COVID-19 Policy Update #241
COVID-19 Policy Update
MONDAY 4/26
Tonight's update comes a day after Ingenuity's second flight on Mars, this time traveling 164 feet at a speed of 6.6 ft per second before turning around and returning to the takeoff site. In honor of the historic flight, tonight's update pairs with a glass from one of the 12 bottles of Petrus 2000 that spent 14 months orbiting the earth on the International Space Station. It was an experiment to see if microgravity might effect the aging process and blind taste testers said they did indeed detected a difference. The space-aged wine tasted as if it had two to three years' maturity. But the only way we'll know for certain is if someone sponsors a STEM grant for COVID-19 Policy Update subscribers to do their own taste test. On to the update...
TOP THREE
Tracking Long Term Outcomes: The COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities (COSMO) study will follow the educational, career and wellbeing outcomes for 12,000 Year 11 students across England.
"It will investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic affects educational attainment and well-being, longer-term educational and career outcomes, and socioeconomic inequalities in life chances"
Michigan: "We are in a public health crisis": More children being hospitalized due to COVID.
Pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization rates increased 311% between Feb. 19 and April 20, 2021 in Michigan.
"In Michigan, the rates of pediatric infections are higher than at any other point during the pandemic. Doctors said there’s a variety of reasons at play, including the highly transmissible U.K. variant, schools reopening and kids under 16 being ineligible for the vaccine."
6ft vs 60ft: New MIT study.
"Researchers developed a method of calculating exposure risk to Covid-19 in an indoor setting that factors in a variety of issues that could affect transmission, including the amount of time spent inside, air filtration and circulation, immunization, variant strains, mask use, and even respiratory activity such as breathing, eating, speaking or singing."
“We argue there really isn’t much of a benefit to the 6-foot rule, especially when people are wearing masks” since everyone in the room is breathing the same air, Bazant said in an interview. “It really has almost no physical basis because the air a person is breathing while wearing a mask tends to rise and comes down elsewhere in the room so you’re more exposed to the average background than you are to a person at a distance.”
"In well-mixed spaces, “one is no safer from airborne pathogens at 60 feet than 6 feet,” they said."
FEDERAL
Fireside Chat with Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Video and transcript from her discussion on reopening schools last Friday that was sponsored by COVID Collaborative, CGSC, and Chiefs for Change.
CDC: Releases guidance on Summer Camps. More via NYT
Children can be within three feet of peers in the same-group settings, but they must wear masks at all times
Some activities should still be avoided altogether, including close-contact or indoor sports, and large gatherings or assemblies. Singing, chanting, shouting or playing instruments are recommended for outdoors.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Johnson & Johnson Vaccine:
A new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds just 22% of Americans not yet immunized against the coronavirus say they would be willing to get the vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson.
NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said that the blood-clotting issues may sound “scary,” but the COVID-19 shot comes with a lower risk of adverse side effects than the over-the-counter medication.
“All of us who have been taking aspirin for headaches and muscle aches for the last many decades. The risk of aspirin inducing a significant intestinal bleed is much higher than what we’re talking about here, something in the neighborhood of one in 500, one in a thousand for people who regularly take aspirin. We’re talking about something here that’s about a thousand times less likely to happen.”
Children and COVID: New study out of Germany study found that 0.4% of 5,730 asymptomatic children aged 0-18 tested positive for virus before hospital procedures or admission.
Vaccine Trials With Children: Teen shares her COVID-19 vaccine trial experience to encourage others to be vaccinated.
"Emma, who is in the seventh grade, said she first heard about COVID-19 vaccines on the news. She was familiar with mRNA technology because she had learned about it in her science class."
"If we got it authorized, I would say that everyone who can should get vaccinated," Emma said. "I's not scary. If you're vaccinated, it'll help get back to normal like everyone wants."
The Next Wave of the Pandemic: Long Covid: Via Axios
"The research is becoming only more clear: People who have had COVID — even those who never had severe infections — are at risk of ongoing health problems, including some serious ones."
"One study, published Thursday in Nature, found that, between one and six months post-infection, people whose coronavirus cases didn't require hospitalization had a 60% higher risk of death than people who hadn't been infected"
"A separate study, published Friday by the CDC, found that 69% of nonhospitalized adults who'd had COVID had one or more outpatient visits between 28 and 180 days after their diagnosis. Of these, two-thirds received a new primary diagnosis."
Skipped Second Shots: More than 5 million people have skipped their second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Simulation Study Underscores the Need for Regular Covid-19 Testing Among Children: Study
"In this simulation modeling study, identifying 10% to 20% of silent infections among children within 3 days after infection would bring attack rates below 5% if only adults were vaccinated."
"If silent infections among children remained undetected, achieving the same attack rate would require an unrealistically high vaccination coverage (≥81%) of this age group, in addition to vaccination of adults."
