UPDATED
More than 250 public school employees were vaccinated against COVID-19 at a clinic held by Martha’s Vineyard Hospital Thursday night. The clinic was the first of two expected to vaccinate the bulk of the employees for the public schools against the virus.
“The vaccine clinic went very well last evening,” Marissa Lefebvre wrote in an email. “In total, 257 public school staff members were vaccinated.”
While getting teachers vaccinated has been a bone of contention between the governor and teachers union off-Island, the hospital and schools have cooperated on-Island.
Meanwhile, the hospital will open up for sign-ups for next week for people 65 and older, as well as folks with two or more chronic medical conditions.
According to the hospital website, the portal will open up at 8 am for new appointments scheduled for March 16 and 17. Then on Monday at 5 pm, more appointments will be available for March 18, 19 and 20.
Those looking to sign up can click the yellow bar at the top of the hospital’s website to get right to the form.
Overall, since the vaccine rollout began on-Island, the hospital has administered nearly 8,000 first and second doses — 5,354 first doses and 2,434 second doses.
One new COVID case reported
In an expanded report Friday, the Island boards of health reported one new case of COVID-19 on the Vineyard. According to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, one person is hospitalized with the virus.
There are 939 confirmed cases since testing began a year ago. Of those cases, 464 are male and 475 are female. There have been 351 cases — 37 percent of the total — that have been connected to another case. Most of those are within either families or small social groups with five of them being clusters, including a wedding, Cronig’s Market, a Bible study group, MV Hospital, and Project Headway.
Overall, there have been 55 probable positive cases, which are cases where there have either been antibody tests or the individuals were symptomatic and diagnosed with the virus.
Martha’s Vineyard Hospital has administered 15,521 tests with 664 positives, 13,815 negatives, and 35 pending results.
TestMV has given 34,765 tests with 259 positive cases, 33,940 negative, and 566 pending results.
The town of Aquinnah has conducted 442 tests, of which one has come back positive, 441 negative, and 0 pending results.
The Martha’s Vineyard public schools have tested 6,132 individuals. Of those, four have tested positive. The public school data is updated once a week on Mondays, and this week there were no new cases.
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) has reported a total of seven positive cases of COVID-19.
Due to how tests are conducted, there can be a discrepancy between the number of positive individuals and the number of positive tests reported.
At the state level there were 1,589 new confirmed cases Thursday. The state estimates there are 25,901 active cases and the state’s seven day average of percent positivity is at 1.72 percent. There were also 42 new deaths Thursday for a total of 16,218 since last March.
Updated with Friday’s COVID report.
Oh great.
Now they can go back to poisoning are children’s minds with their radical progressivism.
In person!
Albert– perhaps if you had been properly educated , you would know that teachers are dedicated people that take their responsibilities seriously. They are dedicated to teaching children how to navigate a complicated world.
Yes, they have had to deal with such things as Qanon. If they inform their students to be skeptical of claims , even those claims come from elected representatives, about such things as George Soros secretly funding a program to put lasers in space and secretly shoot laser beams into California to start fires so the “deep state” will then be able to convince the next generation that climate change is real so someeeeone cannnnnn do someeeeeething to take away our liberty ? And of course, the whole Covid hoax is simply a “deep state” plot to allow Bill Gates to implant computer chips in our brains so someeeeone cannnnnn do someeeeeething to take away our liberty ? Teachers will teach children how to think critically.
Have you ever considered moving to a country that is more in keeping with your values ?
There are lots of them that don’t want children ( especially girls) to be educated.
Your comment is an affront to every rational person on this island.
Shame on George Brennan for allow it to post.
And while I am not the spelling police here, you might want to look up the difference between “are” and “our” — yup, they both sound about the same– a teacher will tell children the difference between the 2 words.
They also teach language skills like spelling and grammar to “our” children, Albert.
Well played, Jane!
Such an important distinction in a doctoral thesis.
This is a transitory comment board.
I will keep you in mind for when I am ready for a proofread.
How much do you charge per page?
Thank you MV Hospital and staff for a well run vaccination clinic. So grateful that it was my turn to get the vaccine.
As a school employee pushing 60 I felt fortunate to get the vaccine. But as I sat in the waiting room for the required 15 minutes after getting the shot I felt kind of guilty as I looked around and noticed I was surrounded by teachers whose average age was probably 35. It certainly didn’t feel right that these young people, who statistically have almost no chance of dying from Covid, were getting the vaccine ahead of those in their 60’s who are far more vulnerable.
Most of these teachers will be coming into close contact with over 100 students a day,
Many of them live in households with people over 60.
Schools, by their nature, involve close physical contact with a lot of people.
That is how this disease is spread.
If we are to have confidence in the safety of our our schools then all teachers, staff and students must be vaccinated, without regard to age.
Old people mostly die of Covid.
Young people mostly spread it.
Everyone needs to be shot.
Where do you come up with 100 kids a day?? How did you determine many live with people over 60? Where did you come up with young people spread it? Facts matter.
