Today's News (2020/7/7): COVID-19 edition
Jul. 7th, 2020 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdThey're gonna kill half a million Americans. Straight up.
21 April document still in full effect.
----- 1 -----
Garrett Haake
twitter.com/GarrettHaake
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/GarrettHaake/status/1280239403395235840
Houston’s mayor asks state GOP to cancel their in-person convention in Houston. The party had just voted to reaffirm their plan to hold the convention.
[QUOTED TWEET THREAD]
Houston Mayor's Office
twitter.com/houmayor
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/houmayor/status/1280236891338682371
[THREAD]
We are sending a letter to the executive director of the Texas GOP party to ask them to cancel this month's convention in Houston. I am asking them to have a virtual event. It is not a good idea to have an in-person event.
[THEAD CONTINUES AT SECOND LINK]
----- 2 -----
Mark Berman
twitter.com/markberman
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/markberman/status/1280125225271734277
"White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking"
[LINKS TO:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-biden-campaigns-shift-focus-to-coronavirus-as-pandemic-surges/2020/07/06/53a4ec50-bd62-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html
]
----- 3 -----
Trump and Biden campaigns shift focus to coronavirus as pandemic surges
By Yasmeen Abutaleb and
Josh Dawsey
July 6, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-biden-campaigns-shift-focus-to-coronavirus-as-pandemic-surges/2020/07/06/53a4ec50-bd62-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html
The Trump and Biden presidential campaigns now see the coronavirus response as the preeminent force shaping the results of November’s election, prompting both camps to try to refocus their campaigns more heavily on the pandemic, according to officials and advisers of both campaigns.
Advisers to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden see the covid-19 crisis as perhaps the clearest way yet to contrast the former vice president with President Trump, using the stumbling response and renewed surge in cases as ways to paint Trump as uninformed, incapable of empathy and concerned only about his own political standing.
Trump’s advisers, by contrast, are seeking ways to reframe his response to the coronavirus — even as the president himself largely seeks to avoid the topic because he views it as a political loser. They are sending health officials to swing states, putting doctors on TV in regional markets where the virus is surging, crafting messages on an economic recovery and writing talking points for allies to deliver to potential voters.
The goal is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus — that schools should reopen, professional sports should return, a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year and the economy will continue to improve.
White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. Americans will “live with the virus being a threat,” in the words of one of those people, a senior administration official.
----- 4 -----
Florida Education Commissioner mandates all schools to reopen in August
Ryan McKinnon
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
July 6, 2020
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2020/07/06/florida-schools-mandated-reopen-august/5387823002/
Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued an emergency order Monday, requiring all schools to open in the fall and laying out the requirements districts must meet to offer any sort of non-traditional remote instruction in addition to their in-person option.
“All school boards and charter school governing boards must open brick and mortar schools in August at least five days per week for all students,” the announcement states.
Local health officials can override the commissioner’s directive if it is not safe to open schools, due to COVID-19, but Monday’s announcement makes it clear that districts have to prepare to open their doors to all students in August.
And while health officials could deem schools unsafe, as long as there are not widespread shutdowns, it could be a tough call to single out schools.
“Logically, I don’t think they could say schools aren’t safe if they are allowing people to be out in public,” Department of Education spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said.
“If locally they are not able to open, we will work with districts on the continuation of their Instructional Continuity Plan (ICP) or determining alternative options,” she said in a follow-up email.
Both Sarasota and Manatee County’s school boards are developing reopening plans, and while the commissioner’s order provides clarity, it is sure to disrupt efforts to maximize remote options for both students and staff.
What it means
Under the directive:
- School boards must prepare to reopen physical buildings in August for all students, full time.
- School districts cannot shift to a hybrid model, where students spend half their time in school and half at home. Every student must have the option of being in school five days per week.
- The only option for schools to not be physically open in August is if local Department of Health officials say schools cannot open.
- The DOE will not be waiving the minimum number of instructional hours for students and schools must provide all services they normally do.
----- 5 -----
Americans Are Living in an Alternate History
As the pandemic has raged on, popular culture has found new ways to ask an old question: What could have been instead?
Megan Garber
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/alternate-history-pop-culture-pandemic/613783/
There’s a certain kind of movie that lets you down not because it’s bad, but because it could have been great. One of those movies, for me, is Sliding Doors. The 1998 rom-com has a “philosophical” premise and a double timeline: As its poster asks, “What if one split second sent your life in two completely different directions?” In the first timeline, Helen Quilley (Gwyneth Paltrow) gets fired from her job and returns home to her boyfriend—just in time to discover him cheating on her. In the second, Helen misses her train, by one split second, and therefore remains unaware of the infidelity. The two plots—two possibilities—unfurl; in the process, age-old questions about contingency and destiny are answered by way of Hallmarkian melodrama. Like I said: It could have been great. It isn’t.
