On behalf of the Board Trustees and myself, we hope this communication finds you healthy and safe during this challenging and ever changing time in our society due to Covid-19. The complexity and unpredictability of this pandemic is calling upon all of us to be flexible and responsive in our decision making in order to protect and preserve the health and safety of those we serve.
With that said the Benicia Unified School District will begin the school year in an all virtual learning model. We intend to work in the virtual learning model for the first quarter of the year. To remain responsive, we will review the status of our virtual learning model at each Board meeting throughout the first quarter.
While we intended to make this decision at our July 23rd Special Board meeting, the rate of case increase in our community, information gathered from our workforce and families, and uneven guidance being shared at the state and local level have compelled us to move up our decision making timeline. On July 23rd we will instead focus on the details of the virtual learning model and the hybrid learning model that we intend to move into when we can safely move forward.
We know for some of you, this decision might come as a relief and for others, it will cause further challenges. We all want students back in school, there is no disagreement there, but we must do so through exercising an abundance of caution. We are also reviewing the status of our childcare program to determine if we can safely expand capacity to support more of our families.
If you are not able to watch the Board meeting of July 23rd, please know the meetings are recorded and posted on our website for your convenience. We will also put together a summary of key points and make that available to you in a Superintendent update..
Thank you so much for being patient, supportive and committed to the safety and well being of everyone in our community. The Board and I wish there were easier answers to all of this but unfortunately, there are not. For now, we believe this is the most prudent course of action for the start of our school year together.
Gov. Newsom orders California schools on watch list stay closed
SFGate, by Amy Graff, July 17, 2020
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Press Conference, July 17, 2020
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Friday press briefing that schools in counties on the watch list for more than 14 days open with distance learning. Counties would need to meet strict criteria for schools to offer in-class instruction.
This marks a change in what Newsom has said in the past with the state initially giving school districts the flexibility to reopen on their own timelines in consultation with local public health officials.
Newsom also said the new reopening guidelines for schools require teachers and students in third grade and above to wear masks. There’s also a new requirement to keep students six-feet-apart.
More than half of the state’s 58 counties are on the watch list including seven Bay Area counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma. Being on the list puts restrictions on the ability to reopen various segments of the economy.
The California Department of Public Health created the watch list to monitor counties that experience significant changes in COVID-19 infection rates, an increase in hospitalizations, outbreaks in congregate settings or a rise in community transmission at workplaces. Counties on the list are working with the state to identify the causes for any worrisome trends and next steps to mitigate the virus spread. The watch list is constantly changing based the latest data available from public health departments.
Several school districts have already said their schools will begin the new term virtually, including Los Angeles and San Diego, the state’s two largest, with a combined population of 720,000 K-12 students.
San Francisco Unified School District announced this week fall semester classes will begin August 17 via distance learning exclusively.
The news, sent in a letter by Superintendent Dr. Vincent Matthews, notes that the district eventually hopes to implement a “hybrid approach” to learning. This involves a combination of in-person classroom learning and virtual instruction, but only “when science and data suggest it is safe to do so.”
Administrators intend to release a plan detailing ways in which virtual learning can be improved in a meeting with the San Francisco Board of Education on July 28 at 3 p.m. The “most essential details” will be shared with parents the following day.
Oakland, Sacramento, Long Beach, Santa Ana and San Bernardino are among the other districts opting not to immediately return to classrooms.
Some districts have said they aim to open with hybrid models. The Palo Alto Unified School District recently approved a plan for distancing learning for high school and middle school students and a return to classrooms for elementary school students. The Alum Rock district in San Jose said 90% of students will continue with online school while 10% will come to class. Students in foster care and with disabilities will be prioritized for on-site school.
The decisions were made amid growing concern by teachers and parents over the state’s surge of coronavirus cases and uncertainty surrounding the safety of both students and staff on campuses. The state this week reported its second-highest one-day totals in infection rates and deaths since the start of the pandemic and more than 7,200 have died.
Many small, rural communities argue they shouldn’t have to comply with the same rules as big cities where infection rates are higher. Thurmond indicated Wednesday that he agreed.
“We have some counties in this state where the number of cases is actually quite low,” Thurmond said. As long as schools in those counties follow state guidance on hand washing, six feet (1.8 meters) of spacing, maintaining physical distance and face coverings, Thurmond said, “we believe that those schools can open safely.”
