Pirate's Cove

This is a big blow for so many of the teacher’s unions, who are trying to keep in person learning shut down. Why? Pick your own theory. Getting full pay for working from home in sweatpants, holding out for more pay, all sorts

CDC: Strong evidence in-person schooling can be done safely

The nation’s top public health agency said Friday that in-person schooling can resume safely with masks, social distancing and other strategies, and vaccination of teachers, while important, is not a prerequisite for reopening.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its long-awaited road map for getting students back to classrooms in the middle of a pandemic that has killed nearly 480,000 people in the U.S. But the agency’s guidance is just that — it cannot force schools to reopen, and CDC officials were careful to say they are not calling for a mandate that all U.S. schools be reopened.

Officials said there is strong evidence now that schools can reopen, especially at lower grade levels.

Recommended measures include hand washing, disinfection of school facilities, diagnostic testing and contact tracing to find new infections and separate infected people from others in a school. It’s also more emphatic than past guidance on the need to wear masks in school.

So, the stuff that we’ve known of over nine months. And saying that there is no need for everyone, including teachers, to be vaccinated. Plenty of essential workers have been working hard for almost a year now, going in to work, doing their jobs, taking the risk. Not so many teachers, though, and not their unions. And, yes, many are just fine going back, want to go back, and many are back. Many, especially in the hardcore Democrat areas, are not.

Biden said schools will need more money to meet the CDC’s standards and called on Congress to pass his COVID-19 package quickly to get $130 billion in aid to schools.

Here’s a question not being asked: where’s all the money that was saved for the schools not being opened for almost a year? The savings on electricity and water not being used? Not having people constantly cleaning the schools? Not having to bus kids to school, saving on paying drivers and fuel? How much does that add up to for schools across the nation? Perhaps not $130 billion, but, has to be quite a bit, right? It can’t be used for disinfecting and cleaning? Buying a few thermometers to check the kids in the morning? What else is that Biden money used for?

This is really dumb, @NBCNews: we shouldn't shame people who look to get a vaccine shot instead of seeing doses thrown out. Really, really bad journalism https://t.co/emfJTVY4Bi

— William Teach2 ??????? #refuseresist (@WTeach2) February 12, 2021

From the story, which isn’t quite as bad as the headline

For this vaccine chaser, the second time was the charm.

On her first attempt to get a Covid-19 shot last month, 28-year Leah Robson arrived at a Los Angeles city park at 4 a.m., waited all day with hundreds of other hopefuls, and wound up going home without the vaccination.

She tried again the next day at 2:30 a.m. at the Balboa Sports Complex in the Encino neighborhood and found six people already ahead of her in line. But this time, after another all-day wait she got her shot.

“It was worth the wait,” Robson told NBC News. “There were about a hundred shots left over at the end of the day that would have gone to waste if they weren’t used, so just about everybody I was in line with got a shot.”

The shots expire if not used, so, yes, lots of people are working to get the ones that not used and going to expire. What’s the problem? It’s a good idea. They’ve been doing it in Israel, calling it the Pizza Guy vaccination, where they just grab random people off the street to give them the unused and about to expire doses. It’s smart.

Because the vaccine doses have a shelf life of just five hours once defrosted, they have to be used that same day or they will wind up in the garbage. New websites like vaccinehunter.org and Facebook groups like New Jersey Covid Vaccine Sites and Minneapolis Vaccine Hunters have popped up to assist people looking for leftover doses.

“There’s no downside to what we’re doing here,” vaccinehunter.org website founder Brad Johnson told “NBC Nightly News.” “Any arm is better than the trash.”

No, there is no downside. Except it is mean, according to NBC News. And, apparently, raaaaacist

The vaccine chasers who are mostly white and well-to do are turning up at community centers that serve mostly minority constituencies, as has happened everywhere from Florida to California. But doctors still say it’s better not to waste the doses — just as long as the vaccine chasers don’t try to cut the line.

So what? If blacks, Asians, Latinos, etc, don’t want to do it, that’s on them.

Some state and county health departments and even hospitals, all determined not to waste the scarce vaccine doses, have created sign-up sheets where people willing to race over to a vaccination center to get a shot at a moment’s notice can register.

I’d sign up if I could find a list around here. I’ve tried, no luck.