Voice of America is an international news and broadcast organization serving Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, the Middle East and Balkan countries
Learning English use a limited vocabulary and are read at a slower pace than VOA's other English broadcasts. Previously known as Special English.(2020/09/23 09:30)
Many schoolteachers in the United States are choosing not to return to the classroom this year because of the coronavirus health crisis. Now, schools around the country are looking to find substitute teachers. In some places, officials are lowering requirements to help get substitutes in classrooms.
Several states have seen an increase in educators seeking retirement or taking time off from work. That is putting more pressure on school workers in places that were already dealing with a lack of teachers and substitutes.
Among those leaving is Kay Orzechowicz, an English teacher at northwest Indiana’s Griffith High School. The 57-year-old had hoped to teach for a few more years. But she felt her school’s leadership did not fully support using recommended social distancing rules. She worried the school would not provide enough safety equipment to students and teachers.
With the technology requirements and the pressure to record classes on video, Orzechowicz said it “just wasn’t what I signed up for when I became a teacher.”
Teachers in at least three states have died after being infected with COVID-19 since the start of the new school year. It is unclear how many teachers in the U.S. have become ill with the disease. But Mississippi alone has reported at least 604 cases among teachers and other school workers.
Some teachers could face pressure to return to the classroom after being exposed to the coronavirus. The administration of President Donald Trump has declared teachers to be “critical infrastructure workers.”
Officials in Indiana report that they have received more than 600 teacher retirements since July. Studies suggest more teachers could retire this year than usual, said Trish Whitcomb. She is executive director of the Indiana Retired Teachers Association.
Whitcomb said, “I’ve gotten more (teachers) calling me back saying, ‘Well, I’m going to go ahead and retire.’ Some still wanted to go back in the classroom, but they didn’t think the risk was worth it. They looked at their grandkids and the life they have, and I think they’re saying, ‘I’m just not going to do it.’”
In Salt Lake County, Utah, more than 80 teachers have either resigned or retired early because of concerns about COVID-19 in schools. More than half of those happened in one of the county’s five school districts, Granite School District. All of the district’s teachers who left were fined $1,000 for failing to let officials know they were leaving at least 30 days before.
Mike McDonough is president of the Granite Education Association teachers’ union. He said teachers are resigning over concerns about how the schools have reopened. In Granite, most students will return to in-person classes for four days a week. There are few ways for teachers to give only online instruction.
Some teachers waited to leave until just before school started in hopes that the district would change its reopening plan. But leaving the classroom was “the only way to keep themselves safe,” McDonough said.
He added, “I have heard from teachers that are just heartbroken to leave the classroom, but they didn’t feel safe going back. They don’t want that level of risk, and they have no other choice but to get out.”
Education leaders in states including Arizona, Kansas, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Texas have said they are preparing for worsening teacher shortages.
The Missouri Board of Education has made it easier to become a substitute teacher under an emergency rule. Instead of 60 hours of college credit, new substitutes now only need to have a high school diploma, complete a 20-hour online training class and pass a background check.
The state of Iowa also eased college class requirements and lowered the working age for new substitutes.
In Connecticut, college students have been asked to step in as substitutes. Michele Femc-Bagwell is director of the teacher education program at the University of Connecticut. She said the school has been getting requests to use fifth-year graduate students as substitute teachers. But class and work responsibilities limit their availability to one day a week.
Many people who work as substitutes are retired teachers, such as 67-year-old Margaret Henderson. But the former teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, says she will not return as she had planned.
Henderson said, “I don’t want to get called into a classroom where a teacher has called out because of the virus or to quarantine. And we know that’s going to happen more and more.”
I’m Jonathan Evans.
Casey Smith reported this story for the Associated Press. Jonathan Evans adapted it story for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.
exposed – adj. not protected or covered
graduate – adj. of or relating to a course of studies taken at a college or university after earning a bachelor's degree or other first degree
infrastructure – n. the basic equipment and structures such as roads and bridges that are needed for a country, region, or organization to function properly
quarantine – v. to keep (a person or animal) away from others to prevent a disease from spreading (2020/09/23 07:01)
Health officials around the world are concerned about rising numbers of new coronavirus cases. But another highly infectious virus will soon be returning to Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. That virus is influenza, commonly called the flu.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about eight percent of Americans get influenza each year. The flu season takes place during the winter months. During that time, hundreds of thousands of people are sick enough with the flu to be admitted to hospitals.
This year, with the U.S. health system already dealing with COVID-19, medical experts are concerned about the return of the flu.
"We really, really want to emphasize the potential for disaster," said Jeanne Marrazzo. She directs the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s board of directors.
Experts are urging Americans to get the flu vaccine in an effort to ease the pressure on healthcare workers and hospitals.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that as many as 61,000 people die from influenza in the United States each year. It adds that U.S. hospitals treat as many as 810,000 Americans infected with the flu. People older than age 65 or those who have other health conditions are at greatest risk.
But the United States and much of the world is already fighting the novel coronavirus. The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center reports that nearly 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.
"We still are on what we think of as a razor's edge with regard to COVID," Marrazzo noted.
As summer comes to an end, "I expect it to get worse," said Michael Mina. He is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Rates of many respiratory diseases, including flu and the common cold, increase in autumn and winter. The reasons are not entirely understood, but the viruses that cause the diseases may spread more easily in colder, drier air than in warmer, wet weather.
Also, people spend less time outside the home in the winter and more time close to each other, often breathing the same air. Children may pass around viruses more readily in schools than when they are home for the summer and spending time outside.