"These findings suggest that rapid identification of silent infections among children may achieve comparable effects as would their vaccination"
Widespread Coronavirus Surveillance Testing at Schools is a Bad Idea: Washington Post OpEd By Tracy Beth Hoeg, Monica Gandhi and Lillian Brown
"There are downsides to systematic testing that have been insufficiently considered, including costs, lost learning time, logistics and stress for those subjected to such a regime."
"Overall, this kind of widespread testing fails cost-benefit analysis: It will drain already insufficient public school resources while doing little to improve safety."
"The rate of transmission within schools from individuals who test positive has been estimated to be on the order of 0.5 percent to 0.7 percent (and this includes people exhibiting symptoms). A rate that low implies that a testing regimen would need to identify roughly 200 infected people to prevent one person from transmitting the disease in school."
"Testing continues to be an essential tool within schools. But it should be reserved for people who show symptoms and those who have had contact with people known to have been infected with the coronavirus. Surveillance testing of asymptomatic teachers and students is not only a waste of resources; it also threatens to radically disrupt the day-to-day functioning of schools. After a lost year of education, that’s the last thing we need."
STATE
California:
The state is offering no-cost rapid Covid testing and staff training to schools.
An Inside Look at San Bernardino USD's Whole Child Approach to Wellness
"By implementing telehealth services on-campus, students are able to receive immediate medical support, with staff reporting over 92 percent of students returning to class following a visit from the school health office."
"We partner with Hazel Health to support the work of our school nurses, and provide in-school and in-home telehealth appointments to students. Since school nurses aren’t able to prescribe medications on the spot, having a telehealth provider available ensures that students can still get the medicine or treatment they need without a parent having to come to school and take their child to a clinic."
DC: D.C. leaders expect all public and charter schools to open for full-time, in-person instruction this fall, and students must attend in person unless they can demonstrate a need to stay home, City Administrator Kevin Donahue said Friday during a meeting with the D.C. Council. The WTU backs in-person.
Kansas: Kansas City Metro districts said 16%, or more than 4,000 students have been chronically absent during the COVID-19 pandemic, up from 12% in previous years. More startling, 29% of Black students have missed school, compared to 11% of white students.
New York: Tensions rise at some of NYC’s top high schools over ‘Zoom in a room’ for on-campus students.
South Carolina: School districts see major shortage in substitute teachers
“In an average year, the district was able to fill 85% of daily teacher absences with a substitute teacher. This year, they’ve been trending closer to 45%."
Tennessee: will launch two online schools for the 2021-22 school year for students who wish to continue online learning: one for grades K-8 and one for grades 9-12.
Texas: Frisco ISD will create a permanent, full-time Virtual School to serve students in the 2021-22 school year.
Utah: 3 Utah school districts now allow students to skip masks, based on their parents' judgment
INTERNATIONAL
Canada: The hard lessons of homeschooling in a pandemic year
Germany: Germany's 'emergency brake' rules take effect.
"Close in-person teaching at schools if the incidence rate exceeds 165. Exceptions for graduating classes and special schools are possible. From 100 to 165, alternate attendance teaching days are required."
South Korea: COVID-19 deepens educational polarization at schools
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
The High Demand for Durable Skills: New research with America Succeeds Reveals and EMSI.
"Durable Skills are the soft skills that comprise important professional capabilities (Leadership, Critical Thinking, Communication, etc.) and personal qualities (Creativity, Mindfulness, Fortitude, etc.) that last throughout an entire career."
The top five Durable Skills are requested nearly four (3.8) times more than the top five hard skills
Over 29 million postings (36 percent) requested at least three Durable Skills
Low-Skill Workers Aren’t a Problem to Be Fixed: Via The Atlantic
Hybrid Offices Learn from Pitfalls of Hybrid School: Via Axios
LEARNING PODS
Learning Pods Expanded To New Hampshire: The department will offer grants to school districts to support the creation of learning pods for students.
"Edelblut said the $6 million contract with Prenda will pay for the district's fees and schools can still receive their adequacy aid from the state."
Prenda: Arizona attorney general launches investigation into microschool company and its partner.
RESOURCES
Our Brains Need Breaks From Virtual Meetings: Via Forbes
"A study of brainwave activity conducted by Microsoft among people participating in video meetings while wearing electroencephalogram (EEG) equipment to monitor the electrical activity in their brains revealed that brain activity associated with stress increased as the number of consecutive video meetings increased."
"They also point to an easy remedy: taking a break in between meetings."
"Breaks between meetings allow the brain to “reset,” reducing a cumulative buildup of stress across meetings."
"Back-to-back meetings can decrease your ability to focus and engage."
"Transitioning between meetings can be a source of high stress."
Reopening Schools: Via Politico: "Kids are finally returning to school. But most of them are white."
In Thousands of Districts, 4-Day School Weeks Are Robbing Students of Learning Time for What Amounts to Hygiene Theater: Via Robin Lake
The Best Game of Chase: You'll ever see. The surprise at the .40 mark is hysterical.