Sunday, August 16, 2020

Sunday Globe Special: Virtual Truancy and the Diminished College Experience

It almost feels like they are holding your kids hostage:

"The Great Divide: Your child’s a no-show at virtual school? You may get a call from the state’s foster care agency" by Bianca Vázquez Toness Globe Staff, August 15, 2020

Massachusetts school officials have reported dozens of families to state social workers for possible neglect charges because of issues related to their children’s participation in remote learning classes during the pandemic shutdown in the spring, according to interviews with parents, advocates, and reviews of documents.

(Initial paragraph met with blog author alarm. I will let that lay and explain later while giving the good old Globe a chance here.)

In most cases, lawyers and family advocates said, the referrals were made solely because students failed to log into class repeatedly. Most of the parents reported were mothers, and several did not have any previous involvement with social services.

The trend was most common in high-poverty, predominantly Black and Latino school districts in Worcester, Springfield, Haverhill, and Lynn; advocates and lawyers reported few, if any, cases from wealthier communities.

(Blog author starting to grumble about where this is going)

Among those parents is Em Quiles. In June, Quiles was stunned to receive a call from the state’s Department of Children and Families. The school had accused Quilts of neglect, she was told, because the 7-year-old missed class and homework assignments.

I'm sure it was more than stunning, I'm sure it was terrifying. 

That is the LAST THING any parent wants to hear at the end of the line.

When Em Quiles' second-grade son didn't participate in zoom classes during remote learning due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the school reported her to the Department of Children and Families.
When Em Quiles' second-grade son didn't participate in zoom classes during remote learning due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the school reported her to the Department of Children and Families (Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff)

This could really open up so much evilness regarding the seizure of children and parents because of the COVID-19 cover story, and now the control-freak technocrats want your kids to be where they supposed to be as if the entire world were a plantation.

Quiles lived one of the worst nightmares for a parent: A neglect charge, if substantiated, can lead to removing a child from their home. It came during a period of unprecedented educational disruption, in which parents, students, and schools all struggled with ad-hoc routines that challenged even the most engaged, but would result in some being singled out for how their children responded.

“It’s the exact wrong thing that the moment calls for,” said Michael Gregory, managing attorney with the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative of Massachusetts Advocates for Children and the Harvard Law School.

Officials in several school districts said they did not report parents solely because their children failed to participate in virtual school. In every case, they said, there was a pattern of problematic behavior that extended well beyond a few missed classes.

That is absolutely damning, and 

School staff are required to notify DCF when they have “reasonable cause to believe” a child has been abused or neglected. Indeed, during the pandemic, the state explicitly reaffirmed to school districts that teachers should report parents if students were “repeatedly truant/missing from their school programming and attempts to provide resources have been ignored or refused.”

Of course, the DCF's record over the decades is atrocious. Children dying under their watch, being placed with sex abuser, and on and on, but that all gets ratholed with the illusionary veneer of our great leader benefactors and the self-important "educators," sorry to say, that also seemed to be riddled with the predilection.

DCF officials said they haven’t tracked the number of referrals this past spring for problems with remote learning and would not comment on specific cases.

Gregory said he and a network of attorneys serving low-income families around the state have fielded calls from at least half a dozen parents who had been reported to DCF during school shutdown for some kind of transgression related to remote learning.

Meri Viano, the associate director of the Parent/Professional Advocacy League, a statewide organization that advocates for mental health services for families, said she has been in touch with 12 parents in Worcester and 10 in Springfield who have been contacted by DCF for the same reason, and Nelly Medina, a parent organizer with the Worcester Education Justice Alliance, said she spoke to five mothers in the district who were referred to DCF. Most were told it was because their children weren’t attending Zoom calls or doing homework, she said. “Worcester School Department was attempting to blame the parents for their inadequate communication.”

Since when is a kid not doing homework grounds for taking them out of the home?

They are literally Zooming in on your kids, and no one seems to care about the "new learning platform."

