U.S. Schools Worried About Inadequate Ventilation Systems, Mull Outdoor Classes Amid Pandemic
'Schools mull outdoor classes amid virus, ventilation worries.' By Terry Spencer, AP News, Aug. 13, 2020. - Ed.:
- Lisa Fitzgerald O'Connor poses for photographs at M.S. 324, Aug. 6, 2020, in New York. It has been 7 years since the central air conditioning system worked at the NYC middle school where O’Connor teaches. As a new school year approaches amid the coronavirus pandemic, she & her colleagues are threatening not to return unless it's repaired. -
It has been 7 years since the central air conditioning system worked at the New York City middle school where Lisa Fitzgerald O’Connor teaches. As a new school year approaches amid the coronavirus pandemic, she & her colleagues are threatening not to return unless it’s repaired. Her classroom has a window air conditioning unit, but she fears the stagnant air will increase the chances that an infected student could spread the virus. “Window units just aren’t going to cut it. We don’t want to stay cool, we just want the air to flow properly,” said O’Connor, a science teacher who works at a school in Manhattan. "We are really super stressed out about it.”
Schools around the U.S. are facing similar problems as they plan or contemplate reopening this fall, dealing with aging air conditioning, heating & circulation systems that don’t work well or at all because maintenance & replacement were deferred due to tight budgets. Concerns about school infrastructure are adding momentum to plans in some districts, even in colder climates, to take classes outdoors for the sake of student & teacher health. Nationwide, an estimated 41% of school districts need to update or replace their heating, ventilation & cooling systems in at least half their schools, based on a federal report from June. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., chairman of the House Education committee, called on the federal government to help districts improve their systems, saying the CDC calling ventilation an important part of coronavirus spread at schools. “Ventilation is key and you don’t fix that for free,? Scott said.
There is no evidence that the disease can spread through ventilation systems from one classroom to the next, [?] according to Dr. Edward Nardell, a Harvard Medical School professor who specializes in airborne diseases. The danger, Nardell said, is from ineffective systems that don’t remove floating viruses & let them linger in classrooms after they are expelled in an infected person’s breath, sneeze or cough. “Most schools are designed for comfort, not for infection control. So there is a danger that if you put 20 kids in a room, that if one of them has asymptomatic COVID & is infectious, you now have 19 more kids who are exposed,” he said. *Healthy children almost always recover from COVID, if they become ill at all, but they can pass the disease to teachers, parents & other adults (*SEE Below). Nardell believes schools should consider installing ultraviolet lights along classroom ceilings, a technology some used in the 1950s & earlier to combat measles, tuberculosis & other airborne diseases & that is still used in hospitals & homeless shelters. Viruses & bacteria are destroyed using a spectrum of UV light that is safe for humans.
Teaching classes outdoors may be one solution to air circulation problems as was done during tuberculosis & influenza outbreaks in the early 1900s, even in cold weather. The coronavirus spreads less efficiently outdoors & students could more easily sit 6 feet apart. Outdoor teaching advocates claim that having classes outdoors has other benefits & children actually are less distracted & feel better emotionally. Several NE schools have bought large event tents & plan to use them to teach outside through November [some tents are equipped with propane heaters]. A Conn. superintendent said some of her district’s 13 schools were built between 80 and 100 years ago & aren’t capable of handling modern air systems. There are also crowding issues- one has classrooms built for 15 students but that typically have 25, making social distancing impossible. A superintendent in northern Pa. said his district’s 5 schools’ air systems have no exit vents to circulate fresh air in & the virus out. He estimates it would cost at least $600,000 per school to replace the systems. When his schools reopen Aug. 31, students will be asked to wear masks, but Pa. law exempts children whose parents claim they have a physical or mental condition...
https://apnews.com/9282728e7dac47d8809264e1fb9c0598
*Note: 'Children with no COVID-19 symptoms may be more contagious than sick adults, study finds,' Aug. 22, 2020.
https://www.localmemphis.com/mobile/article/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-children-viral-load-contagious/507-bc757238-3022-47f8-bd65-c17b1087b019
A new U.S. study has found children infected with the new coronavirus -- even those with mild or no symptoms -- can have a significantly higher level of the virus in their airways than adult COVID-19 patients in intensive care. That high viral load can increase the risk of transmitting the virus to others, the authors say. --
(Several new reports posted here confirm that children carry large amounts of coronavirus in their nasal and throat areas and can transmit the virus much more than previously thought. And children do get sick from the illness).
