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The Club PUBlication  07/27/2020

7/27/2020

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​CDC calls on schools to reopen despite risks

The new statement aligns with President Trump.

By ABBY GOODNOUGH New York Times

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ANTHONY SOUFFLÉ • [email protected] NOT YET: Lindsey West, who teaches fifth grade at Clara Barton Open School in Minneapolis, protested outside the Governor’s Residence on Friday against reopening too soon.
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ANTHONY SOUFFLÉ • [email protected] WEIGHED DOWN WITH WORRIES: Carol Dallman, a teacher at Wellstone International High School in Minneapolis, wore an oversized backpack to represent the back-to-school anxieties faced by students, parents and teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic as she and others marched from J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in St. Paul to the Governor’s Residence Friday.

WASHINGTON – The nation’s top public health agency issued a full-throated call to reopen schools in a statement that aligned with President Donald Trump’s pressure on communities, listing numerous benefits of being in school and downplaying the potential health risks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the statement, along with new “resources and tools,” Thursday evening, two weeks after Trump criticized its earlier recommendations on school reopenings as “very tough and expensive.” His words ratcheted up what was already an anguished national debate over how soon students and teachers should return to classrooms.

“Reopening schools creates opportunity to invest in the education, well-being and future of one of America’s greatest assets — our children — while taking every precaution to protect students, teachers, staff and all their families,” the agency’s statement said.

Trump, pummeled with criticism over his handling of the pandemic, sees reopening the nation’s schools this fall as crucial to reinvigorating the economy and to his reelection. While many public health experts and pediatricians agree that returning children to classrooms is critically important, they warn that it has to be done cautiously, with a plan based on scientific evidence. They, along with teachers unions, have accused the president of putting children and the adults who supervise them at school at risk by politicizing the subject.

The new package of CDC materials began with a statement titled “The Importance of Reopening America’s Schools This Fall” that repeatedly described children as being at low risk for being infected by or transmitting the virus, even though the science on both aspects is far from settled.

The package included checklists for parents, guidance on wearing face coverings, mitigation measures for schools to take and other information that some epidemiologists described as useful. This more technical guidance generally was consistent with the agency’s earlier recommendations , such as keeping desks 6 feet apart and keeping smaller-than-usual groups of children in one classroom all day instead of allowing them to move around.

The guidance suggests schools take measures such as keeping students in small cohorts, having one teacher stay with the same group all day and using outdoor spaces. It also suggests planning for how to handle when someone in a school tests positive, including developing plans for contact tracing. It also includes strategies to support students of various ages wearing masks. For parents, it suggests checking their children each morning for signs of illness before sending them to school and talking to them about preventive measures.

While most research suggests that children infected by the coronavirus are at low risk of becoming severely ill or dying, how often they become infected and how efficiently they spread the virus to others is not definitively known. Children in middle and high schools may also be at much higher risk of both than those under 10, according to some recent studies, a distinction the CDC statement did not make.

In a call with reporters Friday, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield said that he understood the “trepidation” many parents and teachers were feeling and that decisions should be made based on levels of infection in each community.
Still, he said, “The goal line is to get the majority of these students back to face-to-face learning.”

One school that will not fully reopen in September is St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, a private school in Washington’s Maryland suburbs attended by Trump’s son. The school said in a letter to parents that it was still deciding whether to adopt a hybrid model for the fall that would allow limited in-person education or to resume holding all classes online .

At a briefing Wednesday, Trump expressed no qualms about Barron or his school-age grandchildren returning to class. “I am comfortable with that,” he said.

The White House had no comment Thursday on the decision by St. Andrew’s, but at a briefing later in the day, Trump seemed more flexible in demanding reopenings . In areas with surging infections, he said, reading from a script, “districts may need to delay reopening for a few weeks.”

But he emphasized the need to reopen quickly. “We cannot indefinitely stop 50 million American children from going to school, harming their mental, physical and emotional development,” he said. “Reopening our schools is also critical to ensuring that parents can go to work and provide for their families.”
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“The goal line is to get the majority of these students back to face-to-face learning.” Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC director
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The Club PUBlication  07/20/2020

7/20/2020

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​Great Lakes water temps are blowing away records

Lake Superior water over 6 degrees above normal.

By JASON SAMENOW and MATTHEW CAPPUCCI Washington Post

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WARREN DILLAWAY • Star-Beacon (Ashtabula, Ohio) Waves pounded the shore of Lake Erie in Ohio. The lake’s water has neared 80 degrees — about the same as in Virginia Beach.
You don’t expect to see 75-or even 80-degree water in the Great Lakes in early July or, in most years, anytime. But an exceptionally hot weather pattern has pushed water temperatures in most of the lakes to the highest levels on record so early in the summer. Over lakes Erie and Ontario, the water is the warmest it has been since the records began, and could warm more in the coming weeks.

The abnormally warm waters, consistent with climate change trends in recent decades, could compromise water quality and harm marine life in some areas

Surfacewatertemperatures averaged over all of the Great Lakes, except the deep and choppy Lake Superior, have risen well into the 70s, while Lake Erie has flirted with 80 degrees.That’saboutthesame water temperature as the surf off Virginia Beach, Va.

