I am in receipt of today’s email reiterating your reasons for closing public and private schools. I quote: “We are doing better because of the steps we have taken—all done with public health in the forefront of our decisions. We still need to reduce community transmission of the virus. When the State first shut down businesses and other organizations in March, we were averaging about four positive tests per day. Right now we are averaging about 70 cases each day, which is lower than the peak we experienced for daily positive tests–but still too high to take further steps in reopening.” Please answer the following questions at your earliest convenience. The ramifications of your decisions have significant negative consequences for our children and the community at large. Your words alone are no longer sufficient. We require facts.
What positivity rate is acceptable for opening especially considering the CDC references 5% as a benchmark. Please also note Governor Coumo gave jurisdictions approval today to open all schools also citing 5% as the benchmark.
Please stipulate what specific scientific studies upon which you have based your positivity benchmark.
Do you agree or disagree with these CDC statements that suggest the harm to students from closing schools outweighs the risk from covid. If you disagree please cite the specific scientific studies supporting your position.
You stated in the press conference Wednesday that the studies regarding transmission among children “are getting worse not better”. Please cite the specific studies which are guiding your decisions. There are studies throughout the world that contradict your words.
The Montgomery County Education Association encouraged union members to attend the National Day of Resistance on August 3, 2020. Demands of this well organized nationwide resistance movement are stated here. Please outline which of these demands you support. It is clear the teacher’s unions is opposed to charter schools, voucher programs and private schools.
We look forward to your responses and to the determination as to whether you have the legal right to close private schools. Meanwhile please consider “A Teacher’s Perspective”. If our leaders focused on all covid data rather than stoking fear with select, aggregate data, perhaps more of our teachers would follow their vocation instead of their fear.
In those couple days where it seemed my school may be closed, I felt like a major opportunity was stripped from me and all of the teachers at my school. Teaching is a vocation – not a job – and to be stripped of the opportunity in a time when it is needed most would be quite literally robbing me and others like me one of our rare opportunities to fully realize the purpose of our vocation. More importantly, it would have been robbing our students and families the opportunity to see so tangibly that we will fight for them even in foul weather. Teaching this year, no matter what we do, is going to suck in so many different ways but 5, 10, 20 years from now the kids who grow up will remember what its like for the adults in their lives to actually care. I personally remember very well when my own teachers volunteered to form human shields for us to walk to our cars during the DC sniper situation while many others in different schools complained that they shouldn’t be in school at all. Teaching typically isn’t a life or death profession and for the vast majority of the population, it still isn’t. But even it were – this is the hand we were dealt. Our vocation hasn’t changed just because it suddenly became more dangerous.
OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR LARRY HOGAN, COUNTY EXECUTIVE MARC ELRICH AND DR TRAVIS GAYLES
I have had the opportunity to read your recent self-congratulatory missives regarding covid management. Several questions came to mind. Are the covid heroes the leaders who use the actual data to open to the maximum extent possible while protecting the vulnerable? The leaders who balance the fatalities and devastation caused by the lockdowns and school closures against covid risks? Or are the heroes the leaders who sit on the sidelines, opening to the minimum extent politically possible, waiting for the science to be determined by others? Those who delegate many of the critical decisions to others who are ill equipped to make these decisions? Those who cater to a fear soaked populace rather than leading them out of fear with facts? As the health, emotional and economic ramifications of the shutdown become clear, comprehensive covid data emerges and state and local budgets collapse, it is my belief that the real heroes will be those leaders who pushed to return their communities to normalcy as soon as possible regardless of the harping criticism from the media.
Evidence of true leadership would be public discussions of the pros and cons at each step, encouraging perspective not fear. Sadly we have seen none of that. Instead we have been served a steady diet of selective aggregate data designed to manipulate. Edicts are always accompanied by the now repellent phrase “based on science”. Which science? For example, the CDC strongly recommended schools open in September due to the increased risk associated with staying closed. Do you disagree with the science outlined by the CDC? Do you agree or disagree that suicides and drug overdoses have eclipsed covid deaths in high school age students? Is your science supplied by the teacher’s union?
