Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The Return of College Chaperones

Thanks to the COVID that has yet to be specifically identified:

"the town is helping to pay for an ambassador program aimed at easing the direct burden on police officers to respond to coronavirus rule-breakers. The program relies on about 10 college students and a college official to monitor for social distancing and mask compliance at student events off campus this fall."

The irony is the pre$$ and Democrats are the ones saying Trump wants to push us back to the '50s:

"As students return, neighbors worry about off-campus parties, but colleges won’t deploy COVID police" by Deirdre Fernandes and Laura Krantz Globe Staff, August 18, 2020

With thousands of college students moving into the Boston area in the next few weeks, neighbors are growing increasingly worried about who will police large off-campus gatherings and make sure that student parties don’t turn into coronavirus super-spreader events.

If you are needed for protest, out you go!

Local colleges planning to reopen in the coming weeks have issued rules governing off-campus students — requiring testing and asking that they follow social distancing measures and that they quarantine if exposed to the virus, but few institutions have offered details on how they plan to closely monitor off-campus life.

Across the country as students arrived for the fall semester, parties have followed. The weekend before classes started at East Carolina University earlier this month, campus and Greenville police said they broke up 20 parties, including one packed with 400 students. Last weekend, a viral video showed a massive gathering at an off-campus apartment complex near the University of North Georgia with few students wearing masks, and clusters of students testing positive for coronavirus have popped up around fraternity and sorority houses in many college towns.

Then the death rate must be minuscule by now, and what were they drinking?

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Michigan State University this week did an about-face and moved classes to online as officials feared they could no longer control the spread of the illness. The University of Notre Dame temporarily switched to remote learning Tuesday following an off-campus party and a spike in cases, and, with Boston College, Northeastern University, Boston University, and Tufts set to open in the coming weeks neighbors say similar outbreaks are inevitable here.

This is really staring to $mell like a crock of $**t.

“That terrifies me,” said Cynthia Korhonen, 66, a Brighton resident who lives in an apartment complex near Boston College. She said BC has provided neighbors with little information about how the university will deal with enforcing mask and social-distance rules off campus. “I like students, but will they be wearing masks? And how will it be enforced?”

Maybe all students should have a minder. 

Socially distanced, of course.

That’s an open question in many neighborhoods saturated with college students, and the prospect of involving local law enforcement has become a more delicate matter after the summer protests, in many cases led by young people, over aggressive police tactics in Black neighborhoods and efforts to reduce funding of the police.

BC said it has a nearly two-decade relationship with the Boston Police Department to ensure that student events and parties around the campus don’t get out of hand on the weekends and disrupt neighbors. BC pays a detail of Boston police officers to drive through the neighborhoods and respond, along with college officials, to complaints. Boston University and Northeastern University have similar programs, according to the Boston Police Department, but, the Boston police said that while officers would be on the lookout for large parties, they would not be on corona-patrol.

Did you kids and parents know your tuition was paying for that?

“This has nothing to do with COVID-19 issues, and our officers will not be out there being the social distancing police,” said Sergeant Detective John Boyle, department spokesman.

God bless the police!

Instead, said Williams Evans, the BC director of public safety and former Boston police commissioner, BC is launching an information campaign to educate students about the coronavirus rules and encourage them to behave appropriately and safely. BC officials have also been reminding students in reopening webinars that they could face stiff sanctions, including a loss of housing privileges, if they are found breaking university and COVID-related rules. “We’re relying on having great students here and [them] obeying the rules,” Evans said.

Christian Guma, a rising senior who is president of the Undergraduate Government at BC, said he believes his fellow students will take their responsibility seriously because they don’t want the school to shut down again.

Neighbors, however, hope the police will be extra vigilant for large gatherings. Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon, who represents Allston and Brighton, said she has heard from many constituents who are worried about off-campus events. Breadon recently sent a letter to BC president William Leahy urging him to move classes all online this fall.

“One big concern for the neighbors is that they’re worried that [students] are not going to follow the rules, they’re not going to physically distance, they’re not going to wear masks when they are out in public, and that they’re going to continue to do what they always do, which is have large parties,” Breadon said. She also worries whether off-campus students will abide by quarantine rules if one of their roommates tests positive.

