Chicago City Wire

Government watchdog Wirepoints is questioning what it sees as the federal government’s growing propensity for presenting the Delta variant as being even more dangerous for children than its own data and research suggests.

“The actual number of kids staying in hospitals with either confirmed or suspected COVID topped out at 70 in September, far below the pandemic peak of 113 kids in October 2020,” Wirepoints recently posted on its website. “Today, child hospitalizations are below the pandemic's average. That's according to data from the CDC.”

Even in the face of surging infection rates across certain parts of the country, Time.com reports that as of late August only about 400 children had died of COVID-19 since the pandemic hit the USA, and most pediatric hospitals have seen no more than a handful at a time.

In addition, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) vice chair recently went public with his declaration that there is no evidence that the Delta variant is causing more severe disease than previous strains of the virus, with less than 2% of children who have caught the virus during the Delta wave having landed in the hospital, or roughly the same numbers as during earlier phases of the pandemic.

In places where the numbers have been on the rise, Leary has been a simple suggestion.

“Use the mitigation measures we know work,” he added. “Wear masks when you’re around other people, particularly in enclosed spaces….Avoid places where lots of people are congregating.”

Here in Illinois, state Sen. John Curran (R-Lemont) took to the floor at a Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) meeting to grill Illinois School Board of Education (ISBE) officials about the inner workings of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s school mask mandate.

“Does the board plan to file administrative rules to implement EL 2021-18 or the revised public health guidance for schools?” Curran quizzed ISBE deputy legal officer Kristen Kennedy. “If plans are in motion, when should this committee expect to see a rulemaking? If plans are not in motion then please aid the committee in understanding the board’s legal reasoning for not following administrative rules.”

Later, Curran raised the issue of Timothy Christian being one of the several schools recently placed on probation by the ISBE over its resistance to the governor’s latest mask mandate. Curran said the legal actions now being taken by institutions like Timothy Christian are to be expected.

“I would say that’s not surprising that you’re now dragged into court again because this on its face is a very heavy-handed tactic that does not afford any due process,” he said. “You have a process in the rule … that lays out a due process timeline and calls for meaningful discourse between a school district and the department and really also allows cooler heads to prevail, which I think is why you have some time markers in the process. I would certainly encourage the department and quite frankly ask the department in making these decisions they should be following whether the school is private or public.”

With schools across the state having only reopened for in-person learning a few weeks ago, as of now four public schools and nine private schools have been penalized for not complying with the governor’s order, with the private schools having been stripped of recognition status that could bring a lack of government funding and being declared ineligible for ISHA-sanctioned sporting competition.

The four public schools have been placed on probation.