Most of the districts that referred families to DCF for remote learning problems have longand sometimes controversialpolicies of reporting parents for their children’s truancy prior to COVID as well, yet lawyers including Gregory said the aggressive approach was particularly inappropriate during a pandemic when families of all backgrounds frequently struggled to help their children engage in remote learning. During the spring, only 36 percent of parents who were surveyed statewide said their children participated in daily online classes.

And they told you Trump wanted to push us back to the '50s.

Indeed, several cities took the state guidance very seriously. In a note outlining their responsibilities during the spring remote learning period, Worcester school officials reminded teachers of their roles as “mandatory reporters” to DCF. That list of expectations included little about their role ensuring students continued their learning during the pandemic.

“One of our primary responsibilities was to ensure that every child in our district was safe, had access to food, and received appropriate care,” said Worcester superintendent Maureen Binienda, in an e-mail explaining the rationale.

Oh, our saviors!

Although Binienda declined to comment on specific cases, she called Quiles’s story “wholly and completely inaccurate.” She added in a statement that the district did not file a report to DCF “simply because a student did not participate in remote learning.” It was only in the “rare circumstance after teachers, educational service providers, and the principal tried many... times to contact a family and student and there was absolutely zero response.”

Quiles disputes this assertion, noting that she had communicated with the school several times in the spring. “They weren’t interested in working with parents,” she said.

Because it is the tyrant's little fiefdom, and how dare you?

According to Quiles, it didn’t take long for the state social worker during the initial call to decide the complaint had no merit. (DCF would not comment on her case.) Quiles, who runs an empowerment organization for Latinos, said she knew she hadn’t “done anything wrong,” but she worries about other families who don’t speak English or know anything about DCF. “Why is the district so quick to work against us, rather than work with us?” she asked.

The answer would shock and surprise you.

Most of the families caught up in remote learning allegations are Latino or Black, groups that are likely to be overrepresented in state foster care at all times.

In Massachusetts, Latino children are more likely to be separated from their families than children from any other racial or ethnic group. A full 32 percent of the children who are in DCF care are Latino, yet they make up 19 percent of the population, according to data from Citizens for Juvenile Justice, a statewide advocacy organization. Black children are also overrepresented.

The Globe turns everything into a race-first, gender-second argument, and this will mean the pesos that have infested the $y$tem will being coming for the poor white children now.

Schools often read into situations involving children of color, imagining “something bad happening where there is nothing,” said Elizabeth McIntyre, attorney with the School to Prison Pipeline Intervention Project at Greater Boston Legal Services. One client she represented, a Black mother who worked as a hairdresser, was reported to DCF when she didn’t answer phone calls from the school when her child was having an emotional crisis. They called her three times within a 30-minute period, McIntyre said. “If she were a white parent who worked at a big law firm downtown ... the district would not file a [report].”

I wouldn't be too sure of that since whites make up the majority of placed children. Will get more horror stories that don't exist now so pedos can pluck.

Now, the COVID-19 crisis and school closings have given schools new ways to surveil and punish parents, said Leon Smith, executive director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice. That’s happening both through the close attention to online absenteeism and video conferencing that allows teachers to see inside a family’s home.

Schools aren’t calling DCF “in the suburbs, where kids are blowing off their online schooling,” he said. “It’s happening in communities of color.”

Indeed, superintendents in four suburban districts contacted by the Globe said they did not believe their staff reported parents to DCF for being absent from virtual school.

One advocate told the Globe that three Lexington families with prior DCF involvement were reported when their children didn’t show up for online classes. Lexington school officials did not return e-mails seeking comment.

One mother, a Spanish-speaking immigrant, told the Globe that school staff contacted DCF about her family after she reached out to the school for help. (The woman, who lives in a small town in Eastern Massachusetts, asked not to use her name, location, or other identifying details because she feared retaliation from the district.)

It's time we all started contact tracing and then quarantining them!

Her young son’s behavior became difficult after schools closed in March, the woman said, adding that the boy clearly missed the structure and routines, so she was shocked a few days later to receive a call from DCF. Someone from the school had alleged “general neglect” based on “behaviors observed or disclosed during remote learning.”

