled back in the face of fresh outbreaks.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that because U.S. policies vary by state and county, waves of closures and reopenings may have perversely led to more viral spread, as people traveled to enjoy freedoms not allowed closer to home.

The National Restaurant Association argues that restaurants are safe if they follow proper mitigation guidelines and that the industry has been unfairly maligned by the actions of an irresponsible few.

“Bars become particularly risky,” said Larry Lynch, who handles food science for the restaurant trade group. “Anybody who had been in bars knows that conversations get louder, people get closer.”

But, he said, “we haven’t seen... any kind of systemic outbreaks from people going into a restaurant that’s practicing what we ask them to practice.”

Lynch questioned the methodology of the CDC study, noting it covered only 295 people and did not identify the sources of transmission.

The American Nightlife Association, which represents the bar and nightclub industry, did not respond to a request for comment.

Kristen Ehresmann, director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division at the Minnesota Department of Health, agreed that when restaurants and bars abide by guidelines designed to reduce transmission, few cases of the coronavirus have been traced to those establishments.

But there are more than a few bad actors, she said: 1,592 cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, have been tied to 66 bars and restaurants in Minnesota. And in 58 other establishments, cases were reported among only staff members, resulting in 240 illnesses. One bar in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the Pickled Loon, was the only place visited by 73 people who got sick and was one stop among several for 44 other people.

“The bottom line is, we’re seeing a big chunk of our cases associated with these venues, and those cases go on to get other cases in other settings,” Ehresmann said. “We can’t ignore the impact.”

Iowa’s first big spike in coronavirus cases originated in the meatpacking industry. Then, says University of Iowa epidemiologist Jorge Salinas, came bars in college towns such as Iowa City, where he is based.

“It was very clear,” Salinas said. “We reviewed records for patients, and they all shared that common exposure of having been to a bar in the previous five days or so. Usually, the same bars that tend to be very crowded and very loud, rather than a place you just sit down to go and have a beer.”

He said those bars began closing not because of government intervention, but because so many staff members fell ill. By that point, the young people who got infected at bars had begun spreading the virus to an older population through family and work.

After about two months, the outbreak in Iowa City started to burn out. But then college students started returning to campus.

“It’s just a different group of young people but similar exposures-- going to bars, hanging out, going to large parties,” he said.

Remember this? Politicians don't seem to

He said an order from Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) closing bars in Iowa City and five other hard-hit counties was welcome but overdue. In the past two weeks, more than 1,000 young people in the region have become infected.

“Unfortunately, it’s late in the game,” Salinas said. “It would have been better if it had been done to prevent this rather than as a reaction to this.”

Politicians who favor an aggressive approach to containing the coronavirus have been hesitant to shut down bars and restaurants. Expanded federal unemployment benefits lapsed more than a month ago. Loans to small businesses are forgiven only if they can keep workers on the payroll, which is usually impossible while running at reduced capacity.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.5 million jobs in bars and restaurants have been lost since February. Although that’s an improvement from the spring, many restaurant owners say they are barely hanging on.

“Winter is coming, and I’m staring down the barrel of the gun of what’s going to happen,” said Ivy Mix, owner of a restaurant called Leyenda in New York and author of the book “Spirits of Latin America.” Even when indoor dining reopens, Mix said she is not sure she and her staff would be comfortable serving enough people inside her Brooklyn restaurant to make a profit.

“This is almost like being thrown a deflated life-jacket-- the action and the symbolism is there, but the actual aid is not,” she said.

That’s why she says the only solution is federal legislation introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) that would issue $120 billion in grants to independent bars and restaurants. A Senate version would cover some chains as well.

“Eleven million people work for these independent restaurants,” Blumenauer said. “If we don’t do something, the evidence suggests that 85 percent of them are not going to survive this year.”

His office estimates that the legislation would more than pay for itself, generating $186 billion in tax revenue and unemployment savings. He said President Trump was receptive in a meeting with supporters earlier this year, but that in recent weeks the administration “has basically shut down meaningful negotiations.”

Arizona reopened indoor restaurants and some bars at the end of August, after a hasty spring reopening and more than 5,000 deaths.