Dr. Gayles, yesterday after Governor Hogan thankfully issued an order overriding your closure of MoCo private schools, you stated you had based the decision to close on recent statements by Dr. Birx. Did you accidentally misspeak or assume the citizens were not familiar with the source material? You stated that Dr. Birx suggested that schools should consider staying closed until community transmission has reduced but you failed to mention that the measure of reduced community transmission is a positivity rate under 5%. The positivity rate in MoCo and the State is 2.8% and 4.4%% respectively. The parents of those children who will OD or commit suicide as a result of your decision demand the real reason. All parents should revolt against the County’s incredible abuse of power regarding school closures and demand the State force the County to also open public schools.
With a virus as contagious as covid, everyone knew that cases would surge upon increased testing and relaxation of lockdowns. Why are you acting so surprised? Remember the original goal was to flatten the curve so hospitals would not be overwhelmed? Are you really so arrogant that you believe you can eliminate this virus with continued closures, roving bands of enforcers and enhanced mask guidelines in the absence of herd immunity achieved naturally or from a vaccine? Meanwhile you freely admit that the greatest transmission occurs at family and other private gatherings, things which you cannot control. Does anybody else see the flaw in governance? Ineffective overreach where covid does not spread easily and lack of personal responsibility where it does. It’s time we learn how to live with covid and protect ourselves.
Government can assist individuals assume responsibility through honest conversation on risk and avoidance strategies, not fear tactics and obvious manipulation supported by the media. As we have discovered, the citizens are likely to throw the baby out with the bath water when leaders engage in hypocritical behavior or when their motives are questionable. There have been countless examples of covid hypocrisy on the national and local stage. The latest national example is the attendance at John Lewis’s funeral which far exceeded 1 person or household per 200 sf. Which science on gatherings do you believe Mr. Elrich? Locally and nationally the politicians’ pandering response to the protests undermined everything they said subsequently. And the height of hypocrisy was the determination of what businesses and employees were essential and which were not. Who takes a hypocrite seriously? Nobody. It is never too late to be honest with the people, show respect for their intelligence and proceed to Phase 3. That is the only way we will be “in this together”.
MoCo does not have the data to evaluate risk effectively and the data they do have supports following the State’s guidelines. For example, many of the new cases are among young people. I asked MoCo what the hospitalization rate is by age. Because this is essential data to craft covid policy, I was shocked to learn MoCo does not have this data. People wait in food lines yet County decides to implement more stringent lockdowns than the State? Why? Is this public policy based on feelings or fact? Let’s review the data.
State positivity trended downward after going to Phase 2 in early June and has been reasonably consistent since mid-June. As of today, August 4, 2020, the positivity ratio is 4.44% at the State level and 2.82% in MoCo.
Even though case numbers have increased, daily fatalities have remained low and consistent since early July. Since transition to Phase 2, 83% of the folks in the State who have sadly died are over 60. This percentage is consistent with death rates throughout the pandemic.
While hospitalizations have increased slightly, ICU occupancy has remained relatively consistent since early July. Prior to early July, ICU usage was downtrending.
Approximately 60% of deaths in both the State and MoCo have occurred in nursing homes.
1.51% of Maryland residents have a confirmed positive test and 0.055% have died from covid. 1.68% of MoCo residents have a confirmed positive test and 0.071% have died from the disease. Data suggests that approximately 0.014% of folks 64 and under in Maryland have died from covid and 0.015% in MoCo. Does the media or any government official ever provide these numbers?
In summary, we should proceed to Phase 3, open public and private schools safely and assume personal responsibility for our own health. Anything else amounts to continued government malfeasance. If masks, physical distance and good hygiene are effective, there should be no impediment to fully opening. Each individual manages their own risk and elects whether to engage in an activity or not. As the courts ruled in Ohio, it is the consumer’s responsibility to decide whether to patronize an establishment, not the government’s. If young people, who since time immemorial believe they are invincible, ignore the edicts and catch covid, the risk of serious illness in this group is extremely low. Safety in multigenerational households will require more effort but it is those individuals’ responsibility to manage their households, not society at large. Vulnerable nursing home patients should continue to be protected and other at-risk individuals must remain vigilant. All counties should follow the State except in the case of an extreme local outbreak that overburdens the hospital system. Yes, some of us will still catch covid. We take risks every day. Open fully.
