BOSTON (AP) - School buildings in Massachusetts will remain closed through the end of the academic year, but remote learning will continue, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Tuesday.
There hasn’t been any strong guidance about how to operate schools safely as the state works to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the Republican governor said.
“We believe therefore that students cannot safety return to school,” Baker said. All non-emergency child care programs will remain closed until June 29, he added.
Baker’s announcement came a day after Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat, suggested school officials need to devise plans to safely open schools in the new academic year.
“I also think next year when school comes back in September, it could be a very different looking situation in the classrooms,” Walsh said Monday.
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COVID-19 CASES
The number of COVID-19-related deaths in Massachusetts rose to 1,961 Tuesday. That’s an increase of 152 in the past day, according to public health officials.
More than half the total deaths, 1,059, have been reported at long-term care facilities.
There were 1,556 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday for a total of nearly 41,200 confirmed cases since the start of the outbreak.
The number of people tested has topped 175,000.
Baker said the state remains in the thick of the surge and urged people not to let up on their efforts to slow the disease’s spread.
“This is like the third or fourth quarter and we are holding our own here. Don’t let the virus win the game,” Baker said. “Play it all the way to the end.”
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LONG-TERM CARE FACILITIES
Long-term care facilities would be required to report COVID-19 cases and deaths to public health officials under a bill approved Tuesday by the Massachusetts House.
The bill would mandate the Department of Public Health to make the information publicly available on its website and update it daily, including the name of the facility and number of known COVID-19 positive cases and deaths among residents and staff.
The department has been tracking confirmed COVID-19 cases at nursing homes, rest homes and skilled nursing facilities and posting the information on its website daily. The department also posts daily an aggregate number of total deaths at long-term care facilities.
The bill now heads the Massachusetts Senate.
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TRUMP IMMIGRATION ORDER
A pledge by President Donald Trump to sign an executive order “to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States” because of the coronavirus was sharply criticized by Baker, a fellow Republican.
“I’m opposed to the decision the president made. I’m opposed to the order. It doesn’t make any sense and I don’t think it makes us any safer,” Baker said Tuesday when asked about the order.
Much of the immigration system has already ground to a halt because of the pandemic.
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MUSEUM OF SCIENCE
The Museum of Science, one of the most popular cultural institutions in Massachusetts, is cutting staff and reducing salaries in response to a steep dropoff in revenue during the coronavirus pandemic, the museum’s president announced Tuesday.
The museum’s board approved furloughs for 250 staff members and layoffs for another 122 workers, President Tim Ritchie said in an emailed statement.
Remaining staff making more than $75,000 annually will take salary reductions ranging from 5% to 25%. Ritchie will take a 50% pay cut. The museum will also suspend retirement plan contributions.
The museum, which gets about 1.4 million visitors per year, closed March 12 in response to the pandemic.
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HONORING VETERANS
The U.S. and state flags at two Massachusetts veterans homes and two veterans cemeteries have been lowered to half-staff to honor those who have served, the state secretary of veterans affairs said.
The state’s soldiers homes in Holyoke and Chelsea have become epicenters of coronavirus outbreaks. Fifty-two residents of the Holyoke home who have died recently have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, according to state public health officials.
A dozen residents of the Chelsea home who have died recently tested positive.
Baker ordered that the flags at the homes as well as veterans cemeteries in Winchendon and Agawam “be lowered to half-staff as a mark of solemn respect and in honor of the lives of all departed veterans during this period,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Francisco Urena wrote on his Facebook page Sunday.
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HIGH-FASHION MASKS
A Massachusetts factory that usually produces high fashion is now making masks instead to help in the fight against the coronavirus.
The Joseph Abboud factory in New Bedford has committed to producing more than 100,000 masks at the facility, parent company Tailored Brands said in a statement, The Standard-Times reported.
The masks are washable and reusable but are not medical grade, Tailored Brands said, but the company hopes to eventually get approval to produce a surgical grade mask.
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