It remains unclear how much the weather affects the spread of the coronavirus. Scientists are actively studying the question. The coronavirus is related to other viruses that cause the common cold. Mina noted, "what we see with those viruses is that come October, November, December they skyrocket."
"I hope that for some reason this virus behaves differently, but I don't anticipate that it will," he added.
Officials: flu shots are very important
While a safe coronavirus vaccine is in the future, U.S. health officials are urging everyone to get a flu shot as soon as possible.
In most years, not even half of all adult Americans get vaccinated. The rate is even lower among minority groups. That is in part because getting a flu shot does not guarantee protection against the virus.
"Influenza vaccine in a good year is generally between 40 and 60 percent effective," said Walter Orenstein associate director of the Emory University Vaccine Center in Georgia. "Not perfect, but it's a lot better than zero percent effective, which is (what you get) if you don't get vaccinated."
The vaccine helps, even if it does not stop the infection, noted William Schaffner. He is an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
"Even if you get influenza after you've had the vaccine, that illness is likely to be less severe," he said. "You're less likely to need to go to the emergency room, less likely to be hospitalized, less likely to die."
That is good news for patients, and it also helps the health care system. "The last thing we need is a huge surge of flu cases now," he added.
Vaccine manufacturers are expecting to produce a record supply of nearly 200 million doses of flu vaccine this year. However, the conditions making flu shots so important are the same conditions that make them harder to provide to everyone, Schaffner noted.
Fewer people will get flu shots at work this year because more people are working from home. Many public health centers are closed or are working on COVID-19 cases. Many people are avoiding doctor's offices completely out of fear of getting infected there.
Drug stores and supermarkets are still good places to get vaccinated, noted Jeanne Marrazzo of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. "People will probably need to be perhaps a little bit more creative," she said.
The steps taken to limit the spread of the coronavirus, such as covering one’s face, hand washing and social distancing, all seem to work against the flu.
The World Health Organization says these measures are likely to have led to the mild flu season currently coming to a close in the Southern Hemisphere.
I’m Ashley Thompson.
And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.
Steve Baragona reported this story for VOANEWS. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
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Words in This Story
hemisphere – n. a half of the Earth, usually divided between the northern and southern halves
emphasize –v. to give special importance or attention to something
razor's edge –n. a dangerous position in which two different things are carefully balanced
respiratory –adj. related to breathing and the lungs
humid –adj. when there is a lot of gaseous water in the air
skyrocket –v. to go up or increase at a very fast rate
anticipate –v. to expect something to happen in the future
dose –n. an amount of a medicine needed to give a good result
mild –n. not severe or strong
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. (2020/09/23 06:59)
A rights group has called on social media companies to save images and video that could be used as evidence to investigate serious crimes.
Companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are removing material thought to be offensive or illegal, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. It noted that such material could be presented as evidence at trials for persons accused of war crimes or other charges.
The group said it understands why social media companies see the need to remove some material, including content that supports or incites violence. But it is urging the companies to collect and save such material for possible use in criminal cases.
In addition to using human monitors, social media services are increasingly turning to machine learning methods to remove content that violates their policies. Human rights researchers fear that the use of machines, without human intervention, could lead to important evidence being lost or destroyed.
Belkis Wille is a Human Rights Watch researcher and helped prepare the new report. She told VOA that videos and images from social media are often used in many of her group’s investigations.
“What we started to notice in the last few years, particularly since 2017, is that we would see a video of let’s say soldiers executing someone, or an (Islamic State) propaganda video. If 15 minutes or an hour later we went back to look at a video again, it was suddenly gone,” Wille said.
The report noted video evidence collected from social media by the international investigative group Bellingcat. These videos showed a Russian “Buk” ground-to-air missile launcher. International investigators say the device was used to fire the weapon that brought down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17. The flight crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on the airplane were killed.
The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team later presented the videos as evidence. Russia has denied involvement in the incident.
Belkis Wille said that during Bellingcat’s investigation, the group went to look for evidence it had found earlier on social media, but the material had been removed.
Governments are putting increasing pressure on online companies to remove offensive, illegal or dangerous material from the internet. Social media companies promised to do more to block extremist content after the live-streaming on Facebook of a terror attack on two Islamic centers in New Zealand in 2019.
Fifty-one people died in the attack.
Social media companies have told Human Rights Watch they are required by law to remove material that could be offensive or incite terror, violence or hatred.
Wille told VOA that the removal systems are now so effective “that they are taking down content the minute it gets posted. So, no user actually gets to see that content before it comes down.”
Syrian Archive is using social media videos to document possible war crimes, including the use of chemical weapons. The rights group has also raised concerns about important evidence being removed from social media before it can be saved and examined.
Wille said that one solution could be the creation of an international registry or archive system for collecting online images and video.
The people responsible for this record-keeping system would decide who should get access to the content, she said. The collected material would be kept for “investigative purposes.”
Human Rights Watch says it is in talks with social media companies about creating such an archive.
I’m Bryan Lynn.
Henry Ridgwell reported this story for VOA News. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.
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Words in This Story
content – n. information contained in a piece of writing, a speech, a movie or on the internet
monitor – n. a person whose job it is to watch or notice particular things
notice – v. to see or become aware of something
live-streaming – n. broadcasting content live on the internet
post – v. to publish a piece of information on the internet
access – n. the right or opportunity to use or see something (2020/09/23 06:56)
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