SPORTS: Woodbridge defensive lineman James Gillespie signs with Louisiana-Monroe. Page 10.
December 23, 2020 | Vol. 19, No. 52 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | 50¢ Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
See PrinceWilliamTimes.com for coronavirus updates
As COVID-19 cases rise, some teachers say they don’t feel safe at school By Jill Palermo
Times Staff Writer
Masks slide down little noses repeatedly; arms reach out for hugs that teachers and counselors don’t have the heart to deny; and restless feet stray from squares taped on classroom floors intended to keep kids and teachers at least 6 feet apart. Those are some of the behaviors that teachers currently instructing Prince William County’s youngest students inside school buildings say are routinely thwarting mitigation efforts intended to keep COVID-19 from spreading and making people sick. And as the county’s COVID-19 percent-positivity rate and infections per capita remain high, teachers say they worry things will only get worse
as thousands more students begin in-person instruction in January. At the same time, teachers with underlying health conditions that place them at a higher risk for developing complications to COVID-19 are also expressing concern. A few such teachers said in interviews last week they are being forced to make what they consider an impossible choice: risk their health by returning to teach in person in January or quit. One high school English teacher with 23 years of experience said her mind is already made up. Unless she can continue teaching virtually, she’s leaving her students mid-year to take a leave of absence. “I’ve been told by my doctor I have no business going to the grocery store. So if I can’t go to the grocery store, I can’t go to work,” said the teach-
er, who asked that her name and school not be printed. “Prince William County schools can put another warm body in the classroom, but I can’t replace me and my family can’t replace me.” Such sentiments are why members of the county’s teachers’ union are pleading with Superintendent Steven Walts and the school board to halt plans to bring multiple grades of students back into Prince William schools for hybrid instruction after the holiday break. They also want Walts to develop a set of COVID-19 metric thresholds to guide decisions about return-to-school plans as has been done in Loudoun and Fairfax counties. See TEACHERS, page 2
Thanksgiving likely a ‘super-spreader’ event in Virginia By Jill Palermo
Times Staff Writer
SUBMITTED PHOTOS
DRIVE-IN HANNUKAH CELEBRATION: Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Gainesville & Manassas held a pandemicsafe drive-in Hannukah service at Gainesville Middle School on Dec. 13. Rabbi Shmuly Perlstein led the celebration. Attendees included from left to right: Mindy Bronipolsky, Maya Bronipolsky, Rebecca Johnson, Roman Bronipolsky and John Johnson. For more holiday happenings see page 7. INSIDE Classifieds...........................................12 Lifestyle................................................7 Obituaries...........................................11
The data are in: Thanksgiving “appears to have been a super-spreader event in Virginia” that triggered a surge in new cases that’s now expected to peak at 98,000 a week in early February. That’s according to the most recent analysis of the state’s COVID-19 data by the University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute and the Rand Corporation. “New confirmed cases are spiking and nearly reached 4,000 [a] day on average,” the Dec. 17 Rand Corporation report stated. “Thanksgiving appears to have been a super-spreader event.” The post-Thanksgiving surge led to a “substantial increase” in the projection for new cases over the winter months, when cold weather, time spent indoors, pandemic fatigue and holiday travel were already exacerbating Virginia’s third wave of the pandemic, which began in mid-October. See SUPERSPREADER, page 3
Opinion.................................................5 Puzzle Page..........................................4 Readers’ Choice 2020 Winners.............9 Sports.................................................10
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