Chicago Public Schools are supposed to open for some special needs and pre-K students Monday

The Chicago Teachers Union is now threatening to refuse to return to work in person.

https://t.co/MgDgNe6REj
Meanwhile
https://t.co/FIij8J3r7z
Dr. Fauci: "The default position should be to try as best as possible within reason to keep the children in school or to get them back to school [...] if you look at the data the spread among children and from children is not really big at all"
UNICEF: "Data from 191 countries shows no consistent link between reopening schools and increased rates of coronavirus infection."
https://t.co/s560q5ONEe
CDC Director: "the data clearly shows us that you can operate these schools in face-to-face learning in a safe and responsible way."
https://t.co/RVciotOda2
"Schools are not spreading covid-19. This new data makes the case."
https://t.co/B0ALpTFKSf
"In-person schooling does not appear to increase the risk of covid-19 transmission for staff and students, according to data from New York state."
"Schools Aren't Super-Spreaders"
https://t.co/xhEnUCVzD2
Governor Cuomo: "We're not seeing spread in the schools.

You see a very low percentage of positivity in the schools."
"So why close the schools?"

Cuomo: "well because the agreement [...] the local school districts consulted their parents, the teachers at the time, the teachers union at the time, and they came up with an agreement."
If Safeway employees strike families can take their money elsewhere

If school employees strike families should be able to take their children's education dollars elsewhere.
Families should be able to take their children's education dollars elsewhere regardless of whether schools reopen

Education funding is supposed to be meant for educating children - not for protecting a government monopoly.

We should fund students instead of institutions.

More from Education

Our preprint on the impact of reopening schools on reproduction number in England is now available online: https://t.co/CpfUGzAJ2S. With @Jarvis_Stats @amyg225 @kerrylmwong @KevinvZandvoort @sbfnk + John Edmunds. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED. 1/


We used contact survey data collected by CoMix (
https://t.co/ezbCIOgRa1) to quantify differences in contact patterns during November (Schools open) and January (Schools closed) 'Lockdown periods'. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED 2/

We combined this analysis with estimates of susceptibility and infectiousness of children relative to adults from literature. We also inferred relative susceptibility by fitting R estimates from CoMix to EpiForecasts estimates(https://t.co/6lUM2wK0bn). NOT YET PEER REVIEWED 3/


We estimated that reopening all schools would increase R by between 20% to 90% whereas reopening primary or secondary schools alone would increase R by 10% to 40%, depending on the infectiousness/susceptibility profile we used. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED 4/


Assuming a current R of 0.8 (in line with Govt. estimates: https://t.co/ZZhCe79zC4). Reopening all schools would increase R to between 1.0 and 1.5 and reopening either primary or secondary schools would increase R to between 0.9 and 1.2. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED 5/
We've been falsely told 'schools are safe', 'don't drive community transmission', & teachers don't have a higher risk of infection repeatedly by govt & their advisors- to justify some of the most negligent policies in history. 🧵


data shows *both* primary & secondary school teachers are at double the risk of confirmed infection relative to comparable positivity in the general population. ONS household infection data also clearly show that children are important sources of transmission.

Yet, in the parliamentary select meeting today, witnesses like Jenny Harries repeated the same claims- that have been debunked by the ONS data, and the data released by the @educationgovuk today. How many lives have been lost to these lies? How many more people have long COVID?

has repeatedly pointed out errors & gaps in the ONS reporting of evidence around risk of infection among teachers- and it's taken *months* to get clarity on this. The released data are a result of months of campaigning by her, the @NEU and others.

Rather than being transparent about the risk of transmission in school settings & mitigating this, the govt (& many of its advisors) has engaged in dismissing & denying evidence that's been clear for a while. Evidence from the govt's own surveys. And global evidence.

Why?

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