What you should know
- The CDC chief warned Wednesday that the next few months of the pandemic will be among the “most difficult in the history of public health in this nation”; He said the total deaths could reach 450,000 before February.
- Dr. Robert Redfield’s concerns do not apply at the school level; said he was disappointed that Mayor Bill de Blasio closed New York City public schools to in-person learning last month, saying they don’t fuel the spread of the virus.
- Elementary schools in New York City can reopen on Monday with more tests and de Blasio wants children to be able to attend five days a week; various directors say they just don’t have the ability
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NEW YORK – The United States set another new record for single-day cases on Wednesday, topping 200,000 for the first time as the CDC chief warned that the coming months will be among the “most difficult in public health history. of this nation. “
Dr. Robert Redfield said the country is now in the range of 1,500 to 2,500 deaths a day, with the numbers set to worsen during the winter. The nation reported a record number of daily deaths (2,777) on Wednesday.
“The concerns about mortality are real,” Redfield said. “I think sadly before we see February we could be close to 450,000 Americans [que] have died from this virus. “
That’s roughly a 63 percent increase from the world’s highest death toll the United States currently has, a puzzling prospect that the White House Task Force underscored earlier this week when it told states that “the risk of COVID for all Americans is at a historic level. “
However, some places are still safer than others. Redfield said he was “disappointed” when New York City closed its public schools last month for in-person learning, a move that drew strong criticism of Mayor Bill de Blasio among health experts, local politicians and parents alike. The positivity rate within schools has been a negligible fraction of the positivity rate citywide, and Redfield agreed with others Wednesday when he said schools don’t appear to be driving the spread.
Younger students (3-K, pre-K, and K-5) and special education students will be able to return to their buildings in person on Monday, while middle and high school students will have to wait at least until the beginning of next year. Weekly random testing will be mandatory for students and staff and students will not be allowed to attend classes on the first day unless their parents have signed a consent form.
De Blasio says he wants all elementary schools to offer classroom learning five days a week, starting on Monday, if possible. His statement was a boost to parents who want their children to enroll in school full-time in person, although some have found that their schools are not on the same page as the mayor.
Our sister network NBC New York has seen multiple messages from city managers stating that five days a week is not an option. A note to parents from school administrators at PS 20 in Brooklyn, for example, read: “There are no plans to phase out blended learning at PS 20 and there are no plans for students to return to learning 5 days per week / full time in person at this time, “citing staff limitations.
When asked about the dilemma in his briefing Wednesday, De Blasio insisted that five days of in-person instruction was a realistic scenario for most New York City schools.
“We are dealing with a policy from New York City and the DOE. I don’t know what the principals have said individually, but we will make sure they all work to the same playbook,” said the mayor. “This is the decision of where we go. Clearly, most schools can get there.”
Probation is the main reason you can reopen elementary schools as soon after the last closure in person, De Blasio says. The city can process 20,000 days a day alone in what De Blasio calls its first Pandemic Response Laboratory. He expects that up to 100,000 tests per day can be conducted at that facility daily in a matter of weeks, which will support the schools’ ability to remain open.
However, the dreaded continued spike stemming from the start of the Christmas season is likely to continue until at least January, authorities said. Hospitals are already tied up. Admissions to New York City have risen 120 percent over the past three weeks, the governor’s office says. The city’s daily average number of cases is as high as 1,800 according to the mayor’s latest report, numbers not seen since May 3.
There is hope on the horizon in the form of vaccines. Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that he expects to receive 170,000 doses of the vaccine from Pfizer by Dec. 15, if the drug company gets the go-ahead from the federal government. New York also expects to receive at least 40,000 doses of Moderna’s vaccine by the end of this month if it also receives federal emergency clearance.
That would be enough to cover the state’s roughly 85,000 nursing home residents and 130,000 staff members, though Cuomo said he hopes not all residents and staff members will agree to get the vaccine. He continues to work on developing an efficient and equitable implementation plan and outlined the latest efforts Wednesday.
“My goal for this state is the fastest vaccination in America,” Cuomo said. “I’ll do whatever I have to do and drive it around the state myself.”
Still, the initial doses would be just a drop in the bucket compared to the gigantic task of vaccinating millions and millions of New Yorkers. Cuomo said an optimistic scenario would bring the state to herd immunity levels by June.
Meanwhile, COVID continues to spread rampant across the country. On Wednesday, the United States set another new record for cases in a single day, surpassing 200,000 for the first time, according to NBC News. The total of cases has exceeded 14 million.
Nearly 37,000 Americans died of COVID-19 in November, the most in any month since the dark early days of the pandemic. To date, the United States has lost nearly 275,000, more than any other country in the world. The tri-state area alone has confirmed nearly 50,000 deaths from COVID, although thousands upon thousands more are likely attributable to the virus in some way, authorities say.
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