LCSO confirms fatal deputy-involved shooting in North Fort MyersMeteorologist’s dream of joining Thanksgiving parade comes true
NORTH FORT MYERS LCSO confirms fatal deputy-involved shooting in North Fort Myers A 21-year-old man has been killed after a deputy-involved shooting at a Sunoco gas station near Suncoast Drive in North Fort Myers.
Meteorologist’s dream of joining Thanksgiving parade comes true Wink News Weather Authority meteorologist Lauren Kriedler is usually doing her thing in front of the green screen, but behind the scenes, she has her eyes on more than just the ten-day forecast.
FORT MYERS Residents choosing to order pizza on the night before Thanksgiving The night before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest business days for pizza places like McGregor Pizza Company.
‘Everybody needs oversight’ State lawmakers backed calls for audit of Lee County Sheriff’s Office A state lawmaker is backing the high-ranking Lee County leader who went public on WINK News Tuesday with his warning about possible money trouble inside the sheriff’s office.
Celebrate the holidays on SWFL beaches The beaches are a big draw for anyone in southwest Florida and with the extended weekend due to the holiday, it could be a good time to hit the sand.
Excitement begins for Black Friday The deals for holiday shopping have been going on for days already, but there is still a large group of you who still love the thrill of getting to the store on Black Friday.
CAPE CORAL Social media influencer donates land for burrowing owls A social media influencer who used to live in southwest Florida has donated a plot of land she owned where burrowing owls live.
FORT MYERS Building a clear future for the Sanibel Outlets The question of what will happen to the Sanibel outlets has been top of mind for many years now.
CAPE CORAL 16-year-old accused of stealing car and leading troopers on chase According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a trooper attempted to stop a car on Pondella Road, but the car, being driven by a 16-year-old, then took off.
PORT CHARLOTTE Women’s workout group in Port Charlotte gives back for the holidays Women Warriors, a workout group located in Port Charlotte, is lifting heavy weights, and not just dumbbells.
Hurricane debris still sitting in Bonita Springs neighborhood Since Hurricane Milton, a pile of debris has been ticking off residents in one Bonita Springs neighborhood.
Collier and Lee counties host mass adoption hearings in time for the holidays Lee and Collier Counties celebrated National Adoption Month by bringing together over 20 Southwest Florida families.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Most Wanted Wednesday: Southwest Florida’s most wanted suspects for November 27, 2024 Here are some of Southwest Florida’s most wanted suspects for November 27, 2024.
NORTH NAPLES First Baptist goes for fourth straight regional title First Baptist goes for its fourth straight regional championship Friday night when they travel to West Palm Beach to face Cardinal Newman.
FORT MYERS Local church hands out thanksgiving meals to the community and hosting SC Gamecocks Mildred’s to-go and Catering on Michigan Ave. is having a giveaway of Thanksgiving meals.
NORTH FORT MYERS LCSO confirms fatal deputy-involved shooting in North Fort Myers A 21-year-old man has been killed after a deputy-involved shooting at a Sunoco gas station near Suncoast Drive in North Fort Myers.
Meteorologist’s dream of joining Thanksgiving parade comes true Wink News Weather Authority meteorologist Lauren Kriedler is usually doing her thing in front of the green screen, but behind the scenes, she has her eyes on more than just the ten-day forecast.
FORT MYERS Residents choosing to order pizza on the night before Thanksgiving The night before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest business days for pizza places like McGregor Pizza Company.
‘Everybody needs oversight’ State lawmakers backed calls for audit of Lee County Sheriff’s Office A state lawmaker is backing the high-ranking Lee County leader who went public on WINK News Tuesday with his warning about possible money trouble inside the sheriff’s office.
Celebrate the holidays on SWFL beaches The beaches are a big draw for anyone in southwest Florida and with the extended weekend due to the holiday, it could be a good time to hit the sand.
Excitement begins for Black Friday The deals for holiday shopping have been going on for days already, but there is still a large group of you who still love the thrill of getting to the store on Black Friday.
CAPE CORAL Social media influencer donates land for burrowing owls A social media influencer who used to live in southwest Florida has donated a plot of land she owned where burrowing owls live.
FORT MYERS Building a clear future for the Sanibel Outlets The question of what will happen to the Sanibel outlets has been top of mind for many years now.
CAPE CORAL 16-year-old accused of stealing car and leading troopers on chase According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a trooper attempted to stop a car on Pondella Road, but the car, being driven by a 16-year-old, then took off.
