How History Can Repeat Itself
This is a true story.

It was during the winter when city residents started to sicken and die. At first, the illness was confined to a few people in one neighborhood, but over the next few weeks spread to more people in more places.

The municipal authorities, responsible for the health and welfare of half a million citizens, realized that certain actions must be taken to curb the spread of the epidemic. Aware that disease transmission was enhanced in crowded indoor spaces, they ordered that all restaurants and bars be closed. They also closed theaters, churches, museums and parks, canceled all sporting events, and forbade any large gatherings of people, whether public or private, indoors or out. Citizens were required to remain at home, with few exceptions, and curfews were imposed and enforced. These restrictions were intended to be removed when the epidemic was over.

For the most part, most citizens complied with the lockdown, recognizing the necessity. Many thousands of others, however, did not comply for various reasons. Many felt that it was an unacceptable restriction of their freedom and liberty to forbid them to gather with others, attend church services or sporting events, visit the barbershop, or comply with curfew and quarantine rules. As a result of this non-compliance by a significant percentage of citizens, the epidemic raged out of control in the next few months, and the hospitals and morgues were overwhelmed.

Wealthy citizens who owned out-of-town property left, intending to return when the epidemic was over. Less wealthy citizens with nowhere else to go did not fare as well. The economy collapsed as more and more people could not work, engage in commerce or pay their rent and mortgages. Many more citizens became homeless.

Does any of this sound familiar?

The city was London. The year was 1666.

Now that my tale is told and done, I will leave you with two quotations:
“…there is no new thing under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes 1:9 (KJV)

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
Bill Weisman
Glendale/La Crescenta

Distance Learning Must Continue
It is human nature to hope for the best. When COVID-19 began, we hoped our lockdown would last a week or two, then maybe just a month. Similarly, we hoped that we’d be able to safely gather with our families for the holidays.

Hope helps individuals survive crises, but institutions must prepare for disasters. School districts have plans for fires, earthquakes and even active shooters. Surely we can agree that a pandemic is a disaster. Why then is the Glendale Unified School District unable to commit to a worst case scenario plan for COVID-19?

Local COVID-19 infections are widespread and are likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future, possibly until a vaccine is available to the general public. We are living the COVID-19 disaster; yet GUSD has not extended its distance learning plan. Glendale teachers have been working from home since mid-March; however, when our stop-gap contract expires on Dec. 31, we may be forced back into classrooms in defiance of LA County’s Dept. of Public Health’s recommendations.

Although teachers very much want to be back with students, the only responsible option is for GUSD to continue distance learning, as our neighbors in Burbank have already done. This will give everyone the sense of stability needed during these unsettling times. Keeping teachers and students at home will allow everyone to continue to flatten the curve while COVID-19 infections are at their most widespread, and allow teachers to embrace the rest of the school year without last-minute changes likely to disrupt our ability to teach students. We don’t need to repeat the chaos of the summer when teachers and families didn’t know whether or not students would be on campus until days before school started.

Continuing distance learning is necessary for the stability of our students’ education and the health of our community. We all want classrooms to reopen for all students but cannot responsibly do so until the dangers of COVID-19 pass. It is time for GUSD to take a stand for stability and safety, to extend Glendale teachers’ MOU, and commit to continuing distance learning in 2021.
Taline Arsenian, President
Glendale Teachers Association

The Alarming Spread of the Coronavirus
As a scientist and data analyst, I have been tracking COVID-19 case numbers in LA County for a few months. An increase in case rates in the fall and winter was anticipated by most health experts, but the explosion that has happened in southern and central California in recent weeks is truly alarming. For months since the surge in July, case rates were fairly steady, if still concerningly high. Then, around Halloween, rates started to increase in LA County: in the two weeks after Halloween they doubled. In the three weeks after Halloween they nearly tripled. And as we start to see the test results come in after Thanksgiving week, rates have doubled again in less than two weeks. The scattered embers of outbreaks around the County during early fall have become an inferno.
We still don’t have all the answers about how the virus spreads. We do know that people being close together for any length of time, especially unmasked, is a very effective way to seed coronavirus outbreaks. Unfortunately, dining at restaurants, even outdoors, poses a risk because people from different households may be together unmasked for an extended period of time. Other factors are contributing, too, such as crowded workplaces with inadequate social distancing and little oversight by the County. The list of sites with positive coronavirus tests includes Glenair, an aerospace/electronics manufacturer in Glendale (40 staff tested positive, 29 in the past week) and a Michael Kors distribution center in Whittier (21 staff tested positive in the past week), among many others.

How do we get through this crisis? The restrictions in Southern California now, onerous as they are, will likely save thousands of lives. But we also desperately need disaster relief to support workers and small businesses that have lost their income. We are in a war, we’ve stormed the beaches of Normandy, but now is not the time to cut off financial support. Congress needs to provide the funding that only the federal government can to get us to the end of this.
Andrew Delman
La Crescenta