“We really kind of reaped the whirlwind,” said David Engelthaler, a former state epidemiologist now at the Translational Genomics Research Institute. “A lot of that was driven by people going into bars and nightclubs, typically the 20- to 30-year-old set, interacting, socializing like they did prepandemic. And that just supported a kind of wildfire of cases.”

He said he thinks it is probably feasible to reopen restaurants at reduced capacity, but bars are a different story.

“One thing that all bars have in common is that they create a lowering of inhibition, and I think more than anything, this will cause the spread of covid,” he said. “We get more complacent, more comfortable, covid starts spreading.”

With temperatures still regularly topping 100 degrees in Arizona, the appeal of outdoor food and drink is limited. After a rapid May reopening led to a spike in cases and deaths, the state has just begun trying a more cautious approach.

Under Arizona’s new, more deliberate reopening, businesses must apply to reopen and bars must serve food to qualify. But Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist based in Phoenix, said it is unclear whether those requirements are sufficiently stringent.

“If you put out two items does that count?” she asked. “I just worry that we’re kind of all doing this at once.” She noted that more than 500 new cases a day continue to be reported in Arizona, about the same as during the first reopening: “We’ll see if we learn from our lessons.”

Last Friday, the Associated Press noted that the 2 maskless Dakotas are leading the country in COVID-growth. Each state has a moron governor, more concerned about Trumpist politics than keeping their citizens safe-- or even alive. "Coronavirus infections in the Dakotas are growing faster than anywhere else in the nation," reported the AP, "fueling impassioned debates over masks and personal freedom after months in which the two states avoided the worst of the pandemic... Amid the brute force of the pandemic, health experts warn that the infections must be contained before care systems are overwhelmed. North Dakota and South Dakota lead the country in new cases per capita over the last two weeks, ranking first and second respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers.

COVID-Kristi

South Dakota has also posted some of the country’s highest positivity rates for COVID-19 tests in the last week-- over 17 percent-- an indication that there are more infections than tests are catching.

Infections have been spurred by schools and universities reopening and mass gatherings like the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew hundreds of thousands of people from across the country.

“It is not a surprise that South Dakota has one of the highest (COVID-19) reproduction rates in the country,” Brookings City Council member Nick Wendell said as he commented on the many people who forgo masks in public.

The Republican governors of both states have eschewed mask requirements, tapping into a spirit of independence hewn from enduring the winters and storms of the Great Plains.

The Dakotas were not always a hot spot. For months, the states appeared to avoid the worst of the pandemic, watching from afar as it raged through large cities. But spiking infection rates have fanned out across the nation, from the East Coast to the Sun Belt and now into the Midwest, where states like Iowa and Kansas are also dealing with surges.

When the case count stayed low during the spring and early summer, people grew weary of constantly taking precautions, said Dr. Benjamin Aaker, president of the South Dakota State Medical Association.

“People have a tendency to become complacent,” he said. “Then they start to relax the things that they were doing properly, and that’s when the increase in cases starts to go up.”

Health officials point out that the COVID-19 case increases have been among younger groups that are not hospitalized at high rates. But infections have not been contained to college campuses.

“College students work in places where the vulnerable live, such as nursing homes,” said Dr. Joel Walz, the Grand Forks, North Dakota, city and county health officer. “Some of them are nursing students who are doing rotations where they’re going to see people who are really at risk. I worry about that.”

Over 1,000 students at the states’ four largest universities (the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University and University of South Dakota) left campus to quarantine after being exposed to the virus, according to data released by the schools. The Sturgis rally also spread infections across the region, with health officials in 12 states reporting over 300 cases among people who attended the event.

But requiring masks has been controversial. In Brookings, opponents said they believed the virus threat was not as serious as portrayed and that a mandate was a violation of civil liberties.

“There are a lot of things we have in life that we have to deal with that cause death,” business owner Teresa Holloman told the council. “We live in America, and we have certain inalienable rights.”

