Episode 198: Test Stressing

1/20/2022--This week on The Horse Race, two big campaign announcements hit the news. First, it's the one we've been waiting on for months. Attorney General Maura Healey is running for Governor. She enters the race after much anticipation and speculation with a rate of name recognition and funding that dwarfs that of her competitors.

Tanisha Sullivan, President of the Boston NAACP, announced her candidacy for Secretary of the Commonwealth. Bill Galvin, who has been in the position for almost three decades, has not yet announced whether he’ll run again.

Vaccine mandates for indoor businesses went into effect throughout Boston this past weekend. Jenn and Lisa talk about the Twitter conversations circulating among people who’ve experienced gaps in enforcement — some businesses don’t check for vaccine proof, others do.

Also recently implemented is the state’s vaccine passport system which Massachusetts residents can use to access digital proof of their vaccination status. Issues remain with that program as well, like incomplete information for veterans and residents who received jabs out of state.

Our guest this week is State House reporter for MassLive, Alison Kuznitz. She explains the state’s decision to move away from their current test-and-stay program that allows asymptomatic students to stay in school so long as they test negative for five straight days. The plan is to replace it with a program wherein students receive at-home rapid tests on a biweekly basis.

Full transcript below:

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:00:25] Today on the horse race, we examine Massachusetts new vaccination passport system, indoor vaccine mandate, proposals in cities across the state and the state's new rapid testing program for schools. It's Thursday, January 20th. [00:00:38][12.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:00:50] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Steve Koczela here with Jennifer Smith and Lisa Kashinsky. Our full cast is here for the first time in 2022. [00:01:00][10.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:01:01] And we are here with a purpose. Steve, it is January, so it's cold out, but it's also an election year. So it's busy and we know what that means because there is a campaign announcement like every single week at this point. Lisa, I don't know how you keep track of all of these, but what have we got this week? [00:01:18][17.5]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:01:19] We finally finally, after months of speculation, nearly a year of saying seriously, considering State Attorney General Maura Healey is running for governor, I was able to report yesterday, as were several others, that she would be launching her campaign as early as today. This unfreeze is not just the governor's race, you know, which has kind of been in limbo for the better part of a year now between Healey and Gov. Charlie Baker. But it also is going to set off a scramble for some other down ballot races, including multiple candidates who have already said that they would run for attorney general if Maura Healey was seeking other office. And we actually had a development in one of those down ballot races earlier this week, and NAACP Boston President Tanisha Sullivan launched her campaign for secretary of state. Secretary of State Bill Galvin hasn't said whether he's running for reelection yet, but the very veteran secretary of state has kind of been hinting that he doesn't think that his work is done quite yet. [00:02:22][63.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:02:23] If he does, he does have a bit of a built-in advantage, which is something that we found back in 2018, kind of to our surprise and a built-in advantage specific to polling, I should say, because any incumbent has many built in advantages, particularly in Massachusetts. Bill Galvin has even more because he is sort of famous or infamous for putting his name and face on literally every single thing that the Secretary of State's Office does. But the thing that surprised me back then is how many people actually know who he is. And I suppose that's probably linked to the fact that he puts his name and face on literally everything that his office does. But when he ran against Josh Zakim, for instance, we did a poll and found that he had 44 percent favorable and nine percent unfavorable. So not only did a whole lot of primary voters know who he was much to my surprise, but he's also very well liked. So this is, you know, a race which should he decide to run, he'll start in a pretty good position, most likely. [00:03:19][55.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:03:22] It does feel like we are just kind of in this series of question marks about whether or not the sitting incumbent is going to announce a run for something, and so far we've been two for two and I'm not declaring that if you're thinking about Marty Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker. We'll see if Galvin decides to run. Lisa, if he does in fact, run for reelection, though one of the things that came up during the Galvin Zakim race is that it was actually kind of hard to distinguish on policy why there was a real need for a changing of the guard. And as we know in Massachusetts, you kind of need to make a good case for a changing of the guard. What could the differences here be between Tanisha Sullivan and Bill Galvin [00:04:03][41.3]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:04:04] Out of the gate that, you know, they seem to be pretty aligned on what their goals are? I mean, Tanisha Sullivan