Masks, vaccines turn classrooms into battlegrounds -- Sept. 2, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

This Labor Day weekend, my candidate for Worker of the Year is a professor who quit.

Irwin Bernstein, a psychology professor at the University of Georgia, walked off the job Aug. 24 because one of his students refused to wear a mask properly in class.

“That’s it. I’m retired,” Professor Bernstein reportedly said and left.

Bravo, Professor, for drawing your personal red line and for your long run in the classroom. Bernstein began teaching in 1968. He is 88. That’s not a typo.

He retired in 2011 but returned to teach part time. This school year he was teaching two classes.

But Bernstein has Type 2 diabetes. His age and other health problems put him at higher risk for complications of COVID-19.

It’s not too much for him and other teachers in the nation’s classrooms to expect their employers to follow the guidance of public health authorities and require masks and vaccinations.

The University System of Georgia offers vaccinations and encourages masks inside campus facilities -- but does not require them.

So, Bernstein adopted his own “no mask, no class” policy.

Two of his students missed the first day of class after having tested positive for COVID-19, the student newspaper The Red & Black reported. On the second day, 25 students in Bernstein’s seminar did wear masks, but one student refused to pull the mask over her nose, saying she had “a really hard time breathing.”

Bernstein asked her twice. An Air Force veteran, he said he risked his life in the military but wouldn’t do so during the pandemic.

Bernstein’s last stand came as the delta variant is ravaging the country.

The daily average of hospitalized COVID-19 patients topped 100,000 over the last week, the highest level since last winter, The New York Times reported.

Hospitalizations nationwide have risen 500% in the last two months, primarily in the South, and intensive care units are reaching capacity. About 1,000 people a day are dying of COVID in the United States, the most since March, the Times said.

With such devastating numbers, mask and vaccination mandates in schools and universities should be welcome.

And yet, anti-maskers and anti-vaxers, spurred by irresponsible Republican politicians, still complain that requiring a mask or vaccination is an infringement of their personal freedom and rights. Critics of mandates complain of “tyrants,” and worse.

Some flout the rules with appalling consequences. Consider a case from California the Centers for Disease Control reported this week.

In Marin County, an unvaccinated elementary school teacher removed their mask while reading aloud to the class last June and half the pupils, who were too young to be vaccinated, got COVID-19. Removing the mask was against school rules.

And yet, as students return to schools and campuses this fall, classroom conflicts are spreading.

The Republican governors of Florida and Texas have fought school districts that have imposed mask mandates. The federal Education Department is investigating whether five states that have prohibited mask mandates have violated the civil rights of disabled students.

At least 16 states have statewide school mask mandates, according to tracking by the Times. But that doesn’t always matter to misguided local officials. A rural school district in Oregon just fired its school superintendent because he followed the state guidance and required masks.

Virginia requires all students, teachers and staff in K-12 schools to wear masks indoors, even if vaccinated. Most colleges and universities in Virginia also require vaccinations and masks.

Virginia Tech disenrolled 134 students and the University of Virginia disenrolled 238 who failed to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19. It’s unknown how many of these students had made other plans for the school year.

Fortunately, with full approval of the Pfizer vaccine, more employers – including governments at all levels -- are requiring vaccinations as a condition of employment, with a few exceptions.

That’s good news. Few teachers or other public employees can afford to say, “Take this job and shove it.”

Universities and schools that hold in-person classes, especially where children are too young to be vaccinated, should protect everyone involved with vaccination and mask mandates. And they should get community support when they do.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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COVID vaccines are a gift -- if we accept them -- Dec. 17, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

This Christmas, the gifts of Three Wise Men -- make that three pharmaceutical companies -- are COVID-19 vaccines.

The Pfizer vaccine is in distribution, Moderna’s is about to be authorized, and AstraZeneca’s is likely not far behind.

In 2020, these treasures are more valuable than gold, frankincense and myrrh. If we’ve learned anything during the pandemic, it’s that safety and good health are of incalculable worth.

Seeing the first American healthcare workers baring their upper arms to get the shots boosted everyone’s morale. But it’s estimated 60% to 80% of Americans will need to be immune to the devastating virus, either through infection or vaccination, to achieve herd immunity and begin to resume normal life. That will take months.

The arrival of the miracle vaccines also raises a question: Will people get them?

Polls and anecdotal reports indicate a wide swath of the population, and Black people especially, may be wary. Only 17% or Blacks said they’d definitely get a COVID vaccine, compared with 37% of whites and Hispanics, a Kaiser Family Foundation Poll in October reported.

That was before the vaccines were a reality and before people began seeing their peers gladly roll up their sleeves.

Sandra Lindsay, 52, an intensive care nurse in Queens, New York, who is Black, received the Pfizer vaccine Monday, one of the first people in the United States to do so.

Her goal wasn’t to be first, she told The New York Times, “but to inspire people who look like me, who are skeptical in general about taking vaccines.”

Generations of Black Americans have grown up distrusting the federal government’s medical programs since the 1932 Tuskegee study in which Black men who had syphilis were left untreated so doctors could study the effects.

Many Americans are inoculation phobic. Most adults typically don’t even get a flu vaccine.

In addition, since it usually takes years to develop a vaccine, the speed at which the COVID vaccines arrived makes even some medical personnel leery of taking the first shots, although clinical trials show the vaccines are remarkably effective and safe.

