What does the future hold for the city?
By Josh Resnek
With the near doubling of new infections from COVID-19 last week in Massachusetts, state and local health officials are taking a closer look at what the next few months might prove to be like.
Locally, testing continues and vaccinations are ongoing.
Statewide, the same is true.
Some U.S. public schools are moving online for a day a week — sometimes more. Parents are scrambling to find child care, and many worry that their children will fall further behind, the New York Times reported Monday.
The reason? Staff burnout. Teacher and staff shortages.
School districts cited various reasons for the temporary closings, from a rise in Covid-19 cases to a need to thoroughly sanitize classrooms. But for many schools, the remote learning days — an option that did not exist before the pandemic — are a last-ditch effort to keep teachers from resigning. They are burned out, educators said, after a year of trying to help students through learning loss, and working overtime to make up for labor shortages.
According to the Times, tensions are high everywhere.
Does this include Everett?
Of course it does.
The school fights recently and outbursts from students and mask mandates are increasing the complexity of life in the EPS.
Research reveals that disruptions during the pandemic led to students falling behind in math and reading – and the students most affected by the crisis were already behind.
EPS is struggling against this strong tide.
Massachusetts COVID-19 statistics tell a painfully real story.
To date, there have been 970,000 reported cases.
There have been 19,634 deaths.
Everett deaths are believed to be in the several hundred persons range. Middlesex County leads the death list in Massachusetts with 4,022.
Thousands have become infected here and many hundreds have been hospitalized.
New cases reported Monday by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health amounted to 5,007.
Two age groups included the bulk of the new cases – 20-29 and 30-39.
New cases reported by older people 70 and beyond have dramatically tanked. This age group is now the lowest in the infected scale.
Why?
Because they are nearly all vaccinated.
Who is getting sick, according to the MDPH?
Those who have not been vaccinated or who are refusing to get vaccinated.
Everett’s positivity rate is 4.61% compared with the state average of 4.46%.
Last week’s doubling of infections in Massachusetts last week has resulted in closer scrutiny of the statistics by the governor’s office.
While no new mandates have been announced, it is expected that if another doubling occurs, the state will need to take action to tamp down the growing infection rate.
What exactly that will be is unknown today.
The same is true for the City of Everett.