TOP THREE
Education Secretary Backs Mandatory School Covid-19 Vaccines: Via Politico
Sec. Cardona: “Not only do I support it, but I’m encouraging states to come up with a plan to make sure it happens."
"Governors should work with their school officials and with their health officials to roll out requirements, especially in areas that are high-spread, and where students might be at risk for going back to remote learning, or hybrid learning, as a result of the spread of Covid-19."
CDC Approves Boosters: CDC Director Walensky, in a rare late night decision, overruled her own board of experts and approved COVID-19 booster shots for people who work in places that might put them at high risk of getting infected - a category that includes teachers. More from the CDC here.
Here are the recommendations for Pfzier boosters:
People ages 65 and older, should get a booster six months after vaccination
Long term care residents, should get a booster six months after vaccination
People ages 50 to 64 with underlying health conditions, should get a booster six months after vaccination
People ages 18 to 49 with underlying conditions, may get a booster
People working in high exposure occupations (such as prisons and jails, health care workers, teachers, first responders), may get a booster six months after vaccination.
Some reactions:
“I really think this is a solution looking for a problem,” said Dr. Jason Goldman, a nonvoting committee member and an affiliate assistant professor of clinical biomedical science at Florida Atlantic University.
“I am surprised that Dr. Walensky overturned one of the four A.C.I.P. votes today, and I believe others will be as well,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, an infectious disease expert at Stanford and the American Academy of Pediatrics liaison to the committee. But the vote on boosters for occupational risk “was close,” Dr. Maldonado said, and agreed with Dr. Walensky’s decision."
“There’s a complexity here, because Dr. Walensky was part of the White House announcement” on boosters, noted Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
"Some members of the committee said there was little evidence to suggest that vaccinated teachers, and even health care workers, were at risk of repeated exposure to the virus. The decision reflected fears that such a broad recommendation would effectively throw the doors open to an all-adults booster campaign."
"Dr. Walensky made a good judgment and showed good leadership in making that decision," Fauci told POLITICO. "I totally agree and support that decision she made."
Association Between K–12 School Mask Policies and School-Associated COVID-19 Outbreaks: CDC study of schools in Maricopa and Pima Counties, Arizona.
Schools without a mask requirement were 3.5 times more likely to have outbreaks than those in schools with an early mask requirement.
Among the 999 schools included in the analysis, 210 (21.0%) had an early mask requirement, 309 (30.9%) had a late mask requirement enacted a median of 15 days after school started, and 480 (48.0%) had no mask requirement.
During July 15–August 31, 191 school-associated outbreaks occurred:
16 (8.4%) in schools with early mask requirements
62 (32.5%) in schools with late mask requirements
113 (59.2%) in schools without a mask requirement.
FEDERAL
ED: Awarded the School Board of Alachua County $147,719 in funding under the new Project to Support America’s Families and Educators (Project SAFE) grant program.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Many Parents Won’t Vaccinate Their Kids. Here’s Why: Aaron Carroll in The Atlantic.
"Parents tend to be skeptical of new vaccines. Whenever one is introduced, many of them are initially hesitant to adopt it. Take the varicella vaccine, for instance. Approved by the FDA in 1995, it protects against the virus that causes chickenpox, an extremely contagious, common, and unpleasant childhood infection. Even though the vaccine was highly effective and showed few side effects, uptake levels were initially low, with only 34 percent of eligible adolescents fully immunized by 2008."
"Ironically, more parents (60 percent) said they would not vaccinate their children if someone else in their household had already been infected with COVID-19."
"That’s one of the key takeaways Menachemi and his team discovered through their work. Parents are used to getting their children vaccinated at their doctor’s office. If we want to persuade them to get their children the COVID vaccines, we will need to use the tools they trust. We have failed to do this again and again throughout the pandemic."
America's Mismatched COVID Fears: Vaccinated Americans are more worried about contracting a COVID infection than unvaccinated Americans, according to new Harris polling.
"Worryingly, 60% of unvaccinated respondents said they think breakthrough cases prove the existing coronavirus vaccines aren't effective, compared to only 26% of all respondents."
Covid Surge Among Children Likely Overestimated in England: Via the FT
"Hospital admissions of children aged 6 and 17-years-old are currently close to 75 per cent of their winter peak level and the Office for National Statistics’ flagship study of Covid prevalence in different age groups puts the relative figure at 78 per cent. But raw case numbers have soared to 325 per cent of the winter peak over recent days."
"The nature of the three different metrics — and the close alignment between hospital admissions and the ONS series — suggest that the surge in cases among children may be the result of changes in testing patterns, rather than a fast-rising wave of new infections."
STATE
Colorado: Only 22% of schools are in state's weekly COVID-19 testing program
New York: Via NYT, "UFT estimating that between 100-150K kids are not showing up to school each day. That may account for low-ish attendance numbers, but city has not yet provided raw numbers, so impossible to confirm"
Ohio: 'Vax-2-School': Ohioans age 12 to 25 can win $100,000 college scholarships for getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
GDP Forecasts: GDP forecasts had been downgraded sharply for Q3 to around 4.5%
RESOURCES
‘I’m So Tired’: Readers Respond to Schools Reopening: Via NYT
The Pandemic’s Effect on Demand for Public Schools, Homeschooling, and Private Schools: NBER paper
Public school enrollment declined noticeably in fall 2020, with about 3 percent of Michigan students and 10 percent of kindergartners using other options.
Most of this was driven by homeschooling rates jumping substantially, driven largely by families with children in elementary school.
Homeschooling increased more where schools provided in-person instruction while private schooling increased more where instruction was remote, suggesting heterogeneity in parental concerns about children’s physical health and instructional quality.
Kindergarten declines were highest among low income and Black families while declines in other grades were highest among higher income and White families.
"To the extent that a large percentage of students remain enrolled in alternative sectors, public school systems will face unprecedented drops in funding. Because these enrollment drops are concentrated among elementary schools serving low-income and Black students, these funding challenges will present additional consequences for equity."
Concerns About Child Well-being During the 2020-21 School Year Were Greatest Among Parents of Remote Learners: Via Brookings
"The concern gap between parents of remote and in-person students was largest regarding the amount of learning (15 percentage points)"
"36% of white students attended exclusively in-person throughout the 2021-22 school year, 26% of Hispanic, 23% of Asian-American, and 21% of Black students did the same."
Improving Student, Family And School Staff Well-Being: Report from NGA
It’s Time For A New Accountability Model For Alternative And Virtual K–12 Schools: Via Michael Horn.
Mounting Covid Deaths Fuel School Bus Drivers’ Fears: Via KHN
Telemedicine, Like Remote Learning, Finds Its Place in COVID-era Schools: Via MarketWatch
“This is a mission driven by public health,” said Travis Gayles, Hazel’s chief health officer. “We are working to make sure that kids have access to meaningful, substantive care that will make their lives better regardless of what ZIP Code they are in. As we move into the post-COVID space, kids have been asked to do all kinds of things that none of us ever had to do before. They deserve access to the services that will address their needs, not just waiting around for them to have problems.” And those services should focus not just on physical health, he said, but on the mental kind, too."
Get Your Groove On: It's the weekend.