Portland nurses ‘urgently concerned’ about health in schools

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — As COVID-19 cases surge in Oregon — forcing some of the state’s largest school districts to close due to staffing shortages last week — a letter from three dozen nurses at the Portland Public School District circulated over the weekend, in which they question the relative health and safety in school buildings. In the letter, nurses described the scenes in schools “as crowded” with closed windows and where “masking is not of medical grade, children are testing positive at a rate that is too fast to track, the tests provided are expired, and staffing in every department is stretched too thin.”