It will be like a “match to the fire!”

Diane Kline, secretary of the Radnor Neighborhood Association, asked members of her neighborhood association to call Boston police if they see students without masks or large groups not practicing social distancing.

(Blog author sighs and looks towards the heavens. I'm living in the state of East Germany, complete with social Stasi).

In Western Massachusetts, the town of Amherst is taking a different approach.

What would that be?

Although the University of Massachusetts Amherst earlier this month reversed its decision to bring a large portion of its 30,000 students back to campus, many had already signed leases and moved into rental units in town, and they are sticking around, said Lynn Griesemer, president of the Amherst Town Council.

So the town is helping to pay for an ambassador program with UMass aimed at easing the direct burden on police officers to respond to coronavirus rule-breakers. The program relies on about 10 college students and a college official to monitor for social distancing and mask compliance at student events off campus this fall, said Griesemer.

They have always trended ivory tower Communi$m down there.

Police will still be available, but the ambassadors will be the first line of defense, trying to educate students on appropriate behavior and what isn’t allowed, she said.

The protests following George Floyd’s death while in Minneapolis police custody in May, and vocal efforts in the Amherst area to defund police, have sensitized the community to when police should be called, she said.

“The social and very volatile situation we find ourselves in … for all those reasons, this ambassador effort is a much more solid approach,” Griesemer said. “It’s much more peer to peer.”

What they won't teach is what they are proposing is totalitarianism, although I think you kids can sense it.

They don't care about us older folk because we have already been used up and will die soon enough; however, you youngsters need to be brought into the technological and pharmaceutical dystopia as quickly as possible. 

That is why they are putting you through hell, but at least you can watch pro $port$ and play with your phone.


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Related:

"The big bouquets of roses. The towering signs spelling out the letters of each house in Greek, and the hundreds of rushees clutching their acceptance envelopes as they run through campus together. Bid day at the University of Alabama, when sororities decide which pledges will join their sisterhoods, is cause for celebration, but this past weekend, women at the school, which has one of the biggest Greek systems in the country with 11,000 members, were warned not to party following their invitations to join any of two dozen sororities because of the potential spread of the coronavirus. That did not stop all of them. The bars and sidewalks along the Strip were crowded on Sunday as sorority members and other students reveled in their return-to-school rituals, sparking criticism from public officials, the fury of university officials and worries from other Tuscaloosans. The concerns over Greek life come amid reports of virus outbreaks at fraternities and sororities across the country. Universities are struggling with how to prevent tightly packed sorority and fraternity houses from turning into coronavirus clusters. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, officials abruptly called off in-person classes on Monday after identifying four clusters in student housing facilities, including one at the Sigma Nu fraternity. “The frats are being frats: They are having their parties,” Lamar Richards, a UNC sophomore, said. The New York Times has identified at least 251 cases of the virus tied to fraternities and sororities. At the University of California, Berkeley, 47 cases were identified in a single week in early July, most of which were connected to the Greek system. In Mississippi, a significant outbreak in Oxford, home to the state’s flagship university, was partially blamed on fraternity parties. At the University of Washington’s Seattle campus, at least 165 of the 290 cases identified by the school have been associated with its Greek Row."

Stick together, brothers and sisters, and have a drink for me!

Just watch where you stumble:

"Blaze, a black Labrador, is one of nine dogs enrolled in a University of Pennsylvania study into whether dogs can detect a distinct smell in people infected with the novel coronavirus. His triumph — selecting a can containing urine from a hospitalized coronavirus-positive patient over an array of potentially confusing alternatives — is a key step in a training process that may one day allow dogs to pick out infected individuals, including those who are asymptomatic, in nursing homes, businesses and airports, potentially screening as many as 250 people an hour. The study’s success also marks an advance in the evolving field of olfactory disease detection — the concept that many human illnesses, including emerging diseases, are characterized by distinct “odorprints” that can be identified by both dogs and artificial noses, which could be quicker, less invasive and more accurate than current forms of clinical testing."

I'm sure you kids recognize dog $hit when you see it.

Place really has that prison feel, doesn't it?


