Top Three
The Impact of School Opening Model on SARS-CoV-2 Community Incidence and Mortality: New study.
"After controlling for case rate trends before school start, state-level mitigation measures and community activity level, SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates were not statistically different in counties with in-person learning versus remote school modes in most regions of the United States."
"In the South, there was a significant and sustained increase in cases per week among counties that opened in a hybrid or traditional mode versus remote... driven by increasing cases among 0–9 year olds and adults."
"The association between school opening mode and county incidence of SARS-CoV-2 varies by region and may be correlated with community infection prevention measures or community incidence of SARS-CoV-2 cases at the time of school opening, both of which may also be correlated with the implementation of in-school mitigation and community mitigation measures."
"Although results varied by region, these findings suggest that schools can open for in-person learning during the pandemic with minimal contribution to sustained community incidence of infections, provided other public safety measures are adopted."
No Causal Effect of School Closures in Japan on the Spread of COVID-19 in Spring 2020: New study:
"We do not find any evidence that school closures in Japan reduced the spread of COVID-19. Our null results suggest that policies on school closures should be reexamined given the potential negative consequences for children and parents."
Pediatric Covid Hospital Visits Plunge in U.S. as Schools Reopen: Via Bloomberg:
"Hospital admissions are declining sharply among U.S. children with Covid-19, even more than adults, quieting concerns for now that the return to school could trigger a major uptick in viral transmission."
"Daily pediatric admissions with confirmed Covid have fallen 56% since the end of August to an average of about 0.2 per 100,000, according to Department of Health and Human Services data. Among adults, new admissions fell 54% to 2.1 per 100,000 in the same period, the data show."
"Some schools dropped mask mandates this year under pressure from Republican governors, adding to public health experts’ concerns about returning to classrooms amid high viral transmission from the delta variant. Instead, the Delta wave has waned over the first two months of school. It’s unclear what will happen when the U.S. enters its traditional winter virus season."
Federal
Reconciliation:
Text was finally released on the billionaire tax plan, but the proposal was dead by the afternoon. Instead, the “The House is discussing with the Senate instead the inclusion of a 3% surtax, on top of the top income rate, for those earning more than $10 million.”
Punchbowl reports that “Pelosi is trying to get House progressives to go along with a floor vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. The deadline for the infrastructure vote is Oct. 31. This a big deal. Pelosi is trying to ‘decouple’ the infrastructure bill from the reconciliation package. For months, she said they were part of a ‘two-track process’ and had to be voted on together. Now Pelosi is essentially saying ‘Let’s pass the infrastructure bill and trust us on the rest.'”
COVID-19 Research
When Vaccinating Kids, Does Weight Matter? Should an 11-Year-Old Wait to Turn 12 to Get a Bigger Dose?: Good piece from the NYT.
Novavax: Files for authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine in the UK.
"The submission is based on data from a late-stage trial involving 15,000 volunteers in the UK, showing that the experimental vaccine was 96.4% effective against the original coronavirus strain."
"The application also includes data from a 30,000-person late-stage trial in the United States and Mexico, showing that the vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, demonstrated 100% protection against moderate and severe disease and 90.4% effectiveness overall."
CDC Says Some Immunocompromised People Can Get Fourth COVID Shot: Via Axios.
Five Lingering Questions About COVID Vaccines for Kids: Via the Atlantic:
"Parents want to make the best decision for their children. And they want to make a very careful decision, and they want to consider all of the information that’s available. It is scary to think about: If I choose a vaccination and my child is one that has a rare side effect, how am I going to feel about that? That’s definitely going through parents’ minds."
"The chance that your child will have a severe COVID infection is rare; the chance that your child will have MIS-C is also pretty rare. Not a lot of people know someone who’s had a child in the hospital with COVID. But what’s even more rare is the chance that there will be an ill effect from the vaccine. We have to educate about those numbers."
"Not vaccinating is still a risk, and it’s a higher risk than giving your child a vaccine."
"If you were playing the numbers and reading the data, you would give your child the vaccine every time. [The alternative] would be taking an unknown risk, and making that the reason you’re not going to protect your child against a known risk that you know how to protect against."
Summarizing CDC Guidance to Support COVID-19 Contact Tracing in K-12 Schools: New brief from ASTHO.
Vaccine Mandates: Business groups ask White House to delay the vaccine mandate until after the holidays.
Boosters: Moderna chairman says booster could be yearly.
Three Takeaways From Delta Plus: Via Stat
"It now accounts for about 10% of sequenced virus samples in England."
"The coronavirus can still potentially find new ways to enhance its transmissibility"
"Now, with Delta so dominant globally, experts anticipate that future variants that raise alarms will almost certainly be descendants of the original Delta strain — just like AY.4.2."
