The End of the Pandemic

 On January 30th of this year the Biden administration announced that COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) and national emergency declarations would be ending on May 11, 2023. These pandemic declarations were announced at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. They helped with various policies such as the expansion of telehealth and free COVID testing. It helped with coverage with Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP, as well as private insurance, speeding up the acceptance of medications and treatments so that patients can be treated.

To say that the last 3 years have been hard is an understatement. 2020 was one of the roughest years of my family’s life. We tried our best to stay safe. We stayed home that whole year except for trips to the grocery store. The following year I lost my mother due to complications resulting from COVID-19. Shortly after she died, my brother died similarly. As vaccines began to roll out, we became more and more comfortable out in public. We finally got COVID at the end of 2022. The recovery was not bad and we were testing negative relatively quickly. In 2023, my family and I are so ready to move on and live our lives. We wear masks less often. We keep them close by for trips to the store or if we’re not feeling safe in our environment.

Despite being fed up with COVID-19 and the precautions, ending emergency declarations is scary. Sure, if I only account for how my family is doing, it makes sense. We are well equipped to deal with our health thanks to our insurance and decent jobs, but only considering my family would be short-sighted. The problem is, there are plenty of people out there who cannot get insurance. There are plenty of people out there who either cannot get the vaccines available or flat out refuse them. People who mask in public are in the minority. I cannot count how many times I’ve heard nasty coughs around me. I’ve had that nasty cough. We are living in highly infectious times and the people who will be most affected by the end of these declarations will be the poor. All of this is scary. We need to support each other as we continue to live with COVID-19.

I had hoped that the pandemic would change our culture so that persons suffering from cold symptoms (or any signs of illness) would adopt the habit of wearing facemarks to protect those around them from the particles exiting their bodies as they exhale, sneeze, or cough.  Sadly, the pandemic seems to have made many people lose their rational faculties (or did they ever have any?), and the wearing of masks became a political and identity issue. 

One thing I learned from the pandemic was that medical science isn't nearly as good as I had supposed, and the tribal cognitive biases that make people dismiss any facts or findings that contradict their beliefs are strong within the scientific community.  I used to have respect for editorial boards at top medical journals, but they published some fake articles in 2020, and had to retract those.  Faculty at Stanford University were publicizing so many findings based on ridiculously bad studies that I started to think Stanford must now be a joke. With Ivermectin, there were many promising studies and findings, and people rejected those as if they were 16th Catholics rejecting some heresy (faith and tribal loyalty guided their rejection of the evidence, I believe).  But then, as the evidence for Ivermectin weakened to a point where it now seems to have generally only a trivial benefit, if any, the true-believers in Ivermectin continued to hold to their faith. With masks, there was likewise a tribal division. Even the Cochran Collaboration, for which I had previously held the highest respect, published a review led by Tom Jefferson that was of very dubious quality, showing us that we don't really know what effect wearing masks has.  People who supported Ivermectin and were opposed to masks then started saying things like, "there is no evidence that masks work" when in fact there is quite a bit of evidence that they do, just as there was for a time quite a few promising studies about Ivermectin. They hated it when people ignored the evidence in favor of Ivermectin or cited flawed studies to claim Ivermectin was useless, but then did exactly the same when it came to considering the evidence for the benefits of masks.  My conclusion is that people's attraction to tribal identities around controversial issues clouds their judgement even more than I had assumed, and I've always thought of myself as fairly doubtful about the rational abilities of humans (I always look both ways when crossing 6th and 5th, although they are one-way streets).

  I'm so sorry about your loss of your mother and your brother in the Pandemic.  Many students in my classes lost family members to COVID, and my friends in some of the hardest-hit areas (like New York City in the first months of the Pandemic) lost a huge percentage of their friends and acquaintances.  It was like the AIDS thing in the 1980s, but compressed into weeks rather than years.  I think of the over 1 million extra deaths we had in the USA from COVID and medical complications related to the pandemic, and the scale of the pain is beyond my comprehension.  I liked listening to those obituary stories NPR and the PBS News Hour was providing to look at the lives of people who were lost in the pandemic, and hear about all these wonderful people and the grieving relatives who mourned them. COVID was a horrible way to die, and my tendency to approach the problem as an intellectual game of numbers and forecasts helped distance me from the horror, and these stories on NPR and PBS helped bring me back to my humanity.