The Department of Children & Families launched a three-week investigation, according to the mother and DCF documents reviewed by the Globe. The social worker interviewed the child’s medical providers. She also quizzed the mother on everything from the contents of her refrigerator to her son’s sleeping location, and she interviewed the boy over Zoom.

The mother was terrified her son might be taken away from her. “What would he do?” she wondered. “I’m the only one he trusts.”

In May, DCF dismissed the allegation of neglect, according to the documents.

The mother said she has lost all trust in the school but has no other options as to where to send him.

Shouldn't the state “understand what mothers go through and show them some support,” as they piously claim?

In some of the cases, school staff witnessed something on video conferences that made them suspicious, behavior that families and advocates maintain was in fact harmless.

Haverhill mother Christi Brouder, who is white, had been struggling to get her four children, all of whom have special needs, to participate in remote learning for weeks. Two of her children’s teachers threatened to call the district’s truancy officer, but never did.

Finally, one day in May, Brouder coaxed her 10-year-old to join a class on Google Meet focused on teaching social skills. The girl was watching with the laptop on the floor when her 6-year-old brother leapt over the computer screen “in his birthday suit,” according to Brouder.

Oh, I'm sure that drew attention in state quarters, and not for their own protection.

The boy has autism and epilepsy and often feels more comfortable naked, Brouder said, but she also knew his antics could be considered inappropriate and yelled to her son, “You can’t be naked. Get back in the house,” yet the child jumped over the screen again.

Later that day, Brouder received a call from the Department of Children and Families. The social worker informed her that school staff had reported a naked adult male exposing himself on the computer.

Brouder explained that she lives alone with her four young children and that the nude male was only 6.

She was relieved when the social worker told her the case wouldn’t go anywhere. The school district, however, wasn’t ready to drop the issue. The head of Haverhill’s special-education department told Brouder that afternoon they had contacted the city police department “due to the severity of the allegations,” according to Brouder.

A plainclothes police officer came to her home that evening; that case, too, was eventually dropped. (A Haverhill police spokesman declined to comment.)

The parent is now past terrified!

Haverhill Superintendent Margaret Marotta would not comment on the specifics of Brouder’s case, but said in an e-mailed statement: “Our staff would not call DCF for suspicion of a naked 6 year old.”

She added that DCF is only contacted “if we had immediate concerns for the well-being of a student,” but.....

But what?

--more--"

Related:

"Corporate America, for the most part, has made child care someone else’s problem, but in the COVID-19 era, some employers are realizing the outsize role they can play in helping parents, whether it’s offering flexible schedules, increasing child-care subsidies, even finding sitters and tutors, and these solutions could end up outlasting the pandemic, much like working from home may become more of the norm after the disease dissipates. As chief people officer of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Frances Brooks Taplett is in a position to ensure that support for employees with children goes beyond simply letting them work from home. That’s why the Broad not only increased child-care subsidies to employees during the pandemic but also set up a backup care center over the summer that could accommodate older children....."

The "di$ea$e" already has dissipated, and that $tinks of communi$m with a whiff of petto.

There will be no need to get the kid onto the bus for school:

"New Orleans, like most American cities, has seen its transit budget drastically affected during the pandemic. Public transit leaders across the country have issued dire warnings to Congress, saying that the first $25 billion in aid they received in March is quickly drying up, and they need more — otherwise their systems will go into a “death spiral.” In return, though, Congress has shown little sign that another stimulus package will pass soon, or even include any of the $32 billion more in assistance that transit experts say is needed to prevent systems from making more severe cuts to service that could stall the nation's economic recovery, but as service cuts to the United States' bus, rail and subway systems start to happen, experts say it is the nation's low-income residents, people of color and essential workers bearing the brunt. To stay afloat, transit leaders have started to pare back service. Many riders are already experiencing longer commute times, more system breakdowns, a lack of social distancing and, in some cases, unexplainable lapses in service....."

The whole thing is breaking down despite the billions, and now they want more with drastically reduced and dwindling ridership (although it is nice to know whites aren't riding the subway).

