It has been a difficult weekend with the emerging humanitarian crises in Haiti and Afghanistan, record COVID hospitalizations of children in the US, and a surge of cases triggering more remote learning for children. We also have some new research and polling which means tonight's update is a bit longer than usual. So let's get right to it...
TOP THREE
Babies and Toddlers Spread Virus in Homes More Easily Than Teens: According to a new large study out of Canada. Via NYT:
"The study, which was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, does not resolve an ongoing debate over whether infected children are as contagious as adults, and it does not suggest that toddlers are driving the pandemic. But it demonstrates that even very young children can still play a role."
"In most cases, they found, the chain of transmission stopped with the infected child, but in 27.3 percent of households, children passed the virus along to at least one other resident."
Adolescents were most likely to bring the virus into the home: Children from 14 to 17 made up 38 percent of all the index cases. Children who were 3 or younger were the first to get sick in just 12 percent of households — but they were the most likely to spread the virus to others in their homes. The odds of household transmission were roughly 40 percent higher when the infected child was 3 or younger than when they were between 14 and 17."
ABC News reports, "This study updates experts' understanding of COVID transmission risk, experts said. Earlier in the pandemic, some scientists suggested the risk of transmission declined with age. But this assumption was likely skewed by the fact that lockdowns and social distancing meant young children had very few social encounters."
Inside America’s Covid-Reporting Breakdown: A must read piece from Politico - long, but worthy of your time. A six month investigation which found the U.S. could not adequately contain Covid-19 because state public health departments relied on outdated data systems and struggled to staff enough people to investigate and isolate positive cases. Among the findings:
"There was widespread awareness that state health departments lacked sufficient funding and up-to-date technology, but the federal government continued to rely on state public-health systems to report positive and negative cases and Covid-19 deaths."
"Within the states, dozens of health departments relied on arcane programs, many of which used different technology, to collect case information, investigate cases and contain outbreaks in settings such as businesses, prisons and nursing homes."
"Labs in almost every state did not send electronic data to state officials, who in turn reported to the federal government"
"During Covid-19 surges, health departments in more than 10 states stopped conducting case interviews and issuing quarantine orders for people in close contact with Covid-19 patients because there were simply too many cases to handle."
And more:
Via Scott Gottlieb: "In the U.S. we have no firm idea how many kids have already been infected with COVID. We have no idea if hospitalizations in the south are the tip of a huge iceberg of dire infection - or a sign that COVID has become more pathogenic in children. The CDC should gather this data. It isn’t."
Via Emily Oster, "We Still Do Not Have the COVID Data We Need, We need a “Data Force”
States interested in addressing this should reach out to USDR, Code for America, The Tech Talent Project, or the Lincoln Network. Let me know if you need an intro.
The Messiest Phase of the Pandemic Yet: Alexis Madrigal with a great, must-read piece in The Atlantic
The Knowns
The vaccines work very well to reduce the likelihood of an individual being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19.
Even high levels of vaccination in local regions are not enough to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
There is still a lot of randomness to where the worst outbreaks occur.
Kids remain at the lowest risk of any group for hospitalization and death. And kids are at higher risk of hospitalization now than ever before in the pandemic.
Vaccinated people can be infected with and transmit the virus.
The Unknowns:
How many people have had COVID-19? That is, how many people have some immunity, from vaccination or prior infection?
How well do the vaccines work to prevent infection?
Why have so many more people been hospitalized in the United States than in the United Kingdom?
What percentage of infections are we confirming as “cases”?
How many people will die?
What are the risks of long COVID?
FEDERAL
ED:
Secretary Cardona sent letters to the governors of Texas and Florida signaling support for states' educators amid school mask mandate debate. More via CNN and the NYT.
Politico reports that over the weekend, President Biden "personally called school officials in Arizona and Florida who chose to defy their respective governors by implementing indoor mask mandates in their classrooms."
Citing the pandemic, ED will collect school civil rights data for both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years. More at EdWeek
NIH: NIH Director Francis Collins "That's very worrisome. I think traditionally people kind of considered, ‘Well, you know, kids aren't going to get that sick with this.’ More than 400 children have died of COVID-19. And right now we have almost 2,000 kids in the hospital, many of them in ICU, some of them under the age of four.”