So I was unprepared when, watching Sliding Doors again recently, I found myself absolutely wrecked by the viewing. The movie’s perky setup was agonizing; its cheerful toggling between Helen’s two fates felt painful to witness. Because when I watched the movie this time around—in the midst of a global pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 people, with no end in sight—I wasn’t just thinking of Helen’s divergent futures. I was thinking of everyone else’s. To be alive in America right now is to be acutely aware of the paths not taken—to live, essentially, in the Sliding Doors proposition, and in the paradigm of the alternate history. Our news is doubly haunted: by the horror of real loss, and by the shadow of what might have been.
----- 6 -----
As things fall apart, remember how we got here.
twitter.com/solarbirdy
8 July 2020
https://twitter.com/solarbirdy/status/1280572860231122944
[THREAD]
What no one's saying is that Jackass's "I FEEL THREATENED!!!!" is Stand-Your-Ground for "I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KILL YOU, BITCH!"
No lie. Florida lets you kill if you feel at risk. He's threatening this elderly woman and the man who defended her with death.
https://ajc.com/news/national/what-does-florida-stand-your-ground-law-say-you-can/jpSBjlmK7L7bQdSFR45E1N/
[QUOTED TWEET]
Billy Corben
twiter.com/BillyCorben
8 July 2020
https://twitter.com/BillyCorben/status/1280332929613398017
[THREAD]
Florida man at Fort Myers Costco in "Running the World Since 1776" shirt flips out on elderly woman who asked him to wear a mask and man who defended her #BecauseFlorida (via twitter.com/profjaffar)
[THIS THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK IMMEDIATELY ABOVE]
[NEXT TWEET, Solarbird]
Also, as per the article I linked, since 2017, "defendants do not have to prove in pretrial hearings that they were defending themselves in order to avoid prosecution."
No proof of actual threat required. Just the statement.
[NEXT TWEET, Solarbird]
And let's make sure his name is on this:
Daniel Maples.
FORMERLY, according to the agency, of Ted Todd Insurance Agency. He is no longer with the agency and the agency has actively disavowed his behaviour.
----- 7 -----
Trump administration begins formal withdrawal from World Health Organization
By Zachary Cohen, Sara Murray, Kylie Atwood and Vivian Salama, CNN
Updated 2:50 PM ET, Tue July 7, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-withdrawing-world-trade-organization/index.html
(CNN)The Trump administration has notified Congress and the United Nations that the United States is formally withdrawing from the World Health Organization, multiple officials tell CNN, a move that comes amid a rising number of coronavirus cases throughout the Americas in the last week alone.
Sen. Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tweeted the news Tuesday.
"Congress received notification that POTUS officially withdrew the U.S. from the whoin the midst of a pandemic. To call Trump's response to COVID chaotic & incoherent doesn't do it justice. This won't protect American lives or interests—it leaves Americans sick & America alone," he wrote.
A State Department official confirmed that "the United States' notice of withdrawal, effective July 6, 2021, has been submitted to the UN Secretary-General, who is the depository for the WHO."
The letter addressed to the UN is very short, around three sentences, a source briefed on the correspondence told CNN, and it will trigger a one-year withdrawal timeline. However, this source also cautioned that they cannot confirm they saw the final version of the letter.
----- 8 -----
Dozens of Florida hospitals out of available ICU beds, state data shows
Maria Caspani, Gabriella Borter
7 July 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-florida/dozens-of-florida-hospitals-out-of-available-icu-beds-state-data-shows-idUSKBN2482IS
(Reuters) - More than four dozen hospitals in Florida reported that their intensive care units (ICUs) have reached full capacity on Tuesday as COVID-19 cases surge in the state and throughout the country.
Hospital ICUs were full at 54 hospitals across 25 of Florida’s 67 counties, according to data published on Tuesday morning by the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration. More than 300 hospitals were included in the report, but not all had adult ICUs.
Thirty hospitals reported that their ICUs were more than 90% full. Statewide, only 17% of the total 6,010 adult ICU beds were available on Tuesday, down from 20% three days ago, according to the agency’s website.
----- 9 -----
Sweden has become the world’s cautionary tale
By Peter S. Goodman
July 7, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/sweden-has-become-the-worlds-cautionary-tale/
LONDON — Ever since the coronavirus emerged in Europe, Sweden has captured international attention by conducting an unorthodox, open-air experiment. It has allowed the world to examine what happens in a pandemic when a government allows life to carry on largely unhindered.