Firing teachers who refuse vaccinations and testing

Recently, it has been brought to my attention how many educators have been quitting or forced out of their jobs due to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. We just had a few teachers from the district I grew up in, in front of the Board to decide if they could keep their jobs. While I do know the importance and benefits of the vaccine, I think it is wrong to mandate it. Especially if it is only mandated for certain professionals. As a vaccinated educator myself, I can still understand how some people have beliefs against the vaccine, concerns for their health, doubts of the effectiveness and side effects, etc. Currently the teachers from District 186 are on an unpaid leave until the next board meeting which will decide if they are terminated. The district requires teachers to be fully vaccinated or abide by weekly COVID-19 testing, which I do think is a fair alternative option. 

What I think is absurd is that a district can let something like a vaccine mandate push out veteran teachers when there is already such a large shortage of quality teachers. At the board meeting, people spoke on behalf of the teachers in question and noted that terminating them would be an injustice to the students. I know one of these teachers personally and know they are an outstanding and passionate educator. It is disappointing that these teachers are facing losing their jobs. 

However, I do also understand the district’s standpoint. They are offering an alternative option of weekly testing for those who are unvaccinated. It is the most important to consider the health and safety of the students in this situation and unvaccinated people do put students at a higher risk of contracting COVD-19. It is also important to stand by your word and if they put this policy into place, it is hard to make exceptions for two teachers. The next board meetings are November 1^st and 15^th so I would like to discuss this with the class further once the official decision is made. Link: https://www.sj-r.com/story/news/2021/10/19/two-springfield-district-186-teachers-could-eventually-face-termination/8503742002/ 

There are three different questions related to this problem, and our answers to these questions will shape how we respond to this situation.

First, there is the question of the legality of pubic health mandates.  Can the state force people to either get vaccinated or receive weekly testing? The point of contention is whether the teachers are defying an illegal mandate—practicing civil disobedience against an illegal or unjust law, or whether they are defying a legal mandate that is both constitutional and legitimate. 

Second, there is the question of the practical intention.  The vaccination mandate is intended to the reduce the spread of a deadly virus. The alternative requirement, of regular testing, is also supposed to prevent the spread of the disease. There is also the practical consideration about whether it makes any sense, from a public health standpoint where we want policies that prevent the spread of the virus, to only test employees who are unvaccinated. After all, breakthrough cases are common enough, and we know the disease can still be spread by vaccinated persons, so if the policies are ineffective, do the teachers have a right to refuse to comply because the vaccines are ineffective or the testing regime will not actually prevent the spread of COVID in the schools?

Third, there is the question of morality.  A teacher can be dismissed for gross misconduct and immorality.  For example, if a teacher was endangering the lives of students, they might be terminated immediately.  If they were convicted of certain crimes outside of their workplace and working hours (crimes involving harming children, for example), they might also be dismissed. Is a refusal to get vaccinated a sign of a moral perversity in these teachers that makes them unqualified to teach?

A point to consider is the quality of the teachers.  If the teachers were low quality educators, this might influence our thinking.  As it is, these teachers are exceptionally good teachers, and this is a point that many people consider as they are weighing the issue of what should be done.

Another point to consider is whether the policy for disciplining teachers who refuse to comply could be handled in a creative way.  If the vaccine mandate is valid, legal, and constitutional; and if forcing teachers to be vaccinated or tested regularly would dramatically reduce the spread of the virus; and if the teachers are behaving unethically in a way that threatens the lives of their students, then it might be the case that the school district would be justified in terminating the teachers, but that would not mean it was necessarily the best thing to do.  Perhaps such teachers could be given a retainer and dismissed from all duties that required their presence in a school building, but given a guarantee of an opportunity to return to employment once certain public health indicators suggested it was safe again for unvaccinated staff to work with students.  Perhaps they could be assigned as online tutors to students during times that students could not come to school campuses.  

