WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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By Dr. Katelyn Jetelina.

Your Local Epidemiologist. August 10, 2022. Reprinted with permission.

School is starting. And, with it, the contentious debate on what schools should and should not do. While the pandemic ravages on, the landscape continues to morph, and because of that, every subsequent school year has looked very different (hopefully for the better).

Unfortunately, student absences continue. As seen in London, (BELOW) students’ absences continue to be higher than before the pandemic. They were especially high at the end of this school year when BA.5 took hold. (Editor’s note: this was true of the White Plains City School District, too).

We know this is partially driven by reinfections, as children have the highest reinfection rate compared to any other age group.

(Source Kit Yates)

It’s imperative that schools remain open, but they continue to seem stuck between “do everything” and “do nothing.” 

How many layers can a school feasibly implement given pandemic fatigue, limited resources, strong opinions, and differing risk calibrations?

The answer is multi-level; it requires a balance of tradeoffs from students, parents, teachers, schools, and the community. Our primary goal should be to maximize the number of days children are present. This can be accomplished many ways, but I think there are three buckets schools should really focus on.

Back-to-school vaccination campaign

We need strong, universal vaccine campaigns at schools.

Parents report that schools, pediatricians, and health departments are the most trusted sources of information about vaccines. Schools can also significantly improve access to vaccines, as 38% of parents say they do not have enough info on where their kid can get vaccinated. A fall back-to-school campaign could really help move the needle for vaccinations, and thus school absences. And not just for COVID, but other vaccine preventable diseases.

• COVID-19: The number of children vaccinated against COVID-19 remains abysmally low. (Only 10% of 5-11 year olds and 27% of 12-17 years olds are up to date.) Vaccines are safe, they prevent infections (especially within a few months of vaccination), prevent severe disease, and reduce risk of long COVID. But parents have a lot of great questions; we need to anticipate concerns.
• Flu. The flu season in Australia just wrapped up, and it wasn’t pretty.This is notable because, historically, Southern Hemisphere patterns predict what is to come in the Northern hemisphere. (We’ve been worried about a “twin-demic” since COVID-19 began, but it hasn’t happened yet. We are not sure why.) We should heed Australia’s warning and prepare for the worst.

• Other routine vaccines. New York is strongly warning parents about a dip in routine vaccinations. For example, 13.8% of children have not been vaccinated against polio. This reflects patterns we’ve seen nationally and internationally with other routine vaccinations, too. We cannot lose decades-long progress towards eliminating vaccine-preventable diseases.

We can reimagine how vaccines and information reach students and parents.

For example, the Teens for Vaccines campaign in Detroit was highly successful by empowering student ambassadors.

A school district in Florida recognized that active communication and education promoted vaccine confidence and uptake, so they sent text reminders, posted on social media, and provided credible information. Los Angeles School District even had a TikTok campaign.

Ventilation and filtration

Schools need to upgrade their ventilation and filtration systems.

This is one of the most powerful tools we have to curb COVID-19 and other viruses because it happens in the background—it’s an institutional-level intervention that doesn’t require the teachers, parents, or students to do anything. Unfortunately, a small proportion of schools report using these strategies, especially in rural and mid-poverty schools. Many administrators aren’t aware that federal funding is available for ventilation improvements.

Layman wording on how to improve ventilation and filtration is difficult to find. I worked with Dr. Whitney Robinson and Katie Harper, fellow epidemiologists, on a one pager that outlines available strategies and how to test effectiveness. This may help.

