It’s back to school today for some New York City schoolchildren, weeks after the schools were closed to in-person learning because of rising Covid-19 infections.
The city’s public school system, which shut down in-person learning earlier this month, will bring back preschool students and children in kindergarten through fifth grade, whose parents chose a mix of in-school and remote learning. Special education students in all grades who have particularly complex needs will be welcomed back starting Thursday.
Middle school and high school will remain all remote at least until after the holiday break, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said.
De Blasio announced on 18 November that public school buildings would close because the city had crossed a threshold set earlier of 3% of all the coronavirus tests performed over a seven-day period coming back positive.
The rate of positive Covid-19 tests is now over 5%, according to the city’s figures, but de Blasio has said it’s safe to reopen schools with beefed-up testing protocols — in part because few infections have been linked to the schools. On Friday, he told WNYC radio:
We have facts now for two straight months of extraordinarily low levels of transmission in our schools, our schools are clearly safer. This is what our health care leaders say. Our schools are safer than pretty much any place else in New York City. So, I really think everyone in the school community can feel secure because so many measures are in place to protect everyone.
De Blasio announced on 29 November that school buildings serving younger children and special-needs students would reopen with coronavirus testing increased from monthly to weekly. Masks and social distancing are required at all city schools.
About 190,000 students will be eligible to return to school buildings starting today. After closing schools in March, New York City was one of the first large US cities to reopen school buildings in September, but the majority of parents chose online-only learning for their children.
Children whose parents chose the hybrid model were previously inside physical classrooms from one to three days a week, but de Blasio said some students will now be in their school buildings five days a week.
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The World Health Organization is holding discussions on Monday about the feasibility of trials in which healthy young volunteers are deliberately infected with coronavirus to hasten vaccine development – amid questions over whether they should go ahead given the promising data from the frontrunner vaccine candidates.
Some scientists have reservations about exposing volunteers to a virus for which there is no cure, although there are treatments that can help patients. However, proponents argue that the risks of Covid-19 to the young and healthy are minimal, and the benefits to society are high:
Indonesia receives first vaccine shipment from China
Indonesia received its first shipment of coronavirus vaccine from China on Sunday, President Joko Widodo said, as the government prepares a mass inoculation programme.
The vaccine still needs to be evaluated by the country’s food and drug agency while his administration prepares to distribute it across the vast archipelago of 270 million people, Jokowi said.
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In case you missed this earlier: Jerrold M Post, a psychiatrist who profiled dictators for the CIA and who declared Donald Trump a “dangerous, destructive charismatic leader”, has died of Covid-19. He was 86.
A pioneer in his field, Post’s assessments of leaders such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and Kim Jong-il helped guide presidents and other US officials.
He brought his work closer to home in his final years, assessing Trump’s rise to power and his relationship with his followers, thoughts he published in book form in late 2019. In an interview at the time, Post accurately predicted the aftermath of Trump’s election defeat:
South Korea confirms 615 new cases, slightly down from Sunday
South Korea reported 615 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said, capping a month of triple-digit daily increases that have driven the nation’s largest wave of infections in nine months.
Monday’s total was down slightly from Sunday, when the agency reported 631 new cases, the largest daily tally since a peak in February and early March.
On Sunday authorities said they will impose heightened social distancing rules for the capital Seoul and surrounding areas that will last until at least the end of the month.
South Korea avoided lockdowns but used an intensive system of tracing, testing and quarantining to tamp down two earlier waves of infection.
With this third wave, however, the government has faced increasing criticism as cases continue to rise despite unprecedented measures such as mask mandates, curfews for restaurants and other restrictions.
In total, South Korea has reported 38,161 cases, with 549 deaths.
Health authorities have said that if the current trend of cases continues, the hospital system could become overloaded.
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Arizona legislature to close for a week following Giuliani’s Covid diagnosis
The Arizona Capitol Times reports that the Arizona state legislature will close for the whole of this coming week, “after at least 15 current or future Republican legislators may have been directly exposed to Covid-19 by meeting with Rudy Giuliani.”