launched, saying that she wants to expand voting rights in Massachusetts. You know, they're not doing it in D.C., obviously, with everything going on in the Senate as we speak. So we have to do it here at home, you know, and that means bringing back expanded mail in voting, you know, expanding access to the ballot that way. But that's also the same thing that Bill Galvin has been fighting for for months, if not years at this point, you know, losing track of time here. You know, but the devil will be in the details with this one. I mean, right now it's up to the Legislature to see which version of some sort of, you know, voting reform package they bring up. The House and Senate have, I think, possibly slightly different goals when you get down into the details. So maybe we start to get into some differences. You know, if the secretary runs again, you know, between the candidates on that, depending on what the Legislature puts forward, but yet to start with pretty similar high level themes here. [00:05:03][59.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:05:04] Well, as Steve noted in the polling, Galvin pretty routinely stomps all of his challengers over the past 20 some years. We will see how this one goes. We will keep you all updated as we hear more. But in the meantime, we're talking about lots of other news today. Folks, what are we getting ourselves into today? [00:05:21][17.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:05:22] Well, Jenn, I am glad you asked, because this week we're digging into the recently launched Boston vaccine mandate for indoor establishments, plus the statewide tool that provides while most Massachusetts residents access to their digital vaccine records. Then a little bit later on, we'll be talking about big changes coming down the pike on school testing and how that whole process is going to work. So shall we ride? [00:05:43][21.2]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:05:44] Giddyup! [00:05:44][0.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:05:52] Over the past few weeks, a number of Massachusetts cities have started to adopt some form of vaccine mandate for indoor spaces. This immediately raised the question Well, what is the vaccine passport or proof process actually look like? Because in places like Boston, that means pulling up an app or simply showing your vax card or a picture of your card to access specific indoor spaces on the state side. There isn't a vaccine mandate, but the state has rolled out an online record system. So let's get into the nuts and bolts. Lisa, do you want to take kind of the top level here? The state has no vaccine mandate for indoor venues, but there is a website you can go to to pull up records. If you got vaccinated here in state most of the time, how does that work? [00:06:36][44.3]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:06:37] Yeah, so the state launched a website earlier this month called MyVaxRecords.mass.gov. And basically, you can enter your information and it taps into the state's immunization database and it should, in most cases. But we know in practice, not every case yet. Pull up your COVID vaccination records. It also apparently pulled up my flu records for those who, yes, I got my flu shot. You know, for those who it works for, it's it's a pretty easy process. It takes a few minutes. And you know, the Baker administration was clear, though, that there is no mandate accompanying this. You know, this is just because they're aware that some studies are requiring proof of vaccination or some businesses are doing that, but they are in no way shape or form. They have stressed or repeatedly putting in any sort of statewide mandate for proof of vaccination themselves. [00:07:27][50.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:07:29] So just to walk through a couple of the issues with accuracy that have come up even since this has been launched, I think, you know, our own podcast kind of represents some of the categories where people are having issues. I went into the site, for instance, and found that it had pulled up various other vaccinations that I gotten at regular hospitals. But I actually went to the VA for my for my COVID vaccines. And as was reported on State House News by Matt Murphy, they the VA and the state system in this sense don't communicate with one another, so you can't actually get your state COVID vaccine data if you went to the VA. Jen, you actually had another another limitation. [00:08:07][38.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:08:08] Yeah, that's right. So I was actually out of state when I got my booster. It was at that kind of period of time when everyone had suddenly been made eligible and it was shockingly hard to find a booster. All of a sudden and it happened to align with me not being in Massachusetts. So the state website knows that I got my initial vaccine shots and also that I'm not going to get tetanus any time soon. But it does not know that I have gotten an additional booster out of state. So once again, we kind of see those those sort of strange gaps in between because if you're pulling up my vaccine information, you would not in fact know the full extent of my vaccination status. Lisa, what about you? Is your cat vaccinated? Does the state website know about it? [00:08:52][44.2]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:08:53] My cat is up to date on her shots, but I don't think the state website knows about that. But if someone wants to make a vaccination portal for cats, I know a few people who probably need to take their cats to the vet. [00:09:04][11.