Governor Kristi Noem is recklessly urging parents to send their kids to school without masks. The state’s most prominent health officials, epidemiologist Josh Clayton and Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rysdon, are defying that bad advice:
When asked if Clayton and Malsam-Rysdon are planning to send their children back to school this fall, they both said their kids will be back in their classrooms and wearing masks. The DOH has stayed constant on following CDC guidelines on masks while Noem has remained skeptical of the efficacy of masks from reducing the transmission of COVID-19.
Clayton said he and his wife have had their own discussions at home about sending their two elementary school children back into classrooms this fall, and said he plans to provide them with masks as a “general precaution.”
Malsam-Rysdon said she has a son at the University of South Dakota and said her son will comply with the SDBOR decision to require masks in indoor public spaces on campus [Morgan Matzen, “DOH Release Statewide Data About Covid-19 in Children,” Rapid City Journal, updated 2020.07.31].
Good thing—new research published Thursday finds young kids can carry more coroanvirus around in their snouts than grown-ups and thus “can potentially be important drivers” the pandemic. Read all the science, Kristi….
If the schools open and have the protocol for distancing in smaller classroom size, then children should have at least 4 masks to wear per day in the classroom. Two in the morning and two in the afternoon. The masks should be cleaned and sanitized when the children go home each day. As my math is still pretty good from my public school upbringing, that would mean 8 masks at the very minimum for each child in school counting sanitizing the used masks.
Teachers would need more than that for their workday. This would mean a coordinated effort by parents, teachers and children to make sure they all are doing their jobs to protect all. That will cost money.
The schools will need a nursing staff to monitor the teaching staff and the children. That will cost money.
Or, we could do like Barron trump’s school and postpone school and do remote learning.
Karen Noem thinks she knows it all.
Sending our kids off to war, here in the homeland. In every community, in every school. No armored Hum Vees for our kids. Our little “guinea pigs.” Then you can study the results. You might need to get more serious about changing your behavior after we have to shut it down. Again. How many more times do you think we can stand losing the ones we love before you stop listening to the GOP, which does. Not. Care. https://newrepublic.com/article/158675/2020-election-republican-party
Creedence had a line for this: “I ain’t no senator’s son.”
what a slam to the subsidy queen , maybe she should go home and count her farm subsidies.Surely South Dakota can do better than a gal, well lets just say we can do better than a suck up in the GOV chair.
The trump virus just keeps Keystone at the top of the list for infections.
“The state health department reported Monday that 93 South Dakota residents and three out-of-state residents have COVID-19 after attending Camp Judson near Keystone before it shut down several weeks ago.
State epidemiologist Joshua Clayton said 328 people had been at the camp altogether, including 43 out-of-state attendees and 285 South Dakotans. 44 of the 93 South Dakota cases have recovered, he said.” Rapid City Journal 8.3.2020
I think we should be getting the picture on why there was a lottery kind of drawing to go to Rushmore to see the Covid king and his little Tinker Belle GNOem. Holds down the South Dakota numbers until this outbreak happened.
Even those masks, those simple, inexpensive masks, are too expensive for Kristi to justify writing another check to schools. It’s almost as if she wants public schools to have a disaster this fall, so her privileged private school and homeschool allies can gloat in their isolation.
Jerry, do schools still have their own laundry rooms for sports uniforms? It wouldn’t be much of a step for schools so equipped to put in a couple loads of masks on the hot cycle. But yes, to handle and distribute them properly, they’d need to hire a couple of washing staff to load, unload, sort, and deliver them to homerooms before the kids arrive.
That is a good idea, Mr. H, the washing of masks and delivering them about the halls of the high schools. In fact the masks could be built as sort of a home economics project by kids learning the sewing arts. If schools don’t have washing machines, we know they have autoclaves to wash all the food trays and the masks could be speedwashed in there.
Don’t the schools have millions and millions and millions of the covid taxpayer dollars they could buy some more masks with if the young ladies taking the home economic classes cannot sew up enough?
I’m not so sure about existing washing machines, but buying brand new ones for this particular process would be a smart move. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-to-wash-cloth-face-coverings.html
It’s a pretty simple process that would need an employee or maybe more, depending on the school size, to take care of these masks. In the smaller rural schools, parents could band together to make masks for all, thereby insuring that all children would have that protection.
I think that with the employment situation or lack of in the failed trump economy, these jobs could really help to make a difference.
Also, the masks can we washed 20 times before they should be destroyed. So the making and cleaning of masks would be an ongoing process.
For Grudz, Just a minor point not meaning to detract from the bigger issue of this blog post discussion: I think it was 8th grade when our sons sewed things. Aren’t the boys in home economics class any more?
High schools have laundry facilities. (I do K-12 facilities planning and design for a living.) In middle and elementary schools there may or may not be a washer/dryer attached to the health/SpEd suite.
This is in states that actually value and pay for public education. I haven’t done any work in SD.
I don’t know for sure, Ms. Cathy. Perhaps there are some boys who take in the sewing arts in the 8th grade of classes. You know, in the army they make you sew things, so it’s not like it’s not a boy skill too. I am sure there are good sewing women in the army, and cookers too.
grudznick himself used to be accomplished with a needle but I can’t get the thread through the little hole any longer.
Well then, Mr. grudznick can run the sewing machines, whew, that’s settled. Good news, you won’t need a thimble.
I am no longer surprised by the depths of the heartlessness and cruelty of GOP minions like Kruel Kristi and her ilk.