John– Let me answer your questions–
The teacher to student ratio at the MVRHS is about 9 to one . A teacher will typically have 5 classes a day, as well as monitoring study halls and the cafeteria. They also traverse the hallways, encountering former students, and interacting with students that are not their actual students.. !00 a day seems low to me, but it’s indisputably over 60.
And the Vineyard has a relatively low teacher to student ratio.
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/martha-s-vineyard-regional-high-school-profile
You don’t need to have a masters in demographics to figure out that many children in grades k-12 live with someone over 60
in fact “4.1 million school-age children, about 7% of those between the ages of 5 and 18, live in a household with someone 65 or over.”
That’s over 65 I may note..
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/millions-of-seniors-live-in-households-with-school-age-children/
And according to the CDC , yes, children can spread this.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/children/symptoms.html#:~:text=Children%2C%20like%20adults%2C,the%20virus%20to%20others.
Yup, facts matter.
Nice that we agree on something, don’t ‘cha think ?
Any more questions ?
20 kids per class times 5 classes per day equals 100.
Add to that for sports, clubs and lunch duty.
I have been in Dukes County for over 50 years.
I spend time in the community.
Two of my siblings live in three generation households.
The ever increasing immigrant population are inclined that way.
Some live at 10+ people per household.
The young people spread I got from an Epidemiologist.
She is a trusted member of her profession.
Where do you get your information on young people spread?
Those are the facts.
Facts matter.
Mr Keller it is not the job of teachers to teach children ”how to navigate a complicated world” It is their job to teach reading writing and rithmetic and to stay away from wokeism and social justice and BLM. The fact of the matter is that teachers in general have stayed away from teaching and dont want to go back to school and want more money and hide behind their unions. Some teachers are dedicated and have the kids in mind but across the country everyone knows the teachers have delayed and delayed. Albert is correct in his assesment and your rant about Soros and Gates is a non sequitor. Our country is falling further behind in education and while parents share some repsonsibility we dont see that decline in homeschooling or private schooling or Christian schooling.
Do you truly believe that children should not be taught in schools about social justice!?
That they should not be taught about the world that they live in today? Do you really want to go back to the classes of the 40s, 50s, and 60s? A world where there were no children of color in school books, where the history of slavery in America took up just barely one page-and then usually only in reference to the Civil War, and where women as scientists and inventors were generally nonexistent. An apron-wearing, cake-bearing mother, standing in her sparkling kitchen waiting for her family to come home and give her life meaning was about as good as it was going to get for women. Those days are over, pal. Get used to it. We need to teach our children how to live in this century. With all of the different people with whom they will coexist.
Nunes, I am not your ”pal” and your post is full of non sequitors.
Mr. Engelman, it is a teachers job to teach readin riting and rithmetic.
And history, and modern history, and current events, social studies, government, political science, personal/public health, sports, personal responsibility, tolerance, civility, dance, theater, debating (BLM?) to name a few.
Who should teach our children about BLM?
Other kids?
Fox News?
NPR?
CNN?
Parents?
OAN
PragerU
You?
“Albert is correct in his assesment”
Andrew, my sarcasm went right over your head.
Andrew– I notice you often use the term “everyone knows” before you make some false pronouncement. Well, everyone does not know that teachers have “delayed and delayed”.
I do not know that, and in fact, teachers have not “delayed and delayed”. You are wrong on both points.
It seems you have no idea of the valuable lessons that are learned in schools.
Perhaps your experience in school was different than that of our children today.
Children no longer sit on their hands and listen to lectures about the wonderful virtues of the “motherland”. They interact with teachers, each other, and the confusing world of social media. They ask questions– they learn how to spell such complicated words as “arithmetic”. They learn how to sort the facts from the fiction that they are inundated with every day on social media. They learn how to think critically and how to solve problems. Rote learning does not cut it in today’s society. Teachers are crucial to that learning experience.
And let me give you an example of what these kids are up against:
Marjorie Taylor Green , the representative of the 14th district of Georgia said this
“wildfires in California were not natural. Forests don’t just catch fire, you know. Rather, the blazes had been started by PG&E, in conjunction with the Rothschilds, using a space laser, in order to clear room for a high-speed rail project.”
There is some history here:
“The Rothschild family has featured heavily in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories since at least the 19th century. Anti-Semites have generally updated the theory by replacing the Rothschilds with George Soros, a more contemporary and plausible-seeming mastermind for a global conspiracy to spread left-wing ideology.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-greene-qanon-wildfires-space-laser-rothschild-execute.html
Pointing out the fact that this woman said what she said is not a “rant”.
A “rant” is when one makes unfounded ,unsubstantiated claims.
A “rant” is when one mocks or degrades the efforts of others while resorting to untruths.