See: COVID is the End of Public Transit and Education

They are not testing enough:

"‘We’re clearly not doing enough’: Drop in testing hampers coronavirus response" by Sarah Mervosh, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Sheryl Gay Stolberg New York Times, August 15, 2020

For months, public health experts and federal officials have said that significantly expanding the number of coronavirus tests administered in the United States is essential to reining in the pandemic. By some estimates, several million people might need to be tested each day, including many people who don’t feel sick, but the country remains far short of that benchmark and, for the first time, the number of known tests conducted each day has fallen.

The genocidal monsters will not be happy until everyone is declared positive by their tests, and thus must be continually inoculated.

Reported daily tests trended downward for much of the last two weeks, essentially stalling the nation’s testing response. Some 733,000 people have been tested each day this month on average, down from nearly 750,000 in July, according to the COVID Tracking Project. The seven-day test average dropped to 709,000 on Monday, the lowest in nearly a month, before ticking upward again at week’s end.

The troubling trend comes after months of steady increases in testing, and may in part reflect that fewer people are seeking out tests as known cases have leveled off at more than 50,000 per day, after surging even higher this summer, but the plateau in testing may also reflect people’s frustration at the prospect of long lines and delays in getting results — as well as another fundamental problem: The nation has yet to build a robust system to test vast portions of the population, not just those seeking tests.

They mean every single soul, the evil bastards.

Six months into the pandemic, testing remains a major obstacle in America’s efforts to stop the virus, hindering efforts to quickly isolate patients and trace their contacts. Now, the number of tests being given has slowed just as the nation braces for the possibility of another surge as schools reopen and cooler weather drives people indoors.

The empty campuses will be repurposed as extermination camps for all those who dissent.

“We’re clearly not doing enough,” said Dr. Mark McClellan, director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy and the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under President George W. Bush.

Look at the $cum that came out of the woodwork.

The downward trend may turn out to be only a short-term setback: The nation reported more than 800,000 tests on Thursday and Friday. There are also limitations to the data, which is largely drawn from state health departments, some of which have recently struggled with backlogs and other issues. It may not include tests done in labs not certified by the federal government, but according to the figures available, tests were declining in 20 states this past week, and data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services showed a similar overall trend nationally.

Without a vaccine or a highly successful treatment, widespread testing is seen as a cornerstone for fighting a pandemic in which as many as 40 percent of infected people do not show symptoms and may unknowingly spread the virus. Testing a lot of people is crucial to seeing where the virus is going and identifying hot spots before they get out of hand. Experts see extensive testing as a key part of safely reopening schools, businesses, and sports.

By this process, they will ensure the entire world.

The nation’s testing capacity has expanded from where it was only a few months ago, but public health experts believe it must grow far more to bring the virus under control.

I now not only distrust the "public health experts" cited by the evil, agenda-pushing Globe, I now despise them.

The Harvard Global Health Institute has suggested the country needs at least 1 million tests per day to slow the spread of the virus, and as many as 4 million per day to get ahead of the virus and stop new cases. Some experts view that goal as too ambitious, and others say the benchmark should focus not on a particular number of tests but on the percent of people testing positive, yet there is broad consensus that the current level of testing is inadequate and that any decrease in testing is a worrisome move in the wrong direction.

The "experts they turned to are Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, who sees signs of hope, and Admiral Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health and the Trump administration’s virus testing czar (got that wrong on the quiz).

For much of the spring and summer, the number of daily tests steadily increased. The United States averaged about 172,000 tests per day in April, before ramping up to an average of 510,000 in June and nearly 750,000 in July.

Then why did the pre$$ cut up the President for stating just that?

The recent dip in testing is likely a result of several factors, epidemiologists said.

It may, in part, reflect an improved outlook from earlier this summer, when parts of the Sunbelt were seeing alarming outbreaks. The number of people hospitalized with the virus each day across the country has decreased to around 45,000, down from earlier peaks of around 59,000 in April and July. And, the percent of people testing positive overall is hovering at about 7 percent, down from 8.5 percent in July.

I'm sick of the statistical lies and fudging.

The country is also still waiting on a larger market of tests.....