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:09:06] So Lisa, given the gaps that exist and that, you know, very admirable, we should also say that this is I'm very happy that they're doing awesome and the state. But given that those gaps exist, is there anything to be done for, for people or by people that fall into those gaps where they want their vaccine information and they want this app to be followed with their data, but they can't get it at this point? [00:09:28][21.7]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:09:29] The very simple answer is call your primary care provider and they can upload your data and then you should be on your way. [00:09:35][6.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:09:36] Gosh, I love what sounds like a simple answer. I mean, speaking of speaking of simple in in theory, but also in practice, I can I can testify. So Boston's indoor mandate went into effect this past weekend, and that same day the city rolled out an app called B Together that essentially holds a picture of your vaccine card. But it can also hold a few other pictures. If you have family members that you want to keep pictures of their vaccine cards on on your phone. And you can show that at restaurants, gyms, entertainment venues because at the moment they have to check that a patron is vaccinated with at least one shot before serving them. Lisa, that's going to get a little bit stricter in a few weeks, right? [00:10:19][42.8]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:10:20] Yeah. And it's the same thing for the city's vaccine mandate for workers, too, that it's kind of this phased rollout, especially, you know, knowing that kids don't necessarily have their shots or boosters yet, too. So there is, you know, a few weeks built in between each stage of this. [00:10:34][14.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:10:36] And then the other thing that was coming to mind that, of course, Twitter, where we spend too much of our time is full this week of people kind of sharing their experiences with the mixed, I would say, enforcement of this new policy where maybe some places have checked, some haven't. Notably, a trend that I saw was gyms checking when someone leaves, but not necessarily when they enter, has this kind of struck anyone is interesting in general or have you had a personal experience with this? [00:11:06][29.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:11:06] The places I've gone that were supposed to check have checked. You know, the check has been cursory. I'll say it's like, do you have any picture of a vaccination card on your phone? Like that seems to be the level of check. They're not like and they're looking at your name and comparing it to your ID, which I have experience elsewhere when I've traveled to other cities where they actually are doing that comparison. This is more just like, OK, we're supposed to check for vax cards, show me a vax card and in you go. But they at least have been doing that at the places where they were supposed to. Lisa, how about you? [00:11:36][29.2]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:11:37] I haven't been anywhere recently besides, like a grocery. [00:11:40][2.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:11:41] We're not going to be useful. [00:11:41][0.6]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:11:43] Sorry, um. Yeah, I had to work all last weekend, but maybe this weekend I'll get out somewhere and I will try it out. But Steve, there are polls on how Bostonians feel about these mandates, right? [00:11:52][9.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:11:53] Yeah, I mean, we've got I'd say we've got statewide data on it. We haven't done anything specific to Boston and a little bit of time now. But looking at things statewide, you can get a pretty good sense of how things are viewed here in Boston and the one we basically asked support oppose for a bunch of different possibilities, like reinstating indoor mask mandates, mailing out COVID tests and then the one that actually had the lowest level of support was stores and restaurants requiring proof of vaccinations from customers. That one still had a majority 56 percent support statewide, 38 percent opposed. And the higher levels of support were among people who had been vaccinated, and the highest level of support was among people who had been boosted. There was also higher support among Democrats than there was just among kind of the general population. So that actually suggests, most likely that the support level would be a bit higher here in Boston just because, you know, as one of the most liberal parts of the state. Whatever Democrats in the state support, that tends to be closer to what the view is from Boston. So it's not universally popular, but it is quite popular and among people who are vaccinated, it is more popular. [00:13:02][69.