My understanding of the law is that the vaccine requirements are justified, legal, and constitutional.  The argument that the governor cannot act during a public health emergency to require vaccinations is wrong.  Vaccine mandates for persons in occupations that bring them into regular contact with the public are substantiated by good legal argument and precedent (look up "Mary Mallon”), and anyway, the school board has the power to decide whether to terminate teachers, and if the school board says they will terminate teachers who do not get vaccinated and refuse regular testing, then they can do that.  My understanding of the public health point is that the vaccines will reduce the spreading significantly, and that will protect the health and lives of students and student family members.  The testing regime is indeed not optimally set up.  As people who are vaccinated can contract the virus and briefly spread the disease (not as much as unvaccinated persons, but still, they can spread it), it should be practice to test everyone.  Also, as virus incubates in people so that they only become infectious 3-6 days after exposure, and only show signs of illness 5-10 days after exposure, and only get enough antibody concentrations to test positively 3-5 days after exposure, weekly testing is insufficient to catch asymptomatic persons who are shedding the virus (are infectious). So, while the teachers are wrong to refuse to be tested, they are correct to criticize a system that would only test them (and not vaccinated staff), and only test them once a week (rather than Monday-Wednesday-Friday or perhaps Tuesday-Thursday).  

As to the morality of the teachers, here we have an issue where probability comes into calculation.  A person who drives home from a party while intoxicated, and arrives home safely without harming anyone, is guilty of a rather trivial offense.  Everyone agrees that they ought to be fined, or forced to take classes, or suffer restrictions on their driving privileges, but few people think such persons should spend years in prison.  Yet persons making the same moral choices might get unlucky, and crash into a car or a group of people crossing a street, and cause the deaths of several people.  When that happens, people will be enraged, and demand that the drunk driver who killed people should be charged with reckless homicide or manslaughter, and the punishment should be severe, with several years spent incarcerated.  Yet, in either case, the person making the moral decision to drive home while intoxicated is making the same moral judgment. There was a risk that innocent persons would be killed.  

In another situation, an officer who gives approval for a bombing of a group of people or a home in Afghanistan or Iraq because of information suggesting that Taliban or ISIS leadership is in the group or home probably knows that there is some chance that innocent bystanders will be killed, or that the information was faulty and only innocent people are in the home or in the group.  The decision to allow the bombing might cause deaths of innocents, but the officer hopes it will not, and decides the risks of causing such deaths outweighs the benefits of possibly killing murderous enemy combatants.  

Getting home from a party or achieving a military objective seem to justify, to some people, the risk that they will inflict great harm or death to innocent people.  This is a similar moral situation to a person who refuses to get a vaccine and refuses to get tested.  There is some chance, perhaps poorly understood, that they will pass the disease on to children or colleagues, and those children and colleagues will continue the spread of the disease, and possibly someone down the line will die of COVID-19.  The risk seems remote, and may be it is one of those risks that is fairly trivial, like the risk we will have a traffic accident and harm someone while driving sober; but perhaps it is more like the risk of deciding to drive home from a party while intoxicated. The state certainly has a moral responsibility to outlaw or restrict some of the very risky behaviors, but the state cannot and should not eliminate all risk.  

There is nearly a consensus among well-informed experts about contagion of air-borne viruses, experts on the SARS-CoV-2, on COVID-19, and persons who study vaccinations, that the risk is high enough, and the effectiveness evidence is strong enough, to justify the the state’s actions. The governor and school board is acting within reason to demand state employees who have regular contact with the public, especially indoors, should be vaccinated. Those teachers are wrong.  I note also that they are not union members, yet a union represents them and bargains for their wages and working conditions.  Noting that they are comfortable being freeloaders diminishes my sympathy for them, and raises suspicions that they are unethical persons, no matter how good they in their profession.  I do think the authorities would be wise to not dismiss those excellent teachers, and find some other way to allow them to continue to educate students, but forbidding them from frequenting the schools while they remain unvaccinated and refuse to be regularly tested seems the ethical course of action, since failing to do that would expose children, other teachers, and families to a higher risk of a dangerous disease, and potentially death.  