As opposed to the NFL, which "armed with billionaire owners and billions of dollars in league revenue, hired BioReference Laboratories to set up 32 testing sites and produce the capacity to test thousands of players and employees every day. Every player, coach, staffer, locker room attendant, and cafeteria worker is tested daily" and while the initially silly idea of virtual fans has now become a bubble-game must.

That is why they can play and you can not!

--more--"

The campuses will look downright spooky this fall:

"As colleges move classes online, families rebel against the cost" by Shawn Hubler New York Times, August 15, 2020

After Southern California’s soaring coronavirus caseload this month forced Chapman University to abruptly abandon plans to reopen its campus and shift to an autumn of all-remote instruction, the school promised that students would still get a “robust Chapman experience.”

“What about a robust refund?” Christopher Moore, a spring graduate, retorted on Facebook.

A parent chimed in.

“We are paying a lot of money for tuition, and our students are not getting what we paid for,” wrote Shannon Carducci, whose youngest child, Ally, is a sophomore at Chapman, where the cost of attendance averages $65,000 a year.

Back when they believed that Ally would be attending classes in person, her parents leased her a $1,200-a-month apartment. Now, Carducci said, she plans to ask for a tuition discount.

Good luck.

They will soon be unable to afford tuition, and the college will soon be closed.

A rebellion against the high cost of a bachelor’s degree, already brewing around the nation before the coronavirus, has gathered fresh momentum as campuses have strained to operate in the pandemic. Incensed at paying face-to-face prices for education that is increasingly online, students and their parents are demanding tuition rebates, increased financial aid, reduced fees, and leaves of absences to compensate for what they feel will be a diminished college experience.

At such places as Rutgers, North Carolina, all of California from Fullerton to San Jose, Ithaca, Harvard, and the list goes on, Maryland, Penn, USC, Virginia, Princeton, and a host of other colleges announced plans to hold all or most of their classes online, as well as cancelling keg parties and college football games.

Universities have been divided in their response, with some offering discounts but most resisting, arguing that remote learning and other virus measures are making their operations more, not less, costly at a time when higher education is already struggling.

“These are unprecedented times, and more and more families are needing more and more financial assistance to enroll in college,” said Terry W. Hartle, a senior vice president for the American Council on Education, a higher education trade group, “but colleges also need to survive.”

The le$$on there is everything is about $elf-pre$ervation.

The roster of colleges that have rescinded plans to reopen their classrooms has been growing by the day.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, less than a quarter of the nation’s 5,000 colleges are committed to providing instruction primarily or completely in person.

Chapman’s president, Daniele Struppa, said the university spent $20 million on technology and public health retrofits for the fall semester, and he estimates that the switch to an online fall will cost the school $110 million in revenue. He has cut spending “brutally” from the $400 million annual budget, he said, freezing hires, slashing expenses, canceling construction of a new gym, ending the retirement match to employees, and giving up 20 percent of his own $720,000 base salary.

Why should parents and students be expected to pay that? 

Take it out of the damn endowment, I mean, it must be booming with the $tock market, right?

Only students who can demonstrate financial need will get help, he is telling families.

A survey by the American Council on Education estimated that reopening this fall would add 10 percent to a college’s regular operating expenses, costing the country’s 5,000 some colleges and universities a total of $70 billion.

“For institutions,” said Hartle, who lobbies for the council, “this is a perfect storm.”

Students are feeling tempest tossed, too.

Did you learn the le$$on that you are second in concern?

Temple University sociologist Sara Goldrick-Rab, founder of the school’s Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, said the organization has been “bombarded” with pleas for help from students who can’t cover their rent and don’t know how to apply for food stamps. At least a third of students had lost jobs because of the pandemic by May, according to the center.

How will they pay off the student loans? Maybe those could be abrogated as education will eventually be taught by AI.

Such situations, Goldrick-Rab said, are particularly risky because they often prompt students to take on second or third jobs or to become distracted, which in turn imperils financial aid that can be revoked if their grades fall, but the shift online also has accelerated fundamental questions about the future of higher education, said the director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, Marguerite Roza. “This is a moment,” said Roza, “that is basically forcing students and parents to say, ‘What is the value? If I can’t set foot on campus, is that the same value?’ ”

I was more like where are the jobs because who do you think was working the bars and restaurants, and that is the world in which we live now.