Albert’s original comment here is a short “rant”
Yours is a little longer, but a rant none the less
Mr Keller, Across the board, scores in math and reading for public schools have dropped. Everyone knows that. Action is not progress. As for Soros, it is possible to criticize a man who is funding a worldwide radical liberal agenda and not be anti semitic. I dont know what world you live in but Teachers have held fast all over the country in not wanting to go back to school and teach and many people have opted for home schooling and private schools and unfortunately many minorities have dropped out and dont attend zooming anymore. Mine might be a rant but yours is a tirade.
Mr Engelman
Teachers have been hesitant to return to the classroom because they are educated people who recognize the risk involved. Common sense leads one to rightfully assume that the chance of infection would be too great.
Your comments about test scores and other irrelevant points are logical fallacies.
Most private schools have no choice but to reopen.
No kids in the classroom, no money.
Parents will not pay $25,000 a year for zoom classes.
Andrew–About those across the board scores dropping. Is that Biden’s fault ?
May I remind you that trump appointed Betsy Devos as secretary of education in 2017.
Her qualifications ?? None– she just supported trump. She had no formal experience in education, and showed no interest in actually enhancing the educational experience of anyone except the wealthy. Her most notable accomplishment was to make it harder to prosecute sexual crimes and harassment on campuses.
Thanks for voicing your opinion about dropping achievement levels during her tenure.
The current secretary of education has had a long career in education. Hopefully, he can undue some of the damage done by his predecessor.
Mr Keller. Scores dropping is not Bidens fault and not Devos’ fault but teachers fault.Scores dont drop due to one administration. Gas prices rise and taxes go up and regulations get placed back but the long slide of test scores has been with us for a long time and its due to teachers not wanting accountability.
But whose fault is that we have bad teachers?
Is it that Conservatives refuse to teach because the pay is so low and the stress is so high?
Is it because we have bad administrators?
A bad electorate that elects bad School Committee members.
Where does the buck stop?
Any where but Trump’s desk?
Gas prices are now lower than for most of Trump’s term.
From the hindsight perspective the Trump Tax Cut never should have happened.
Just look at what it did to the national debt prepandemic.
Test scores…..
The test scores are a great at showing a kid can remember.
Teaching to test is not really teaching.
It does not really test her intellect.
Your better colleges and universities are beginning to ignore high stakes test scores.
They are not a good indicator for completing a degree.
Do you have any specific Vineyard teachers who do not want accountability.
Or are you going to continue to hide behind sweeping generalities.
You seem to know a lot about education.
What is you professional experience?
Do you hold any advanced degrees?
Did you have bad teachers in in school and college?
Are grade school teachers more accountable than college teachers?
Would our schools be better off with people like you?
Do you feel driven to teach?
I am glad that we have begun vaccinating teachers and look forward to the continued rollout of the vaccine. This milestone should be a cause for celebration rather than political diatribes, and we should be thankful to the MVH and state for their efforts to make the island community safe.
Mr Ventry. You have not been learning about infection rates due to demographics. You have not read or listened about infection rates among children of all ages. If you did you would know that old people with underlying conditions are 82 percent the issue. Kids are not a threat to Teachers. Private schools have been having in class teaching and learning with no discernable effect and when there is an issue the kid goes home and stays home until he/she is well. This is not about risk of infection. This about power of the teachers unions, and about more money and in some cases about laziness. You obviously also dont follow test scoreswhich can easily be found.
My kids went to a long established 7-12 private school.
They will not be in person this school year.
Do you think it is because the teachers are lazy union slugs?
Test scores?
Colleges and universities are finding that test scores are not a good predictor of achieving an undergraduate degree.
The ‘tests’ primarily measure your memory, not your cognitive skills.
Innovation requires cognition.
Mr Hess, yes your sarcasm ws lost on me. No I dont want teachers teaching BLM since it is a Marxist organization that wants to overturn our country. Test scores go down and liberals find a reason not to trust them. SAT’s go down and once again there is an excuse. My grandkids are in private schools and physically attend. Every one knows( a saying Keller doesnt agree with ) that public high schools in the US are degrading and yes many unionized teachers are all about more pay and pushing the fear of Covid agenda.
I want our teachers to teach all there is to know about BLM and Marxism.
And about White and Black racism too.
And the freedom, living standards and crime rates in various forms of government.
Andrew–You don’t want teachers teaching “BLM”? I assume you mean cultural diversity and sensitivity? Would rather have the white kids pick on children of color and perpetuate the inequality that currently exist for a few more generations ? Conversely, you want teachers, in public schools, in direct conflict with the first amendment of the CONSTITUTION to teach children that “god” –(your god, I may add) created the entire universe in 7 days out of nothingness approximately 6,000 years ago, and that animals (including humans) were created just as they are now. — That is a religious belief, not founded in any fact. —
We might as well teach kids that the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it all in 5 days. We do after all, have Indisputable proof of HIS noodely creativity, as planets and stars have the shape of meatballs, and that it is all held together by what is known as “string theory” — hmmm– spaghetti sure does look a lot like string…… Now that is logic beyond reproach.
Cultural diversity and sensitivity is a myth.
God created us all equal.
But not identical.
Otherwise we could not discriminate against each other.