union, teachers in the third largest district in the country, refusing to return to work until january 18th or whenever the latest coronavirus surge subsides. so this morning no classes until teachers and city leaders resolve their differences. 73% of the teachers in the union voted in favor of this decision in defiance of chicago public schools and the mayor who wanted in-person classes. and it goes against what other districts, including the country s largest district in new york city have decided to do. listen to what mayor eric adams told brianna in this deeply revealing interview. . we cannot feed into hysteria. this is traumatizing our children. the way adults are responding to covid is having a negative impact on our children. the safest place for children right now is in a school building. that s the safest place for them. so you have new york city s mayor saying we can t close the
is allowing this leadership to shut down an entire school system for what? when our district was fully remote our children suffered. there is no disputing that reality. we should not be poll itizing the pandemic. that is a mistake. ultimately hurts our children and families. the big question now is how long will the stand-off last? how long will students be kept out of school because of it? the teachers union told its members this could go on as long as until january 18th. negotiations are ongoing today and the hope is they will be able to get back into class sooner than that. for now it s a stand-off. live in chicago. thank you, dana, here is why it s so frustrating for parents. we have learned two things. science showed us schools are not spreaders, right? not a covid spreader.
and i felt helpless. we don t know how to plan out the next 24 hours, let alone the next 24 days. they point the fingers at the district. then, they point the fingers to the teachers. i am pointing the finger at my child. you know, because he is the one that ends up losing out in this whole argument. it gets harder than in person. i wanted this to happen so that s why i wanted to get my school open. reporter: now, costas wants people to go back in person. and while not every parent feels that way, one sentiment they appear to share is that they want consistency in where they are going to be sending their kids every day. now, moving forward, some of the dates that we are keeping an eye on is january 18th is when the teacher s union said they intend to continue refusing to go in person until or at least until they reach an agreement on this. the teach or the school district just said moments ago they want teachers back in the classroom on friday.
being tested no matter what. but the city said we want opt in testing, that way we can get parental consent for students to be tested. they also wanted basically to stay remote until january 18th. the city said, no, we re not doing remote. it s too detrimental to education plus, data shows that being in-person is safe. so it will be interesting to see the details that got them over the edge. and it was earlier this evening that the ceo, pedro martinez, said he was cautiously optimistic they would get to the finish line. we re hearing hints of that in recent days. and today it seems to have played out. i m glad you had details. i understood kids would be back tomorrow, they won t. so it will be five days. today was the fourth day students were out of the classroom. what is the holdup? it will be five days, a legit week kids were out of school.
researchers predict the omicron search would peak january 18th only if the new variant far less evasive as the delta variant, dr. mccreary, how do you see it? well i m i think that is accurate. we will see a peak in the first or second week of january but the thing is just because omicron partially evades immune protection, which it does, partially antibodies but not the memory details that give you that protection against severe disease. we see high numbers of all micron cases and low numbers of hospitalizations for omicrons in parts of the world with high rates of particular variant. that should be a signal to us this is equivalent of a bad flu season and respiratory where most people will get in the community but it does not result in severe illness for the majority of people. mike: here is the