--more--"

The professor says that bringing college students back to Boston feels dangerous, but just do what the Massa say and everything should be all right.

If only there were more Black nurses graduating from medical schools.

Also see: College Kids Are Carrying COVID

It will be the ideal lab:

"Coronavirus crisis has made Brazil an ideal vaccine laboratory" by Manuela Andreoni and Ernesto Londoño New York Times, August 15, 2020

Oh, woe does my heart go out to Brazilians

Resist!

RIO DE JANEIRO — The chaotic response to the coronavirus in Brazil, where it has killed more than 105,000 people, made the country’s experience a cautionary tale that many around the world have watched with alarm, but as the country’s caseload soared, vaccine researchers saw a unique opportunity.

Oh, I am going to be sick.

With sustained widespread contagion, a deep bench of immunization experts, a robust medical manufacturing infrastructure, and thousands of vaccine trial volunteers, Brazil has emerged as a potentially vital player in the global scramble to end the pandemic.

Three of the most promising and advanced vaccine studies in the world are relying on scientists and volunteers in Brazil, according to the World Health Organization’s report on the progress of vaccine research.

The embattled government hopes its citizens could be among the first in the world to be inoculated, and medical experts are imagining the possibility that Brazil could even manufacture the vaccine and export it to neighboring countries, a prospect that fills them with something that has been in short supply this year: pride.

OMG, this is sickening propaganda, and they must have finally gotten Bolsonaro to back down.

“I’m very optimistic,” said Dimas Covas, the director of the Butantan Institute, an internationally renowned biopharmaceutical producer that is partnering with China’s Sinovac on one of the studies that has reached the third stage of research, during which potential vaccines are tested on 9,000 people. “Brazil will be one of the first countries to have the vaccine,” Covas said.

Some 5,000 Brazilians have also been recruited to support a vaccine trial conducted by AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish pharmaceutical company, in partnership with Oxford University. An additional 1,000 volunteers in Brazil were recruited to test a vaccine developed by New York-based Pfizer.

Those all have ties to BillyG.

Researchers need countries with large enough outbreaks to assess whether a vaccine will work. Some volunteers are given the potential vaccine while others are given a placebo, but they have to be in a place where enough virus is circulating to test the vaccine’s efficacy.

Brazil, where the virus has infected more than 3 million people, has clear conditions for these trials, and it will be the only country other than the United States to be playing a major role in three of the leading studies as an unparalleled quest for a vaccine has led to unusually fast regulatory approvals and hastily brokered partnerships.

Still, it is far from certain, experts say, that the vaccine trials underway in Brazil will win the race.

The fact that they are racing to do this should scare the *hit out of you.

Countries across the world are vying to be among the first to get access to a vaccine that will be in demand by billions of people. In India, one of the country’s wealthiest families is taking a gamble by mass producing the Oxford vaccine in hopes that it will be the first to clear safety and regulatory hurdles.

Less than half will want that Serum, the rest will need to be mandated to take toxic poison.

Russia this past week approved a homemade vaccine that has not yet met the final tests for safety and efficacy. If it works, it could position the country to claim it developed the world’s first effective coronavirus vaccine.

Oh, that's rich. Russia's vaccine is somehow no good!

Brazil’s explosive caseload has made it the second hardest-hit nation in the world after the United States. While other countries in the region have higher per capita rates, experts have assailed President Jair Bolsonaro’s cavalier handling of the crisis.

The president, who caught the virus in July, has called it a “measly flu” and sabotaged calls for quarantines and lockdowns. He also appointed an Army general with no medical experience to run the health ministry after two ministers clashed with the president over his disdain for science-based approaches.

You see? 

Anyone who complains or points out the fraud, boom, tests positive.

Because of the country’s disorganized response to the virus, Brazilians have been subjected to travel bans, neighbors have militarized border crossings, and unions representing medical workers recently asked the International Criminal Court to charge Bolsonaro for crimes against humanity, arguing that he has given the virus free rein.

As if that racist and crooked court had any credibility left.

