Dallas is a medical hot zone. That is per a White House report obtained by Center for Public Integrity which says Texas should continue to mandate masks, keep bars closed, decrease indoor dining to 25% capacity and limit social gatherings to 10 people or fewer in counties with rising COVID-19 positivity rates.
The report dated July 14 shows eighteen states currently in what the task force calls the “red zone” for cases. This means there were more than 100 new COVID-19 cases for every 100,000 people in a given state during the second week in July.
Eleven states are in that same “red zone” for test positivity, the level a state reaches when higher than 10% of those getting tested are testing positive. Texas is in both.
Ten total states across the country are in both “red zones,” mainly across the south. They include:
Alabama
Arizona
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Louisiana
Mississippi
Nevada
South Carolina
Texas
In the week before July 14, Texas was reporting nearly double the number of new cases compared to the national average, at 206 new cases to the U.S.’s 119 per 100,000 people. The state’s positivity rate for the same week was 20.6%, according to the report. Additionally, cases were starting in child care settings.
Over the course of the three weeks before July 14, Harris, Dallas and Bexar counties had the highest number of new cases out of the state’s 254 counties, with the three accounting for 35% of the total new cases in Texas, the report shows.
“Hot Zone” counties
Nearly half of Texas’ counties are in both of the “red zones”— 123 out of Texas’ 254.
The top 12 counties in the “red zone,” ranked by the highest number of cases in the past three weeks, were:
Dallas ISD Schools are closed until Labor Day for in person instruction per an order by Dallas County Health Department Medical Director Philip Huang.
An early September return to school still seems optimistic per many teachers and parents who have begun a #NotMyKid campaign to keep their children home.
This move by the Dallas County Health Department seems to preempt next week’s Dallas ISD Board of Trustees meeting.
Labor Day Option
The Dallas ISD Calendar has been up in the air since the Texas Education Agency stipulated students must return to class despite parent and educator objections. This would seem to be one more nail in the coffin of a Fall 2020 football season making its way onto the Dallas ISD Calendar as children’s COVID19 cases continue to spread.
Adults over 18 can pick three free bottles at 921 S. Haskell Ave. in South Dallas.
More Free Titos
Tito’s has been producing hand sanitizer since late March, donating bottles to frontline workers at more than 500 organizations in Central Texas and to 30 other states as part of the response to COVID19. As COVID19 cases continue to be more than 1000 new cases per day in the Dallas area health officials continue to encourage thorough and regular hand washing.
More than 1300 people have been infected. Of those, 894 were staff and 441 were children. The cases came from 883 child care facilities that are open in the state, DHHS said.
These new cases mark an almost six fold increase in cases from June 15. Then there were 210 reported cases from 177 facilities — including 141 staff members and 69 children.
On May 15, Texas reported a total of 59 cases from 53 child care facilities. At that time, 36 staff members and 23 children were infected.
Pediatric COVID19 Cases In Other School Systems
In Maryland there is an estimate that twelve hundred students and nearly one hundred staff members would die from COVID19. This estimate is only of the ten biggest jurisdictions in Maryland and factors in a 0.0016% death rate.
Using this same rate and Dallas ISD numbers, Dallas would experience approximately 240 student deaths and roughly 30 staff casualties. While the Dallas ISD Calendar is not yet confirmed these numbers would indicate a giant red flag for members of the Board of Trustees to consider.
In one school district in Missouri the district is requiring parents to sign a waiver in case children who participate in sports or other activities become infected with COVID19 and die.
The document asks parents to acknowledge that COVID19 is a public health crisis and to relinquish their rights to hold the district responsible even if a student’s death is “caused by the negligence of carelessness” of school staff.
The Dallas rich keep getting richer. The City of Dallas Eviction Moratorium is over and worse – the Coronavirus Dallas Rental Assistance Program is pushing money into districts with higher socioeconomic status.
The Coronavirus Dallas Rental Assistance Program was put into action to try and help citizens in need. It was expected the program would be up for at least a month with applications being processed daily. The system was overwhelmed by applicants by the second day both the hotline and website were shut down, not accepting any more applications.
COVID19 brought many fears to the City of Dallas. One of them was how to work with Shelter in Place orders. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in Dallas tripled from 4.6 in March to 12.3 in May 2020 similar to the spiking COVID19 numbers.
Mayor Eric Johnson took to Twitter to announce that only 9,996 applicants were eligible for the second phase of the program. After the website shut down it was reported at least another 15,000 applicants were not able to finish. This is without taking into account the many people had no idea of this rental assistance program or the many immigrant communities who don’t qualify for the program.
10 million people were evicted in the years following the 2008 financial crisis. Some have suggested we may see an eviction rate as high as 8% or 28 million people being evicted in the just the next few months.
Dallas Rich District Landlords Receive Most Rental Assistance Income
Some districts most affected by the coronavirus were left with little to no help from the programs set up by the city. An example, District 5 accounted for only 3% of applications and several residents said they heard nothing about the program from City Council Member Jaime Resendez. While accounting for only 3% of program applications, none were approved for District 5 and local residents are bewildered by Resendez’s attitude towards their needs.
The South Dallas sector ended up receiving less than 20% of the funds. This is a bad look for city leadership and management that talks about equity, but usually fails to deliver.
COVID19 Tests were stolen from Parkland Hospital delaying both testing and results for many in South Dallas.