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Pfizer: Officially submits data to the FDA to support a third booster shot.
"Given the high levels of immune responses observed, a booster dose given within 6 to 12 months after the primary vaccination schedule may help maintain a high level of protection against COVID-19"
Record Number of Children Hospitalized With COVID-19: The number of children hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19 has reached a record high of nearly 2,000.
Mask Mandates Save Lives: IMF Study
"We find a significant and substantial effect—mask mandates reduced new weekly COVID-19 cases, hospital admissions, and deaths by 55, 11 and 0.7 per 100,000 inhabitants on average."
"Crucially, we find that the effect of mask mandates depends on the attitudes toward mask wearing at the county level, with larger effects in counties more positively inclined towards mask wearing."
The FDA and CDC Standards on the J&J Vaccine and the Immunocompromised are Unintelligible: Via Alex Tabarrok
Follow Your Nose to Herd Immunity: Via Michael Segal in the WSJ.
Polling Vaccine Mandates: YouGov/Economist poll finds Americans support them for teachers (61%), airline workers, and police officers. By 54% to 31%, Americans say K-12 students should be required to wear masks in school but there are huge partisan gaps.
STATE
California: Inside LAUSD's virus testing effort: $350 million; 1,000 healthcare workers; 500,000 tests weekly.
"Tests will be conducted at every campus by teams deployed in mobile vans"
"Licensed healthcare workers — nearly a thousand, across all schools — will offer a choice between a nasal swab or a saliva test. Twice a day, test samples will be trucked to a tarmac in Van Nuys, loaded onto a plane and flown to a Palo Alto lab tasked with delivering results to the district in 24 to 36 hours."
Also, LAUSD orders all teachers and staff to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 15
DC: New documents emerge outlining DCPS's strategy to test 10% of in-person students.
"In March of this year, according to a testimony by DCPS Chancellor Dr. Lewis Ferebee, the DCPS had asymptomatic consent forms for about 3,851 out of approximately 10,000 in-person students—just under 40 percent."
"Under the March data, sampling 10 percent of 40 percent of students with completed asymptomatic consent forms means only about 4 percent of all in-person DCPS students were even able to be screened for COVID while asymptomatic."
"Another issue the ODA raises is that DC Health doesn’t report certain numerators and denominators in its COVID data.
Florida: "Hillsborough County Public School Board will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday after 5,599 students and 316 staff have entered quarantine for COVID."
Illinois: Chicago Public Schools to require COVID vaccinations for all employees
Indiana: AFT's Randi Weingarten visited Anderson Community Schools where she urged the use of masks and for school districts to implement vaccination mandates for educators.
Mississippi:
As of August 10, the Mississippi State Department of Health reported more than 4,000 students have been quarantined since the beginning of school.
"With an overload of coronavirus patients and a shortage of healthcare workers in the state, the University of Mississippi Medical Center opened up a 20-bed field hospital in its parking garage on Friday morning.”
Nevada: A parent sent their child to school after a positive Covid-19 test. More than 80 students may have been exposed, officials say
New Mexico: Two schools going remote due to COVID-19
New York: Via NYT: "Why Only 28 Percent of Young Black New Yorkers Are Vaccinated"
Pennsylvania: Wolf administration unveils program for optional, self-administered COVID-19 nasal swab testing by kids in schools
South Carolina: Pickens County School District decides to go virtual after emergency meeting on COVID-19 cases.
Tennessee:
An investigation found evidence that the state's fired vaccine chief, Michelle Fiscus, purchased a dog muzzle that she previously claimed someone had mailed in an attempt to intimidate her.
School-aged children with COVID-19 last 14 days up 950% in just over a month.