With coronavirus antibodies fading fast, vaccine hopes fade, too
San Francisco Chronicle, by Peter Fimrite, July 17, 2020
Trupti Patil, an associate specialist at UCSF Quantitative Bioscience Institute, conducts research on the virus at Krogan Lab. Photo: Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle
Disturbing new revelations that permanent immunity to the coronavirus may not be possible have jeopardized vaccine development and reinforced a decision by scientists at UCSF and affiliated laboratories to focus exclusively on treatments.
Several recent studies conducted around the world indicate that the human body does not retain the antibodies that build up during infections, meaning there may be no lasting immunity to COVID-19 after people recover.
Strong antibodies are also crucial in the development of vaccines. So molecular biologists fear the only way left to control the disease may be to treat the symptoms after people are infected to prevent the most debilitating effects, including inflammation, blood clots and death.
“I just don’t see a vaccine coming anytime soon,” said Nevan Krogan, a molecular biologist and director of UCSF’s Quantitative Biosciences Institute, which works in partnership with 100 research laboratories. “People do have antibodies, but the antibodies are waning quickly.” And if antibodies diminish, “then there is a good chance the immunity from a vaccine would wane too.”
The latest bad news came from scientists at King’s College of London, whose study of 90 COVID-19 patients in the United Kingdom found antibody levels peaked three weeks after the onset of symptoms and then dramatically declined.
Potent antibodies were found in 60% of the patients, according to the study, but only 17% retained the same potency three months later. In some cases, the antibodies disappeared completely, said the study which was published as a preprint Saturday, meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed.
The report is the latest in a growing chain of evidence that immunity to COVID-19 is short-lived.
A Chinese study published June 18 in the journal Nature Medicine also showed coronavirus antibodies taking a nosedive. The study of 74 patients, conducted by Chongqing Medical University, a branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that more than 90% exhibited sharp declines in the number of antibodies within two to three months after infection.
There is still hope that the remaining antibodies will bestow some immunity, but infectious disease specialists around the world were surprised and discouraged by the rapid reduction observed in the studies. If the numbers continue dropping after three months, it could mean people will be susceptible to infection by the coronavirus year after year.
Flasks of cell growth medium under a ventilated hood in a tissue culture room at the Krogan Lab. Photo: Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle
So far, though, there have been only scattered reports of reinfection and no comprehensive studies have verified that it can happen. Experts say the disease hasn’t been around long enough to determine the likelihood of contracting the disease more than once. But other kinds of coronaviruses, like those that cause the common cold, offer clues.
Studies of four seasonal coronaviruses that cause colds show that although people develop antibodies, the immune response declines over time and people become susceptible again. Scientists suspect that the severity of cold symptoms is reduced by previous infections.
“Waning antibodies affect vaccine development,” said Shannon Bennett, the chief of science at San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences. “Where natural immunity doesn’t really develop or last, then vaccine programs are not likely to be easily successful or achievable.”
Nobody knows yet whether infections by other coronaviruses will help people’s bodies resist COVID-19.
“Our understanding of protective immunity engendered by this virus and how it interacts with past immunity to other coronaviruses is still evolving,”Bennettsaid. “People should not presume they have immunity.”
Extraction_of_petroleum | Flcelloguy/Wikimedia CommonsThe Energy Mix, by Mitchell Beer, July 16, 2020
Canada’s pandemic response to date has sent just C$300 million to clean energy, compared to more than $16 billion to fossil fuels, according to new data released this week by Energy Policy Tracker, a joint effort by multiple civil society organizations including the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
The totals include C$13.55 billion (listed as US$10.05 billion on the site) for 42 policies that deliver unconditional support to fossil fuel companies, C$1.59 billion for three fossil support policies that carry environmental conditions, plus C$300.5 million for unconditional clean energy funding.
“A considerably larger amount of public money committed to supporting the economy and people of Canada through monetary and fiscal policies in response to the crisis may also benefit different elements of the energy sector,” the tracker states. “However, these values are not available from official legislation and statements and therefore are not included in the database.”
The Canadian numbers are just one segment of a wider data summary, which “shows that at least US$151 billion of bailout cash has been spent or earmarked so far to support fossil fuels by the G20 group of large economies,” with only one-fifth of that total “conditional on environmental requirements such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions or cleaning up pollution,” The Guardian reports. “The G20 countries are directing about US$89 billion in stimulus spending to clean energy, despite most of those governments being publicly committed to the Paris agreement on climate change.”