North Dakota has 52 counties and South Dakota has 66. Trump only lost two counties in North Dakota (both basically Indian reservations). And of South Dakota's 66, Trump won 61. Trump won 62.96% of the North Dakota vote and 61.53% of the South Dakota vote. Only West Virginia, Wyoming and Oklahoma were more taken in by Trump's bullshit. (Kentucky and Alabama voters fell for the hustle more than South Dakota but slightly less than North Dakota.)

Religious Nuts Are Out Of Control In Israel-- Making Israel The Center Of A Catastrophic Second Pandemic Spike

On Friday, Israel reported 1,964 new COVID cases. On Saturday, it was 2,517 new cases. And yesterday... 1,708, bringing Israel's total to 130,644-- 14,204 cases per million Israelis. That number doesn't sound that terrible compared to America's numbers. Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi all have double that number of cases per million residents! With a population of just 9.1 million people, Israel has more total cases than all but 13 of the U.S. states, including states with bigger populations like Ohio and Michigan.

But it really starts looking bad when you compare Israel's numbers to the numbers in countries that don't have Trump and his puppet governors killing people-- like the western European nations. Israel's 14,204 cases per million residents is worse than even the hardest-hit European nations:

• Spain- 11,060 cases per million residents
• Sweden- 8,405 cases per million residents
• Belgium- 7,572 cases per million residents
• Ireland- 5,997 cases per million residents
• Portugal- 5,913 cases per million residents
• Switzerland- 5,124 cases per million residents
• U.K.- 5,109 cases per million residents
• France- 4,974 cases per million residents
• Italy- 4,593 cases per million residents
• Netherlands- 4,363 cases per million residents

Israel botched its school reopening really badly-- criminally actually, since it was all about politics-- and the country was thrown into a worse pandemic than it was originally. The pandemic has been turned into a full-blown scandal and tragedy in Israel and it was 100% about politics. Of 1,400 Israel's diagnosed with COVID in June almost half were infected in schools. By mid-July over 2,000 students, teachers and staff had caught it. NPR interviewed Jerusalem-based reporter Daniel Estrin noted that "what happened in Israel is quite a cautionary tale, I think. At first, the Israeli health professionals here urged the government, yes, let school resume again, but only let kids under the age of 9 go back to school, and keep it in small groups. And they said data around the world show that younger kids have a very low rate of infection and transmission. But instead of just letting the younger kids go back to school, there were these last-minute negotiations. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools wanted the older kids to go back to religious studies, and so they did. And then 11th- and 12th-graders also went back to school. And so very, very quickly, everyone was back. And then very quickly after that, there was a heat wave, so the government said, well, kids don't need to wear masks anymore during this heat wave. And then we just saw big outbreaks in schools, and a lot of schools shut down for several weeks... I think the lessons to be learned from Israel are listen to the health experts. The government here did not follow the health experts' guidelines to just open the younger grades and to have kids in small groups. They opened very fast, and there was no coherent policy. So listen to your health experts. Have a coherent policy."

An astronomical 3,331 new cases in Israel today-- worst day ever!

Two months later and Israel still is not listening to public health experts and still does not have a coherent pandemic policy-- and it's still all about politics. Netanyahu's shaky government depends on support from completely deranged ultra-Orthodox sociopaths who personify the Greek meaning of the word "idiot." [Umair Haque wrote that "For the Greeks, 'idiot' carried a precise and special meaning. The person who was only interested in private life, private gain, private advantage. Who had no conception of a public good, common wealth, shared interest. To the Greeks, the pioneers of democracy, the creators of the demos, such a person was the most contemptible of all. Because even the Greeks seemed to understand: you can’t make a functioning democracy out of…idiots."]

Over the weekend, Haaretz reported that the ultra-Orthodox politicians threatened to blow up Netanyahu's coalition if he went through with plans to shut down their self-imposed ghettos.

The mayors of four predominantly ultra-Orthodox municipalities sent a letter Sunday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, informing him that they plan to cease cooperation with government authorities in the fight against the coronavirus in light of an expected decision to impose a lockdown on their cities.

The mayors of Bnei Brak, Elad, Betar Illit and the council head of Emanuel blamed Netanyahu in their letter of failing to hear them out, to examine alternatives they've proposed, or understand their plight, and charged that he has intentionally led Israel down a path that would lead to a lockdown of Haredi cities during the holidays.