"Some variants also don’t circulate everywhere — a lot depends on what other versions of the virus are out there, and what the local environment looks like. The Alpha and Delta variants were so much more transmissible than the other iterations of the virus that were present when they emerged and encountered so many susceptible people that they became dominant."
It Turns Out Paying People to Take the Covid-19 Vaccine Doesn’t Really Work: Says the WSJ based on an NBER paper.
"At least 18 states have offered a form of financial assistance for people to get vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the National Governors Association."
Stop the False Narrative About Young Children and Covid. They Need Vaccines: Argues Leana Wen in the Washington Post.
"A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found that, during August and September, covid-19 was the sixth-leading cause of death among children ages 5 to 15."
"Imagine a disease that only impacts young children. Imagine that thousands of previously healthy kids have been afflicted, that more than 100 have died and that many more are living with long-term consequences. Wouldn’t developing a vaccine to protect our children from this disease be a top priority?"
"Kids can and do transmit covid-19 in school and home settings, and getting millions of children vaccinated can help reduce the coronavirus’s overall burden. But the main reason to authorize vaccines for young kids is not an altruistic one of safeguarding other vulnerable people; it’s to protect the kids themselves."
"It’s to give parents peace of mind to return to the office and travel without the constant worry of bringing the coronavirus back to their kids. And it is to reduce missed school days, as current protocols from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that vaccinated people do not need to quarantine if exposed to covid-19."
How Will We Live if Covid Is Here to Stay? Asks Katherine Eban in the NYT
"That SARS-CoV-2 could be with us forever is a dark thought. But pulling that mental lever may be just what we need to organize effectively for the very long haul, dramatically improve our pandemic response and embed safeguards into our everyday lives."
"Indeed, optimism could serve as “one of the biggest obstacles” to making those plans, said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, the director of Wellcome, a global health foundation headquartered in London. If we think Covid-19 is going away, then we will drop our guard and not make essential investments now."
"Rather than debate how to end the pandemic, we need to debate how to live with it."
"An escape variant — one so infectious that it escapes our best mRNA vaccine defenses — is not a certainty, said the experts with whom I spoke. But it is not far-fetched, either, in part because of our slow pace at vaccinating the world. That worst-case scenario could “change the whole landscape,” said Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, putting us “back to square one, with masks and distancing our only defense.” But it can be avoided, he and others said."
"Instead, the biggest shift in our new normal could be a growing societal embrace of protective measures, rather than a continued war over school mask wearing or workplace vaccine mandates. “People are not stupid,” said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, the chief of the communicable disease, epidemiology and immunization section for public health in Seattle and King County. “They will come around to accept reality.” To him, the clashes over seatbelt wearing, and its ultimate acceptance, offer a useful comparison."
State
Nevada: "Two lawsuits — one seeking $200 million — target CCSD’s student mask mandate."
North Carolina: "If Mecklenburg County drops below 10 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents and/or a 5% positivity rate, that could signal it's time to relax the mask mandate."
Ohio: "Nearly half of Cleveland’s students, 47%, are on pace to be chronically absent so far this school year," reports The 74.
International
Israel: Half of Israeli parents say they plan to give COVID vaccine to their kids.
Vietnam: Starts vaccinating kids in effort to reopen schools.
Economic Recovery
SyncUp Colorado: Announces winners of $5 million prize pool for breakthrough solutions for young Coloradans to pursue meaningful careers.
College Enrollment Saw the Largest Two-year Decline in 50 Years: CNBC reporting on data from National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Resources
The STOP Award $1 Million Prize: Via CER, "We are offering a $1 million dollar prize to an education provider, exceptional group of people, or organization who has demonstrated accomplishment during the COVID pandemic in providing an education experience that is Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless."
Chiefs for Change: Released two reports:
2021 School Choice Guidebook: Is out from AFC.
The Next100: Announced its second cohort of policy entrepreneurs.
Disrupting Big Internet: "A new startup backed by funding from AOL founder Steve Case and Laurene Powell Jobs wants to break up broadband monopolies across the country."
"Underline, a community infrastructure company, began building its first open access fiber network in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last week."
"Under the open access model, Underline builds and operates the fiber network while multiple service providers can use it and offer service to customers."
"Residential service will start at $49 per month for a 500 megabits per second connection, with a gigabit connection available for $65 per month."
What I Learned as a School Principal and Relearned as a Pandemic Parent: By Emily Murphy
Stanford Joins Group Offering Classes to Disadvantaged High-School Students: Via WSJ
"The class, part of the National Education Equity Lab, a nonprofit that provides classes for disadvantaged high-school students to earn college credit, has enrolled 225 students from across the country."
Digital Promise Research Project to Focus on Digital Learning at Scale: "SEERNet is a five-year program with a model that differs from the traditional approach of research.
"Rather than beginning with small collections of data from local groups of students, SEERNet will begin with data generated on learning platforms already in use by 100,000 or more students."
Maliya: Takes over her dad's radio again.