These water temperatures over the lakes are some 6 to 11 degrees warmer than normal.

Here is how warm each of the lakes has become over the past week:

Lake Superior average water temperature reached 55.8 degrees on July 8, over 6 degrees above normal.

Lake Michigan’s average water temperature reached 75.1 degrees on July 8, nearly 11 degrees above normal, and the warmest mark on record so early in the year.

Lake Huron’s average water temperature reached 72.2 degrees on July 9, nearly 11 degrees above normal, and the warmest mark on record so early in the year.
Lake Ontario’s average water temperature reached 77.1 degrees on July 10, over 10 degrees above normal.

Lake Erie’s average water temperature reached 79.6 degrees on July 10, over 8 degrees above normal, and the warmest mark on record for any month.

The unusually warm water is a reflection of blistering heat over the Great Lakes region in recent weeks set up by a persistent ridge of high pressure.

The heat has meant water temperatures are “abnormally high compared to the most recent years,” said Andrea VanderWoude, manager of the Great Lakes CoastWatch program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Last year was really cold and there was a lot of rain.”

The water temperatures spiked late last week before a weekend cold front unleashed windy, stormy weather which helped draw deep, cold water back toward the surface of the lake, in a process known as upwelling. This has caused water temperatures to drop slightly.

But VanderWoude expects they will rise again. Historically, water temperatures in Great Lakes reach their maximum in August.

Some residents are rejoicing in the unusually warm water. “I’m loving this,” said Whitney Miller, a Traverse City, Mich.-based swim instructor.

But the warm water could have detrimental effects on water quality and some aquatic species.

VanderWoude said NOAA aircraft have already photographed blue-green algae or cyanobacteria over western waters of Lake Erie in recent days. The foul-smelling algal blooms can harm fish and make people who are exposed to the water sick.
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The jump start to the algal bloom due to the warm water temperatures means it will be around for several weeks longer than normal.

The warm water can have other detrimental effects for fish, said Richard Stumpf, an oceanographer with the NOAA. “Many fish do not do well in water that is too warm, so they get ‘squeezed’ into a smaller and smaller area between surface water that is too warm, and bottom water that doesn’t have enough oxygen,” he said.
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The Club PUBlication  07/13/2020

7/13/2020

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​Florida hits grim virus milestone

By DEREK HAWKINS, FELICIA SONMEZ and LAURA MECKLER Washington Post

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JOE BURBANK • Orlando Sentinel Amid the soaring numbers, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has stuck to an aggressive reopening plan. On Sunday, Florida reported the largest single-day increase in positive virus cases in any one state.

Florida on Sunday reported a record 15,300 new corona-virus cases, the most by any state in a single day and a bleak sign of the United States’ failure to control the pandemic about six months after the first infection surfaced in the country.

The staggering number was the result of both increased testing and widespread community transmission that has affected the state’s population centers and its rural areas. It shattered previous highs of 11,694 reported by California last week and 11,571 reported by New York on April 15.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump wore a mask in public for the first time while visiting wounded service members and health care workers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Trump has previously shown disdain toward face coverings amid the pandemic and had refused to wear them.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, announcedanewrequirement that most people wear a mask in public. The state’s Republican lawmakers have opposed coronavirus restrictions.

Walt Disney World in Orlando reopened after having been shuttered for nearly four months, even as Florida continued to report record infections. Testing supplies in the state are running low, and some big labs are taking several days to return results, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference. He partly attributed the backlog to testing many asymptomatic people.

The latest spike puts Florida at the center of the country’s faltering pandemic response, highlighting the ongoing to gain an edge on the virus as the White House maintains its largely hands-off approach. The seven-day average for daily new cases nationwide, considered a more reliable indicator of the virus’ impact, has risen almost 165% over the past month, from 20,594 in the second week of June to 54,499 at the end of last week, according to the Washington Post’s tracking. The country’s daily death toll also increased last week after months of decline.

The Sunshine State has been at the forefront of the nationwide surge, with daily cases regularly exceeding 10,000 in July. An influx of coronavirus patients is straining Florida hospitals, and virus-related deaths in the state are trending upward after leveling off in the late spring. Over the past week alone, Florida reported nearly 70,000 new cases, the most of any state.

Amid the soaring numbers, DeSantis has stuck to an aggressive reopening plan. State officials recently ordered schools to reopen five days a week in the new academic year, drawing objections from local leaders. The state is also set to hold the Republican National Convention next month in Jacksonville’s VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, an indoor facility that seats about 15,000.

DeSantis sought to project calm at his news conference Saturday, emphasizing that many new coronavirus patients are young and healthy.

“If you look at where the cases are coming from, a lot of the cases are in that between 15 and 54, which, as you can see, those are not the age groups that are producing significant fatalities,” he said. “In fact, if you are under 55, and you don’t have significant comorbidities, the fatality rate for this is incredibly, incredibly low.”

He added that he believed the risk to schoolchildren was low, even though health experts say it remains unclear what role children and teenagers play in transmitting the virus. He also voiced concern about Florida’s rate of positive test results climbing into the double digits, saying, “This is something that we’re looking at very seriously.”