The Mayors wrote that since the coronavirus began to spread, they have been "at the forefront of the battle and leading the fight" against the virus. "We have all faced difficult struggles, at home and abroad, to take various steps to get patients out of our cities, to perform as many tests as possible, to maintain social distance, to locate and close places with potential for infection. We were able to change the equation by a considerable percentage, with personal initiative and a delicate fabric of rebuilding trust, in the face of the national erosion of trust and the implementation of the guidelines," they wrote.

However, they claim that Netanyahu did not try to listen to the public and understand their plight. "You did not bother to ask, understand and learn what characterizes a significant section of the population in Israel ... Unfortunately, you did not send anyone on your behalf to hear directly our working methods, and the set of steps that will be taken and succeed in constant and respectful dialogue with the spiritual leadership of this public," they wrote.

The Mayors concluded their letter by saying they would suspend cooperation with the government on everything related to the lockdown. Addressing Netanyahu, they wrote "we hereby inform you that the entire ultra-Orthodox public will not forget the injustice done to it. We will not forget who the man who signed with his hand, time and time again, on our becoming spreaders of diseases and enemies of the people, in the selective punishment of tens of thousands of families, members of the ultra-Orthodox sector."

"The decisions you have made, time and time again, have been made in the absence of logic and health expectation and are sharply and clearly directed against the ultra-Orthodox public. We see you as the sole culprit for these punitive measures, for humiliating the dignity of tradition and our dignity as legitimate citizens of this country."

Exactly one hour later, Haaretz reported that "Netanyahu decided to postpone the ministerial meeting scheduled to discuss the proposed lockdown on a number of municipalities, neighborhoods and two settlements, after ultra-Orthodox mayors sent him a letter saying they plan to cease cooperation with government authorities in the fight against the coronavirus in light of the expected decision" and a couple of hours later reported that the ultra-Orthodox are demanding that the whole country be shut down, not just their cities. "Interior Minister Arye Dery demanded during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that instead of a targeted closure upon "red" cities, which include five ultra-Orthodox cities, that the entire country be locked down ahead of the Jewish New Year. According to Dery, who represented the ultra-Orthodox mayors in the discussion, if the infection rate remains high, the cabinet should convene on Thursday, the day before the holiday is set to begin, and approve a closure over all of Israel. Dery claimed that professionals have agreed that a targeted closure is not the solution and will not reduce the infection rate significantly."

In an editorial from the Jerusalem Post yesterday-- How Israel has failed in the battle against coronavirus-- the editors noted that "Israel went from being the country everyone in the world looked to as a role model, to one that everyone looks to now as an example of what you are not supposed to do."

Israel achieved an impressive and embarrassing statistic last week, becoming the leading country in infections per capita.

Based on data from Johns Hopkins University, the Jewish state averaged 199.3 new cases a day per 1 million people during the seven-day period ending September 2. That is higher than any other country in the world.

Wow.

It’s amazing since we can look back and listen again to the speech Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave in May when he declared that Israel had defeated the novel coronavirus.

It’s amazing to think how Israel went from being the country everyone in the world looked to as a role model, to one that everyone looks to now as an example of what you are not supposed to do.

There are many answers to what went wrong. First, was the reopening of the economy in May and June that went too fast. It should have been more gradual. Same with the reopening of the schools. There was no reason to bring older grades back to closed classrooms. They could have carried on studying remotely. When outbreaks were reported in high schools across the country, we all immediately understood why.

Then, there was the failure of the government to use the time that the nation was in lockdown to prepare for the day after. This was precious time wasted. Still today, six months into this pandemic, Israel fails at contact tracing. It still does not have enough investigators who can quickly and effectively cut the chain of infection.

It has increased testing to high numbers but people are still not able to just walk into a clinic and get a virus test, or a serological test to see if they have antibodies, meaning they have already had the virus.

The airport was also not dealt with correctly. While the skies were shut down and El Al came to a halt, no one thought to use the time to build a testing station so people coming and going could be tested. The earliest such a station will open there will be in October or November.