They don't try the big mass murders like Bush and Blair, just tinpot Africans they have used and betrayed, and maybe a token Cambodian or Serb to make it all seem legit.

Brazil has a universal public health care system with one of the best immunization programs in the developing world, enabling it to contain outbreaks of yellow fever, measles, and other pathogens, but in recent years, as the economy has contracted, the program has suffered, dogged by budget cuts. It has also had to fight disinformation campaigns that have found a rapt audience on social media.

I no longer want universal health care (communi$m), and more complaining about truth-tellers on social media.

In 2019, for the first time in 25 years, Brazil didn’t fulfill its vaccination goal for any of the shots it routinely administers.

Ooooooooooh! 

Now we know why Bolsonaro has been demonized! 

BRAVO, Mr. President.

A coronavirus breakthrough could galvanize the country’s vaccine sector. It could also invigorate its scientific institutions, which employ world-class scientists but have been reeling after years of budget cuts that have weakened the public health care system and dented the country’s reputation as a research powerhouse.

See why I don't want lefti$t-type stuff anymore? 

Leave us all alone and let us live our lives in freedom!

Katherine O’Brien, the director of immunization at the WHO, welcomed Brazil’s investments in manufacturing vaccines for COVID-19, but she said bilateral deals like the ones Brazil is involved in were still a gamble.

“Some countries are going to be lucky, entering into contracts with a candidate that’s going to demonstrate efficacy,” O’Brien said. “Other countries are going to pursue deals with candidates that are going to fail and they’ll get nothing.”

And then you what, die from a viru$ that has a 99.98% survival rate?

--more--"

I hope the Brazilians aren't falling into a disabling trap, and the same goes for the children of Bo$ton:

"Boston’s latest school reopening plan emphasizes parent choice, but only if the virus allows it" by James Vaznis Globe Staff, August 15, 2020

Boston school officials want to give parents choice in how their children will learn this fall, but that largely hinges on whether COVID-19 infection rates will remain low enough for classrooms to reopen, according to the school system’s latest reopening plan, released on Saturday.

“There is no one solution that will work best for every student, every family, or every person who works with Boston Public Schools,” the plan states. “Recognizing and respecting that fact, the BPS Reopening Plan provides several learning model options for families to choose from in order to best meet the educational needs of their children.”

School officials released their plan one day after filing the 87-page document with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. All districts statewide were required to file their school reopening plans with the department by Friday. Districts had to develop three plans for the state — a full return, full remote, and a mix of in-person and remote learning.

Keep the kids home to avoid the calls to the state. It just may be that you never see them again if they go to school.

The state wanted districts to indicate which of the three models they intended to implement next month, but districts were not required to make a choice. Officials stressed they will use science in deciding whether to bring students back inside buildings when the year begins or whether all students start remotely — the latter removing parental choice from the reopening equation.

Some city councilors on Saturday expressed frustration that school officials filed their plan with the state without making a firm decision on how they would reopen schools.....

They were “shocked and disappointed,” and I can't imagine why.

--more--"

I'm sure the child will have a bright future ahead:

"A teenager was arrested late Friday afternoon for allegedly stabbing a 65-year-old man earlier this month in Hyde Park, according to Boston police. Jeff Penn, 19, who lives in Hyde Park, was arrested about 5:30 p.m. following an investigation into the stabbing that occurred on Aug. 7, according to a statement Saturday from Boston police. The man had been stabbed in his back with an apparent kitchen knife, which looked like a nail, police said. On Aug. 7, Hyde Park police responded to a call reporting a person shot with a nail gun at 9 Christy Lane. Officers found the victim bleeding from an apparent stab wound, and he was transported to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. according to the statement. Penn is expected to be arraigned in West Roxbury Municipal Court on charges of assault with intent to murder a victim over 60 and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, police said."

Here is the authority on everything:

"When it comes to reopening schools, Dr. Fauci says Rhode Island is in ‘a very good place’" by Amanda Milkovits Globe Staff, August 13, 2020

PROVIDENCE — The nation’s top infectious disease specialist said Rhode Island is “starting from a very good place” as the Ocean State determines how to reopen schools safely.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, praised Rhode Island’s response to the coronavirus pandemic during a Facebook Live discussion with Governor Gina M. Raimondo on Thursday.

