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Cuomo to Decide This Week Whether to Open Schools; Wants to Hear from Parents 

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By Ilana Siyance

On Sunday August 2nd, Gov. Cuomo addressed plans to physically reopen schools in September in the five boroughs of New York City, and the nearby areas.  His voice echoed a note of caution.  “It’s about the parents being comfortable,” he said during a press call. “Just because a school district says ‘we’re open’ does not mean students are going to go.”

As reported by the NY Daily News, the governor’s comments followed comments from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration on Friday.  The Mayor had said the Big Apple is on track to reopen schools physically, so long as things stay the way they are now.   Should, however, the coronavirus infection rate rise above 3 percent, which it has not done since early June, then reopening plans need to be reconsidered.  The guideline is more stringent than the 5% threshold recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Gov. Cuomo.  “We have a particular challenge here in New York City. We were the epicenter,”  said the Mayor, justifying the stricter guideline. “We’ve fought so hard to come back from this disease. We’re going to be very cautious to not let there be a resurgence.”

The city’s opening plan also includes standard procedures for handling infections in schools.   Specifically, it states, that if two people in different classes at a school are tested as positive with COVID-19, it would necessarily lead to a 24-hour schoolwide shutdown as well as a test-and-trace investigation. In such a case, if investigators are not able to determine how the virus was contracted, then the entire school needs to remain shuttered for 14 days, with teachers and students observing quarantine.

United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said the guidelines outlined “are not enough.”  “We need randomized testing of school communities throughout the year and a vigorous contact tracing system that gives schools test results and a course of action with a 24-hour turnaround,” Mulgrew added.

A top Cuomo adviser, Jim Malatras, commented that the Mayor’s plan, which is laid out in a 30-page document, is more like an “outline” rather than a concrete plan.  By contrast, the plan outlined in the Yonkers is about 80-page plan long, even though it’s a much smaller school system.   “If the parents don’t feel comfortable, they’re not going to send their children,” Gov. Cuomo said. “We’ll accomplish nothing if we open the schools, but a significant number of parents decide to keep their children home.”  “Parents are not going to take this lightly,” Cuomo added. “That’s my point about the plans.”

Despite a strong resurgence in Coronavirus infection rates across the country, New York State continues to show “the lowest number we’ve had hospitalized since we began,” said Cuomo, referring to the 556 hospitalized as of Saturday.  “The three-day rolling average for deaths dropped to four, the lowest number since the middle of March,” he added.  NYS had a total of 25,170 deaths as of Saturday, as per the Health Department.

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