Add to all of this the politicization of the virus. Most citizens today seem to understand what was clear from the outset of the management of this pandemic-- that it has not being fought by leaders, but by politicians, more interested in what the virus can do for their political careers and less interested in how they can really eradicate the virus.

What is happening with Uman is a classic case in point. People should not be allowed to travel there. Period. That is the position of Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and coronavirus commissioner Ronni Gamzu. That was also Netanyahu’s position until the ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition started to threaten to bring down the government if a solution was not found. Now he’s instructed his ministers to come up with a compromise.

The accusations leveled by members of Netanyahu’s own party against Gamzu-- that he is stoking antisemitism and should step down-- does not help the fight. Instead, everyone seems to be doing what they want. Some people abide by the rules and hold weddings with under 50 people and others hold weddings with hundreds of guests as if there isn’t a virus raging here.

And why should people listen to Gamzu when they hear how politicians talk about him? If the elected officials don’t heed his guidelines, why should the average citizen?

For this to change, the government has to either start working or get out of the way. Since the government is not functioning, its incumbent upon each and every one of us to do his or her part. Wear a mask, social distance, clean your hands, stay home and away from public events and warn others when you see them not adhering to the rules.

Unfortunately, Israelis can no longer count on their elected leaders to do their job and steer the country to safety. In their absence it is up to us to fill the role, and we can do that by following the rules.

Is Trump's Latest Twitter Rage Proof That He's Insane Or Proof That He Thinks His Base Is? Or Both?

By 6 AM on Sunday, Trump was up and doing what he enjoys most-- raging at his political enemies on Twitter, screaming about cracking down on "agitators and thugs" (for him a synonym for protesters, people of color and Democrats) and fanning the flames of civil unrest. In all, he entertained his followers with nearly 100 tweets and retweets about his great poll numbers-- from a GOP firm that allows their clients to practically pick their own results-- and both defending violent right-wing terrorists and savaging Democratic politicians trying to cope with the Trump-inspired chaos in their cities and states. His armed supporters drove into Portland to do one thing: wreak havoc on Trump's behalf-- a real caravan this time.

I believe someone may have since talked Trump out of going to Kenosha (still not sure), but on State of the Union yesterday Karen Bass (D-CA) explained that Trump’s trip there was "to agitate things and to make things worse... He is campaigning. It is clear his campaign is all about law and order. It is a throwback to the past. And he's going to do everything to disrupt law and order in this time period."

The NY Times' Peter Baker wrote the story everyone else is quoting: Trump Embraces Fringe Theories On Protests And The Coronavirus, although "embraces" is such a Times kind of description for what Trump is actually up to. Baker noted that President Sociopath was claiming on Sunday morning that the "street protests are actually an organized coup d’état against him."

One of the Trumpists was killed in Portland precisely what the country's chief agent provocateur was hoping for. In his weekend diarrhea of hate messaging to his Twitter followers, Trump "embraced a call to imprison Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, threatened to send federal forces against demonstrators outside the White House, attacked CNN and NPR, embraced a supporter charged with murder, mocked his challenger, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and repeatedly assailed the mayor of Portland, even posting the mayor’s office telephone number so that supporters could call demanding his resignation."

One of the most incendiary messages was a retweet of a program from the One America News Network, a pro-Trump channel that advances extreme theories and that the president has turned to when he feels that Fox News has not been supportive enough. The message he retweeted Saturday night promoted a segment accusing demonstrators of secretly plotting Mr. Trump’s downfall.

“According to the mainstream media, the riots & extreme violence are completely unorganized,” the tweet said. “However, it appears this coup attempt is led by a well funded network of anarchists trying to take down the President.” Accompanying it was an image of a promo for a segment titled: “America Under Siege: The Attempt to Overthrow President Trump.”

Mr. Trump likewise reposted messages asserting that the real death toll from the coronavirus is only around 9,000-- not 182,000-- because the others who died also had other health issues and most were of an advanced age.