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:13:03] I think we have to add obviously a very important caveat right now in Boston, there have been some pretty ugly protests outside of Mayor Wu's home for some time now about not just the vaccine indoor mandate, but also the mandate that Lisa, you mentioned earlier about city workers. They've now started yelling at City Council President Ed Flynn, who said, don't go yell at people outside their homes. City Hall exists for a reason. Lisa, I do want to ask because you had a really great story this week in Politico about how specifically Omicron has impacted a bunch of new mayor's priorities. So can you kind of talk us through a little bit about what you saw across the country and how this was impacting Mayor Wu's ability to get anything done? But also you looked at Cincinnati and New York and Atlanta and Fort Worth were there trends? [00:13:53][50.0]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:13:54] Yeah, we went all over the place. So I mean, I guess to start with locally, you know, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, she's had this the worst, at least in terms of protests. I mean, other mayors have faced, you know, some pushback over trying to keep schools open or just, you know, a random heckler to the Republican mayor in Fort Worth, Texas actually has kind of face some similar pushback. You know, she is encouraging people to get vaccinated and it's been kind of met with some conspiracy theories, and that's similar to what you hear. But shall we talk about here? But yeah, there are trends between all of these mayors. You know, Michelle Wu and the Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker. They actually had a little bit of lead time on some of the mayors who actually stepped into office just a couple of weeks ago, kind of at the peak or heading into the peak of this Omicron surge. And, you know, they had promised things on affordable housing, on policing reform and public safety and crime reduction, and then have spent most of their first two weeks in office dealing with the COVID surge, scrambling to find tests, staffing shortages. You know, Atlanta is having trouble with trash pickup right now in some neighborhoods because they were out almost 200 sanitation department workers one week. So yeah, there's a lot of through lines between what these mayors are experiencing, and they're already starting to lean on each other and kind of form these support networks, both within new mayors and ones who have been in office throughout the pandemic so far. [00:15:16][82.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:15:17] And I think that's all the time. We have to talk about this at the moment, but I would like to once again just plug Lisa's work, go, go, read that it's really, really good gets into a lot of kind of the specifics of the mayor's experiences. But also you really do see some kind of uncomfortable trends with with the way that people have been pushing back and the thing that ends up setting them off. So I think that's where we are right now. We're going to talk about more COVID policy. So see you after this bugle. [00:15:45][27.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:15:48] Some Massachusetts schools may be changing who is tested for COVID 19 and when in the coming weeks, if everything goes according to plan, a new program is on the horizon to replace elements of the state's long standing test and stay program. Our guest today covered the news and joins us now to talk more about it. Allison Kuznitz, Statehouse Reporter for MassLive. Welcome to the horse race. [00:16:08][19.7]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:16:08] Thanks so much for having me. [00:16:09][0.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:16:11] So for those unfamiliar with the day to day of just sort of how the test and stay program and testing in general has been working within schools, tell us what's been happening up until this point. [00:16:20][9.6]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:16:21] Right. So basically, I'm the Baker. Administration and school officials had what was known as a test and stay program. So this was a way as opposed to having major disruptions to the classroom, as the governor put it on Tuesday of, you know, having kids needing to quarantine, be out of the classroom, sending a lot of kids home. There is a program in place called Test and say that if a student was considered a close contact of somebody who did test positive, there would be certain situations that would allow some of those students deemed close contacts to stay in the school. But they would just need to submit to regular testing for about five days to ensure that they did not actually end up developing symptoms or testing positive for COVID. But now we are seeing a shift in that COVID testing policy with the rise of Omicron and with the governor and the administration being successful in procuring more rapid tests to make that type of testing program not necessary. At least that's what the governor and his administration will say not necessarily parents right now. [00:17:14][53.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:17:16] So, so kind of getting into the response to test and stay while it's been in place. Has this been received well by parents or students? Has it been inconvenient or difficult to end up carrying out logistically? Was it working well? Up until now, basically, [00:17:32][16.1]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:17:33] I think the big challenge is that as you're seeing just again, the sheer number of cases exploding from the omicron surge, it is a very cumbersome process. If you think about the number of close contacts that could be identified, and for school nurses who are already really stretched thin to then be calling all the families teachers to try to figure out who exactly is infected. So it's a very long, tedious process that might have worked better at earlier stages of the pandemic or earlier in the school year when we were not in the midst of this surge, but the way test and say was pitched yesterday, or really why administrators and school officials said they don't need to do this anymore is a way to kind of save school resources and allow nurses to instead focus on people who are purely symptomatic and who do have