This ought to be a calm and dispassionate discussion and decision.  The fact that people are feeling so passionately about the issue indicates to me that their identities are on the line.  People construct their sense-of-self, and if they construct this personality around ideals of fair-mindedness, they would not become so enraged at the teachers or at the school board.  Just as a toddler who throws a tantrum at a trivial slight is probably really crying about deeper issues of frustration and desperation, these people attacking the school board (or attacking the teachers) are likely to be manifesting deeper fears and trauma, perhaps hidden from their own self-awareness.  They are upset about some sort of injustice in the world or in their lives, and they fear some attack on their personhood or their dignity, and so they cannot think clearly about the issue, and overwhelming feelings of anger and hostility boil to the surface and they use hate-filled rhetoric to attack the board or the teachers. Social workers need to be better than that, and be aware of their feelings, biases, prejudices, and values, and those hidden aspects of their personalities may shape their opinions on controversial subjects such as this.

Shelter-in-home with E-learning widens learning gaps

Good Afternoon,

I write to you in hopes that you can help your fellow teachers, students, and parents.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic, our lives have been turned upside down.  As a society, we are being asked to do things outside of our normal routines and scope. While these changes may not all be bad, there are a few new roles that are proving to be difficult. 

One of the hardest things, as a mother, is the adjustment to distance learning that is expected of me and my children. The difficulty comes because even the environment makes a difference when it comes to learning. During non-COVID times, children learn in a controlled classroom on specific dates and times with teachers who are specially trained. The structure children are exposed to breeds learning. Children and parents are now being asked to continue to learn in unstructured environments, without specific dates and times available, and without specialized training. This has wreaked havoc on homes all across the nation. It has led students to feel unmotivated and frustrated. Parents feel an immense burden to keep their children up to speed with others who may or may not be in an environment suited for learning. 

There are many children who require special education services or alternate learning plan to succeed in “normal” times.  These children are now expected to learn and function in a less than conducive environment.  While government officials are saying that grades will not be impacted, there is little assurance that children who were already behind or who will fall behind now will be unaffected when school does resume. 

Instead of canceling school for the remainder of the current year, the schools were forced to put a rush on learning remotely, which has been a struggle for students, teachers, and parents.  Teachers were given only a few days to gather information and put a lesson plan together that would be delivered in a non-traditional way through the internet. 

Some teachers have since sent home packets for children to complete.  These packets, while easier to understand, still present challenges.  Parents are struggling to keep children engaged enough to complete assignments and often are busy themselves with working from home that they are worried their children aren’t completing their work. 

Some parents and children are thriving in the world of e-learning while others are not. The reality is that some parents are unable to make the time commitment to allow for children to thrive due to their employment or other limitations while others are simply undereducated and are having difficulty learning and then subsequently teaching the information. 

Together we can support our children in making sure that next year they will not have to deal with the fact that they fell behind or need re-teaching. 

It would be in the best interest of parents, students, and faculty to have school, e-learning included, suspended for the remainder of the school year. In the interest of giving students an equal chance to start the next year at the same level as their peers, I call you to take a stand and contact your local school board or the Illinois State Board of Education and demand changes to the current learning system.  We may not be able to see numbers and statistics of how this unforeseen situation has impacted our children yet, but we need to stand up for all children from all walks of life to ensure that there is no child is left behind.

Thank you and stay safe.

Student describes the COVID-19 Pandemic and policy responses to it

The New Corona Virus (SARS-CoV-2) causes the pandemic disease COVID-19, described by President Trump as the Chinese disease. It is a new virus, closely related to  In December the virus was transporting from person to person in China, and many cases were linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, China. On January 6, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans to take precautions if traveling to China. According to nbcnews.com/politics “The World Health Organization issues a statement about the first COVID-19 case outside of China, saying, “There is no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.” On January 20, 2020 the first case was confirmed in the United States. The patient was seen at an urgent care clinic near Seattle Washington for a 4-day cold with fever. (NEJM Group) Radiography text were performed and showed no abnormalities and Influenzas test A and B was negative as well. Due to the patient's recent travel to China local and state health departments were immediately notified and had the patient tested for COVID. The patient’s specimens were collected from serum, nasopharyngeal, and oropharyngeal swab specimens. (NEJM Group) Patient) The patient’s nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs tested positive and on January 20, 2020 was the beginning of the COVID 19 outbreak in the United States. 