“So get this straight-- based on the recommendation of doctors Fauci and Birx the US shut down the entire economy based on 9,000 American deaths to the China coronavirus,” said the summary of a story by the hard-line conservative website Gateway Pundit that was retweeted by the president, denigrating his own health advisers, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Dr. Deborah L. Birx.

Over the weekend (Saturday + Sunday), there were 1,325 new COVID-deaths reported. The actual U.S. death total is 187,224, despite the denialism from Trumpist conspiracy theorists encouraged by Trump himself. The half dozen states with the most new deaths this past weekend:

• Florida 163
• Texas 188
• Georgia 133
• California 102
• Alabama 55
• South Carolina 54




Maybe Trump wants to tell their families that they didn't die of COVID and that's it's all a hoax and all about him. It is likely that by election day, something like a quarter million Americans will have been majority of American voters agree that Trump is an unreliable source of information about the pandemic and that, in general, he is untrustworthy and untruthful. Poor thing... must be frustrating for him.

But Mr. Trump also retweeted a message calling for Mr. Cuomo to be locked up because of the high death toll from the coronavirus in New York nursing homes earlier in the pandemic. “#KillerCuomo should be in jail,” said the message by the actor James Woods, a strong supporter of the president’s.

And the president even “liked” a tweet that offered support for Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Trump supporter who has been charged with homicide after two demonstrators were shot to death in Kenosha, Wis. “Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump,” the tweet said.

Mr. Cuomo responded on his own Twitter feed a few hours later, pointing to the Trump administration’s failure to contain the pandemic. “The White House has learned nothing from COVID,” Mr. Cuomo wrote. “National threats require national leadership. It’s been 6 months without a national strategy on testing or mask mandate. Only the federal government has the power to go to war with COVID. They are failing and the nation suffers.”

For his part, Mr. Biden issued a statement condemning the violence in Portland as “unacceptable” regardless of one’s political views and criticizing Mr. Trump for trying to raise the temperature rather than lower it.

“What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters?” Mr. Biden asked. “He is recklessly encouraging violence. He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong-- but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is.”

...Trump repeatedly assailed Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland for resisting federal help and delighted in showcasing a peaceful protest held at the mayor’s own home on Friday, even retweeting a post accusing the Mr. Wheeler of “committing war crimes.” Rather than calling for calm, Mr. Trump seemed to justify aggressive action against demonstrators by his supporters.

“The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing,” Mr. Trump wrote, as he retweeted a journalist’s post reporting that Trump supporters were firing paintballs and pepper spray, including at the reporter. “The people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer. The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard!”

Mr. Trump plans to travel on Tuesday to Kenosha, where emotions have been raw since the police shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back seven times, leaving him paralyzed. The president’s trip has caused concern that he could inflame the situation. He made no comment on the shooting for days until he was asked about it on Friday in an interview with WMUR of New Hampshire during a visit to the state.

“It was not a good sight,” he said. “I didn’t like the sight of it, certainly. I think most people would agree with that. But we’ll be getting reports in very soon, and we’ll report back.”

His Twitter comments on Kenosha, however, have focused on restoring order in the streets. The president’s string of Twitter messages trailed off on Sunday morning before he got into his motorcade and headed to his golf club in Virginia, where he was greeted by a handful of protesters, including one dressed as a grim reaper holding a sign that said “183K,” referring to the number of people in the United States who have died from the coronavirus.

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian told NPR that Trump shouldn't come to his city tomorrow. "Realistically, from our perspective, our preference would have been for him not to be coming at this point in time... All presidents are always welcome and campaign issues are always going on. But it would have been, I think, better had he waited to have for another time to come... Peaceful protests are not a problem. Our biggest problem really did come from people coming from outside the area and causing a great deal of damage and destruction."

Meanwhile Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes was more explicit. He told John King on Inside Politics that "You look at the incendiary remarks that the President has made, they centered an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what is going on in Kenosha. So, I don't know how given any of the previous statements that the President made that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely don't need that right now." 

Josh Paul is Wisconsin's Attorney General. He made some good points yesterday about why Trump should not show up in Kenosha tomorrow. He end his Twitter stream by reminding people that "While Donald Trump has spoken about law and order, he has pardoned his allies, flouted the law, and spewed hate and division, day after day, from our highest office. He is a catalyst for chaos and a threat to the rule of law."

