🧑⚖️📺 #OSHAhearing continues 😷 More mask petitions 📝 and yes, Long Covid is "still a thing"
Read James Lertola's Letter to the Editor about the negligence of safety in schools
Contents:
- Get Involved (Events, Actions, & Campaigns)
- Pandemic field notes (“living with the virus”)
- In the News (virus & adjacent media)
- This is NOT Fine section (gaslighting and other wrongs)
- Herd Scuttlebutt (did you hear about this?)
Keep informed, get involved
📢📝 Petition to TSA: Keep Mask Mandates on Public Transit
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/cdc-keep-tsa-mask-mandates-on-public-transportation
📢📝 Petition: Mandate Masks in Indoor Public Spaces and Schools in New York
“Please sign this letter and call on NY Governor Kathy Hochul and Health Commissioner Dr Mary Bassett to reinstate the mask mandate in all public indoor spaces and schools!”
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/mandatemasksny
🧑⚖️📺 Mon May 2, last day of the OSHA hearing
US Department of Labor online public hearing on proposed final rule to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 exposure, livestream.
https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/healthcare/rulemaking
Tweet Hashtag: #OSHAhearing
Jim from Pennsylvanians Against Covid has written another Letter to the Editor in response to this article:
COVID taught school districts a tough lesson about the labor market
“The education community is still reeling from the exodus of teachers and other personnel with a shrinking number of potential candidates for those posts.”
His letter has not as of yet been published, but with his permission I’m publishing it here, because I think it should be published. And I think more of us should be writing these letters with our own concerns not properly addressed in media. Thank you Jim!
- Chloe ✌️💫😷
April 13 2022 Letter to the Editor,
I see irony in the April 11 article, “COVID taught school districts a tough lesson about the labor market,” explaining why many educators are leaving our schools. As a newly retired Chester County teacher myself, I see by their negligence of safety that school districts have NOT learned the lesson.
The article highlighted the problems. A district job fair is held in a crowded room with all the windows closed – a situation well documented for spreading Covid. A bus company offers the perverse incentive to drivers to have perfect attendance, which encourages them to come to work sick.
Just before the school year, Health Director Jeanne Franklin said, “The schools know what to do” for mitigating the spread of Covid. We can see how wrong she was. The February 25 article, “Spring-Ford School District mask mandate unevenly applied in board room, gym,” showed fans and personnel ignoring stated mask requirements at a crowded basketball game, and a belligerent group did likewise to disrupt a board meeting. School buses neglect the simple CDC recommendation to vent some windows, and even fail to enforce Federal law on masking. Throughout the County, administrators and teachers’ unions alike submit to vocal anti-maskers, at the expense of the health and safety of their education professionals.
We can do better. Our county’s schools must support layered mitigation as Covid cases rise, and enforce the rules they make. We should stop tolerating unvaccinated people in our schools; vaccines are safe, and a key tool in our fight against disease. Education is a higher calling in our society, and educators should be provided with a safe workplace.
Dr. James G. Lertola, Kennett Township, Pennsylvanians Against Covid
🗞️ In the news
🏥🔬 3 possible cases of severe hepatitis reported in Illinois kids (“Three possible cases of severe hepatitis potentially linked to adenovirus have been reported in Illinois children, IDPH announced Monday.”)
🏥🔬 Growing concern for hepatitis among children in Alabama (“There’s a growing concern tonight about a spike in hepatitis among kids.”)
🏥🔬 Mysterious North Carolina hepatitis cases in children puzzle doctors ("No cause has been found and no common exposures were identified. Neither child tested positive for adenovirus.”)
🏥🔬 Tennessee doctors investigating 'acute hepatitis of unknown origin' in children (“Normally, the hospital may see five or six cases of acute hepatitis in children over the course of a year, but Dr. Mohammad says since the fall of 2021 through February/March the hospital has seen an increase in the overall number of cases, leading to some concern.”)
🏥🔬 Hepatitis: More cases confirmed among young children in UK (“Another 34 hepatitis cases have been identified among young children in the UK amid an unexplained surge of liver inflammation.”)
🏥🔬 Mysterious Cases of Severe Hepatitis Outbreaks in Children Continue to Rise (“On the plus side, the agency confirmed that there is no link to the coronavirus vaccine because none of the infected children have been immunized.”… “11 of the 12 children had been infected with the coronavirus in the previous year.”)
This is NOT fine
Dr. Fauci: “We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase.”
Dr. Fauci: “We’re out of the full-blown explosive pandemic - that does not mean the pandemic is over.”
Dr. Fauci opts out of attending the White House Press Correspondents super spreader event citing only “assessment of personal risk”
Herd Scuttlebutt
Someone told me of a conversation where they said to someone that they want to avoid covid because they’re worried about getting long covid, and the response was, “Is long covid still a thing anymore?” 😬 We clearly need more public health messaging. (5 reasons you should not deliberately catch Omicron to 'get it over with' : 2. You could get long Covid)
Too many stories on social media now about people coughing & sneezing unmasked on public transit. I even heard that following the TSA lifting masks, a DMV suddenly had a drop in masking, when previously it had been voluntarily at about half & half. We’re heading in the wrong direction.
Theo Allen, who is responsible for forcing the OSHA hearing, and asking important questions during the hearing last week, reports he has covid. He was scheduled to testify on the last day, but he announced his testimony will be delivered in written form. I am incensed for Theo and all of us who are getting exposed in this ongoing pandemic. Wishing Theo rest and recovery. 🐻🎈
“I'm having a lot of optimism about my pessimism.”