This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.
“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”
The results of Sweden’s experience are relevant well beyond Scandinavian shores. In the United States, where the virus is spreading with alarming speed, many states have — at President Donald Trump’s urging — avoided lockdowns or lifted them prematurely on the assumption that this would foster economic revival, allowing people to return to workplaces, shops and restaurants.
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson — previously hospitalized with COVID-19 — reopened pubs and restaurants last weekend in a bid to restore normal economic life.
Implicit in these approaches is the assumption that governments must balance saving lives against the imperative to spare jobs, with the extra health risks of rolling back social distancing potentially justified by a resulting boost to prosperity. But Sweden’s grim result — more death and nearly equal economic damage — suggests that the supposed choice between lives and paychecks is a false one: A failure to impose social distancing can cost lives and jobs at the same time.
----- 10 -----
DeVos demands 'fully operational' schools in the fall: 'Not a matter of if'
By Marty Johnson
07/07/20
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506225-devos-demands-fully-operational-schools-in-the-fall-its-not-a-matter
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday told the country's governors in a conference call that she expects schools to be "fully operational" come the fall, regardless of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Ultimately, it’s not a matter of if schools need to open, it’s a matter of how," DeVos told governors, The Associated Press reports. "School[s] must reopen, they must be fully operational. And how that happens is best left to education and community leaders."
DeVos's words echo the White House's stance on the matter, as President Trump has staunchly supported in-person teaching returning for the upcoming school year. On Monday, Trump claimed in a tweet that the Democratic lawmakers wanted to keep schools shuttered in the fall for "political reasons."
“They think it will help them in November. Wrong, the people get it!” Trump tweeted.
...
Some districts have proposed a hybrid between traditional in-person learning and virtual learning, suggesting that students only physically go to school a few times a week.
DeVos disavowed these ideas, specifically calling out the Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia, which has proposed such a plan and asked the parents to decide which one they want for their child.
21 April document still in full effect.
- Houston’s mayor asks state GOP to cancel their in-person convention in Houston. The party had just voted to reaffirm their plan to hold the convention.
- White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day
- Trump and Biden campaigns shift focus to coronavirus as pandemic surges
- Florida Education Commissioner mandates all schools to reopen in August
- Americans Are Living in an Alternate History
- Florida jackass's "I FEEL THREATENED!!!!" is Stand-Your-Ground for "I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KILL YOU, BITCH!"
- Trump administration begins formal withdrawal from World Health Organization
- Dozens of Florida hospitals out of available ICU beds, state data shows
- Sweden has become the world’s cautionary tale
- DeVos demands 'fully operational' schools in the fall: 'Not a matter of if'
----- 1 -----
Garrett Haake
twitter.com/GarrettHaake
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/GarrettHaake/status/1280239403395235840
Houston’s mayor asks state GOP to cancel their in-person convention in Houston. The party had just voted to reaffirm their plan to hold the convention.
[QUOTED TWEET THREAD]
Houston Mayor's Office
twitter.com/houmayor
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/houmayor/status/1280236891338682371
[THREAD]
We are sending a letter to the executive director of the Texas GOP party to ask them to cancel this month's convention in Houston. I am asking them to have a virtual event. It is not a good idea to have an in-person event.
[THEAD CONTINUES AT SECOND LINK]
----- 2 -----
Mark Berman
twitter.com/markberman
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/markberman/status/1280125225271734277
"White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking"
[LINKS TO:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-biden-campaigns-shift-focus-to-coronavirus-as-pandemic-surges/2020/07/06/53a4ec50-bd62-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html
]
----- 3 -----
Trump and Biden campaigns shift focus to coronavirus as pandemic surges
By Yasmeen Abutaleb and
Josh Dawsey
July 6, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-biden-campaigns-shift-focus-to-coronavirus-as-pandemic-surges/2020/07/06/53a4ec50-bd62-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html
The Trump and Biden presidential campaigns now see the coronavirus response as the preeminent force shaping the results of November’s election, prompting both camps to try to refocus their campaigns more heavily on the pandemic, according to officials and advisers of both campaigns.
Advisers to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden see the covid-19 crisis as perhaps the clearest way yet to contrast the former vice president with President Trump, using the stumbling response and renewed surge in cases as ways to paint Trump as uninformed, incapable of empathy and concerned only about his own political standing.
Trump’s advisers, by contrast, are seeking ways to reframe his response to the coronavirus — even as the president himself largely seeks to avoid the topic because he views it as a political loser. They are sending health officials to swing states, putting doctors on TV in regional markets where the virus is surging, crafting messages on an economic recovery and writing talking points for allies to deliver to potential voters.
