BPS COVID cases up six times over last year
FamCOSa demands protection for children, families, and staff
[BPS Families for COVID Safety (FamCOSa), demanded that BPS and the Boston Health Commission require universal masking and take other safety measures at the start of school and that they state publicly what metrics will trigger action to stop the spread.
At last night’s School Committee meeting, Nancy Lessin, a member of FamCOSa and of the Mass Coalition for Occupational Health and Safety (MassCOSH) Health Technical Committee, spelled out what is happening in the schools in the absence of key safety precautions. Here’s her statement:]
Today’s Boston Globe reported on COVID cases increasing sharply among Massachusetts children, saying experts tied this to students back in school spreading virus to each other.
Comparing COVID cases in BPS’s first two weeks of school last year, when all were masked and there was weekly PCR testing, with cases in the first two weeks of this year, here’s what we see:
- Boston Arts Academy: one case last year, 39 this year.
- O’Bryant: zero last year, 40 this year.
- Dudley Street Neighborhood School: zero last year, 24 this year.
- Sumner Elementary: zero last year, 26 this year.
- BLS: zero last year, 79 this year.
BPS COVID cases in the first two weeks of school this year are six times higher than the first two weeks last year.
Get Schoolyard News’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
COVID still puts children and adults in hospitals. New studies from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine show children who had COVID with a greater risk of developing Type 1 diabetes, and seniors 65 and older who had COVID linked with a greater risk of Alzheimer’s.
How BPS could slow down the pandemic
FamCOSa has advocated for strong protections in schools: good ventilation, filtration, take-home rapid tests, vaccine clinics, and universal masking and weekly PCR testing at least tied to certain metrics.
There are outbreaks in schools now but BPS has yet to define an outbreak or state protective measures to be instituted. …
For months we’ve been calling for transparency, clear metrics tied to specific protective changes.
At the Boston Public Health Commission September meeting, Board Chair Dr. [Dean Sandro] Galea defended a lack of thresholds, [saying,] “It’s very hard for us to set thresholds for October 1 not knowing what the variants are going to look like.” My four BPS grandchildren know that on October 1, we’ll still be dealing with BA.5, the most transmissible variant yet.
Transmission in our schools puts students, staff, families, and communities at risk.
Our school community is primarily Black and brown — the community hit disproportionately with COVID’s ravages. Equity demands strong protections — along with clearly stated metrics and prompt interventions.
Welcome, Superintendent Skipper—we’re looking forward to working with you on this.
—
Related
Another school year, another COVID surge? July 28, 2022
