THE CITY
The
Special Commissioner for Investigations for city schools is probing the
Department of Education’s bid to squelch coronavirus infection
information in the chaotic days before schools were closed.
The investigation comes in response to a report
by THE CITY revealing an internal memo advising school officials to not
report cases of teachers or staff who tested positive for COVID-19 or
were likely infected to the city Health Department.
Following
the story, Councilmember Robert Holden (D-Queens) asked Special
Commissioner for Investigations Anastasia Coleman to look into the
origin of the memo — and whether it contributed to the spread of the
virus within schools before Mayor Bill de Blasio reluctantly announced
on March 15 that schools would be shuttered.
In
an interview Tuesday with THE CITY, Holden said he believes the March
10 memo was intended to help cover up the scope of the spread of the
virus within the city public education system to justify keeping schools
open amid an avalanche of pressure.
“A
lot of teachers were calling us and saying, ‘Why aren’t the schools
closed? We have some staff who are infected,’” Holden recalled.
“This
is the DOE’s M.O., this is how they operate. They were trying to cover
up. They were saying to us, they want to cover this up, we don’t want to
cause mass hysteria,” he said.
On
March 30, SCI investigator Hector Rivera notified Holden, “I am
assigned and investigating the allegations of negligence by the
Department of Education, regarding the COVID-19 cases in the city
schools.”
On
Tuesday, Regina Gluzmanova, a SCI spokesperson, declined to discuss the
investigation, stating, “SCI is in receipt of the Council Member’s
letter and will not comment any further on an open investigation.”
The
Department of Education confirmed this week that 50 public school
staff, including 21 teachers, have died of COVID-19 illness since the
pandemic hit the city.
As
pressure mounted last month to shut the schools, de Blasio resisted the
call, saying he feared the closure would hurt families who need their
children to be in school while they’re working.
It's not just the D.O.E.'s M.O., it's the de Blasio Doctrine
Update:
NY Post
Most New York children “probably” already have coronavirus and are
serving as vectors to spread the disease, according to one New York
pediatrician.
Dr. Dyan Hes at New York City’s Gramercy Pediatrics advised parents
to assume their children have the virus if they contract even mild
symptoms consistent with the disease.
“I think that probably 80 percent of the children have coronavirus.
We are not testing children. I’m in New York City. I can’t get my
patients tested,” Hes said during an interview at CBS News.
“And we have to assume, if they are sick, they have coronavirus. Most
of them, probably 80 to 90 percent of them, are asymptomatic.”
But the number of infected children is unknown because so many
children don’t display any symptoms, she said — and that could alter
COVID-19’s mortality rate.
“So, these numbers are so skewed. I think that the mortality rate is
way, way less than 0.5 percent for children who have it because it is so
prevalent,” Hes said.
“You have to remember thousands of kids die from flu a year. This is much, much less virulent in children.”
The bigger risk lies in those infected children passing the virus to
much more vulnerable populations, like the elderly or those with
pre-existing health conditions.
“The problem with children is that they are so asymptomatic that they
are spreading it. And our biggest mistake was that we didn’t close the
public schools when we should have,” said Hes.
“So the children were the vectors to the teachers, who might be elderly or immunocompromised.”
