RANDY ECONOMY: MY WORLD: FIGHTING SWINE FLU: State Schools Chief Jack O'Connell Announces MILLIONS of MASKS are coming to our kids to stop the killer flu at Santa Fe Springs press confab

Saturday, December 05, 2009

FIGHTING SWINE FLU: State Schools Chief Jack O'Connell Announces MILLIONS of MASKS are coming to our kids to stop the killer flu at Santa Fe Springs press confab

By Randy Economy:

SANTA FE SPRINGS — The fight to stop the deadly H1N1 Flu has come here to our neighborhood, and many parents and school aged children can breath easier.

In a huge warehouse here in Santa Fe Springs, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced Friday that a multiagency effort will distribute millions of protective masks and gloves to schools throughout the Golden State to help prevent and mitigate the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus and other influenza outbreaks.

Nearly 900 people in California have already died from the H1N1 Flu virus. The most vulnerable group are school aged children, and the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.

More than 23 million masks and pairs of gloves to help curb the spread of swine flu will be distributed from the SFS location. They will be arriving in schools in the next week or so.

"We want to keep students, teachers, and staff healthy and in school," O'Connell said. "In order to prevent the spread of disease, the federal H1N1 guidance for schools calls for the use of personal protective equipment in situations in which a student becomes ill while on campus. Thanks to federal grant funding, we can provide masks and gloves called for in the guidance to schools free of charge. Procuring and distributing this personal protective equipment for use in California public schools is truly a statewide effort that required the help and generosity of our county offices of education, several state agencies, and private shipping companies. I want to thank all of the partners in this effort who are helping to protect the health of our students and school staff."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Education jointly issued guidance for schools regarding the H1N1 influenza pandemic. The guidance stresses that the best way to prevent the spread of viruses is by staying home if you are sick, covering your coughs and sneezes, washing or sanitizing your hands frequently, and getting the flu vaccines if possible.

The guidance also recommends the use of personal protective equipment in situations when a student becomes ill while at school. The guidance states that students who appear to have influenza-like illness should be sent to a supervised sick room separate from others until they can leave the school campus. CDC recommends that the ill person wear a surgical mask, if they can tolerate it.

The CDC guidance also recommends that school nurses or other school staff who are caring for ill students should wear gloves and a respirator face mask, commonly known as an N95 respirator.

So, break out the masks, and cover your mouth. It might just save your life!

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Meet Randy Economy

You may know me from my role as the Senior Advisor and Official Media Spokesman for the Recall Gavin Newsom campaign that established a worldwide blitz of interviews. I conducted more than 2,200 media interviews on behalf of “The People’s Recall” during a 10-month period from November 2020 to September 2021. The iconic magazine Mother Jones in a dramatic feature article called me “A ‘Superhero Pirate’ Radio Host, (and) Gavin Newsom’s Strangest—and Most Dangerous—Threat. Meet Randy Economy, the man behind the effort to recall California’s governor.” I appeared on more than 330 media outlets around the world in my capacity with RecallGavin2020. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, NBC Nightly News, ABC News, as well as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, and dozens of other media outlets aired featured reports on my work on behalf of “The People’s Recall.” I am and will always consider myself to be a journalist. Sometimes I think I bleed ink. My talents as an Investigative Journalists in California earned me FIVE top awards from the prestigious Los Angeles Press Club in 2013, 2014, and 2016. I am tenacious. My reporting over the years has led to the prosecution of several elected officials in California. While working for a tiny community newspaper in Southeast Los Angeles County, I worked doggedly to expose the biggest public corruption case in Los Angeles County history when I unearthed a massive pay to play scheme inside the Assessor’s Office that led to the arrest of then Assessor John R. Noguez and four others. However, politics has been in my DNA since I was a child. I have worked on more than 300 political campaigns as a consultant and advisor since 1982 for candidates from all sides of the political spectrum including Democrats and Republicans, and even Libertarians. I am also a small business owner, serving as the President and CEO of Hot Water Studio & Production, LLC. My company works with media outlets across the state, nation, and world exposing public corruption via several new media platforms. I have also overcome personal challenges. I am legally blind with zero vision in my right eye and only 40 percent vision remaining in my left eye. I sometimes wear an eyepatch due to my failed vision. (Hence the nickname of “America’s Political Pirate.”