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Cuomo says New York will use formula to determine if it's safe to reopen schools

13 July 2020
Dan Ackermann

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that schools will only reopen if they meet scientific criteria that show the coronavirus is under control in their region, including a daily infection rate of below 5% over a 14-day average. "We’re not going to use our children as guinea pigs," he added.

The big picture: Cuomo's insistence that New York will rely on data to decide whether to reopen schools comes as President Trump and his administration continue an aggressive push to get kids back in the classroom as part of their efforts to juice the economy.

  • Trump attacked the CDC's guidelines on reopening schools safely last week as "very tough and expensive," while Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stressed on Sunday that the guidelines are "flexible" and only meant to be recommendations.
  • DeVos also doubled down on threats to withhold federal funding from schools that choose not to reopen, arguing that the money should be redirected to families who can use it to find another option for their children.

What Cuomo is saying:

  • "On schools, what does [Trump] say? 'Reopen the schools. Just open them up, don't worry.' He was wrong on the economic reopening. He's wrong on the schools reopening."
  • "Everybody wants to reopen the schools. ... It's not, do we reopen or not? You reopen if it's safe to reopen. How do you know if it's safe? You look at the data."
  • "If you have the virus under control, reopen. If you don’t have the virus under control, then you can’t reopen. We’re not gonna use our children as a litmus test and we’re not going to put our children in a place where their health is in danger. It’s that simple."

Details: Cuomo that schools can only begin in-person learning once the region has entered “Phase 4” of its reopening plan.

  • Decisions on which districts will be allowed to reopen will be made during the first week in August.
  • If a region's infection rate is above 9% on a seven-day average after that first week, Cuomo said reopenings will be paused.

Go deeper:Pelosi says Trump is "messing with the health of our children" with push to open schools

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.