Here is the DOE-nut of the Week

New York City Schools will remain open next week. 

A former COVID-19 adviser for President Biden's transition on Thursday warned of a “viral blizzard” that is about to hit the U.S. as COVID-19 cases rise and concerns about the omicron variant continue to fester (The Hill)

We're all just sort of watching as the storm approaches.

Despite an absolutely enormous increase in the COVID numbers, the school system in New York City will not shift to remote learning next week. 

The plan, developed last summer when everyone thought the numbers would continue to decline, is a reactive one. It provides for classes, or sometimes whole schools, to temporarily close if there is a spike in cases.  The assumptions this plan is built upon depend on a process where exposure to the virus continues to decline and to be less harmful to society than it has been in the past. It's a goodbye plan. It's a pre summer, 2021 plan. It does not take into account a variant that is almost entirely resistant to the regular doses of vaccine. There is no plan for a virus for which there is no effective vaccine. 

At the same time, the economy of New York City is too fragile to sustain a crisis. Unemployment in New York City was 9 percent in November (USDOL). This is at a time where the national average is only 4.2 percent (USDOL). 

As discussed on this blog before (here), there are no moratoriums for renters anymore and the coffers for unemployment insurance have long since been empty from the 2020 crisis. Mothers and fathers of school aged children (who, let's face it, have already born the brunt of burden here), are paying more for everything from groceries to gasoline. If they own a small business, there will be relief program coming from Washington.  Parents have gotten all of the help they are going to get -and they know it. They simply cannot afford to miss any more opportunities to make money -and they know it. 

To make matters worse, many of them will face a stiffer challenge obtaining credit, because the Federal Reserve will soon be raising interest rates to combat inflation (NPR). If they do not know this now, they will very very soon. 

Put simply: There is absolutely no political appetite to do anything that may disrupt what jobs the economy has been able to claw back from the 2020 crisis, period.  Closing businesses will cost jobs. But closing schools to go remote will seize the whole economy -and it may not soon recover. Everybody knows this. They just don't want to say it. 

That the governments have mostly all failed to get medicines needed to combat the infection to our local pharmacies must also be mentioned here. 

 Opting instead for "vaccine for all" strategy, the medicines here in New York State are available to the infirm only if one is sick enough to be admitted the hospital.  And hospitals in other cities are already so understaffed that many are opening wondering if they have the capacity to handle another huge surge (LATimes: "‘A perfect storm’ for Delta, Omicron could overwhelm hospitals within weeks"). 

No one had anticipated that vaccine for all strategy to not work. Yet the explosion in COVID cases since Thanksgiving weekend have proven otherwise. The strategy will not keep people from becoming sick. And the voting public is about to see, to whichever degree it is harmful, the results of a strategy that has not contained the virus. I take no political opinion on this topic. I mean only to make the point: The public's trust in their governments have been undermined and that will have real world consequences. If the governments remain open, they will be blamed for high numbers. If the governments shift to remote learning for children, they will be blamed for the economy. 

In the face of two opposing yet unappetizing options, the politicians who get elected to government will almost always choose the path of least resistance. The path of least political resistance here is to keep schools open, to rely on the plan the state has approved and to hope for (and talk up) the best. Andso, your DOE-nut of the week:

New York City Schools will remain open.