Badly Handled School Reopenings Are Absolutely Deadly-- Wave II Starting Overseas?

Leana Wen, who formerly served as Baltimore’s health commissioner and is now teaching emergency medicine at George Washington University, wrote an OpEd for the Washington Post Tuesday, Stop justifying school reopening based on false statements. Wen is furious that "people"-- meaning Trump and his sycophantic supporters like governors Brian Kemp (GA), Ron DeSantis (FL), Kevin Stitt (OK), Greg Abbott (TX), Doug Ducey (AZ), Mike Parson (MO), Bill Lee (TN), Chris Sununu (NH), Kristi Noem (SD), Kay Ivey (AL), Pete Ricketts (NE), Henry McMaster (SC) and Kim Reynolds (IA)-- keep saying that children don’t get sick from the coronavirus and don’t spread it. "These statements," she wrote, "are being used to justify school reopening, and they’re just not true.

First, children do get infected. In fact, a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association found that 338,000 kids have been diagnosed with covid-19 in the United States. More than 97,000 cases were diagnosed in the last two weeks of July. The majority of these infections were in states undergoing surges, suggesting that high levels of community transmission directly translates to infections among children.

It is true that children tend to get less severely ill than adults, particularly when compared with older adults with underlying medical conditions. But some children do become very sick and require hospitalization. Among children admitted to the hospital, 1 in 3 end up being admitted to the intensive care unit-- a similar ratio as adults. Racial disparities seen in adult patients are also mirrored in children: The rates of hospitalization among Hispanic and Black children are nearly eight and five times higher, respectively, than the rate in White children.

Even though the virus that causes covid-19 is transmitted through the respiratory system, that’s not all it affects. The virus can cause damage to multiple organs in children, just as it does to adults. There is even a rare but serious associated disease specific to children that we are just beginning to understand, the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). In a New England Journal of Medicine study, 92 percent of children with this syndrome experience effects on their gastrointestinal system and 80 percent on their cardiovascular system. Some develop coronary artery aneurysms. There are case reports of children suffering from a toxic shock-like multi-organ failure, which has led to death.

Counting Sheep by Nancy Ohanian

It’s also true that children spread covid-19. The largest study involving children and transmission is one from South Korea that traced nearly 60,000 people. It found that children 10 and older transmit the virus at least as well as adults. Children under 10 appeared to transmit it about half as much-- though here the study was limited to only 57 younger children. Another study in JAMA Pediatrics found that children carry just as much virus in their nasal passages in adults; in fact, kids under 5 may carry 10 to 100 times more.

That children can transmit to one another and to adults around them is also evident in a case report from a Georgia summer camp. After a teenage counselor developed symptoms, the camp was shut down. By then, 260 of 344 campers and staff for whom testing data is available had the infection. Among children ages 6 to 10, more than half were infected. More than half of the staff, too, tested positive.

Some who support on-time school reopening point to European countries that have had few outbreaks after resuming in-person instruction. However, these countries undertook many safety measures, including enforcing social distancing and implementing regular testing. They also had far lower rates of covid-19 in the community than we do. A cautionary tale should be Israel, where rapid school reopening with few safeguards contributed to a resurgence across the country. One school had a superspreader event after which 154 students and 26 staff members tested positive. A month after reopening, nearly half of the country’s new infections were thought to have originated in schools.

Short answer: absolutely not-- completely false... another dangerous Trump lie

And countries that botched their school reopenings seem to have kicked off Wave 2. New cases are astronomical in Israel and Spain and rapidly on the rise in France, Germany and the U.K. These are the new cases for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in countries where Wave II seems to have started:

• Spain +2,873 ---> +3,632 ---> +3,172
• Israel +1,720 ---> +1,871 ---> +1,558
• Germany +1,219 ---> +1,030 ---> +1,320
• Japan +1,207 ---> +938 ---> +1,282
• U.K. +816 ---> +1,148 ---> +1,009
• France +785 ---> +1,397 ---> +2,524
• Belgium +781 ---> +468 ---> +388
• Netherlands +630 ---> +779 ---> +654

A new poll Morning Consult did for Politico indicates that most Americans understand the danger of rapid reopening on schools a lot better than DeVos, Trump and his band of criminal governors do. Among registered voters, the number opposing in-person elementary and high school openings rose from 53% in early July to 59% today.