COVID, rather than looking at people who are asymptomatic. The Baker administration and the governor himself did say yesterday that I believe out of more than five hundred and three thousand COVID tests that were administered among close contacts, and these are students who may have come into contact with the virus and then were repeatedly tested to make sure that they did not subsequently test positive. Out of those, more than five hundred and three thousand tests, ninety nine percent came back negative, so the governor was using that as a really strong indication of low COVID transmission in schools and saying, despite really some incredible effort and teamwork from school nurses and educators, that COVID transmission is low. And maybe that this is not the best strategy to mitigate COVID spreading in schools right now, with ninety nine percent of those tests did return a negative result. [00:19:05][92.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:19:06] I think it's also important to point out just before we kind of don't test and stay in the trash heap that compared to what it was replacing it certainly what it did bring parents like me. And like many people, I know a lot of peace and me and kind of helped us a lot in the sense that the old way was, if you're a close contact, you just had to go home, you know, and that was a problem for many obvious reasons and became a bigger problem and less beneficial as Omicron exploded and as kids were getting vaccinated. So certainly, you know, some it had some positive effects, but now perhaps it's time for something new. So what is the program that would replace it? What is the governor and his team proposing to be done instead? [00:19:45][38.9]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:19:46] Sure. So basically last week, we heard news from the governor that the administration had secured twenty six million COVID rapid tests, and last week we didn't really get a plan from the governor. We just knew that Massachusetts had procured those tests specifically to benefit schools and daycares and early childhood education centers. So on Tuesday of this week, we got news from the governor that those rapid test kits are actually going to be critical to a new program that school districts can use. So the idea is that of the 26 million rapid tests, school districts can sign up and say, yes, we want to receive these rapid tests on a regular basis in the school districts that are participating. Parents will then sign a permission slip to allow their children to receive a test kit to bring home. Students will get a test kit every other week, and each test kit has two tests. So the idea is that students will be able to do rapid testing once a week at home. So while the administration is phasing out testing, stay for people, for school districts and for students who are participating this new program of receiving the at home rapid test that is going to be one layer of testing their school districts will still be having pool testing or asymptomatic testing. And the Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley yesterday was saying that this is actually going to add maximum protection. So if you think about it, if I think his example was you could do pool testing at school districts on a Monday, and then you can also have students and educators do their own at home testing on a Thursday to kind of spread it out. So there's two options throughout the week for students to be testing and to try to catch any cases of the virus. [00:21:23][96.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:21:24] So based on on your description, I just kind of want to clarify this in my head. It sounds like there's a certain element of this that's kind of voluntary for what the specific school district is for the parents that are agreeing to participate in the program. Is there any situation here in which you know, a family or a school would end up just kind of being less tested or less contact traced if they didn't want to agree to have their student receive these tests, for instance? [00:21:53][29.0]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:21:54] It's definitely an optional program right now, and the education commissioner was asked about this yesterday about how many school districts do you expect will participate, how many will get rid of test and stay? And he could not really give a great answer just yet because we're so new into this program. But I think it definitely is voluntary right now, but I think we just see the momentum of recent testing guidance changing from the Department of Public Health and from the governor saying, 'Hey you really don't need to get a PCR test all the time. There are situations where you can rapid test, where you can just wear a mask and be kind of safe without totally isolating yourself.' So I think this is just an escalation of that. So the education commissioner did say school districts are really recommended to take advantage of this option and recognizing that the rapid tests are really effective at catching cases, especially at the onset of the infections becoming contagious. But school districts do not necessarily need to opt in, and we know that even as far as pool testing, there has been some low participation rates that not everybody is already taking advantage of the testing options that are available by Massachusetts officials. The governor was pressed about this at last week's COVID legislative oversight hearing, and he had basically signaled to Senator Comerford that it's a legal issue, and the governor said he could talk to the senator offline about that. It's probably very tricky for Massachusetts to say, Hey, there's a raging pandemic and we want every kid to be tested for the virus. The state can't do that. So I don't think they can necessarily come in either and say, you have to take the test that we worked really hard to procure in the middle of the supply chain issue. [00:23:28][94.