|
 In other school districts, officials pressed on with plans to
reopen, including in hard-hit New York City, where one of every
three COVID-19 tests over the last week was positive for the virus,
according to city data released on Monday.
Nationwide, the country is averaging 18% of tests coming back
positive, according to the Mayo Clinic.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who took office over the weekend,
vowed to keep the nation's largest school system open despite the
surging virus.
The city's positivity rate was less than 3% a month ago, and rising
infections have hampered the transit system, closed Broadway shows
and forced businesses to delay office returns.
"We want to be extremely clear: the safest place for our children is
in a school building," Adams said during a visit to an elementary
school in the Bronx. Only one public school, P.S. 58 in Brooklyn,
was closed on Monday due to lack of staff, a spokesperson for the
city's education department said.
The speed of Omicron's spread has created a broadening sense of
chaos in the first few days of 2022. The number of new COVID-19
cases has doubled in the last seven days to a record average of
418,000 a day, according to a Reuters tally.
Cities including Milwaukee, Cleveland and Detroit either implemented
online instruction or canceled school altogether this week for tens
of thousands of students, citing both staff shortages and Omicron
concerns.
In New Jersey, which has seen some of the highest case rates in
recent weeks, most urban school districts have implemented virtual
classes to start the new year, including Newark, the state's biggest
city.
Anna Beale Smith, a mother of two in Atlanta, said she supports the
decision to switch the city's public schools to remote learning this
week. But she said she was frustrated that the district only
announced its plans on Saturday, leaving some parents scrambling.
"I've been really disappointed and frustrated in the lack of
communication and the lack of clear planning," said Smith, 41, who
works in healthcare.
Nationally, there are more than 2,750 school closures so far this
week, according to Burbio, a website that tracks school disruptions.
'A LOT OF COVID OUT THERE'
The Omicron variant appears to be far more contagious than previous
iterations, but data suggests it may be less virulent than Delta,
which swamped hospitals last year.
During the last week, the number of hospitalized COVID patients rose
40%, up to 72% of the previous peak seen in January 2021, according
to the Reuters tally. U.S. COVID-19 deaths have held fairly steady
at 1,300 lives lost on average each day.
[to top of second column] |
 Still, the sheer number of
cases has alarmed health officials with hospital
systems in many states already strained.
Maryland, Ohio, Delaware and Washington, D.C.,
are all at or near record COVID-19
hospitalization rates.
Staffing shortages and a snowstorm moving
through the eastern United States created
further travel woes, with more than 4,400
flights canceled on Monday worldwide, including
nearly 3,000 U.S. flights, according to the
tracking website FlightAware.
A number of businesses, including several major
U.S. banks, have encouraged staff to work from
home during the first few weeks of the year.
In Washington, the Smithsonian said several museums would either
close or have reduced hours for at least 12 days starting on
Wednesday due to "unprecedented staff shortages."
Some school systems are using testing to try to stave off further
delays. In Washington, D.C., all staff and 51,000 public school
students must upload a negative test result to the district's
website before coming to class on Wednesday.
Similar efforts are underway in California, which pledged to provide
free home-test kits to all its 6 million K-12 public school
students.
"There's a lot of COVID out there ... it's going to be a bumpy
start," said Michelle Smith McDonald, director of communications for
the Alameda County Office of Education.
The full impact of the Omicron surge on the country's school
districts may not be clear until next week, as parents and
administrators struggle to implement changing guidance from
healthcare officials.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday authorized use of a
third dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children
ages 12 to 15, and narrowed the interval for booster eligibility to
five months from six for those who received the Pfizer shots.
In Boston, the school system distributed 55,000 tests to students
ahead of the winter break. Schools are still scheduled to open on
Tuesday, though the superintendent of schools, Brenda Cassellius,
told reporters on Monday she anticipates Omicron-related staff
shortages.
"If I have to go out and teach in a classroom, I'm going to do
that," she said.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey, Lisa Shumaker in
Chicago, Maria Caspani in New York, Ann Saphir in San Francisco and
Trevor Hunnicutt, Joe Shaw and Katharine Jackson in Washington;
Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Daniel Wallis and Bill Berkrot)
[© 2022 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.] |
