Daily Republic: Sunday, February 21, 2022 by mcnaughtonmedia

Vallejo Gem and Mineral Show this weekend A3

Beijing Games couldn’t escape problems B1

MONDAY | February 21, 2022 | $1.00

DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.

Parents lose patience over school mask mandate Joe Hong

CALMATTERS

SACRAMENTO — Since California health officials decreed the end of the mask mandate for restaurants and grocery stores two weeks ago and then the indoor mask mandate last week for people who are vaccinated, frustrated parents have been asking: When can their children take their masks off at school? They didn’t get any answers during a much anticipated press conference Feb. 14 hosted by California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly, who said the state would wait until Feb. 28 to potentially change masking rules at schools. The California Teachers Association, one of the state’s largest unions with more than 300,000 members, supported the decision to “pause and gather more information” before revising the mask mandate for schools. But some parents and educators, who until recently supported strict mask

rules in the classroom, are losing their patience. “I really started thinking, why aren’t we talking about the masks coming off?” said Dr. Will Sheldon, an Oakland parent and a family medicine doctor. “There was no discussion of what the off-ramps are going to be.”

Concerns over education quality Parents and educators interviewed by CalMatters said the social and emotional harms of long-term masking need to be weighed against what appear to be the minimal benefits of masking amid rising vaccination rates and receding case numbers. Sheldon said his daughter has had a harder time making new friends because masks cover her facial expressions. But of greater concern, he said, are the children he sees in his clinic who are deaf or have other language delays and rely on reading lips to learn speech See Mask, Page A7

Agriculture secretary: Some inflation the result of businesses ‘taking advantage’ Bloomberg News U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said some recent price increases were the result of businesses “taking advantage” of the coronavirus pandemic and supply chain disruptions to push up food costs. Food prices have soared globally in the past year as economies recover from the pandemic and amid a jump in energy and fertilizer costs. Transporters are also struggling to cope with the extra demand for goods, leading to huge delays at ports. “The question is whether all those increases are directly correlated to those causes or whether people are taking advantage,” he said, referring to the fertilizer and seed industries. “There are some comments I’ve read – attributed to some folks in the agribusiness world – where

they’re suggesting or at least intimating that this is an opportunity to raise prices beyond what is necessary to deal with supply-chain challenges they may face.” The rise in food costs has contributed to U.S. inflation accelerating to 7.5%, putting pressure on President Joe Biden ahead of November’s midterm elections. Food prices should start to fall as the U.S. economy normalizes and supply problems are resolved, Vilsack said. “If they come down, will they come down commensurate with how much they went up?” he said. “If they don’t, that would suggest there’s something more afoot here. People should be asking those questions.” The government will allow imports of Mexican avocados to See Prices, Page A7

Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters file

Eddie Daniels administers rapid Covid-19 tests at Greater St. Paul Church in downtown Oakland, Jan. 4, 2022.

Gavin Newsom administration outlines future plans for Covid Ana B. Ibarra and Kristen Hwang CALMATTERS

SACRAMENTO — Vowing to be smarter after lessons learned over the past two years, the Newsom administration last week gave a glimpse of what the next few months – and potentially years – may look like in California with Covid-19 likely to stick around. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s health secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly, said the state’s new plan marks a shift in the handling of the pandemic toward preparedness, acknowledging that officials will have to be flexible to respond to any new variants of concern. The state dubbed its new plan “SMARTER,” an acronym for its seven areas of focus: shots, masks,

awareness, readiness, testing, education and Rx treatments. “It is clear the virus will remain with us for some time, if not forever. It is less clear how often and how much it will continue to impact our health and well-being,” the state’s plan reads. The strategy unveiled Thursday includes preventive planning like stockpiling 75 million masks and bringing in 30 million overthe-counter tests, as well as assisting hard-hit disadvantaged communities and schools, and increasing the health care workforce by at least another 3,000 staff if there’s another surge. The goals: Capacity to perform at least half a million tests per day and administer 200,000 vaccines per day on top of what’s available at phar-

macies or doctors’ offices, expand school-based vaccine sites by 25% and ensure that therapies are available and affordable. Also included is building on current wastewater surveillance and genome sequencing to have a better understanding of the evolving virus, and pursuing a public-private partnership with a Covid-19 test manufacturer that can secure a supply chain for California. The administration’s pandemic plan intentionally does not set thresholds that would trigger certain actions, like its controversial multiple-color tiered plan for closing and reopening businesses in 2020. Instead, flexibility is imporSee Plans, Page A7

Ukraine tensions accelerate, Kamala Harris departs Europe, Russia extends troop exercises Los Angeles Times MUNICH, Germany — With tens of thousands of Russian troops canceling withdrawal plans near Ukraine’s northern frontier, and as tensions intensified in the country’s eastern Donbas region, Western and Russian leaders continued to engage in a high-stakes dance Sunday mixing equal parts diplomatic bickering and military puffery – but with little sign that their efforts could successfully forestall the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. In the east, where the Ukrainian government has been mired for years in a stalemate against Russia-installed separatists, observers reported barrages of shelling across the cease-fire line established between the belligerents in 2015. And in a step designed to bolster Moscow’s narrative of an impending Ukrainian onslaught on the separatist enclaves, separatist authorities on Sunday suspended

leisure, cultural, entertainment and educational events until further notice. Earlier in the weekend, the separatists began evacuating thousands of women and children from Ukraine while ordering men of fighting age to gird for battle. The intensification of hostilities in the east came as Belarus announced that some 30,000 Russian troops would extend their stay beyond the conclusion of joint exercises, countering earlier statements that not a single Russian soldier would remain on Belarus’ territory after Sunday. In a statement released by the Belarusian military on Telegram, Belarusian Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Viktor Khrenin said that though the joint exercises – dubbed Allied Resolve 2022 – had concluded, the “increase in military activity near the external borders of the Union State [Russia and Belarus] and the aggravation of the situation in Donbas” had pushed

WEATHER 59 | 36 Sunny. Five-day forecast on B8.

See Ukraine, Page A7

Andrew Harnik/POOL/AFP via Getty Images/TNS

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to members of the media, in Munich, Germany, Sunday.

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