"The number of known deaths in prisons, jails and other correctional facilities among prisoners and correctional officers has surpassed 1,000, according to a New York Times database tracking deaths in correctional institutions. The number of deaths in state and federal prisons, local jails and immigration detention centers — which stood at 1,002 on Tuesday morning — has increased by about 40 percent during the past six weeks, according to the database. There have been nearly 160,000 infections among prisoners and guards. The actual number of deaths is almost certainly higher because jails and prisons perform limited testing on inmates, including many facilities that decline to test prisoners who die after exhibiting symptoms consistent with the coronavirus. A recent study showed that prisoners are infected at a rate more than five times the nation’s overall rate. The death rate of inmates is also higher than the national rate — 39 deaths per 100,000 compared to 29 deaths per 100,000....."

Only problem is they be letting those guys out!

A pool party in Wuhan suggests the city where the pandemic began is getting back to normal, but here they won't even let you bet on the games or kick the ball around outside, and just wait until the fights and gunfire begin over the minder monitors enforcing the tyrannical edicts.

"About 70 percent of Mass. school districts to bring students back in person — at least part time" by James Vaznis and Felicia Gans Globe Staff, August 18, 2020

About 70 percent of Massachusetts school systems plan to bring students back to the classroom at least part time this fall, even as teachers unions have been aggressively pushing to keep buildings closed, state data released Tuesday show.

The data also revealed a shift in recent weeks to remote-only learning, as 30 percent of the 371 districts that made decisions on reopening plans indicated they will not open classrooms to students this fall. That’s about three times higher than what districts initially told the state last month.

Several other districts, including Boston, have not yet settled on a reopening plan.

The dataculled from reopening plans districts filed with the state in recent days — offer the most concrete glimpse so far into how schools statewide will begin their new academic years, after Governor Charlie Baker ordered all schools to close in March in an effort to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

They are really in your face with their insulting clues to their evil plan as they condition us to get used to such things with their predictive-programming propaganda.

You don't need them to learn that lesson, kids.

“We’re encouraged that nearly three quarters of the school districts are planning for at least a partial in-person learning experience for kids,” Baker said in releasing the data at a State House press conference, emphasizing that the state has “put together guidelines to allow for a productive and safe learning environment that adapts to the challenges that come with COVID-19.”

Baker has been pressing districts since June to fill their classrooms with as many students as safely possible this fall and expressed frustration in recent weeks as a growing number of districts announced they would continue with remote-only instruction, even in communities with few active COVID-19 cases.

That mass-murdering monster is the reason I want you keeping the kids home. First he send sick patients into the long-term care homes that end up infecting and killing our beloved heroes and elderly, and now he wants the children in school. 

Hmmmm.

Four of the five largest school districts statewide will begin the year remotely: Worcester, Springfield, Lynn, and Brockton, according to the data.

Collectively, those districts educate more than 82,000 students.

Brockton, which had hoped to open with some in-person learning, flipped at the last minute last week as COVID-19 cases grew, while Worcester is planning to make major repairs to its aging ventilation systems.

That made some people blow their top in anger.

The state instructed districts in June to draft three different scenarios for reopening school: a full return, a mix of in-person and remote learning, and remote-only instruction.

Most districts deemed a full-return unfeasible because practicing social distancing would not leave enough space to accommodate all students at once. That left districts with basically two options to ponder — a hybrid approach or remote only.....

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The chaperone of us all:

"Baker says about 15,000 people are being tested daily for coronavirus in Mass." by Martin Finucane and Jaclyn Reiss Globe Staff, August 18, 2020

Governor Charlie Baker on Tuesday highlighted the state’s increased level of coronavirus testing while renewing his call for people to keep their guard up against the deadly virus.

How deadly can it be with a near 99.9% recovery rate with nearly half asymptomatic?

Please report the turd in a bag to the floor chaperone.

“The Commonwealth is seeing a steady climb in the number of new individuals tested,” he said at a State House news briefing. “This is obviously good progress.”

You can shove that shawl where the sun don't shine.

Over the past week, he said, 15,000 or more new individuals had been tested per day. That was up, he said, from a seven-day average of individuals being tested of about 9,000 in mid-June and 12,000 in mid-July.

He also said people are taking advantage of “test resources we’ve made readily available across our state” to get repeat tests, noting that the seven-day average of total number of tests has been above 20,000 for the past two weeks, compared with around 11,000 in mid-June and 16,000 in mid-July.