Writing for the NY Times yesterday, Richard Fausset asked facetiously if 925 people quarantined for COVID-10 defines a successful school reopening. He starts off by describing Cherokee County as "a bucolic and politically conservative stretch of suburbs north of Atlanta." The county only gave Hillary 22.7% of its vote in 2016. Two years later-- the so-called "blue wave"-- and Cherokee County was all in on Brian Kemp-- 72.1% to 26.4% for Stacey Abrams. The county performance for the local congressional neo-fascist crackpot Barry Loudermilk was R+49. You got the picture? So they opened their schools idiotically and immediately, the kids started getting COVID-- in all 10 elementary schools. Over 900 in the first week (students and staff) and one of the high schools re-closed.

Trump counties in rural and suburban Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana have been reopened for two weeks. "Students and teachers," wrote Fausset, "have immediately tested positive, sending others into two-week quarantines and creating whiplash for schools that were eager to open, only to have to consider closing again right away. All of this has only further divided communities where parents and teachers have passionately disagreed over the safety of reopening. 'This is exactly what we expected to happen,' said Allison Webb, 44, who quit her job as a Spanish and French teacher in the district because of her concerns about reopening schools, and who put her daughter, a senior, in the district’s remote-learning program. 'It’s not safe' to return to the classrooms now, Ms. Webb said. But to Jenny Beth Martin, who wanted schools to reopen-- even appealing directly to President Trump in a visit to the White House-- the district’s return has been a rousing success. 'I think that the opening plan is working,' said Ms. Martin, a district parent and co-founder of the national Tea Party Patriots, a conservative political group. 'They’re checking, they’re making sure when people have tested positive that they’re watching the exposure and spread.'"

Cherokee County had its own firestorm. A photo taken outside Etowah High School on the first day back showed scores of students crowded shoulder to shoulder, smiling and unmasked. A similar photo from Sequoyah High School was also posted to social media. Beneath the photo, a commenter wrote, “Most of these kids are gonna be sick in the next few days … was it really worth it to appease the anti-mask parents? At what cost?”

The county’s reopening plan was unanimously approved by the school board on July 9. Families could choose online or in-person, five-days-a-week instruction, and masks would be encouraged, but not required, for the district’s 42,500 students.

Opposition began to coalesce almost immediately. Ms. Webb, the foreign language teacher, organized a group on Facebook called Educators for Common Sense and Safety. The group started an online petition asking for, among other things, a mask mandate for students and a delayed start to allow time to rework schedules, classrooms and the curriculum “to be safe and engaging for our students.” It attracted more than 1,100 signatures.

In mid-July, the group, which Ms. Webb said currently counts hundreds of members, picketed outside a board meeting. A former English teacher, Miranda Wicker, 38, became its spokesperson-- a necessity, she said, because current teachers lacked union protection and feared retaliation if they spoke out.

“They’re terrified,” Ms. Wicker said. “They’re being asked, literally, to risk their lives.”

...Late last month, Ms. Martin was an organizer of a Washington news conference featuring people who identified themselves as doctors and who made misleading statements about the coronavirus, including unsupported claims that the drug hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment. Mr. Trump tweeted a video of the event, which was later removed from major social media platforms on the grounds that it was spreading misinformation.

In early July, when the school board approved reopening, case tallies in Cherokee County, with about 260,000 people, had only begun to rise after remaining flat and relatively low-- an average of about 10 new confirmed cases a day-- for most of June. Since then, though, the numbers have climbed steadily, mirroring the state as a whole, with the county averaging more than 90 new confirmed cases daily over the past week. Sixty-four people in the county have died of Covid-19, including eight in the past week.

...Ms. Morrison said she and her husband do not wear masks either. “I feel like before we’re even born, God has a plan for when he’s going to take us to heaven,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do to stop it.”