#ComeThroughCounties Protect Michigan Students in Macomb County

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Take Action! Keep our Schools Safe!

Dear [elected official],

In 17 months, Covid-19 has killed over 630 thousand Americans and over 20 thousand Michiganders. Now, with the school year upon us and the Delta variant surging, we are extremely concerned about the health and safety of all who make up our schools, and specifically our teachers, staff and students, with disabilities, chronic illness and underlying health conditions. According to the World Health Organization, people with disabilities are at a greater risk of contracting Covid-19 due to physical barriers to accessing hygiene, difficulty enacting social distancing, the need to touch things for information or for physical support, barriers to accessing public health information and care, and aggravation of underlying health conditions. Moreover, we’ve learned that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are three times more likely to die from Covid-19, that people with Down syndrome are 10 times more likely to die, and that people with autism have a greater likelihood of dying from the virus than the general population. Therefore, we write to urge you to mandate the use of masks, mandate social distancing, and require all teachers and staff to be vaccinated or regularly tested for Covid-19 in all of our schools.

Please do not set our students up for classroom interruptions and school closures. Do not prioritize maskless convenience over safe-conduct, putting our children at risk. We cannot accept a scenario that allows for ableism, or discrimination in favor of the non-disabled over the disabled. Our request is reasonable: do not abandon our communities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and the director of Infectious Diseases Research at Beaumont Health all recommend requiring universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status. You still have the opportunity to listen and lead with this and other precautions. Please do more to protect our communities with disability, chronic illness, and underlying health conditions from the spread of this communicable disease. Mandate the use of masks, mandate social distancing, and require all teachers and staff to be vaccinated or regularly tested for Covid-19 in all of our schools. We have a collective responsibility to the health and safety of our communities. Please meet this obligation. Thank you. Respectfully,

Sincerely, [Your information here]