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:23:29] Yeah, it's been. It's been. Speaking of changing rules, it's been very difficult, I'd say, for just for the last couple of months, particularly to follow along as a parent with what the rules have been. You know, they've been changing at the CDC level. The state has been recommending different rules and school districts, including our own, have changed their own rules multiple times during that. So it's kind of gotten to be a situation where you wake up on a given day or given week and try to figure out, OK, here's the situation this week my child was in a positive pool, but they're vaccinated. Are they test and stay or are they going to be retested? Should I do a home test? Do I have to get a PCR? Can I send them back at five days? Like there is just so many little wrinkles to exactly what you're allowed to do now that, you know, I sort of hope that we're transitioning to a more stable set of of of rules going forward. So speaking of that, then speaking of kind of where we're headed on this. Massachusetts did secure twenty six million tests. Is that how is that related to what we need long term? Are we set up now for whatever is to come or does it kind of if there's another variant, are we going to be back where we've been with Omicron? [00:24:33][64.5]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:24:35] So the governor was asked about that yesterday, and he was asked specifically, So how did these twenty six million tests? Are any of them allocated for just the general public, not just for schools or for daycares or early childhood education centers? And the governor said it really depends on how many school districts take advantage of this option. I know the governor has been increasingly critical of the Biden administration and the federal government over all of just the slowness in approving these rapid tests. And the governor has described in comparison or in contrast to Europe, that there's just such limited supply of tests or such limited approved manufacturers that it's just been very difficult for the state to procure these rapid tests. The Baker administration did. Before the holidays, he had secured a massive shipment of tests that were allocated about two million tests that were allocated to one hundred and two communities. The goal was to help low income families who might have hardships accessing the test to get tested before Christmas and New Year's. The governor then subsequently announced a state negotiated contracts with three different rapid test manufacturers. The idea is those cheaper prices would allow. School districts would allow municipalities, libraries, nonprofit organizations to buy some of these tests at cheaper rates. The Baker administration has not been very forthcoming about who has bought these tests, how many tests have been procured. Governor Baker did at least say that Springfield and Salem had taken advantage of those testing options on Tuesday during his press briefing. But I think we're still kind of in the midst of this supply chain shortage for a little bit longer. [00:26:11][96.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:26:13] And I think kind of before we wrap, we should note that that one of the justifications for changing this policy is, as you alluded to earlier, is the question of how exactly students and parents should feel about the risk factor of being in schools for contracting COVID. Governor Baker basically said that there is a rarity of in-school COVID spread. Does that track with the actual experience of parents and teachers here? Students? I mean, I know Steve is definitely going to have a take on this. So let's start with you, Allison, and then Steve can take us out with a nice, strong objection. [00:26:51][38.6]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:26:52] Right, so the past two reports from the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education have been very alarming to read. Last week, more than 40,000 students had tested positive for the virus. So definitely there is a lot of virus circulating in the state and the week coming back from winter break, the governor had said yes. We had a high positivity rate, but it declined each day, coming back from winter break. So the governor said that was good reason to suggest that transmission was happening outside of school. But you also have to look at while there is a mask mandate in school and there are protections in schools, we do not have uniform policies throughout the state to limit transmission in the community where students are picking up the virus and are then bringing the virus into the classroom and potentially exposing their students. So in Boston this week in Brookline and in Salem and perhaps in other communities, soon we do have a proof of vaccination requirement to enter indoor settings. That's one way to lower the spread and transmission of COVID. We also have mask mandates in a number of communities, but the governor has stopped short of imposing some of these other restrictions that educators and teachers and public health officials have really been pushing for to keep everybody in the community safe and to keep schools open. [00:28:03][70.7]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:28:04] As Steve was