Testing and isolating

Now that everyone is eligible for vaccines, and treatments (monoclonal antibodies, antivirals and Evusheild) are available for high risk family members, a more targeted approach to testing, isolating, and masking in the upcoming school year is reasonable:

• Testing. Sick, symptomatic kids should stay home. At-home or at-school antigen tests would be a great tool to use for this. (Do not use PCR tests, as these could stay positive for weeks).
• Quarantining. Attending school far outweighs benefits of quarantining for a respiratory virus that is out of control in the community. It’s reasonable (and overdue) to remove quarantine requirements.
• Isolation. The ideal scenario is that a child tests-to-exit isolation using antigen tests. But this can mean a lot of school missed (and a lot of work missed for parents), with the average infection lasting 8-10 days.
• The CDC says people can leave isolation after 5 days if they remain positive as long as they mask. If children need to go back to school at that time, it’s certainly reasonable and should be expected that kids mask if they are still positive.
• Masks.
• Masks are effective to the wearer. They are even more effective if everyone is masking.
• If a school is in an area of high transmission, it’s certainly reasonable to mask to reduce transmission and, thus, reduce missing school.
• However, for that strategy to work, the wearer must mask everywhere else in the community. I don’t think it makes sense for a school to mandate masks if the larger community does not do so either. We shouldn’t ask students to hold down the fort if the larger community hasn’t also committed either.

Other random thoughts

Preparedness needs to be the name of the game. Schools need a plan in case we do get another Omicron-like event or if there’s is a big superspreader event, like a homecoming dance.

There need to be very important conversations about normalizing decisions around masking, even if not required. Very important conversations may also need to ensue if a child is high risk in a classroom, so they, too, can attend in person learning.

Bottom line

This pandemic landscape continues to change and, with it, we should adapt. But if we continue to fail to act, children will continue to have their education disrupted by COVID19. There are a number of measures schools can put in place to maximize the number of days children are in school so they can have a safe and successful school year.

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 CON EDISON HOLDS SUSTAINABLE WESTCHESTER SUPPLY RATE FOR MOST CUSTOMERS IN JULY GOES UP NOW IN AUGUST

DELIVERY WIRES HUM KILLERWATTS AT 15 CENTS PER KILOWATT HOUR.

AC AT 80 DEGREES DOUBLES POWER BILL IN 90-IN-THE-SHADE-SUMMER

NO NEW SUSTAINABLE RATE YET FROM SUSTAINABLE WESTCHESTER.

GRID REWARDS PROGRAM INTRODUCED TO HELP CUSTOMERS SAVE POWER COSTS

WPCNR THE POWER STORY. By John F. Bailey. August 9, 2022

Power consumption hit an all-time high in the month of July  in Westchester County.

Inflation  forced customers to purchase less for necessities like gas and food who are now Buck-smacked with doubling power bills in soon to double once more if the heat keeps on coming.

Power bills doubled this past month of July for a Sustainable Customer directly attributable to 95 degree in the shade-plus average temperatures which have scorched Westchester for 9 days.

The air conditioning has been humming non stop and the Con Ed Delivery charges delivering the juice 24/7 at 15 cents a kilowatt hour purchased.

The Con Edison Media Relations Department confirmed to WPCNR today that the Sustainable Westchester Green Energy Rate of 7.48 cents per kilowatt hour was kept in effect on Sustainable Westchester customers, as well as I believe the Sustainable basic rate (non green exclusive sources).

 WPCNR asked Con Edison Media Relations why Con Edison did not charge a higher rate than 7.48 cents for Green Energy for Sustainable Westchester Customers (not matching the market rate for July, which in mid July a Con Edison consumer representative said was averaging 9 to 10 cents kilowatt hour.

A Con Edison spokesperson in a written state answered:

My question is: on my Con Ed bill the 7.48 cents green rate charged by Constellation Energy the previous Constellation supply charge is still in effect. — is this because Con Edison was able to supply electricity at a rate very close to the 7.48 rate and chose to honor the 7.48 cent an hour charged in June as a good will courtesy to Sustainable customers?  

Constellation New Energy was the supplier on the bill provided in your email. You will be a Con Edison full service customer on your next bill.

My second question is why is the “Delivery Charge” up to 14.9 cents?

The delivery rate reflects higher delivery charges in the summer months. Delivery rates are set by the New York Public Service Commission.

Sustainable Westchester asked to explain why the 7.48 cents/rate was still charged in July saving about $60, wrote in a statement:

“ The current contract expired on June 30th and as such depending upon folks billing cycle (meter reads) many (to most) will still see the Westchester Power rates (and Constellation) on their bills in July.

