COVID-19 and Our Children
Updated: May 19, 2020
The following is a letter I have sent out to all of the administrative staff and principals in our school district.
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I am writing to you as an informed parent of three children. As a parent, I teach my children to not only respect the law but to think critically about public policies because it is their civic duty as American citizens to question authority when an authority figure is behaving in a way that is dangerous to them.
Our children have been hit hard by the stay at home. I believe they have the right to be defended against unlawful and unnecessary force. The stay at home order poses a direct threat to their emotional, physical, and social well-being. It is with that sentiment, that I am speaking up for the children. I am compelled to share the facts as they relate to Governor Newsom's executive order, the scientific data that is publicly available on The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and The California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal. I kindly request that you, as an educator begin to question the validity of the extended stay at home order and the subsequent demands that Governor Newsom has placed on schools to date as of May 14, 2020.
Margaret Mead so poignantly said, "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." I believe we have the power to come together to do what's best for our children and their future. I hope you can receive the information I am providing to you with an open mind and willingness to change the world for the better. I understand there is a tremendous weight on your shoulders to make very difficult decisions. I appreciate the work you do to help raise and educate our children.
On March 19, 2020, Governor Newsom signed the executive order for all Californians to shelter in place to ensure that those needing access to healthcare would have access to healthcare. Those that were considered to be most vulnerable to needing healthcare due to complications from an infection of Covid-19, according to Newsom, were the "incarcerated, the homeless, and the elderly."
At no point were our children thought of or considered to be in danger of death by COVID-19. It was clear from the research that COVID-19 while serious for some, presents itself a-symptomatically for most. In fact, on March 19, 2020, Newsom said we must, "overly focus on the people over the age of 65" and he said, "I will tell you what I told my wife and family; schools will not be resuming this year.”
At this point we need to determine whether those decisions made in March were based on facts or on fear and further, to determine how to move forward based on what we now know. While our elementary schools have said they will open in the fall, I am concerned that you will be influenced by other decisions being made by California State Universities. On May 13, 2020, CNN reported that, "The California State University system has plans to cancel nearly all in-person classes through the fall semester to reduce the spread of the coronavirus." It is my hope that our elementary schools will resume in the fall without forcing our children to wear masks and keep six feet apart.
The stay at home order was implemented; to ensure health care for those in need. The United States had a detailed understanding of COVID-19 in January, 2020 based on the Chinese CDC’s understanding of the virus. We understood from the beginning of this pandemic that those that were at highest risk of needing access to health care were and continue to be people with Heart Disease, Diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, cancer and those living in assisted nursing care facilities.
On March, 19, 2020, Governor Newsom signed the EXECUTIVE ORDER N-33-20
1) To preserve the public health and safety, and to ensure the healthcare delivery system is capable of serving all, and prioritizing those at the highest risk and vulnerability, all residents are directed to immediately heed the current State public health directives, which I ordered the Department of Public Health to develop for the current statewide status of COVID-19. In a live press conference on March 19, 2020, Governor Newsom said the following: "We estimate that 30-70% (12,000,000 to 28,000,000 people) of the 40 million Californians will contract COVID-19. He said, "The virus would attack 56% of Americans and the vast majority won't have symptoms."
To date, May 14, 2020, 1,065,592 lab tests have been conducted statewide in California.
Of those tested, 71,141 people in California have tested positive for COVID-19.
To date, May 14, 2020, 2,934 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 in California since February 6 when we had our first COVID-19 related death in Santa Clara County.
While the world is focusing on COVID-19 we must give some perspective as to what the normal death toll in America has been all along because we are being sold a narrative that is not including the pandemics that were already prevalent before we heard about COVID-19. The media is sending out alarming clickbait creating fear in the general public and so it is essential that we take all numbers into consideration so we have some basis of perspective and a thorough understanding of death and dying in America. These are the number of deaths from 2017 to 2018 for the leading causes of death in America.
Heart disease: 647,457
Cancer: 599,108
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
Diabetes: 83,564
Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173
Newsom hypothesized and said, "We believe there will be a 20% hospitalization rate and 19,542 people would need to be hospitalized. California had the existing Capacity of 416 hospitals, with 78,000 staffed beds on March 19, 2020, and they added an additional surge capacity to accommodate 10,000 more beds. To date, the highest daily peak of COVID-19 positive patients for all hospitals statewide is 2,740 patients. I believe it’s safe to say that the initial predictions were off and we must begin to look at COVID from an unfiltered political lens. See the graph below.
Newsom further explained, “Those at risk of needing health care are seniors 65 and over and those with compromised immune systems.” Throughout history, during pandemics, the sick have been quarantined but rather than taking that approach, they chose to quarantine everyone resulting in over 36 million Americans have been forced to file for unemployment and thousands more being forced to now rely on food banks to feed their children.
To date May, 15, 2020, all across America, of the 365 million Americans, 1,384,930 have tested positive for COVID-19. 83,947 people have died of COVID-19 since January 2020. Of those who passed away, a significant number were of people living in Long-Term Nursing Care Facilities and most deaths have occurred in households where people were practicing social distancing. In New York City, 2/3 of the deaths were of people who had not left their homes. 80% of the deaths have been of people over the age of 60 and with one or more pre-existing health conditions.
We must begin to consider what are the long-term consequences on our children's emotional and physical health of the policies that Governor Newsom and others have suggested. Are these suggestions warranted based on what we now know about COVID-19 and the unlikeliness of our children becoming critically ill? Furthermore, we must take into consideration that the decisions that were made in an abundance of caution to keep people safe have now jeopardized the safety of the 3.35 million Californians who are currently unemployed and the children who are living their elementary school years in front of a screen.
While the country was focused on shooting down COVID-19, they neglected to calculate the additional 75,000 deaths that are now estimated for death by despair. Suicide and teen depression was already a pandemic with 44,965 Americans killing themselves every year. As for our teens, the overwhelming amount of research has concluded that excessive amounts of screen time and social media were compromising their emotional and physical health. It seems that no one stopped to consider the potential dangers of all of our children sitting at home alone in front of their screens trying to learn a new curriculum that was forced on them overnight while not having the eyes of a loving teacher or parent to watch over them. Excessive screen time is attributed not only to increased depression but also to the other prevalent pandemic of obesity and heart disease. Our children deserve better. Our children deserve a community of people who can come together to think critically and realistically about what is truly best for their overall health and wellbeing based not on fear but on actual scientific data that considers all diseases and infections through an unbiased lens and then, makes decisions that are for their overall emotional, social, physical health and wellbeing.
Thank you for all that you do and for considering what I have presented here. If you would like any additional resources on building a healthy immune system or in what I have presented here, I will gladly step away from crisis homeschooling to share what I can. I know for sure that my children need their teachers back in the flesh and I am eternally grateful for the work you do as educators.
Additional References:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/03/16/california-issues-directive-to-fight-covid-19/
https://www.facebook.com/CAgovernor/videos/494465634769746/ (Live Press Conference Governor Newsom, March 19, 2020)
http://www.healthdata.org/covid/faqs
https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.cste.org/resource/resmgr/2020ps/Interim-20-ID-01_COVID-19.pdf
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-deaths-suicides-drugs-alcohol-pandemic-75000/