Congratulations Angie and Whitney!
Angie Beck has received the 2020 Outstanding Teacher in Community Service award from the Idaho Family and Consumer Sciences Educator Association. Angie was recognized for the many service learning projects that takes place in her class. A small sampling of the many service projects led by Angie include the Pumpkin Roll fundraiser, the Courtyard Project, and Venture's Prom. Congratulations, Angie! We appreciate everything you do for our Venture students!
Whitney Hamill received the 2020 Teacher of the Year Award from the Idaho Family and Consumer Science Educator Association. Among other things Whitney was recognized for creating an encouraging learning environment and for creating and nurturing strong positive relationships with her students to help them become successful members of society. Congratulations, Whitney! We appreciate everything you do for our Venture Students!
Why Wear Masks?
Last week several of us were discussing whether there was any purpose to wearing a mask if we still need to quarantine if exposed. Our district nurse, Nichole, shared some information about emerging research that suggests that masks reduce the viral load and people are less sick as a result. Early on it was noted that medical personnel that experienced multiple exposures to COVID became very sick and/or died, even if they weren't in a high risk category. Research going back to 1938 shows that, for some viruses, how sick you get depends on how much virus gets into your system.
The following comes from the University of California San Francisco newsletter:
In February, one of the first outbreaks of COVID-19 outside of China occurred on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan. Of the 634 people on board who tested positive, about 18 percent of infections were asymptomatic. In March, an Argentinian cruise ship found itself in a similar predicament, but of the 128 people on board who eventually tested positive, 81 percent were asymptomatic.
A key difference, Gandhi noted, was that on the Argentinian ship, surgical masks were issued to all passengers and N95 masks to all staff as soon as the first passenger became sick.
More recently, an Oregon seafood processing plant where workers were required to wear face masks reported an outbreak of 124 cases, 95 percent of which were asymptomatic. Similarly, in a Tyson chicken processing plant outbreak in Arkansas where workers were provided mandatory masks, 455 out of 481, or nearly 95 percent were asymptomatic.
So, why are we wearing masks? Because research supports that if you get COVID-19 while wearing a mask, you may be exposed to less virus and, as a result, be less sick or be completely asymptomatic.