The goal is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus — that schools should reopen, professional sports should return, a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year and the economy will continue to improve.
White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. Americans will “live with the virus being a threat,” in the words of one of those people, a senior administration official.
----- 4 -----
Florida Education Commissioner mandates all schools to reopen in August
Ryan McKinnon
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
July 6, 2020
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2020/07/06/florida-schools-mandated-reopen-august/5387823002/
Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued an emergency order Monday, requiring all schools to open in the fall and laying out the requirements districts must meet to offer any sort of non-traditional remote instruction in addition to their in-person option.
“All school boards and charter school governing boards must open brick and mortar schools in August at least five days per week for all students,” the announcement states.
Local health officials can override the commissioner’s directive if it is not safe to open schools, due to COVID-19, but Monday’s announcement makes it clear that districts have to prepare to open their doors to all students in August.
And while health officials could deem schools unsafe, as long as there are not widespread shutdowns, it could be a tough call to single out schools.
“Logically, I don’t think they could say schools aren’t safe if they are allowing people to be out in public,” Department of Education spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said.
“If locally they are not able to open, we will work with districts on the continuation of their Instructional Continuity Plan (ICP) or determining alternative options,” she said in a follow-up email.
Both Sarasota and Manatee County’s school boards are developing reopening plans, and while the commissioner’s order provides clarity, it is sure to disrupt efforts to maximize remote options for both students and staff.
What it means
Under the directive:
- School boards must prepare to reopen physical buildings in August for all students, full time.
- School districts cannot shift to a hybrid model, where students spend half their time in school and half at home. Every student must have the option of being in school five days per week.
- The only option for schools to not be physically open in August is if local Department of Health officials say schools cannot open.
- The DOE will not be waiving the minimum number of instructional hours for students and schools must provide all services they normally do.
----- 5 -----
Americans Are Living in an Alternate History
As the pandemic has raged on, popular culture has found new ways to ask an old question: What could have been instead?
Megan Garber
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/alternate-history-pop-culture-pandemic/613783/
There’s a certain kind of movie that lets you down not because it’s bad, but because it could have been great. One of those movies, for me, is Sliding Doors. The 1998 rom-com has a “philosophical” premise and a double timeline: As its poster asks, “What if one split second sent your life in two completely different directions?” In the first timeline, Helen Quilley (Gwyneth Paltrow) gets fired from her job and returns home to her boyfriend—just in time to discover him cheating on her. In the second, Helen misses her train, by one split second, and therefore remains unaware of the infidelity. The two plots—two possibilities—unfurl; in the process, age-old questions about contingency and destiny are answered by way of Hallmarkian melodrama. Like I said: It could have been great. It isn’t.
So I was unprepared when, watching Sliding Doors again recently, I found myself absolutely wrecked by the viewing. The movie’s perky setup was agonizing; its cheerful toggling between Helen’s two fates felt painful to witness. Because when I watched the movie this time around—in the midst of a global pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 people, with no end in sight—I wasn’t just thinking of Helen’s divergent futures. I was thinking of everyone else’s. To be alive in America right now is to be acutely aware of the paths not taken—to live, essentially, in the Sliding Doors proposition, and in the paradigm of the alternate history. Our news is doubly haunted: by the horror of real loss, and by the shadow of what might have been.
----- 6 -----
As things fall apart, remember how we got here.
twitter.com/solarbirdy
8 July 2020
https://twitter.com/solarbirdy/status/1280572860231122944
[THREAD]
What no one's saying is that Jackass's "I FEEL THREATENED!!!!" is Stand-Your-Ground for "I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KILL YOU, BITCH!"
No lie. Florida lets you kill if you feel at risk. He's threatening this elderly woman and the man who defended her with death.
https://ajc.com/news/national/what-does-florida-stand-your-ground-law-say-you-can/jpSBjlmK7L7bQdSFR45E1N/
[QUOTED TWEET]
Billy Corben
twiter.com/BillyCorben
8 July 2020
https://twitter.com/BillyCorben/status/1280332929613398017
[THREAD]
Florida man at Fort Myers Costco in "Running the World Since 1776" shirt flips out on elderly woman who asked him to wear a mask and man who defended her #BecauseFlorida (via twitter.com/profjaffar)
[THIS THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK IMMEDIATELY ABOVE]
[NEXT TWEET, Solarbird]
Also, as per the article I linked, since 2017, "defendants do not have to prove in pretrial hearings that they were defending themselves in order to avoid prosecution."