The Covid-19 outbreak led to many policies being created in the United States. One of Trump's executive orders banned anyone who had been in China 14 days prior with exceptions, including US citizens, lawful permanent residents, and their close family members.  On March 13, 2020, Governor J.B. Pritzker ordered all Illinois schools to be closed. Suddenly parents were without childcare and looking for alternative arrangements. This was one of the biggest orders announced to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Not too much later, President Trump issued orders to control the spread of the coronavirus at a press briefing. During the briefing, Trump recommended that all Americans, including the young and healthy, do schooling from home. He also wanted Americans to avoid gatherings in groups of more than ten people. I recall waiting to see if my daughters would perform in the St. Patrick's Day parade. At that time, most parents had no clue what the novel coronavirus was and didn’t know about the guidelines that should be followed. The city rescheduled the parade giving students a false hope that the show would go on, just not as scheduled. Parents were told the the St. Patrick's Day parade will be rescheduled and that they would receive information on the new dates.

However, downtowners were not caring about the coronavirus and packed the bars as ever, and enjoyed their usual good old time. Governor J.B. Pritzker along with other governors were upset that no one was taking social distancing seriously. The next policy that the governor dropped changed the economy. Governor J.B. Pritzker implemented a safety lockdown. This policy ordered all bars and restaurants in the state to close. Dining, malls, retail stores, and other small business were closed due to the stay-at-home order. The O'Hare International Airport was closed. This order was only to be to March 29, 2020. Unfortunately for the economy, the executive order went past that date and extended to the end of April.

The coronavirus not only affected the lives of Illinoisans, but it also affected life in America and across the globe. Life, as everyone had known it, came to a near halt in a matter of days. The unprecedented shutdown of activity in America caused some Americans to panic. Americans lined up in shopping centers and began to buy all the toilet paper, hand sanitizers, paper towels, feminine wipes, baby wipes, and groceries off the shelves. Americans were spending their savings on hoarding groceries and toilet paper. People were without work and a means to support themselves. The economy and stock market seemed to be doomed. Congress had to act and act fast to provide some type of relief to Americans. Measures were needed to support small business and people no longer working. This led to President Trump declaring the virus a national emergency and working with Congress on a relief package. The shutdown of America came with a price an $ 484 billion spending package to combat the coronavirus.

The policy included an enhanced unemployment package along with stimulus checks. The unemployment policy was signed into law on March 27, 2020. It provided enhanced unemployment insurance for workers, parents, and others impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, who typically would not qualify unemployment benefits.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law on March 27. It expands states' ability to provide unemployment insurance for many workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including for workers who are not ordinarily eligible for unemployment benefits. There is no waiting period to receive unemployment other than the hundreds of people who filed ahead of you in line. In addition to regular unemployment benefits, individuals who receive unemployment receive $600 hundred a week from state unemployment insurance programs. Unemployment status would not affect the stimulus checks that were also approved by Congress. Most taxpayers and social security recipients were to receive  $1,200 per person in stimulus checks. The stimulus also included $500 dollars for each child. There is no confirmed news if the second round of stimulus checks will be issued. Illinoisans can only hope things get back to the way it was before the coronavirus.

References 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/timeline-trump-administration-s-response-coronavirus-n1162206 March 17, 2020,

Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 58 / Wednesday, March 25, 2020 / Notices

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/835011346/a-timeline-of-coronavirus-comments-from-president-trump-and-who

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/senate-overwhelmingly-passes-houses-coronavirus-bill-immediately-switches-attention-to-phase-3-stimulus-package/

NEJM Group Med 2020; 382:929-936 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001191