The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
elected Republican Charlie Baker as governor for his competency, but
it has been lacking since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Massachusetts experienced one of the worst outbreaks at the beginning
of the pandemic. Death rates were particularly high in the initial
wave. During the late spring Baker joined other governors in
reopening the state. Since reducing cases to a daily low of 200 in
late June, he allowed them to creep steadily higher; 500 by August,
750 in October. From 754 on October 1st , the case number
exploded to 2,113 by November 6th. The governor barely
blinked. Did he roll back his opening? No. Instead he
imposed an irrelevant 9:30pm curfew on restaurants, liquor stores,
gyms, and movie theaters. Are these locations
safe during the day and evening, but dangerous late at night? As a
companion to the curfew Baker also create a statewide mask rule.
People are required to wear masks in all public spaces. Baker
deserves credit for implementing this policy, but he shouldn't have
waited so long.
Baker has been especially forceful regarding education. Everyone wants schools to fully reopen, but the policies of the President and the Governor, and other governors, have made this impossible. They refused to implement polices to control the virus, so students can safely return to school. Charlie Baker may openly disdain the President, but they share a similar goal; open schools for political gain.
Despite the ineptitude of his response to the coronavirus pandemic, Baker repeatedly pressured schools to bring students back into the buildings full time. During the summer Baker asked schools to determine for themselves whether they wanted to reopen as online, hybrid, or in person. When it became clear that not enough schools were planning a full in person reopening, he pressured them to change course days before their deadline to certify their fall plans.
On August 12th the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released their first collection of town by town data on the coronavirus, along with a map for public use.
The original map showed towns colored with one of four colors. Grey indicated less than 5 total coronavirus cases. Green showed less than 4 cases per 100k people. Yellow meant between 4 to 8 cases per 100,000 people. Red said more than 8 cases for every hundred thousand people. Towns could be both gray and green, a source of confusion. Grey should have indicated zero active cases.
The August 12th map (with data from 7/26 – 8/8) showed only 9 red towns, approximately 35 yellow towns, and about 50 green towns. At that time Massachusetts recorded a daily case load of 350 coronavirus infections, up from a low of 200 in early July. Deaths were fifteen per day, the lowest since the start of the pandemic. These numbers held steady until the September 9th report. The number of red towns expanded to twelve, with about fifty yellow towns. That was right before schools reopened in the fall. The New York Times reported about the same number of daily cases in September as the prior month, but cases were about to start a dramatic climb. By the report on September 30th, 25 towns were marked red on the map. A week later over 40 towns were red. By October 22nd, Massachusetts contained roughly 75 towns blotted red. The NYT reported over 800 daily cases, with the number escalating swiftly. The following week The Massachusetts Department of Public Health delayed the data by a day, and didn't publish any information except the raw data on their website.
The next following week The Department of Public Health changed their system. They complicated the key, rendering it unreadable. Gray is still good, green is still fine, yellow is still a warning, and red is still danger, but it's needlessly complicated. It doesn't improve on the basic warning system. Why they did it was obvious. Even though the state page refused to publish their helpful maps, WCVB kept taking the data and making their own. The map, with the new rating system, reduced the red towns to just over fifteen, a massive reduction. The new ratings implied that the state had rapidly overcome the pandemic. But over those two weeks of unpublished maps, the number of new cases doubled from 1,070 on October 23rd to 2,113 on November 6th. The number of cases doubled as the number of dangerous towns shrunk by 80%! This isn't an academic complaint. This is the graphic the Governor of Massachusetts uses to help the public act safely. Lives were put at risk by Baker's disinformation. Unfortunately for the PR spin of the Charlie Baker, two weeks later his new map showed over fifty red towns again.
The best case scenario for the change: the DPH thought the original map wasn't detailed enough to demonstrate the risk of coronavirus in each town. The new map tried to incorporate population, which is strange, because the old map already did. The old map assigned population by a percentage of the total population. The new key might be more useful for towns under 10,000 residents, but it also might fail to emphasize the dangers of the coronavirus. The new rating system also changed the percentage of population rankings from the original.
There is a better system. Change gray zero and add two more colors. In the original key, red indicated 8 or more cases per 100,000. Massachusetts could have changed red to 8 – 12, and added two other colors for 12 – 16, and 16+. These changes would have indicated the severity of certain areas, while retaining the same general information in a readable format.
They didn't implement these changes, because public information wasn't the point.
The reason why the maps were limited to four colors initially was this. According to Baker gray and green towns should return to in person learning. Yellow schools should use a hybrid model. Red schools should practice all online learning.
In late September, the Massachusetts commissioner of elementary and secondary education sent a letter to 16 gray/green districts that were still teaching remotely. He threatened them if they did not change their practices.
In late October, as cases rose, the Governor continued the pressure.
In November the Secretary of Education announced that gray, green, and yellow schools should have in person learning, while red zones should use the hybrid model. Charlie Baker agreed, disregarding previous state guidance. Then he visited Carlisle Public School for a PR victory lap. He visited a town which has about five thousand residents, and a low rate of 4.5 cases per 100,000 (it's rated gray according to the state). He used a photo op to pressure yellow and red towns to bring their students back.
The greatest attempts to force students back into school are these. One, though Massachusetts recommends six feet of distance for safety in public, Charlie Baker said schools only needed to put three feet between students.
Also, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said, “If a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, their close contacts will be defined as only those who have been within 6 feet of distance of the individual for at least 15 minutes while the person was infectious.” Some school districts have interpreted this to mean the following. Even if a teacher is in a room with an infectious student for an hour, they are NOT considered a close contact, because they were not within six feet of them for fifteen minutes. Under this understanding teachers and students may not even be notified if someone in the room was later found to be contagious with the coronavirus.
The day before Thanksgiving, Massachusetts recorded 3,395 new cases, the highest in state history. Thankfully mortality had not followed a similar pattern as the early months of the pandemic. Medical solutions have alleviated the worst of the symptoms, greatly reducing mortality. Hospitalizations are still significantly beneath the May peak. Deaths are only up to a daily 25 since the low of 15. But new data indicates that coronavirus leads to chronic conditions like fatigue, brain fog, and heart palpitations, along with permanent damage to internal organs like the brain and heart. Massachusetts could be setting an example for the rest of the country, but currently the governor is to concerned with optics, and using contrived data to pressure school districts to return to unsafe buildings.
Recent:
Fallout 4: The Fall and Rise of the Commonwealth
Relevant:
The Presidential Events: October 2020
Campaign Reform first, Ranked Choice Voting second, and Nothing Will Fundamentally Change, third
Amesbury Additional: Public Forum on the Amesbury Elementary School
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