That said, most (to all participants) will see their August bills reflect Con Edison isupply and supply rates.

We cannot speak to the intel you received from ConEd that the kWh rate (once switched to them) will reflect and increase vs.the Westchester Power prior contract fixed-rate.

While that would be our educated guess, we cannot confirm that nor predict where their rates might go.

We do hope to be able to have something to share (and a contracted rate by September as you suggest). That said, we are not in a position to confirm that today.”

That being said, we do have news to share about our GridRewards program. The residential demand response program executed with our partners Logical Buildings has been particularly this summer with unprecedented high temperatures and the resulting demand on the grid.

Currently the approximate 2500 Westchester County Con Ed utility area enrolled residents are experiencing a 4-day streak of demand response events. The events provide an opportunity to reduce electricity demand, save energy and money and earn cash rewards for actions taken and overall performance. It surely has newsworthy potential — its environmental impact, ability to reduce usage and earn participants savings and cash is potentially important messaging for your viewers.

GridRewards is the first-of-its-kind residential demand response program in the NorthEast and was piloted in 2020 in partnership with us in Westchester County. You can learn a bit more here https://sustainablewestchester.org/gridrewards/ (on our website) as well as https://www.gridrewards.com/ (Logical Buildings website for the program).

Background:

That rate to create electricity for customers who are not members of the Sustainable Westchester power cooperative (White Plains is a member), is set based on an average of a month of Con Ed costs to buy or create the electricity. The delivery rate is dependent on the demand running through the system.

  Sustainable paused for a time to  resubmit Requests for Proposals for a new  flat rate going out perhaps one, two, or three years and hired the national leader in energy auctions to find Sustainable a rate that works to keep green energy competitive.

The electric supply companies Sustainable had gone to (apparently on their own not using again Transparent Energy Systems the negotiator of the previous contract), came back with rates that all were higher than last year regardless of the markets they were serving from the very small to the very large.

The pause was still going on , just  when Sustainable Westchester turned over its customers temporarily to Con Edison while it searched for a sustainable Kilowatthour price it could live with (and is still in the process of negotiating).

Meanwhile the cost of Con Edison delivering electricity through its systems soared to 15 cents a kilowatt hour. If you  have an airconditioning system or an window unit, keeping that full house zonal system on will still double your consumption of kilowatt hours in this relentless heat wave, even killing certain zones in your house you do not use.

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WPCNR ALBANY ROUNDS. From The Governor’s Office. April 9, 2022:

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the issuance of new guidance for counties throughout New York to support the development of Domestic Terrorism Prevention Plans which each county and the City of New York are responsible for developing.

The Governor discussed the importance of devising Domestic Terrorism Prevention Plans during today’s virtual remarks as part of a two-day Threat Assessment and Management Summit hosted by the State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services and its Office of Counter Terrorism at the State Emergency Preparedness Center in Oriskany.

“In the wake of the horrific domestic terror attack in my hometown of Buffalo, I committed to New Yorkers that we will confront the scourge of domestic terror head-on,” Governor Hochul said. “New York is providing local governments with the tools they need to address the threat of domestic terror and targeted violence, so we can prevent tragedies before they even occur. I will never stop fighting to keep New Yorkers safe.” 

DHSES is encouraging localities to develop Threat Assessment and Management (TAM) Teams as part of their Domestic Terrorism Prevention Plans. To assist in creating and operating threat assessment management teams, $10 million will be made available to counties. Such teams shall be comprised of law enforcement, mental health professionals, school officials, and other key stakeholders tasked with identifying, assessing, and mitigating the threat of targeted violence.

Executive Order 18 was issued by Governor Hochul in direct response to the white supremacist act of terror at a Buffalo supermarket in May.

The executive order is specifically designed to fight the troubling surge in domestic terrorism and violent extremism frequently inspired by, planned on and posted about on social media platforms and internet forums.