talking about earlier, all the different options for schools and what can you expect on a day to day? You can expect, though, that the governor is going to ask that everybody report to school if they're feeling well, that there is no chance for remote learning right now. And not every school leader is really accepting that argument. And we did see in Boston, Mayor Michelle was saying, you know, we might need to take different actions and we'll talk to the state later. Mayor Michelle Wu has described this policy of requiring one hundred eighty days of in-person instruction as very rigid and not really reflecting the scenes on the ground right now with just scores of teachers and students out sick, just incredible staffing challenges. So right now we are seeing an increase in cases in schools, very high case rates, especially in some of the gateway cities that if you look at places like Boston and Springfield in Worcester, just incredible case rates right now in the schools. [00:28:54][49.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:28:55] Yeah, I think that's really it. I mean, I don't know. I won't I don't like to argue against the data or the data that Gov. Baker maybe I'm looking at, but it does feel just on the ground that, you know, when a third to half of classes are out, classrooms are out and you know, 10, 15, 20 percent of teachers and staff are out and given districts that then to say, Well, it's OK to go to this place where a third of the people in the room have currently have COVID, you know, or had it within the last couple of days. But it really it's fine. No one there is getting COVID at that exact moment. It just feels like it doesn't. It doesn't feel right. And, you know, with case rates continuing to kind of soar during the time when he was saying that it just it, it didn't really add up, you know, it didn't add up to that. There was something magic that happened at school that meant you can get COVID anywhere else in society right now. But when when you come through the school door, everything's safe. So anyway, that's my non data objection, which is uncharacteristic for me. But anyhow. Allison Kuznitz, State House Reporter for MassLive. Thank you so much for joining us and walking us through all of this. [00:30:00][64.6]

Alison Kuznitz: [00:30:00] Thanks so much for having me. [00:30:01][0.8]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:30:05] And that brings us to our final segment today: something to watch. Steve, I know you've got your pollster eye on an interesting trend. Tell us about that. [00:30:12][7.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:30:12] Yeah. So the thing that pollsters are kind of keeping their eye on right now as Joe Biden's approval rating. So he started off pretty popular relative to recent standards with with kind of an approval rating above 50 percent in some polls. He was kind of in the 57 to 58 percent range, but since then, pretty much no matter what poll you look at, his approval numbers have come down pretty significantly. The most recent readings, depending on which poll you look at, are more in the 40 percent range. Some are below that, some are a little bit above it. But everybody pretty much agrees that his numbers have come down a fair amount. So he's now getting down about to where Donald Trump was during pretty much his entire presidency, you know. Of course, the interesting thing about Trump's numbers was that they didn't really move. So, you know, his line was relatively flat, and Joe Biden is kind of now getting down into the range where he was. [00:31:01][48.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:31:02] The big question really is how much of that has to do with who is answering the surveys. And the reason that that's become a question is that some surveys have shown that there are now more Republicans than there were even a few months ago, and that there are less Democrats than there were a few months ago. That can either be because people have changed how they describe themselves, or it can be because Democrats have stopped participating in polls, which happens. So basically that that's something which pollsters have observed before and which we call non-response bias literally. Who is not responding? And how is that biasing your your polls? It tends to happen according to the research that has been done on it. When that party is on is down and out or something bad happens and you're kind of not feeling great about it. So the most that that example that pollsters all kind of talk about is the very first Obama/Romney debate when a bunch of Democrats stopped answering polls and it looked like Obama had suddenly started losing a bunch of support. Then he came back. In the second debate, all the Democrats picked the phone back up and things went right back to where they were. So we don't exactly really know, you know, how much of what Joe Biden is currently experiencing is due to non-response bias. His approval numbers have clearly come down somewhat, but exactly how much we don't really know at this moment. So that's what I'm watching. [00:32:24][81.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:32:25] Oh, I love polling explainer hour. I always I just think that's so great, but I think that is all the time we have for today, unless there's more polls to explain. I am Jennifer Smith here with Lisa Kashinsky and Steve Koczela. Don't forget to subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe to Massachusetts, Politico Playbook and ping The MassINC Polling Group for polls. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next week. [00:32:25][0.0]