By Lisa Shumaker and Joseph Ax
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago officials canceled classes in the nation’s third-largest school district on Wednesday amid a dispute with the teachers’ union, the latest disruption to U.S. education and life as the Omicron variant spurs a record-setting COVID-19 surge.
The move came after the teachers’ union voted late on Tuesday to return to remote learning and pushed for more rigorous safety protocols, citing concerns about the rapid spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant that has upended air travel, Broadway shows and back-to-office plans in recent weeks.
The rolling seven-day average number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States hit 540,000, a new high for an eighth consecutive day on Tuesday. The country shattered global records for a single day with nearly 1 million new infections on Monday, according to a Reuters tally.
Those staggering numbers have led many companies and school officials to reconsider plans for returning to work and classes after the holiday break.
While most public school districts nationwide opted to open their doors, cities including Milwaukee, Atlanta and Detroit either implemented online instruction or delayed back-to-school due to staff shortages and Omicron concerns.
Chicago officials including Mayor Lori Lightfoot have been pressing to keep classrooms open, citing low hospitalization rates among the city’s children.
The Chicago Teachers Union urged its members to stay out of the classroom and work remotely through Jan. 18, or return sooner if the city reached minimum health-safety thresholds set last year as a condition for in-person learning.
The union has called for school-based coronavirus testing and mandatory student vaccinations.
After 73% of rank-and-file union members voted in favor of working remotely, the school district said classes for Chicago’s 340,000 students would instead be canceled.
Halle Quezada, a third-grade teacher in Chicago who has two children, ages 4 and 6, in the system, said she is frustrated the district has not taken more steps to address risks posed by the virus.
Her immunocompromised husband spent more than a week in the hospital last fall after contracting a breakthrough COVID-19 case, and she is desperate not to repeat the experience.
“Right now I don’t trust the system to protect my children,” said Quezada, 34, who pulled her kids from school this week even as she went into her classroom to teach.
“The difference between me and my kids is that I know I can wear an KN95 mask all day – I didn’t even take it off for lunch,” she said in a phone interview.
RISING HOSPITALIZATIONS
Health experts are keeping a nervous on eye on COVID hospitalizations, which have risen 45% in the past seven days and stand at over 111,000, a figure not seen since January 2021, when the nation recorded a record number of COVID-19 deaths.
So far, deaths have held steady at about 1,300 on average each day. Health experts say Omicron appears less likely to cause severe illness than previous variants, although far more easily transmitted.
Nevertheless, public health officials have warned that the sheer volume of Omicron cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals, some of which are already struggling to handle COVID-19 patients, primarily among the unvaccinated.
Maryland is under a 30-day state of emergency as hospitalizations reached a new high on Tuesday. Delaware, Illinois, Ohio, Vermont and Washington, D.C., have also reported record numbers of hospitalized COVID patients in recent days.
President Joe Biden pleaded with Americans to push past frustration at the unrelenting pandemic and persevere in efforts to limit the spread of the virus.
“These coming weeks are going to be challenging,” Biden said in a video statement released on Wednesday. “We’re going to get through it together. We have the tools to protect people from severe illness due to Omicron if people choose to use the tools.”
(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York, Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington, and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Writing by Maria Caspani; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Bill Berkrot)
