Like Aberdeen, Rapid City is having to weaken its coronavirus safety rules to keep the schools open:
In a unanimous vote, the board decided that as long as any staff member who is exposed remains asymptomatic and takes additional precautions, they can continue working.
RCAS Human Resources Director Synova Nicolaisen said without the critical infrastructure protocol, the district won’t have a sufficient number of staff available to support and supervise students.
Nicolaisen said the resolution arose from reviewing current trends of staff members who need to be quarantined due to close contact exposure despite being asymptomatic and compared this figure to the number of substitutes available in the district.
The district has previously stated that substitutes are in short supply with as many as 200 of the usual 300-350 substitutes leaving this fall due to health concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic or took other jobs. RCAS reported 39 staff were in quarantine as of Friday [Morgan Matzen, “Board Votes to Make Teachers ‘Critical Infrastructure’, Allowing Them to Work After Covid-19 Exposure,” Rapid City Journal, 2020.09.28].
According to the CDC’s current best estimate, 50% of coronavirus transmission occurs while infected individuals show no symptoms.
Just an awful decision. They are playing Russian roulette with every child and family of children in the district. It’s murder.
More death, with our blessing. “Behind the White House Effort to Pressure the C.D.C. on School Openings
Documents and interviews show how senior officials sought to play down the risks of sending children back to the classroom, alarming public health experts.” New York Times 9.29.20
So the kids come home from a trump virus infested classroom to the loving arms of their parents and grandparents. Something tells me that we will hit a couple of million more deaths and a destroyed economy pretty quick like. I give the United States 6 to 9 months before we crash, dead, broke and sick. Or, we can change the course. Worse part is, no one wants us either so you had better vote Blue to change the direction of this suicide.
Decisions like this are made only when society is near collapse, and people can’t process it because they think life in collapse feels normal.
The link below talks about how normal societal collapse feels to those whose societies are falling apart.
https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc
Even Moscow, yes Moscow can see the danger.
“Moscow’s mayor announced on Tuesday that school holidays will be extended as an anti-coronavirus measure as infections increase in the Russian capital.
The move comes as Moscow has seen cases of Covid-19 rise swiftly in the second half of September, from about 700 a day to 2,300 on Tuesday.
Russia, which has seen the fourth-largest number of cases in the world, registered a total of 8,232 new cases on Tuesday.”
School boards in America, have now decided to be concentration camps for the children and their guards. How did we get to this point of incompetence and how do we get out it? Vote Blue from the school boards to the presidency. The current regime has failed us badly.
Donald Pay, that is one excellent link! The truth is gonna be harder and harder to live through as the bodies will keep piling up. Each day we watch the Wall Street tycoons suck the money from our pockets while calling it a stock market rally. 99% of us don’t get the idea that what is bolstering that market is our taxpayer money being used to hold it up as a bailout. If we are feeling weak, it’s because our life blood is being drained, not only with the grotesque deaths of our fellow countrymen, but from our wallets and our future. When do we say enough? How about November 3 as a start?
Bet you wish you were not on the school board now. Money money money.
Critical infrastructure or not, is it responsible?
Everyone needs to take personal responsibility.
Murder, Don? Hyperbole?
Curt, not hyperbole. You can’t play chicken with this virus. You’re going to lose every time, and when you lose some number of people will die. If you don’t understand that, you haven’t been listening to the scientists.
I am pretty sure Kristi was a key abettor in Trump neutering CDC when Smithfield flared a few days after Greeley meat packer was written up big time. Money money murder…. Hundreds of thousands of lives. Frogs cooking. Didn’t see a single mask at Y in RC just now.
Distraction, confusion, cannon fodder humans in Republican death spiral clutch on power. Fuc#%€?!!!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52311877
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/23/1979954/-Maddow-exclusively-busts-CDC-Director-Redfield-with-a-massive-scandal-of-doctoring-a-report
,Curt, districts in Wisconsin go all virtual for two weeks when faced with one staff member being infected, even if non-symptomatic. They reassess after two weeks. Some have returned of no new cases. Some decide to remain virtual.
