Erie County / YouTube
The average age of COVID-19 patients in Erie County continues to drop heavily, because there has been so much effort to vaccinate older residents. Now young people playing sports has become a major issue.
For much of the long pandemic, sports just weren’t allowed. But as the lockdown eased, sports returned.
Since last year, County Executive Mark Poloncarz and County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein have been pushing to enforce the rules on teams, forcing dozens into lockdown and quarantine as virus cases surfaced, because the rules were often broken. Students, faculty, other staff than we have ever recorded, Poloncarz emphasized during his Tuesday briefing, 642 new cases for the most recent week ending, which is the highest we have ever seen. And you can look at the chart here and see how it keeps increasing. And this is almost all, not every case, but almost all cases are students. So it s very disconcerting.
Erie County Department of Health
The vocal parent group Western New York Students First wants Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein fired by the county executive for not allowing wide reopening of schools.
The county Health Department said there are a lot of COVID-infected kids in schools, like 642 reported cases last week and 86 Sunday and Monday. And the numbers are rising.
The group’s leaders said kids are being infected outside of the classroom and they could return under guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The kids are catching these in sports and in everything else that is open in the community, said Students First leader Tarja Parssinen. And so, what prioritizes football over your math class? And the good news is, with the kids that are catching COVID, is that the risk to them, the severe health risks are very, very, very low and that when they properly wear masks at school, that transmission stops.
How much space is needed? Schools stuck in middle of classroom debate
The issue of completely opening schools again for a full five-day week is pitting parents groups against state and local health officials. Author: Ron Plants Updated: 8:27 PM EST March 10, 2021
BUFFALO, N.Y. The issue of completely opening schools again for a full five-day week is pitting parents groups against state and local health officials with school administrators caught in the middle.
Last week Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon in Syracuse proposed opening schools there for a full five days to all students by offering to pay for desk shields.