The decision seems to contradict a statement released earlier by the Trump campaign, saying Giuliani no legislators or members of the press were on Giuliani’s contact tracing list because he had tested negative and not experienced symptoms until at least 48 hours after meeting with any of them.
Kelly O’Donnell
(@KellyO)New statement concerning @RudyGiuliani covid diagnosis from Trump campaign. pic.twitter.com/ZfUrmZF0Hg
According to the Arizona Capitol Times:
Several lawmakers who attended the unofficial hearing on 30 November also attended the Legislature’s new member orientation later in the week, potentially exposing even more lawmakers and many state government employees. Nguyen, Burges and Rogers were at both events.
Sen. Andrea Dalessandro, D-Sahuarita, said she’s making plans to take a test Wednesday after learning that several of the GOP legislators she attended the orientation with had spent time with Giuliani.
Only one of the nearly dozen new Republican lawmakers consistently wore a mask at the three-day event, though attendees had been assured ahead of time that anyone who chose not to wear a mask would be asked to watch presentations remotely, [Senator Andrea] Dalessandro said.”
Japan preparing to send military nurses to Osaka and Hokkaido
Japan is preparing to send nurses from the Self-Defence Forces to Osaka and Hokkaido to help treat a surge in coronavirus infections as soon as the two prefecture governments request it, chief government spokesman Katsunobu Kato said on Monday.
Kyodo News reported that Japan’s northern Hokkaido prefecture was planning to ask the government to send Self-Defense Force nurses. The prefecture has seen infection clusters at two hospitals, Kyodo said.
In western Japan’s Osaka, the local government said on Sunday that daily new cases had exceeded 300 for the sixth straight day, according to public broadcaster NHK.
More on Japan’s prime minister now: Suga has defended his support for Go To Travel and the Olympics, which could see “large-scale” numbers of sports fans arriving in Tokyo from overseas, including those who have not been vaccinated.
Suga, who became prime minister in September after Shinzo Abe resigned on health grounds, said the government was tackling the latest surge in Covid-19 infections with a “strong sense of crisis”.
“Protecting the lives and livelihoods of the people is my administration’s top priority,” Suga, who did not hold a single press conference in November, told reporters on Friday.
Earlier, in a pre-recorded address to a US general assembly session on the pandemic, he insisted the Tokyo Games would be “proof that humanity had defeated the pandemic,” adding, “I will continue to spare no effort to bring about a Games that are safe and secure”.
Public support for Japan’s prime minister plummets
Public support for Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has plummeted over the past month amid mounting criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
A new poll by the Kyodo news agency shows support for his cabinet at 50.3%, down 13 percentage points from a month earlier. Disapproval rose from 19.2% to 32.6%.
The poll, conducted over the weekend, revealed widespread opposition to the Go To Travel campaign to encourage domestic travel in an attempt to prop up regional economies during the pandemic. Just over 48% of respondents wanted the scheme to be suspended, soon after the government announced that it would be extended by five months until the end of June. Just 11.6% believed the government was managing the programme properly.
A separate poll in the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper found that 57% of respondents want Go To Travel to be temporarily halted, reflecting concerns that it has contributed to a recent rise in infections in several parts of the country.
Japan has reported 163,654 cases and 2,372 deaths – modest numbers compared to many other countries – but the recent surge in infections, particularly in the cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Sapporo, have prompted concern that Suga’s focus on the economy is frustrating efforts to bring the pandemic under control.
The Kyodo poll suggests the public do not share Suga’s enthusiasm for the postponed Tokyo Olympics, which are due to open next July – a year later than planned. More than 60% of respondents said current plans to hold the Games should be revised, with almost a third of them calling for a further postponement and 29% saying they should be cancelled.
South Korea expands testing
South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday ordered testing for the new coronavirus to be expanded by mobilizing the military and more people from the public service, as the country continued to report triple-digit daily new cases, Reuters reports.
Moon said testing sites should operate longer hours to allow people working to get tested at their convenience and more drive-through testing facilities should be set up, presidential Blue House spokesman Chung Man-ho told a briefing.
