In-person schooling is not without risks

On January 21, 2022, the Albany Times Union published the Letter to the Editor set out below by NYPER science consultant Robert A. Michaels captioned In-person schooling is not without risks. 

Dr. Michaels' Letter to the Editor is set out below:

In-person schooling is not without risks

With surging COVID-19, New York City Mayor Eric Adams defended his policy of retaining in-person schooling: “Fear not sending them back. … The safest place for children is inside a school.” This statement might have a grain of truth, but it should be taken with a shaker full of salt.

With in-person instruction, students and teachers bring risks from home to school. Then they return home and mingle with their families and neighbors. Adams failed to consider this home-school synergy. In-person instruction imposes school risks, even if low, on the full home-plus-school population.

This raises the civics issue of the proper relationship of science and policy. Adams must make COVID-19 policies, such as in-person schooling. He reasonably might balance infection risks versus social and economic risks. He should not, however, base policies on invalid science.

School risks, as Adams said, might be lower than home risks, but they would be zero if instruction were remote. In-person schooling poses an incremental COVID-19 infection risk. Even if low, it must be applied to the full school-plus-home population that will bear it.

In short, policy should comport with science, even if it is not solely determined by science.

ROBERT A. MICHAELS

Schenectady

Also cited on the Internet by ResearchGate at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358002951_In-person_schooling_is_not_without_risks_Albany_New_York_Times_Union_Newspaper_page_A-9_21_January_2022

Focus on preventing new Covid-19 cases

On January 8, 2022, the Schenectady Gazette published the Letter to the Editor set out below submitted by NYPPL science consultant Robert A. Michaels, PhD, CEP.  

In view of the significance of Dr. Michaels' remarks, this item is posted per bono.

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I recently published the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 might enter organs, such as the brain, where immune surveillance is ineffective.

An NIH study soon confirmed this. The virus could persist, reactivating when we become weaker. The weight of evidence now suggests that Covid and long Covidcould become lifelong Covid. 

Opportunistic virus reactivation is common. Childhood chicken pox becomes adult shingles. ‘Cured’ Ebola re-emerges years later, without external reinvention. Yet, the US FDA and CDC have remained overly restrictive regarding vaccine boosters.

Our overriding priority should be on preventing as many COVID-19 cases as feasible, not tolerating them because they tend to be mild. Even mild cases might impose future health and economic burdens. We therefore must adopt the precautionary principle. 

That is the lesson we should have learned from Michael Crichton’s infamous Jurassic Park. Lacking dinosaurs, our communities are microbial Jurassic Parks. They must separate people from a vaccine-escaping virus, for example, via colleges conducting classes remotely.

Omicron is more vaccine-resistant than previous variants. All are evolving toward still greater infectivity, and the pace of this evolution seems to be accelerating. These challenges may overcome careful containment plans, as happened in the real (that is, fictional) Jurassic Park. 

A ‘new normal’ is around the corner. Pharmaceutical firms are developing vaccines tailored to emerging variants within 100 days, and this process already is under way for omicron. The U.S. Army soon will conduct clinical trials of an mRNA vaccine to protect against all corona viruses, including future variants. To quote Pete Seeger: we shall overcome. 

Robert A. Michaels, PhD, CEP
The writer is president and toxicological health risk assessor at RAM TRAC Corporation in Schenectady, New York.

Former treasurer of Frewsburg Central School District pleads guilty to stealing nearly $7,000 in school funds

On January 7, 2022, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli and District Attorney Jason Schmidt announced the resolution of another case of "jobbery"* with the arrest and guilty plea of Angela Smoulder, former Treasurer of the Frewsburg Central School District, for stealing nearly $7,000 in funds raised by students to support their extra-classroom activities. Full restitution was recovered from Ms. Smoulder. 

Comptroller DiNapoli said “Ms. Smoulder betrayed the students she was obligated to serve by stealing money that they raised themselves to help pay for their extracurricular activities,” DiNapoli also thanked "Chautauqua District Attorney Schmidt and his office for partnering with us, bringing this corruption to light, and recovering the stolen money for the students of Frewsburg.”