= new reply since forum marked as read
New study shows kids likely contribute greatly to spread of covid.
Yet, schools are opening & now teachers are essential, so they are required to stay in classriom if exposed to covid.
Is putin bonusing tRump for high #s? 
Link added on edit:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213950244
In TN, school infections of covid will not be publicly released to protect the "privacy" of infected persons! 
as is typical of patriarchy, no consideration for others.
MS will update numbers for parents online weekly. Wtf?
Grrrrrr!
This is more reason to not open schools! 
Would cost a fortune & they won't spend it to save lives.
I think a district in CO reworked system & added UV lights tosanitize air. It was posted on DU, but a while ago.
Imo, that is the only way they should even consider reopening.
And teachers here -- masks down around chins. Every. Single. One! Should be a serious criminal offense, imo, but when the goal is to infect everyone to weaken the country, I guess it's ok. 
Trump's Christians say they have Trumpvirus killing technology.
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk00dkTi5b4178__YzYSEEVcKttYpvw%3A1592960966681&source=hp&ei=xqfyXurUJpupytMP4pONiAo&q=phoenix+church+safe+rally&oq=phoenix+church+safe+rally&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIFCCEQoAEyBQghEKABOgQIIxAnOgUIABCxAzoHCAAQFBCHAjoFCAAQgwE6AggAOgQIABAKOgQIABADOgYIABAWEB46BQghEKsCOggIIRAWEB0QHjoHCCEQChCgAVCOGlixWmCZaGgBcAB4AIABngGIAcsOkgEEMjQuMpgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjqz7qEopnqAhWblHIEHeJJA6EQ4dUDCAg&uact=5
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142521178
Church leaders of venue hosting Phoenix Trump rally claim they've installed technology that kills '99.9 per cent' of coronavirus in ten minutes
‘So when you come into our auditorium, it’s gone - killed’
Surely Trump's Christians would not lie. 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-schools-reopening-outdoors.amp.html
Schools Beat Earlier Plagues With Outdoor Classes. We Should, Too.
A century ago, children in New York City attended classes during a pandemic. It seemed to work.
A classroom on a ferry in New York City, circa 1915.Credit...Bureau of Charities, via Library of Congress
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Ginia Bellafante
By Ginia Bellafante
July 17, 2020
In the early years of the 20th century, tuberculosis ravaged American cities, taking a particular and often fatal toll on the poor and the young. In 1907, two Rhode Island doctors, Mary Packard and Ellen Stone, had an idea for mitigating transmission among children. Following education trends in Germany, they proposed the creation of an open-air schoolroom. Within a matter of months, the floor of an empty brick building in Providence was converted into a space with ceiling-height windows on every side, kept open at nearly all times.
The subsequent New England winter was especially unforgiving, but children stayed warm in wearable blankets known as “Eskimo sitting bags” and with heated soapstones placed at their feet. The experiment was a success by nearly every measure — none of the children got sick. Within two years there were 65 open-air schools around the country either set up along the lines of the Providence model or simply held outside. In New York, the private school Horace Mann conducted classes on the roof; another school in the city took shape on an abandoned ferry.
Distressingly, little of this sort of ingenuity has greeted the effort to reopen schools amid the current public-health crisis. The Trump administration has insisted that schools fully open this fall, with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos proposing no plan for how to do that safely.
In New York, the nation’s largest school system, students will attend live classes only a few days a week, a policy that has angered both exhausted parents, who feel that it is not nearly enough, and many teachers, who fear it as way too much.
more...
Art class on a New York City roof, 1912. Credit...Philipp Kester/ullstein bild via Getty Images
of that experiment over a 100 years ago. There is no reason why we can't do this again for the safety of all.
'Forest Schools,' outdoor teaching classes and environments that started in Scandinavia some years ago are very sucessfiul and are being adopted in the UK, Canada and other places. I did a post or two here on that healthy learning concept a month or two ago.