This has been confirmed to NBC News that thieves struck their COVID19 testing site overnight, stealing both equipment and supplies.
The testing site at The Salvation Army’s Pleasant Grove Corps Community Center at 8341 Elam Road, which is maintained and managed by the Parkland Health & Hospital System, was to open for the first time Monday after moving from the Inspired vision Compassion Center over the weekend.
The guidelines include attendance, prevention, and mitigation guidance.
ATTENDANCE
It’s what everyone already expected. Students are still required to attend 90% of the course days to receive credit. Parents can choose if they want their child to attend online or on-campus learning. If a student is unable to attend online, the school must provide daily on-campus learning. A student wanting to attend online is allowed to enroll in another school if the original school can not provide an online option.
Schools may limit access to on-campus instruction to those who are able to learn online. This is on a temporary basis, but is sure to impact the Dallas ISD Calendar.
PREVENTION
Schools are required to screen any adult that enters their building. Screening per the Texas Education Agency means checking temperature and asking a “Yes or No” question for COVID-19 symptoms at a minimum.
The school may also screen students if they want. If someone has a temperature of above 100F or shows COVID-19 symptoms, that individual is presumed to have COVID-19. They will be immediately isolated.
In order to return to back on campus the individual must remain at home for 10 days minimum and 3 days after their fever has passed (without the use of medication), they must also have had an improvement in COVID symptoms. Alternatively they may also show a medical professional’s note clearing the individual, or two separate confirmations (at least 24 hours apart) that they are free of COVID. Locations for these confirmation tests are found at https://tdem.texas.gov/covid-19/.
If someone tested positive for COVID-19 they must notify the Dallas ISD school. The school must close off and disinfect areas heavily used by the individual.
MITIGATION
According to the Texas Education Agency, hand sanitizer should be everywhere. Every entrance, every classroom, and every bus should have it. People are encouraged to use it at least two times a day.
Schools should also increase airflow by opening windows. The should be allowing outside air to circulate the building and buses.
Texas Education Agency also requires schools to comply with Governor Greg Abbott’s executive order regarding mask usage. Everyone will have to wear some sort of mask (TEA accepts the use of non-medical masks or mere cloth) to cover their mouth and nose at all times (excluding athletic activities and eating).
Whenever possible people should be 6 feet apart. Campuses must plan for entry, exit, and transition procedures that reduce large groups. Teacher, staff, and student meetings should be banned or less frequent. Extracurricular activities are allowed to continue at district’s discretion.
According to Hinojosa the problem isn’t so much the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) as much as it is the implementations of the procedures that the Texas Education Agency recommends. “If you have a mask on can you be closer than 6 feet? Initially we thought “yes”, but now we are hearing “no”. So there are a lot of complexities about how we keep students and employees safe in this process”.
Further details about how Dallas ISD would reopen, will be addressed in a board meeting on July 23rd. Until then, nothing is set in stone for the Dallas ISD Calendar.
Texas Education Agency
The guidelines released by TEA can be found here. It is expected that these standards may go through multiple evolutions between now and the start of the school year.
The new COVID19 cases may be the tip of the iceberg. In Houston, the busiest hospitals are increasingly telling emergency responders they cannot safely accept new patients as hundreds of coronavirus patients crowd emergency rooms, and hospitals scramble to open more intensive care space.
Houston hospitals have been forced to treat hundreds of COVID-19 patients in their emergency rooms — sometimes for several hours or multiple days — as they scramble to open additional intensive care beds for the wave of seriously ill people streaming through their doors. The increase in ambulance diversions, coupled with the spike in patients being held indefinitely in emergency rooms, are the latest indicators that Houston hospitals are straining to keep up with a surge of new coronavirus patients.
Last week, ProPublica reported that Houston hospitals were running out of COVDI!9 treatment medications. Locally, there are two similar unconfirmed reports from separate medical systems.
Hinojosa was interviewed on MSNBC and left open the possibility of “moving it to the spring, but we’ll have to wait and see.” He also said he has serious doubts “that we can pull that off.”
Canceling the fall sport would be a major step for a Texas school district. One of the first things people learn up on moving to Texas are there were originally two sports: football and spring football.
On Wednesday, UIL released new guidelines governing summer high school workouts which are expected to resume on Monday. Restrictions include mandatory masks with limited exceptions.
On other classroom scheduling, Hinojosa says he’s now having questions about whether in-school classes can begin on August 17th, as planned.
More Football
It has yet to be determined if the annual Texas-OU game will continue at the Cotton Bowl. The decades long rivalry may be in jeopardy though due to coronavirus as the State Fair of Texas has cancelled its annual event that is home to the Fair Park pigskin game.
Sick TEA says Dallas Schools to open in August 2020. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) says schools must open their physical doors in August, unless Abbott orders a closure or if there is “a confirmed case on campus.”
Readers should note that this guidance was issued by employees working from home.
TEA has also been keeping dollars meant for local jurisdictions in Austin. The guidance for parents, students, and administrators is here and “Changes to the public health situation over the course of the summer may necessitate changes to this guidance.” Nonetheless they are plowing forward with a bad plan and federal dollars in their backpocket.
Dallas Schools Were Slow To Close In March
Despite rising cases of COVID19 and several on Dallas ISD campuses the district administration was slow to close schools prior to Spring Break – waiting until March 16, 2020 to make the decision.