In part, the executive order calls upon:

1. DHSES to establish a new unit within its Office of Counter Terrorism dedicated to the prevention of domestic terrorism.
2. Every county and the City of New York to develop and maintain a plan to address the threat of domestic terrorism, including racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.
3. New York State Police to establish a new unit within the New York State Intelligence Center (NYSIC) dedicated to tracking domestic violent extremism and increase social media monitoring for investigative leads that may come from the online promotion of violent extremism.

During the two-day summit, state counterterrorism experts are reviewing the newly issued guidance on Domestic Terrorism Prevention plans and state grant funding opportunities, at both the state and federal level, to advance county domestic terrorism planning and TAM team creation efforts. A consultant with expertise in behavioral threat assessment will also provide training on TAM team development.

Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Jackie Bray said, “Domestic terrorism fueled by white supremacy and bigotry is the number one terrorism threat we currently face. Our team in the Office of Counter Terrorism is working around the clock to ensure counties across New York have everything they need to meet the challenge in front of us. Thanks to Governor Hochul’s leadership, together we are working with our partners to make New York a safer place for everyone.”

The recent spike in domestic terror attacks represents one of the most pressing threats to public safety across the United States. In the last decade, domestic terror attacks and plots have tripled nationally. In 2021, there were 73 terrorist attacks and unearthed plots in the United States, including 38 white supremacist and similarly like-minded terrorist attacks and plots.

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WPCNR QUILL & EYESHADE. From Town of Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner. August 9, 2022:

Governor Kathy Hochul has signed legislation yesterday that the town of Greenburgh lobbied for for many years.

The new law will allow  allow local governments to increase the maximum allowable income eligible for a property tax exemption to $50,000 for people who are 65 and older as well as people with disabilities. The measure will increase the current limit set at $29,000 a year for older New Yorkers who live outside of New York City. 

The Greenburgh Town Board, Assessor Edye McCarthy (Editor’s Note, she is former White Plains Assessor) and I have been pushing for this new law for a number of years.

We felt that it was unfair for NYC seniors to get better tax breaks than seniors of Greenburgh.

Am grateful to State Assemblyman Tom Abinanti who also worked very hard to get this legislation approved over many years and to Senator Andrea Stewart Cousins for her advocacy.  This new law will enable more seniors to continue to live in Greenburgh.

It’s our intention to approve this benefit for seniors. 

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WPCNR THE SUNDAY BAILEY. News & Comment by John F. Bailey. The CitizeNetReporter. August 7, 2022:

I rely on baseball statistics as a measure of team and player performance as unerring indications of how a team, its management, its manager, its players “are doin.’”

The reason why baseball stats are so good is that they are unequivocal and ruthless in saying how good or incompetent a player, manager, general manager is.

You never hear a .220 hitting power hitter rationalized by the press saying he’d hit .300 if he was more selective, or took more walks. The consistency of performance tells the truth about how good a club is.

I am puzzled about how meaning of far more important statistics are analyzed, twisted, interpreted, or suppressed to tell a story in the national media and political stadiums, The U.S. Capitol, and the White House Press room.

Tell you what I mean. Friday and Saturday, the recession was declared over when Employment figures of last month showed according to Government Stats, all jobs lost during the Covid pandemic until now were filled and America what was left of it was back to work. To quote today’s Times: “Employers added more than half a million jobs in July and the unemployment rate is at a half century low.”

Just about a week ago, it was lamented that job numbers fell.

Today, Sunday the paper says in its headline “Free Spending, Plenty of  Jobs: A shaky Boom. An unstable economy Erodes confidence.”

How the public feels about economic statistics is influenced a lot by commentary and reinventing what the numbers mean. If it is good for your party and political view to say the economy is bad you say the numbers do not reflect what Joe the Plumber is experiencing.

Friday’s front page headlines essentially saying we are all back to work was  interesting. We do not know how much of this is caused by summer employment, for example which accounts for hires and are not differentiated. 

However it is to political advantage of the administration in power to say “America’s Back to Work and Rolling Again.” 