No proof of actual threat required. Just the statement.
[NEXT TWEET, Solarbird]
And let's make sure his name is on this:
Daniel Maples.
FORMERLY, according to the agency, of Ted Todd Insurance Agency. He is no longer with the agency and the agency has actively disavowed his behaviour.
----- 7 -----
Trump administration begins formal withdrawal from World Health Organization
By Zachary Cohen, Sara Murray, Kylie Atwood and Vivian Salama, CNN
Updated 2:50 PM ET, Tue July 7, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-withdrawing-world-trade-organization/index.html
(CNN)The Trump administration has notified Congress and the United Nations that the United States is formally withdrawing from the World Health Organization, multiple officials tell CNN, a move that comes amid a rising number of coronavirus cases throughout the Americas in the last week alone.
Sen. Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tweeted the news Tuesday.
"Congress received notification that POTUS officially withdrew the U.S. from the
whoin the midst of a pandemic. To call Trump's response to COVID chaotic & incoherent doesn't do it justice. This won't protect American lives or interests—it leaves Americans sick & America alone," he wrote.A State Department official confirmed that "the United States' notice of withdrawal, effective July 6, 2021, has been submitted to the UN Secretary-General, who is the depository for the WHO."
The letter addressed to the UN is very short, around three sentences, a source briefed on the correspondence told CNN, and it will trigger a one-year withdrawal timeline. However, this source also cautioned that they cannot confirm they saw the final version of the letter.
----- 8 -----
Dozens of Florida hospitals out of available ICU beds, state data shows
Maria Caspani, Gabriella Borter
7 July 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-florida/dozens-of-florida-hospitals-out-of-available-icu-beds-state-data-shows-idUSKBN2482IS
(Reuters) - More than four dozen hospitals in Florida reported that their intensive care units (ICUs) have reached full capacity on Tuesday as COVID-19 cases surge in the state and throughout the country.
Hospital ICUs were full at 54 hospitals across 25 of Florida’s 67 counties, according to data published on Tuesday morning by the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration. More than 300 hospitals were included in the report, but not all had adult ICUs.
Thirty hospitals reported that their ICUs were more than 90% full. Statewide, only 17% of the total 6,010 adult ICU beds were available on Tuesday, down from 20% three days ago, according to the agency’s website.
----- 9 -----
Sweden has become the world’s cautionary tale
By Peter S. Goodman
July 7, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/sweden-has-become-the-worlds-cautionary-tale/
LONDON — Ever since the coronavirus emerged in Europe, Sweden has captured international attention by conducting an unorthodox, open-air experiment. It has allowed the world to examine what happens in a pandemic when a government allows life to carry on largely unhindered.
This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.
“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”
The results of Sweden’s experience are relevant well beyond Scandinavian shores. In the United States, where the virus is spreading with alarming speed, many states have — at President Donald Trump’s urging — avoided lockdowns or lifted them prematurely on the assumption that this would foster economic revival, allowing people to return to workplaces, shops and restaurants.
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson — previously hospitalized with COVID-19 — reopened pubs and restaurants last weekend in a bid to restore normal economic life.
Implicit in these approaches is the assumption that governments must balance saving lives against the imperative to spare jobs, with the extra health risks of rolling back social distancing potentially justified by a resulting boost to prosperity. But Sweden’s grim result — more death and nearly equal economic damage — suggests that the supposed choice between lives and paychecks is a false one: A failure to impose social distancing can cost lives and jobs at the same time.
----- 10 -----
DeVos demands 'fully operational' schools in the fall: 'Not a matter of if'
By Marty Johnson
07/07/20
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506225-devos-demands-fully-operational-schools-in-the-fall-its-not-a-matter
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday told the country's governors in a conference call that she expects schools to be "fully operational" come the fall, regardless of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Ultimately, it’s not a matter of if schools need to open, it’s a matter of how," DeVos told governors, The Associated Press reports. "School[s] must reopen, they must be fully operational. And how that happens is best left to education and community leaders."
DeVos's words echo the White House's stance on the matter, as President Trump has staunchly supported in-person teaching returning for the upcoming school year. On Monday, Trump claimed in a tweet that the Democratic lawmakers wanted to keep schools shuttered in the fall for "political reasons."
“They think it will help them in November. Wrong, the people get it!” Trump tweeted.
...
Some districts have proposed a hybrid between traditional in-person learning and virtual learning, suggesting that students only physically go to school a few times a week.
DeVos disavowed these ideas, specifically calling out the Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia, which has proposed such a plan and asked the parents to decide which one they want for their child.