At a separate news conference later Tuesday, Mayor Martin J. Walsh cited encouraging trends in Boston’s COVID-19 numbers but urged residents to remain vigilant and take advantage of the city’s mobile testing program.

“The uptick that we saw in the second half of July has leveled off,” Walsh said during his briefing outside City Hall, “but we’re watching the data very closely.”

Walsh said the positive test rate in Boston for the week ended Aug. 10 was 2.6 percent, down from the prior week’s 2.8 percent.

One can only wonder why they are still in lockdown with everything closed.

“Our mobile testing teams have played a role in increasing both the capacity and the access to testing in our neighborhoods,” he said. “We’re offering testing to anyone who wants it, at no cost, and regardless of if you are symptomatic or not.”

Sounds great, but what if you don't want one?

Meanwhile, Baker said the state was “continuing to see success” in increasing testing through the Stop the Spread initiative, which offers free testing in 17 municipalities. The program, which began July 10, runs through Sept. 12, and as of last week had performed more than 78,000 tests.

Baker said that three more municipalities, Salem, Holyoke, and Saugus, would be added to the program.

He noted that officials had recently released town-by-town data on the virus’s spread and announced that an interactive color-coded map showing the local risk levels would be online at mass.gov/covidmap. He also said the state was stepping in to help harder-hit communities, “but enforcement efforts are only part of this solution to fighting the virus,” he said. “People must stay vigilant and continue to do their part to keep their friends, neighbors and family safe. The virus, as we’ve said before, does not stop at any one town line.”

This goddamn criminal sounds like a broken record now.

He said that even in less-affected places, “you must keep doing all the things you’ve been doing to stop the spread. We urge people to continue to use common sense and keep doing those things that we know work: Wear face coverings, maintain social distance, and practice appropriate hygiene.”

In other developments:

— Baker offered little hope for those who would like the state to resume its reopening plan, which has been paused at Step 1 of Phase 3. Asked when the state would proceed to Step 2 of Phase 3, Baker said, “I think we need to do some work to deal with the communities that are currently struggling before we go any further down the road.”

— Baker announced $3.5 million in grants to combat food insecurity. The money was distributed under the food security infrastructure grant program.

He knows the planned famine is coming.

— The governor said he supported mail-in balloting, which has been in the news because of Postal Service cuts that critics say would jeopardize elections in which many people will be voting by mail because of the pandemic. (The cuts were suspended Tuesday.) Noting that he had signed a bill authorizing voting by mail in Massachusetts, Baker said: “I think it’s critically important, given that there are sort of 11 or 12 states, I think, that are voting, that are going to have big vote-by-mail programs in the fail, that this be done well, and that it be done on a timely basis, and it needs to be part of the way people feel about the election process generally.”

He's blind on the fraud.

— Baker, a Republican, said the state had written a letter saying it would apply for funding from a controversial program created by executive order of Republican President Trump that would pay a federal unemployment benefit to those out of work during the pandemic. Baker had previously questioned the use of Federal Emergency Management Agency funds for the program, saying the state was expecting the FEMA money for other coronavirus-related expenses. “I don’t think this is the right way to do this,” Baker said Tuesday, “but if this program is there and it turns out to be the only thing that’s there, I don’t think Massachusetts should pass on that.”

A Ma$$achu$etts politician pa$$ on loot? 

Thank God some things are $till normal.

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Based on the latest numbers, Baker should have been arrested and thrown in jail already.

Globe absenteeism:

Bicyclist dies after crash involving tractor-trailer in Harvard Square

“It happens time and again because Harvard Square is old, narrow and congested,” and it will require a zoning change to widen it.

Be sure to look both ways crossing the street:

Two pedestrians struck, one killed, by vehicle in Brockton

Four-alarm blaze destroys commercial building in Worcester

Two firefighters were injured.

Police searching for two suspects who allegedly robbed, assaulted man with machete in Dedham

Happened in a parking lot next to a Hooters.

Clinton man killed in early-morning crash in Bolton

He struck the rear of a tractor trailer that was in the breakdown lane?

Another COVID suicide or had he just robbed a bank?