The u.s. Is doing as many as 700 thousand tests a day and that's grown a lot since the early days of the pandemic but it is less than half of what the US needs to bring the virus under
control. We know that in areas of the country right now that have appropriate mitigation that the testing we have is sufficient
Admiral Bret Crozier wah of the White House coronavirus task force told NPR today that soon the u.s. Hopefully by September
We'll be doing a million tests every day. But right now in parts of the South the rates of positive tests are as high as 25% and the World Health Organization says you're doing enough testing when your positivity rate is
5% So what we need people to do is to physically distance wear the mask. We need places that are in hot zones to close bars and to limit restaurants and if we do those simple things we can turn around the
virus coming.
Yup, how other countries around the world are handling the issue of schools. This is consider this from NPR Kelly mcevers is off this week. I'm Elsa Chang and it is Tuesday, July 14th
support for this podcast and the following message come from integrative Therapeutics creator of Physicians Elemental diet a medical food developed by clinicians for the dietary management of IBS IBD and
Si bo under the supervision of a physician
Jenna Martinez in zuza grew up in rural winkelman Arizona where very small mining Community Town. What kind of mining is it copper Mining and here's how she described it to my colleague Steve inskeep. It's your typical desert landscape with Silverados and Oka Theo's and follow their desires and it's beautiful. It's beautiful to me today. Jenna is a first grade teacher there last month.
Months she and two other teachers spent a little time back at school getting things ready for a remote summer session and the three of them worked in a room together trying to keep a safe distance, but one of them Kimberly Chavez Lopez bird felt sick in mid-june. It was the virus. She went to the ER on June 13th and less than two weeks later. She was dead. She was 61. It's devastating, you know the day that we do go back to school.
Kids are going to look for Miss Byrd that do not understand that she's gone.
Miss birds not going to be there can schools be made safe. That is the question teachers parents and public health officials are struggling with all over the country teachers are understandably. They have fear to handbags Aya T around Scooby opening because in many conversations around school reopening plans to educator voice is lost Tomika Walker Kelly teaches Elementary School in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She's also president of the North
Association of Educators, and I mean not only just classroom Educators but I bus drivers in our custodians in our school nutrition workers who are essential and happiness tangel always but particularly since school buildings closed and so we've seen a very varied response Across the Nation.
Back in Arizona Jenna Martinez in zooms a says things just don't feel safe enough to go back to school in the fall and maybe things will look better in a few months. She says but that depends on her neighbors in Arizona taking the virus more. Seriously, if everybody does their part we can help the hospitals, but when they're filling up and we are not taking this seriously.
We are not helping them and if we're not going to help them it's just going to be worse when we repopulate schools.
By the way, Jenna and the third teacher she was working with back in June. They both got sick too. Jenna says she's doing a lot better than she was she's still not a hundred percent. She said she still not sleeping very
well. What do you tell parents? Who look at this who look at Arizona where school teacher recently died teaching summer school parents were worried about the safety of their children in public schools should be opened schools should be
opened last week President Trump tweeted that he disagreed with his own government's
It's for reopening schools on things like masks and social distancing. He called those guidelines expensive and impractical and he promised that they will be reworked in the meantime Governors and more than 13 thousand school districts across the country are puzzling it out on their own Los Angeles and San Diego Public Schools for instance announced this week that they will start the year with remote only classes next month other school districts around the country are pledging to go back.
Back, and as for how to do that the u.s. Might learn some lessons from some other countries places like Germany Thailand Israel where students have already been back at school. My colleague Mary Louise. Kelly recently talked with three NPR correspondence in each of those places. And here's their
conversation. I am joined by Esme Nicholson in
Berlin Daniel
Estrin in Jerusalem and Michael Sullivan and Chiang Rai Thailand. Welcome to each of you. I thank
you. Hello
as my let me come to you first.
What does school look like in Germany?
Well, it depends on why you are Germany's education system differs from state to state like in the US but in most of Germany students have been back in school in since May albeit on a part-time basis and this is to allow for reduced class sizes and social distancing in terms of testing. Well, there's not much of that going on. It's by no means a standard and even Berlin City education authorities recently.
Announced that it doesn't expect students to follow social distancing rules as of the new school year effectively acknowledging that younger students will ignore many
my goal. I know in Thailand students just went back last week. How has it gone? It's gone pretty well so far. I mean, it's been pretty normal with a couple of tweaks. I drop my son off in the morning. They take his temperature. Then he goes to the bathroom to wash his hands before he enters the classroom and then there's social distancing once he gets to the classroom. Of course.
I mean, that's pretty much it. Remember Thailand, you know, we've only had a couple thousand cases here. There's been no domestic infection for more than five weeks. So normal seems pretty normal. Hmm Daniel in Israel. It's been a little bit more of a complicated picture School shut down because of the virus and then it reopened they did go back in May and now it's out again. What happened? Well, what happened in Israel is is quite a cautionary tale. I think at first the
A health professionals here urged the government. Yes, let school resume again. But only let kids under the age of nine go back to school and keep it in small groups and they said data around the world show that younger kids have a very low rate of infection and transmission, but instead of just letting the younger kids go back to school. There were these last-minute negotiations ultra-orthodox Jewish schools wanted the older kids to go back to religious studies. And so they did and then 11th and 12th graders also went back to school and so very very quickly.
Everyone was back and then very quickly after that. There was a heat wave. So the government said well kids don't need to wear masks anymore during this heat wave and then we just saw big outbreaks in schools and a lot of schools shut down for several weeks, huh? I mean that's the big question is what happens when there's an outbreak as me. I'm sure Germany has confronted this. How's it been
handled indeed? We've already seen schools closed again since they reopened in May either because of an outbreak
In a school or because of the search in the infection rate locally and when this happens kids have to go back online. And as far as that is possible and Germany's Health authorities that the CDC equivalent here. The Robert Koch Institute is already warning that they expect the second wave to hit at about the same time as flu season this fall. So we're likely to see school shut down and reopen repeatedly
the other obvious stakeholder here is
Prince Michael you described taking your kids to school taking your son and watching them check his temperature as he walks in the door.
How is it
felt and what are you hearing from other parents as it has it been scary? It hasn't been scary again because of the success here, but you know, there was concern the first day of school. There were a lot of us huddled up. I mean, we got out of our cars when we took our kids to school. We weren't allowed into the school, but we got out and there's concern but it looks like they're handling things pretty well and so that you know,
I made it a little less scary I guess for us well.
Any lessons
from your part of the world that you think the United States can take from the experiences in your country either things that feel directly applicable or things that are very different Daniel think the lessons to be learned from Israel are listened to the health experts the government here did not follow the health experts guidelines to just open the younger grades and to have kids in small groups. They open very fast, and there was no coherent policy. So listen to your health
experts have a coherent policy.
That was in Paris Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem s me Nicholson in Berlin and Michael Sullivan in Chiang Mai Thailand speaking to my colleague Mary Louise Kelly. Finally. Here's something that says a lot about where we are right. Now. You may have seen the news that Walt Disney World in Florida re opened to visitors this week. That was after a weekend where Florida recorded a record high number of cases for any
Date over 15,000 in a single day on Wednesday Disney World in Hong Kong though is shutting down because City officials there are trying to contain a surge and coronavirus cases to give you an idea of the size of that surge last Friday the city recorded 38 new cases of the virus. That is the show for today additional reporting on this episode from our colleagues at all things considered and Morning Edition for more news download the
The NPR one app or tune into your local public radio station supporting that station makes this podcast possible. I'm Elsa Chang. I'll be back with more tomorrow.
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