It does not take into account our reeling street retail outlets across the nation. It does not take into account the millions of workers who have died of covid. One good statistic does not heal the damage done to the country. We need the Big Number picture

By far the most manipulated statistics are the ones put out on covid spread and hospitalizations. By that I mean suppression of key totals.

We are not by any means getting a handle on how serious the 10,000 new infections a month for three straight months in Westchester County are affecting hospitalizations for covid and hospital staff ability to handle the numbers we do not know.

The number of  total hospitalizations for covid a month in Westchester County are not given. We are not told who is getting sick demographically. We are not told how long the average stay is in the hospital when persons are hospitalized. Do they stay 2 days? 4 days? 7 days? And how really almost full I.C.U.’s are affecting hospitals like White Plains Hospital, Phelps Memorial, Westchester Medical Center where the most hospitalizations for covid (46 covid hospitalizations, 87% of I.C.U. occupied) have been.  

Telling us that we had 150 hospitalizations for covid last week in Westchester on 5,000 infections the last two weeks, after 128 infections the first two weeks of July, mean we had 278 hospitalizations in July by simply doubling the figures given the county.

Now how long did they stay in the  hospital? Did short stays not  stress the medical personnel?

If it took as long as 5 days to stabilize a person, how is that extending the medical staffs to  covid pre-vaccination days in 2020?

Without demographic breakdowns, length of stays of hospitalizations, just saying we only had 150 hospitalized in the last two weeks makes us the general public loosen our covid wariness.

But the disease, variant related, is rolling along consistently at the 2,000 plus new infections a week rate for 3 months of May June and July it infects us Saturday and Sunday. We feel symptoms within two days and the at home testing shows them positive they go to get a lab test and BOOM they have covid ractheting up numbers in the middle of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday and Friday.

This first week in August is on track depending on this afternoon report on Saturday (yesterday) covid infections), for close to 2,000 infections again for the first week in August. So if 5,000 infections up to last Monday, for two weeks with 150 hospitalized that is a hospitalization rate of 3% of weekly infections

The totals for the month  of July, 10,298 cases resulted in 156 hospitalizations but no Total hospitalizations for the month given.

Why not? It would seem to me, rough guess you can double that 156 to 300 for the month. for the other first two weeks of July

It is impossible to change human behavior if they do not have reason to do so. If statistics are repressed on hospitalizations without drilling down deep into who is getting it how long it takes to get them out of the hospital (OK, we know most are unvaccinated) but how sick are they getting? How is it affecting staffing and keeping them prepared for the monkeypox infections (44 last Monday) that are ramping up.

My feeling is if the state does not report the complete picture on hospitalizations, my assumption is the complete picture does not instill confidence, and they in the state health department do not want to make us feel bad and stay home and not eat out. The state priority is not to keep the state economy continuing to move, by downplaying covid when it is growing faster week after week for three months exponentially ahead of the the first wave that started last July in Westchester County.

Please tell us real revealing figures that instill confidence! Not hope.

Give the statistics like baseball does, the good, the bad  and the ugly without spin. You cannot based on the Yankees performance since the All-Star Break that they have enough hitting to handle good pitching to win the World Series. They can’t handle good pitching. Statistics show that.

Spinning statistics for political advantage which has been going on for 5 years now is reckless.

It erodes credibility and makes opinion news real and real facts vulnerable to denial, solidifying persons unfound beliefs.

Can we strengthen the clarity of our health performance on the 10,000 a month covid spread we are experiencing, show me I am wrong. Give people confidence you can take care of them.

If you start hitting 200 infections every two weeks you hit 400 for a month and if you hit 300 new infections every two weeks you get 600 hospitalizations a month at the 3% hospitalization rate. Give us the totals. Make projections for us. Instill us with confidence that the health institutions (9 of them in Westchester County) know how to handle this relentless new caseload.

Consumers of news should start taking note of the times when good news numbers today, are debunked as bad news numbers on the same subject the next day. (That happens often.)

That is “Numberganda.”