Texas: Siding with Gov. Abbott, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily halts mask orders in Dallas and Bexar countiesManor ISD's virtual learning enrollment reached capacity within 19 minutes
RESOURCES
The K–12 Pandemic Budget and Staffing Crises Have Not Panned Out—Yet: Via RAND"District leaders reported that 6% of their teachers and 6% of their principals retired or resigned —rates they said were on par with their pre-pandemic attrition rates.""Nearly four in ten districts anticipated a fiscal cliff in the next three or four years as federal aid expires."A shocking 28% of district leaders said they were not collecting any information on vaccinations
Covid-19 Cases Surge as Students Return to Schools: Va the WSJ.
Universities Charge Unvaccinated Students "COVID Fee": Reports Axios. "West Virginia Wesleyan College will require all unvaccinated students to pay a nonrefundable $750 fee."
Fear of COVID-19 in Kids Is Getting Ahead of the Data: Via Lucy McBride in The Atlantic
"A recent peer-reviewed study in Britain of nearly 260,000 children (1,700 of whom showed symptoms) reminds us that for most kids, a coronavirus infection will manifest as the common cold—if anything."
"Also reassuring is that only 4.4 percent of children diagnosed with COVID-19 in this study had symptoms after 28 days (and 1.8 percent after 56 days).""Probably not surprising to any parent, about 1 percent of kids in this study who had upper-respiratory symptoms and tested negative for COVID-19 also had lingering symptoms at 56 days—a reminder that COVID-19 is only one potential cause for a child’s malaise."
"But fragmentary data and muddled messaging from the CDC and elsewhere have stoked the public’s collective fear—especially among parents.""Being constantly wired like this nevertheless carries a cost: Rational thought is hijacked. Our risk tolerance goes down. Our instinct to protect shifts into overdrive. We default to primitive thought patterns including black-and-white thinking (School isn’t safe until all kids are vaccinated) and catastrophizing (My child’s runny nose will probably land him in the hospital)."
The Right Way to Protect Our Children and Return to In-person Learning: By Dr. Lee Savio Beers, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, over at CNN.
"The AAP recommends universal masking as a practical way to make sure all students and staff are as safe as possible, especially when many children are still too young to be vaccinated. Officials in middle and high schools will also be relieved of the burden of monitoring who is fully vaccinated and who isn't."
"I can also refute some myths around mask use in children. Masks do not harm children's mental health...Masks are not breeding grounds for bacteria...Masks do not cause children to absorb more carbon dioxide...There is no evidence that teachers and other adults who wear face masks will negatively impact children's language development."
The Revealed Preferences for School Reopening: Evidence from Public-School Disenrollment: NBER paper.
"We find offering remote-only instead of in-person instruction reduced enrollment by 1.1 percentage points."
"The disenrollment effects of remote instruction are concentrated in kindergarten and, to a lesser extent, elementary schools.""We do not find consistent evidence that remote instruction influenced middle or high-school enrollment or that hybrid instruction had an impact."
"This implies that the widespread adoption of remote-only instruction explains roughly a quarter of the disenrollment from public schools."
"The disenrollment effect of remote instruction in districts serving higher concentrations of Black students was nearly twice as large as in districts serving lower concentrations of Black students, a finding consistent with the survey evidence that Black parents disproportionately supported remote learning."
Covid Mask Mandates for Schools Are Essential. Without Them, Instruction Must Be Virtual: Says Dr. Jalal Baig over at NBC News.
Thousands of Students, Teachers Quarantined as School Year Starts: Via The 74.
Some Kids Don't Want to Return to In-person Schooling: Via CNN
Improving Data Infrastructure to Meet Student and Learner Information Needs: A Day One paper by Kumar Garg, Aimee Guidera, & Nick Hart
Staffing Up for Mental Health Needs: Via Chalkbeat: Schools staff up to address pandemic-fueled rise in mental health needs.
Parent Polling: Here's the deck Frank Luntz used during a presentation today on some polling he did for the de Beaumont Foundation which we shared last week.
Afghanistan's Minister of Education:
"At the conclusion of an NPR interview, Rangina Hamidi, Afghanistan's acting minister of education, said, "I hope and look forward to potentially having another conversation. And if this is my last one, may the world know that the Afghan people have suffered tremendously."
And to the BBC, she said "I might face consequences…I guess that’s the price we pay for trying to make the world a little better."