Danielle Allen pushes Gov. Baker to implement COVID-19 advisory system prior to school year start

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Experiencing the same frustration that many parents in the Commonwealth are facing with the upcoming start of the school year amidst an evolving COVID pandemic and Delta variant spike, gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen is calling on Governor Charlie Baker to create a COVID alert and advisory system to monitor surges in the virus’s prevalence and provide for automatically triggered responses.

Background: Danielle Allen spearheaded a multi-disciplinary, cross-sector COVID response team that led to the Biden-Harris Pandemic Testing Board and an interstate compact to build out COVID testing resources, as well as Covid Collaborative guidance on infection prevention and control in K-12 settings that has been disseminated nationally, including through the US Dept of Education. She worked with DESE and the Cambridge Public School District throughout the 2020-21 school year to achieve a successful return to healthy and safe in-person teaching and learning.

Allen has released the following statement regarding the safety of our students and educators in Massachusetts public schools this fall:

“While I have the utmost confidence that our teachers, school committees, and district leaders across the Commonwealth are dutifully working to keep our students safe in this ongoing and evolving pandemic, the Governor’s Office can and must do more to help them meet this moment head on,” said Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Danielle Allen. “Our children and educators deserve healthy, in-person teaching and learning environments, and the Governor’s Office and DESE can achieve this by providing better tools and broad, state- and sector-wide guidance for our schools.”

“Now is the time for the Governor’s Office to position the Commonwealth as a leader by developing and implementing a system of COVID alerts and advisories, similar to weather advisories, to communicate the levels of risk operative in the state, our communities, and our schools.

The core lesson from the Delta variant is that COVID will be an issue for the foreseeable future and we need to be prepared for its possible return to a community at any time. Rather than force school districts, parents, educators, and students to make difficult, time sensitive, high-pressure decisions in the event of a spike in COVID infection in a community, the Governor’s Office should proactively develop processes, in consultation with regional and municipal partners, DESE, and DPH, that are automatically triggered if regional infections hit certain levels.”

Examples of triggered processes include:

Districts under advisories to issue a universal mask requirement for all students and educators — which is particularly important since so many students are under the age of 12 and unable to get vaccinated and since the vaccinated are able to transmit the Delta variant.

• Higher frequency in free screening testing

• Deployment of additional contact tracing resources by school districts experiencing a COVID spike.

We will be living with the waves of the COVID pandemic for a long time, and with smart policy decisions and effective communication, Massachusetts can be the state best positioned to weather the impacts of this latest wave of the pandemic.

About Michael Silvia

Served 20 years in the United States Air Force. Owner of New Bedford Guide.

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