Shortly before Florida announced the new cases, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made rounds on Sunday news talk shows, where she continued to pressure schools to reopen.

In an interview on CNN, DeVos said she would like to see closed schools be the “exception” rather than the norm. “The goal needs to be that kids are learning, full-time, this fall,” she said. “Kids need to get back in the classroom.”

Asked about surging caseloads in much of the country, she replied that schools could respond to “little flare-ups” in the future but that they should generally be open for full-time learning.

DeVos added on Fox News that the Trump administration was looking at “all the options” for pulling federal funding from schools that don’t open in the fall. “American investment in education is a promise to students and their families,” she said. “If schools aren’t going to reopen ... they shouldn’t get the funds.”

Her remarks drew swift criticism from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while the government health official in charge of testing signaled that the virus was still spreading too quickly to allow children to return to classrooms.

DeVos, Trump and other senior administration officials spent much of last week leaning on schools to reopen. They said children suffer academically, as well as socially and emotionally, when they are away from school and said remote learning this spring was a disaster for many families, points that outside experts also have made. And they said it was impossible for some parents to go back to work if their children are at home.

Trump allies also see a political imperative in convincing voters that the nation is recovering from the pandemic, which will be hard if millions of families’ lives are still upended by school closures.
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Last week, a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis estimated there are nearly 1.5 million teachers, about 1 in 4, who are older than 65 or have health conditions that put them at higher risk of serious illness if they were to contract COVID-19. Asked about the finding, DeVos said that there are ways for teachers to continue to work and that districts should work to “figure out the best scenario for those teachers.”


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The Club PUBlication  07/06/2020

7/6/2020

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Rapid Arctic meltdown in Siberia alarms scientists
By ISABELLE KHURSHUDYAN, ANDREW FREEDMAN and BRADY DENNIS

Washington Post

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OLGA BURTSEVA via Associated Press Children played in a lake near Verkhoyansk, where temperatures hit 100 degrees last month.

Alexander Deyev can still taste the smoke from last year’s wildfires that blanketed the towns near his home in southeastern Siberia, and he is dreading their return.

“It just felt like you couldn’t breathe at all,” said Deyev, 32, who lives in Irkutsk, a Siberian region along Lake Baikal, just north of the Mongolian border.

But already, this spring’s fires arrived earlier and with more ferocity, government officials have said. In the territory where Deyev lives, fires were three times larger in April than the year before. And the hot, dry summer lies ahead.

Much of the world remains consumed with the deadly novel coronavirus. The United States, crippled by the pandemic, is in the throes of a divisive presidential election and protests over racial inequality. But at the top of the globe, the Arctic is enduring its own summer of discontent.

Wildfires are raging amid record-breaking temperatures. Permafrost is thawing, infrastructure is crumbling and sea ice is dramatically vanishing.

In Siberia and across much of the Arctic, profound changes are unfolding more rapidly than scientists anticipated only a few years ago. Shifts that once seemed decades away are happening now, with potentially global implications.

“We always expected the Arctic to change faster than the rest of the globe,” said Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “But I don’t think anyone expected the changes to happen as fast as we are seeing them happen.”

Vladimir Romanovsky, a researcher at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said the pace, severity and extent of the changes are surprising even to many researchers who study the region for a living. Predictions that once seemed extreme for how quickly the Arctic would warm “underestimate what is going on in reality,” he said. The temperatures occurring in the High Arctic during the past 15 years were not predicted to occur for another 70 years, he said.

Neither Dallas nor Houston have hit 100 degrees yet this year, but in one of the coldest regions of the world, Siberia’s “Pole of Cold,” the mercury climbed to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit on June 20.

If confirmed, the record-breaker in the remote Siberian town of Verkhoyansk, about 3,000 miles east of Moscow, would stand as the highest temperature in the Arctic since record-keeping began in 1885.

The triple-digit record was not a freak event, either, but instead part of a searing heat wave. Much of Siberia experienced an exceptionally mild winter, followed by a warmer-than-average spring, and has been among the most unusually warm regions of the world during 2020. During May, parts of Siberia saw an average monthly temperature that was a staggering 18 degrees Fahrenheit above average for the month, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The persistent warmth has helped to fuel wildfires, eviscerate sea ice, and destabilize homes and other buildings constructed on thawing permafrost.

Already, sea ice in the vicinity of Siberia is running at record low levels for any year dating to the start of the satellite era in 1979.

Scientists have long maintained that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. But in reality, the region is now warming at nearly three times the global average. Data from NASA shows that since 1970, the Arctic has warmed by an average of 5.3 degrees, compared with the global average of 1.71 degrees during the same period.

This might seem like a distant problem to the rest of the world. But those who study the Arctic insist the rest of us should pay close attention.
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“When we develop a fever, it’s a sign. It’s a warning sign that something is wrong and we stop and we take note,” said Merritt Turetsky, director of the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Literally, the Arctic is on fire. It has a fever right now, and so it’s a good warning sign that we need to stop, take note and figure out what’s going on.”

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