LUBBOCK, Texas (Reuters) – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday tried to reassure parents that he is doing everything he can to keep students safe, as most schools in the state are preparing for the new week.
School bus drivers lead a caravan through downtown Los Angeles to demand that lawmakers from Congress and California provide adequate funding to ensure all students have the support they need for distance education and the possible safe return to person classes during Coronavirus Outbreak (COVID -19) in Los Angeles, California, USA, August 13, 2020. REUTERS / Mike Blake / File Photo
But top adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign in Texas blew Abbott, a Republican, out for what he called a lack of planning and funding for safe reopening of schools, with the statewide coronavirus positivity rate hitting a record 24 this week , 5% hit.
“What we learned from the opening of the Texas economy is that if you do not do it right, people will die,” said Mike Collier, senior advisor to the Texas Biden Campaign. “Elders and teachers are forced to make decisions about life and death.”
Polls show Biden in a dead heat with President Donald Trump in Texas, long a Republican stronghold, but where the Democratic Party made significant gains in the midterm elections of 2018. How Abbott handled the pandemic and the reopening of schools could be a big influence how voters turn out in November.
Abbott defends his mandate and gave local school boards the right to determine when and when schools reopen, limiting the power of local health officials to intervene and order schools to close if COVID-19 outbreaks occur.
The Texas governor said schools are ready and argued that classes in person would not be a major spread of the virus if schools followed basic safety precautions.
“The ways that COVID-19 is likely to spread in the school setting are in meetings after school is over,” Abbott told a news conference in Lubbock.
Abbott said people spread the virus in smaller, informal meetings with friends and family. He encouraged parents and teachers to limit student meetings.
He urges all Texans to wait on precautionary measures as Labor Day weekend approaches. “It’s important that people do not leave their protection as they did during the weekend of Memorial Day,” what he said was a “widespread” event in the state.
LEAVE IT IN LOCALS
As Texas progresses with classes in person, a group of parents and Republicans in California have gone to court seeking a reversal of Governor Gavin Newsom’s order that schools in counties be on the “coronavirus” list – which 90% of the state’s population is covered – keep falling this fall.
“What we’re looking for in the lawsuit is that the mayor gets out of the way and local parents, local school boards and small schools themselves can make those decisions,” said Harmeet Dhillon, a member of the Republican National Committee of California and an attorney who brought the lawsuit, told a virtual press conference on Thursday.
Marianne Bema, a plaintiff in the lawsuit who lives with her three sons at school in Los Angeles, said that online learning in the spring was disastrous for her children, and that she does not make enough money to pay for childcare like her children are not in school.
Another plaintiff, Christine Ruiz of Santa Clarita, who also has three children at school, said she was pleased with a hybrid model that mixed personal and online instruction that her school had originally planned to roll out.
“Now that choice has been taken away from us,” Ruiz said.
APPS, BATTLE ON MASKS
North Dakota, Wyoming and Alabama are the latest U.S. states to launch apps to warn users about potential exposure to the new coronavirus by following their confrontations, state officials told Reuters on Thursday.
Virginia became the first U.S. state last week to advise residents to download such an app using technology developed by smartphone software giant Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google.
In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp said on Thursday he plans to close a lawsuit against Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the city, possibly ending a months-long feud over an order for people to wear masks around the to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Kemp had sued Bottoms and the city of Atlanta to stop maintaining a local mask mandate, arguing that the city lacks the authority to transfer its order stimulating but not face-to-face.
Report by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Makini Brice in Washington, DC, Rich McKay in Atlanta and Paresh Dave in Oakland; Edited by Bill Tarrant and Daniel Wallis
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