The Comptroller press release noted that "Smoulder, 27, stole $6,982 in cash from the Frewsburg Central School District’s extra-classroom activities account and attempted to conceal her theft by substituting the stolen funds with checks from the school district retirees’ health insurance account, among other things. Students raise and spend extra-classroom activity funds to promote the education and morale of all students and to finance extracurricular activities. Those funds are collected by students from several sources, such as admissions, membership dues and sales. The thefts occurred between March and August 2019. 

"The school district superintendent reported the theft after Smoulder resigned. The Comptroller’s forensic analysis of the scholarship account revealed Smoulder’s manipulation. 

"Smoulder pled guilty to a petit larceny, a class A misdemeanor and paid full restitution to the district in the amount of $6,982.42.

"The arrest is a result of a joint investigation between the State Comptroller’s Office and Chautauqua District Attorney Jason Schmidt." 

* The Oxford International Dictionary defines "Jobbery" as "the practice of using a public office or position of trust for one's own gain or advantage."

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Since taking office in 2007, DiNapoli has fought public corruption and encourages the public to help fight fraud and abuse. Allegations of fraud involving taxpayer money can be submitted by calling the toll-free Fraud Hotline at 1-888-672-4555, by mailing a report to the Office of the State Comptroller, Division of Investigations, 8th Floor, 110 State St., Albany, NY 12236, or by emailing a report addressed to Investigations@osc.ny.gov.

Concerning filing motions to reargue and motions to renew

In this decisions the Appellate Division explains that "[n]o appeal lies from the denial of a motion to reargue (see Budin v Davis, 172 AD3d 1676, 1679 [2019]) and, therefore, the only issue before it in its considering this action was the propriety of the Supreme Court's denial of petitioner's motion to renew. 

In this regard, said the court, "[a] motion to renew must be based on new facts not previously offered that would change the prior determination and must contain a reasonable justification for the failure to present such facts on the original motion."

A motion to renew, opined the Appellate Division, is not a second chance to remedy inadequacies that occurred in failing to exercise due diligence in the first instance, and the denial of a motion to renew will be disturbed only where it constituted an abuse of the trial court's discretion" (Walden v Varricchio, 195 AD3d 1111, 1114 [2021] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]; see Williams v Annucci, 175 AD3d 1677, 1679 [2019]). 

Accordingly, the Appellate Division concluded that there no abuse of that discretion on the part of the lower court.

Click HEREto access the Appellate Division's decision.

The future disease burden of pandemic Covid-19 for individuals, communities, and society

The Environmental Claims Journal, on December 16, 2021, posted Dr. Robert A. Michaels' article entitled The future disease burden of pandemic Covid-19 for individuals, communities, and society. Click HEREto access the Journal's post on the Internet.

This article is also available for download as a pre-print at no charge on ResearchGate by clicking HERE.

Below is the abstract of Dr. Michaels' article. 

Abstract

Pandemic Covid-19 has exposed tension between personal choice and public health policy. Vaccination has damped pandemic inertia in the U.S., but emergence of highly infectious variants such as delta and omicron has increased infection of fully vaccinated people. This worrisome trend justifies vaccine booster eligibility and access for all vaccinated people in a timeframe responding to waning protection.

In restricting booster eligibility, US FDA and CDC statements indicate failure to consider that SARS-CoV-2 might be persistent, meaning that it might remain dormant in immune-privileged “refugia” such as the central nervous system of previously infected people, even if their Covid-19 symptoms had been mild or non-existent. Opportunistic re-activation of dormant viruses can cause severe illness, as in childhood chickenpox producing adult shingles decades later.

External re-infection is unnecessary. Consistent with the “precautionary principle,” the overriding FDA and CDC public health priority should be to prevent as many SARS-CoV-2 infections as possible, not tolerate them, assuming optimistically that they will not impose major public health and associated economic burdens in the future.

We naturally have focused upon our tragic past losses. We also must focus upon the future, learning from Covid-19 to manage pro-actively the inevitable next pandemic.