The United States is lavishing $58 billion on fossil industries, compared to about $25 billion invested in clean energy, the research shows.
“At this point in history it’s clear that investing in fossil fuels is as lethal to global economies as it is to life on Earth,” tweeted Climate Action Network-Canada Executive Director Catherine Abreu. “Yet Canada has funnelled at least US$11.86 BILLION to fossils in recent months, while directing only $222.78 million to clean energy.”
“The COVID-19 crisis and governments’ responses to it are intensifying the trends that existed before the pandemic struck,” concluded IISD Energy Policy Tracker lead Ivetta Gerasimchuk.
“National and subnational jurisdictions that heavily subsidized the production and consumption of fossil fuels in previous years have once again thrown lifelines to oil, gas, coal, and fossil fuel-powered electricity,” she said. “Meanwhile, economies that had already begun a transition to clean energy are now using stimulus and recovery packages to make this happen even faster.”
Other organizations involved with the tracker include the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Oil Change International, the Overseas Development Institute, the Stockholm Environment Institute, and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
The Canadian figures show the federal government has been “completely captured by the oil industry,” Greenpeace Canada Senior Energy Strategist Keith Stewart told The Canadian Press. “They just don’t understand how the world is changing.”
CP cites an internal Natural Resources Canada briefing, obtained by Greenpeace through an access to information request, that showed the pandemic “wreaking havoc right across the energy sector, including fossil fuels and renewables,” as early as mid-April. “This will challenge Canada’s climate and energy transformation agendas,” stated the document prepared for Deputy Minister Christyne Tremblay.
“An attached presentation deck from Tremblay’s department outlines the impacts, including the collapse in oil prices, plummeting demand for both oil and electricity, and a cleantech industry being brought to its knees,” CP writes. Cleantech “is heavily dominated by start-up enterprises and those in the research and development phase that are heavily reliant on capital investments,” the news agency adds, and “the onset of the pandemic threw ice water on those investments, including from the oil and gas sector itself as its own revenues dried up.”
CP says Clean Energy Canada Executive Director Merran Smith called on the government “to ensure this sector’s survival by making sure it is a big part of the COVID-19 recovery stimulus programs. She said that doesn’t mean investing just in things that generate clean power, like wind and solar farms and technology, but also in promoting the use of cleaner power, such as by electrifying cars and public transportation.”
The Guardian notes that the tracker results were released ahead of a G20 finance ministers’ meeting this weekend where post-pandemic economic stimulus will be on the agenda. “Some of the spending on fossil fuels is likely to be designed to quickly stabilize hard-hit industries, preserving jobs and preventing a worse recession,” the UK-based paper states. “However, green campaigners are concerned that so much of the money is flowing to companies with no conditions to force them to take even basic measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or other pollution,” in spite of the “green strings” demanded by civil society groups and introduced by some countries.
“Economists and energy experts have already shown that green spending can [create] jobs and a higher return on investment in the short and longer term,” The Guardian notes. At the same time, “as the data studied by Energy Policy Tracker is focused on the energy sector, the figures may not capture all of governments’ green spending. For instance, governments have been urged to spend on many ‘shovel-ready’ non-energy issues, such as cycle lanes, tree-planting, nature restoration, flood resilience, and enhanced broadband networks to help people work at home, all of which will also contribute to a green recovery.”
“We have some anecdotal evidence on these sectors which suggests that total green recovery numbers can be higher,” Gerasimchuk said. “Similarly, global environmentally harmful recovery numbers can be higher as there are measures leading to deforestation, land degradation, overfishing, etc. A lot of government support policies remain unquantified.”
Last week, the Corporate Europe Observatory warned that “fossil fuel fingerprints” were beginning to accumulate on the much-touted European Green Deal (EGD).
“Its mere existence is a positive first step; but is the deal really as good as they want us to believe?” the Observatory asks. “The fingerprints of industry, and in particular the fossil fuel industry, can be seen all over the EGD. Carbon trading will continue to allow big polluters to slow the transition, emissions reductions targets are too modest and too slow, fossil gas is kept as a transitional fuel, and public money will finance industry ‘false solutions’. The fossil fuel lobby is taking advantage of its privileged access to policy-makers, as well as the corona-crisis, to secure these gains.”
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