Took a day longer than planned, but 210k deaths have been recorded for drumpf’s personal body count of inactivity.
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
7,370,496
Deaths:
210,037
The New York Times
@nytimes
Breaking News: Top White House officials spent weeks pressuring the C.D.C. over the summer to downplay the risk of sending children back to school.
Oh, we’ll hit at least a million deaths without a doubt and consider ourselves fortunate to stop at 2 million. NFL is now infected. So when you watch the games, it may be 6 man football with no passing involved. A protracted walking game. What a horrific joke we’ve become as we defeat ourselves daily.
“The NFL is facing its first outbreak of the novel coronavirus on a team during the 2020 season after the Tennessee Titans shut down in-person activities Tuesday following a series of positive test results among players and other personnel.
The Minnesota Vikings, who played the Titans on Sunday in Minneapolis, also suspended in-person team activities, including practices and live meetings, at least temporarily.” Washington Post 9.29.20
Think of it, prime athletes and down. Take a poor teacher, who is struggling to make ends meet and put them in a job as dangerous as front line infantry. Yes Donald Pay, we are talking murder here, because we are knowingly forcing them go look for IED’s on the trump virus battlefield.
Walworth county 0 cases today. HAHA, yeah, sure, right…
I bet what’s happening now is that people _with_ symptoms are not letting anyone know and/or not going to get tested in fear that they won’t play sports, their kids won’t play sports, they won’t be able to teach, or go to work for 2 weeks.
Here’s the science on asymptomatic spread
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/08/10/asymptomatic
Sounds like it won’t be long until SD achieves “herd mentality.” ;-)
Smithfield began offering employees a $500 “responsibility bonus” if they finished their shifts through the end of the month, which Islam characterised as a “bribe” to work in unsafe conditions.
Sara Telahun Birhe, an organiser with Children of Smithfield, said her mother had previously decided she would not return, but changed her mind when she heard about the bonus. “We’re devastated by the idea that she’s going to go in just for $500,” Telahun Birhe said.
In its statement, Smithfield wrote that the bonus is part of Smithfield’s #ThankAFoodWorker initiative, adding: “Employees who miss work due to Covid-19 exposure or diagnosis will receive the Responsibility Bonus.”
In part due to the incomplete shutdown and in part due to the rising number of cases coming out of the plant, on 11 April both South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and TenHaken sent a joint letter to Smithfield calling for a 14-day “pause” in operations. The next day, Smithfield leadership announced that they would comply – on 15 April, meaning there was still one more day of work in a building. [BBC article linked above]
Trump, Noem-the torches and pitchforks have arrived outside your gates.
According to the Rapid City Journal, we are at a 32.3% positivity rate because only 802 tests were ran.
Sure, fewer positives may look good, but don’t do much for containing the thing.
I have a feeling many people are waiting to get tested until they absolutely must, for reasons stated before.
According to Kooper Caraway, president of the Sioux Falls AFL-CIO, union officials approached management at Smithfield in early March to request multiple measures to increase worker safety, including staggering shifts and lunch schedules, which can pack 500 workers into the factory cafeteria at once. He said they also requested personal protective gear like masks and overcoats, temperature-checking at the doors and sanitation stations.
“This was before anyone at the plant tested positive,” said Caraway. “Management dragged their feet, didn’t take worker demands seriously.”
Do these essential designations also come with a pay bump?
Doesn’t look like the indentured servants will even get warmer porridge.
Finally:
The Smithfield pork plant, located in a Republican-led state [of yours truly-SD] that is one of five in the US that has not issued any kind of shelter-in-place order, has become a microcosm illustrating the socioeconomic disparities laid bare by the global pandemic.
While many white-collar workers around the country are sheltering in place and working from home, food industry workers like the employees at Smithfield are deemed “essential” and must remain on the front lines. BBC article
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
7,407,201
Deaths:
210,814
It hurt to read the article Don linked to. It hurt because it’s true. One thing to hang onto,
There. Is. Hope. November. Third.