Schools are gearing up with plans to return after the new year, despite the surge in COVID

Most public schools around the country are moving forward undeterred with plans to get kids back into the classroom on Monday, despite the record spread of COVID-19 forcing business closures. business.

Eric Adams, who is now the mayor of New York City, said: “Your kids are safer at school, the numbers speak for themselves. told reporters at a press conference last week.

New York City, home to the nation’s largest school district, plans to keep children in the classroom no remote online option and about to increase testing while they are there. Meanwhile, businesses are taking stricter measures. The city’s Apple stores have severely restricted most interactions to taking orders online only. Dozens The restaurant is still closed.

Jessica Cimini, who teaches science at a Staten Island middle school, voiced her frustration online by writing to the mayor and the public school system.

“My town in NJ just got away but NYC is business as usual?? So my son was safe and my husband was safe until I walked into a Covid-infected school in nyc on Monday. Thanks for not caring,” Ms tweeted on Saturday.

South Florida, home to two of the nation’s 10 largest counties, is expanding restrictions on adults while largely unvaccinated children remain exposed. As of Monday, Miami-Dade . County Public Schools Masks will be mandatory for all adults – but not children. It’s worse in neighboring Broward County, where The school board held an emergency meeting last week to create a rule requiring masks for any visitors to school — but the board couldn’t agree on a requirement for teachers and their students.

Meanwhile, several school districts in Georgia, Ohio, New Jersey and Michigan, among others, have either postponed their return from the holiday or announced a temporary shift to distance learning.

The severity of the threat seems to manifest differently in the business sector. More than 100 flights out of South Floridawere have been canceled in recent days, and the Centers for Disease Control has give a clear warning to avoid all cruise ships.

All indications are that the Omicron coronavirus variant is ripping through the country’s population these weeks, in the aftermath of record shopping and a surge in holiday travel. Florida just hit an all-time high, according to report The biggest increase in a day in case of COVID on New Year’s Eve. Nationally, the CDC tallied 2.2 million new cases in the past week, with more than one in ten in Florida. And despite the lower death rate of the new variant, another 7,704 people have died across the country during that time, adding to the total of 820,355 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Big business interests reacted cautiously. Google, Intel, Microsoft and others big Tech companies have canceled plans will send staff to Las Vegas next week to attend the Consumer Electronics Show, the world’s largest technology conference. The editors of the technology news agency CNET made a last-minute decision not to send journalists. At least two gun companies, Kimber Manufacturing and Sig Sauer, have quietly decided not to attend the firearms industry’s large annual Shot Show business conference later this month, according to a person familiar with the matter. with the plans of both companies. Neither gun maker responded to requests for comment on Saturday.

The school system is largely motivated to remain open by frustrated parents, concerns about learning loss, and the general view of the medical community that children and those who are under-vaccinated. affected by COVID symptoms and face a lower risk of severe illness. However, there is still no government-approved vaccine for children under the age of 5. And only about 15% of elementary school children nationwide are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data reviewed by The Daily Beast.

However, the Biden administration has also pushed children to stay in classrooms, emphasizing a “test to stay” approach earlier this month, allowing children potentially exposed to the virus to stay in class with provided they test negative at least twice in the week following exposure.

Along with efforts to keep schools open, the Biden administration’s chief medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, also highlighted the continuing threat of COVID to everyone’s health.

“Prolonged COVID can occur no matter what virus variant occurs” Dr. Fauci told Spectrum News last week. “There is no evidence that there is any difference between delta or beta or now omicrons.”

School districts everywhere are relying heavily on relentless testing to track the spread of the virus to find the kids who need to stay home. But a dramatic increase in demand — coupled with a lack of coordination and planning by health authorities — has left drugstores empty. Some shoppers are stocking up on tests at home, while thousands more are lining up outside clinics.

In Boston, when test kits weren’t delivered on time, the local teachers union begged administrators to allow schools to close for at least another day to make sure staff could check they were tested positive for COVID-19 before returning to work. kids. But their calls were rejected by state education officials, according to Boston Globe.

One of the oddities seems to be Seattle, where the local school district managed to get 60,000 quick tests and decided to close schools on January 3 to give staff and students real time. show them, follow Seattle Times.

Los Angeles County’s director of public health, Barbara Ferrer, delivered grim expectations during a news conference Thursday.

“We were really, really good at the schools in the fall,” she said, according to LA Times. “But that’s not going to happen when we go back, because in fact we have a much more widely circulated variant of Omicron.”