The sight and sound of that evil shit sickens me.

The work Rhode Island has done — mandating masks and social distancing in public places, closing bars at 11 p.m., restricting gatherings — has brought the infection rate down enough for the state to find ways to reopen the schools, Fauci said.

As Jim Jordan asked, are open casinos and endless city-burning and looting protests okay, doctor (and I use the term loosely)?

Rhode Island is one of the “green states,” he said, meaning the positivity rate is below 5 percent. “That’s because of a lot of the things you’ve done correctly,” Fauci said. “If you have in place — and the governor has clearly made it a goal to have in place — the ability to identify, isolate, contact trace, get testing, surveillance, you should be able to open up safely,” however, on Wednesday, Raimondo announced she was postponing the start of the school year to Sept. 14, after recommendations from the state departments of Health and Education to give school districts more time to develop plans and to shore up increased testing and faster turnarounds.

What a totalitarian f**k!

The plans, so far, have been varied. The Warwick School Committee voted Tuesday to have remote-only instruction. Raimondo was dismayed by Warwick’s decision and accused them of “throwing in the towel” during her news conference on Wednesday.

What a mafioso piece of work is she!

Maybe the towel had COVID all over it.

The Facebook Live discussion with Fauci on Thursday was the latest in her weekly series to talk about how to reopen schools — and address anxiety and fears of families and teachers about whether classes can resume safely.  Fauci said that in-person instruction should be the default position, if the states are capable and their infection rates are low. “There are ripple effects that don’t appear to be obvious,” Fauci said.

What is obvious is this $cam, and these potentates called governors are basking in the glow of attention. Why would they ever want to give it up?

There’s the psychological impact of separating children from their normal interactions with their peers, and the loss of school meals for those who need them, Fauci said. There’s the loss of teachers watching out for students, who may be suffering from abuse at home, he said, and, Fauci said, “There’s a ripple effect on parents who have to interrupt work, which has a negative effect on the economy,” he said. “We’re trying to safely, prudently open up the country and get the economy back to a healthy level.”

Oh, NOW he is worried about the harm to kid's development from the lockdowns he espoused, and NOW he is worried about the economy and the 75% of businesses he helped destroyed.

What an a$$hole!

The primary concern has to be the safety, health, and welfare of children and teachers and their families, Fauci said.

“Now, there will always be cases,” he said. “The question is, how to prevent those blips of cases from becoming something that obviates the whole program, and that’s the thing you’re preparing for, that you should be able to do. You’re starting from a very good place.”

Turns out the VIRUS that needs to be ERADICATED is PEOPLE like HIM!

The same general principles for avoiding infection apply in schools — wearing masks, social distancing, avoiding congregating, being outdoors whenever possible or keeping windows open. The state will have to have plans to mitigate infections and be able to respond quickly if someone is infected.

“You are in a state where chances of getting infection are low,” Fauci said. “It’s never completely risk-free, but for goodness’ sake, we are living in a historic pandemic. We’ve never had anything like this, so it’s a challenge. You can’t interrupt your life indefinitely. You have to safely get back to normal.”

You mean the "new normal," right, f**ker!?

While Rhode Island is “green,” the cities of Providence, Central Falls, and Pawtucket are not. The governor said they are recommending virtual learning for older students in areas of higher rates of infection, and in-person instruction for younger students.

So much for normal and the damage to kids' development.

“You’ve all done a really good job, keep it up,” Fauci said. “This will end for sure, and it will end with a combination of maintaining the public health principles together with my cautious optimism for a vaccine beginning of next year.”

His prediction: “We’re going to be a year from now celebrating how we got through this together.”

That is one of the most disgustingly evil things I've ever seen!

We will be celebrating next year? 

Those of you that are left, right, you sick genocidal f**k?

--more--"

I should have cut class and not put myself through this diminished experience.

UPDATE:

Colleges are asking students to sign waivers and consent agreements if they want to return to campus