Biden Tells Schools They Better Damn Well Stay Open – By Ben Mathis-Lilley (Slate) / December 21, 2021
COVID is on the rise again in the United States in a big way, with the CDC estimating that the omicron variant is now responsible for 73 percent of new cases. Omicron might cause less severe illness than previous variants, or it might not; what’s clear is that it spreads more quickly than the others, and that individuals who’ve only gotten the initial doses of a vaccine, and not a booster, are highly susceptible to infection from it.
Reports across the country indicate that PCR testing centers are overloaded and at-home testing kits are hard to come by. Meanwhile, something like 20 percent of eligible individuals in the United States—meaning, of the set of Americans who are 5 years old or older—haven’t received even one vaccine dose. The situation, then, is one in which a faster-spreading COVID is moving through a population that is having a harder than usual time testing itself to determine whether it needs to quarantine. And this is happening during the holidays, when people tend to gather indoors in large groups. This is going to mean, scientifically speaking, a mondo load of cases, including potentially enough serious ones to fill hospital ICUs.
In recent weeks, a number of public-health experts and journalists have expressed concern about the government’s level of preparedness for the surge. (On Dec. 8, White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question in this vein, about the availability of testing, by riffing facetiously about how crazy it would be to imagine that a free test could be sent to everyone in the country.) Cultural events have been canceled; some day cares are closing. Parents have started to think darkly about the renewed possibility of life-upending K–12 school closures.
CONTINUE > https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/12/biden-omicron-schools-tests.html