In its first analysis of the Pfizer vaccine, the Food and Drug Administration found it worked well no matter the volunteer’s age, race or weight. It was 95% effective after two shots three to four weeks apart. Side effects are generally mild, although some experts suggest people might want to take the day off after the second dose in case it brings fatigue, chills or fever.

There’s much we don’t yet know. How well will the vaccine work on children and pregnant women? How long will immunity last? And, while the vaccine protects vaccinated persons from the disease, can the vaccinated still spread the virus through droplets in sneezes and coughs?

The recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is for healthcare workers and long-term care residents to be the highest priority for shots. The Virginia Health Department adopted the recommendation.  

The advisory committee seems likely to recommend that other essential workers be next, followed by those over 65 and those younger who have health conditions that put them at high risk – a plan Virginia also has adopted.

States vary in their priorities. A few states have prioritized law enforcement, prisoners and the homeless in the first group, a review of state policies by the Kaiser Family Foundation found.

The supply of vaccines is limited at present but will increase. By next spring or summer, the general population in Virginia and elsewhere will be eligible to be jabbed.

But will they? A blizzard of misinformation is coming from sources many consider reputable – political figures, radio talkers, posters on social media. By now, no one should believe COVID-19 is a hoax. Not when more than 300,000 in the United States have died of the disease this year and millions more face long-term symptoms.

That’s why everyone must mask up and practice good hygiene and social distancing well into 2021. By next Christmas, with luck and perseverance, we can celebrate the end of the pandemic.

The vaccines are a gift, but first we must accept them.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

No thanks? Why we need this Thanksgiving -- Nov. 19, 2020 column

 By MARSHA MERCER

A few days ago, my neighbors added to their Biden-Harris and Ruth Bader Ginsburg yard art with a sign over their front door that reads simply: “Gratitude.”

Around the neighborhood, a few inflatable turkeys, pumpkins repurposed with wooden turkey heads and feathers, and cheery “Gobble Gobble” signs remind that  Thanksgiving is upon us.

But for many, Thanksgiving 2020 seems to have lost its luster. Some suggest postponing or canceling the holiday altogether. I get that in a pandemic and recession, we’re tempted to say, “No thanks,” that it’s easy to be more focused on what we are missing than what we have managed to hang onto.

No question, this has been a terrible year, a time of unbearable sadness and grief.  We have lost 250,000 Americans to COVID-19 and thousands more suffer lasting symptoms. The virus has devastated the economy, taking away jobs and the livelihood of millions of Americans.

But while this Thanksgiving must be different -- smaller and more poignant, virtual and outdoors around a fire pit or indoors with the windows open – we can still  practice gratitude.

We have rarely needed this holiday and the coming season of lights, music and cheer more than during the long, dark days of our plague year, our annus horribilis (Latin for “horrible year”), 2020.

Yet the Thanksgiving tradition in New World began in hard times. Virginia’s Berkeley Plantation claims the first official Thanksgiving in 1619, after the settlers had endured a year of unimaginable suffering and loss. English puritans traditionally gave thanks with a time of prayer and fasting, not feasting.

In 1621, pilgrims in Plymouth, Mass., shared a harvest meal with about 90 Wampanoag Indians. But calling the Plymouth meal the “first Thanksgiving”?

That was a clever marketing tool in the 18^th century to boost New England tourism, says David J. Silverman, history professor at George Washington University and author of the 2019 book, “This Land is Their Land.”

President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving during the Civil War in the forlorn hope of drawing the country together after the Union victory at Gettysburg in 1863.

This year, many people seem to have skipped right over Thanksgiving and landed on Christmas. My corner drugstore in Alexandria installed Santas in its front and center windows before Halloween.

Before anyone tucked the first pumpkin pie in the oven, Christmas arrived on the plaza in front of City Hall in the form of a tall, stately white-lighted holiday tree.  A smaller tree brightens the riverfront. On King Street, white lights illuminate bare tree branches, and red bows and greenery adorn lamp posts.

Alexandria will even collect trash and recycling Thanksgiving Day, rather than take a typical “holiday slide.” That, though, was the choice of collection workers, who prefer to start their pickups at 6 a.m. Thursday so they can be home that evening and off Friday with their families, the city said in a news release.

The holidays won’t be the same this year. We will be distant, actually or socially, wear masks and wash our hands often.

But that shouldn’t stop us from remembering advice attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson to “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.”

There are real signs of hope. Promising coronavirus vaccines are in the pipeline. Moderna said its vaccine was 94.5% effective in early tests, and Pfizer announced its vaccine is 95% effective with no serious side effects.

Scientists and medical personnel are true American heroes, going to work every day to save lives. Now we need President Donald Trump, Republicans and the federal government to step up and help President-elect Joe Biden plan for the vaccines’ distribution and the transition to a new administration.

Meanwhile, we can be glad not to live in the little town of Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow, Alaska, at the state’s northernmost point.

On Wednesday, the sun set there at 1:30 p.m. Alaska Standard Time -- not to rise again until Jan. 23.

That’s right – 66 days of what’s called polar night, when the sun does not rise above the horizon.

With everything else happening, we at least will have sunrises and sunsets and the hope of brighter days ahead. Find your gratitude.

© 2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.