PORT CHARLOTTE Women’s workout group in Port Charlotte gives back for the holidays Women Warriors, a workout group located in Port Charlotte, is lifting heavy weights, and not just dumbbells.
Hurricane debris still sitting in Bonita Springs neighborhood Since Hurricane Milton, a pile of debris has been ticking off residents in one Bonita Springs neighborhood.
Collier and Lee counties host mass adoption hearings in time for the holidays Lee and Collier Counties celebrated National Adoption Month by bringing together over 20 Southwest Florida families.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Most Wanted Wednesday: Southwest Florida’s most wanted suspects for November 27, 2024 Here are some of Southwest Florida’s most wanted suspects for November 27, 2024.
NORTH NAPLES First Baptist goes for fourth straight regional title First Baptist goes for its fourth straight regional championship Friday night when they travel to West Palm Beach to face Cardinal Newman.
FORT MYERS Local church hands out thanksgiving meals to the community and hosting SC Gamecocks Mildred’s to-go and Catering on Michigan Ave. is having a giveaway of Thanksgiving meals.
Portrait of deaf students in their classroom at Alexander Graham Bell School, 3730 North Oakley in the North Center community area, Chicago, Illinois, 1918. The boys in the photo read while the girls knit. (Photo by Chicago Sun-Times/Chicago Daily News collection/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images) This isn’t the first time leaders have struggled with deciding whether to keep schools open in a pandemic. During the influenza pandemic in 1918, even though the world was a very different place, the discussion was just as heated. That pandemic killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 Americans, before it was all over. While the vast majority of cities closed their schools, three opted to keep them open — New York, Chicago and New Haven, according to historians. The decisions of health officials in those cities was based largely on the hypothesis of public health officials that students were safer and better off at school. It was, after all, the height of the Progressive Era, with its emphasis on hygiene in schools and more nurses for each student than is thinkable now. New York had almost 1 million school children in 1918 and about 75% of them lived in tenements, in crowded, often unsanitary conditions, according to a 2010 article in Public Health Reports, the official journal of the US Surgeon General and the US Public Health Service. “For students from the tenement districts, school offered a clean, well-ventilated environment where teachers, nurses, and doctors already practiced — and documented — thorough, routine medical inspections,” according to the Public Health Reports article. The city was one of the hardest and earliest hit by the flu, said Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian and director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. He was a co-author of the 2010 Public Health Reports article. “(Children) leave their often unsanitary homes for large, clean, airy school buildings, where there is always a system of inspection and examination enforced,” New York’s health commissioner at the time, Dr. Royal S. Copeland, told the New York Times after the pandemic had peaked there. Students weren’t allowed to gather outside school and had to report to their teacher immediately, according to Copeland. Teachers checked students for any signs of the flu, and students who had symptoms were isolated. If students had a fever, someone from the health department would take them home, and the health official would judge whether the conditions were suitable for “isolation and care,” according to Public Health Reports. If not, they were sent to a hospital. “The health department required families of the children recovering at home to either have a family physician or use the services of a public health doctor at no charge,” the Public Health Report article said. The argument in Chicago for leaving schools open for its 500,000 students was the same: keeping schools open would keep the children off the streets and away from infected adults, the reasoning went. If social distancing was helpful then, it would have been made easier by the fact that absenteeism in schools soared during the pandemic, perhaps because of what one Chicago public health official called “fluphobia” among parents. “The absentee rate was so great, it really didn’t matter” that schools were open, Markel said. Part of Chicago’s strategy was to ensure that fresh air was circulated. School rooms were overheated during the winter so that windows could remain open at all times, according to a 1918 paper by the Chicago Department of Health. The paper concluded that an analysis of data showed that “the decision of keeping the schools of this city open during the recent influenza epidemic was justified.” And in New York, then Health Commissioner Copeland told the New York Times: “How much better it has been to have the children under the constant observation of qualified persons than to close the schools.” Markel, who with other researchers pored over data and historical records in looking at the response of 43 cities to the 1918 pandemic, isn’t as convinced. New York “didn’t do the worst, but it didn’t do the best, either,” Markel said, adding Chicago was slightly better. Research showed that cities who implemented quarantining and isolation, school closures and bans on public gatherings fared the best, he said. “The cities that did more than one” of these measures “did better. School closures were part of that contribution,” Markel said. Public health experts, including Markel, are quick to point out that COVID-19 is not influenza, which was a well-known disease in 1918. There is still a lot to learn about the novel coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. The right decision today, Markel said, is school closure. “It’s better,” he said, “to be safe than sorry.”