Top Three
Pfizer Antiviral Pill: Pfizer released data (Press Release) showing that it's antiviral pill can vastly reduce hospitalizations and death.
"Pfizer’s pill, which will be sold under the brand name Paxlovid, cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% when given within three days of the start of symptoms."
"Pfizer said an independent board of experts monitoring its clinical trial had recommended that the study be stopped early because the drug’s benefit to patients had proved so convincing."
The company plans to submit the data as soon as possible to the FDA to seek authorization for the pill to be used in the US
Reuters explains how Merck's COVID-19 pill compares to Pfizer's.
California Schools: Get Vaccinated or Go Back to Distance Learning: Via Politico: "Nearly 350,000 California students face an imminent choice: Get vaccinated for Covid-19 or stay home."
"Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco who has been influential during the pandemic, said she supports childhood vaccines and that her own child will get a Covid shot. But she questioned the legality of districts imposing a mandate before the FDA actually approves the vaccine for most school-age children and sympathized with parents who are still processing their decisions."
"There’s not a single other place that’s doing this. It’s new and it may take some time for people to feel comfortable with it — it may take six to eight months,” Gandhi said. “It’s totally understandable and justifiable that parents at this point want to wait for more safety data. It’s really important for parents to have some time."
"Gandhi withdrew her support for Newsom's vaccine mandate last week out of frustration that there is no plan to eliminate mask requirements once students get their Covid shot. She said the state and school districts are being unnecessarily tougher on children than adults."
“I am not prepared to vote on anything that could force over half of the Black and brown students out of the district because they are currently not vaccinated. I don't understand how we would move forward with that without having a plan,” Oakland Unified School Board member Mike Hutchinson said last week."
Children and COVID-19 in Schools: Via Science.
"One of the main concerns with the full reopening of schools was the risk of in-school transmissions leading to large outbreaks, with onward transmission to household members and potentially into the wider community. In England, PHE surveillance found that most schools did not experience a COVID-19 outbreak."
"When they did occur, more than half involved only two cases before they were controlled, most likely because of mitigation measures: frequent sanitization, physical distancing, class bubbles, staff masking, and rapid testing with lateral flow devices and isolation of cases and their bubble contacts."
"That infection and outbreaks occur in educational settings is undeniable and likely reflects a combination of factors, including local community infection rates and inadequate in-school mitigations."
"The number of mitigation measures, rather than individual measures, are important in preventing in-school transmission."
"Therefore, although school closures may contribute to reducing transmission, by themselves, they would be inadequate in preventing community transmission and, consequently, the benefits of in-person schooling outweigh the risks, especially in countries where adults are fully vaccinated against COVID-19."
Federal
Commerce: EDA announced it has received 529 applications for the $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge.
BIF:
"Speaker Pelosi told reporters that she has a “Speaker’s secret whip count” and that she believes a “large number” of progressives will fold and ultimately vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill tonight."
Just minutes after Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill later tonight, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) rejected the plan on behalf of House progressives, Politico reports.
Reconciliation:
Build Back Better Act Speaker's Overall Fact Sheet.
Fact sheets compiled by the following committees: Agriculture, Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Judiciary, Natural Resources, Oversight, Science, Space and Technology, Small Business, Transportation and Infrastructure, Veterans’ Affairs and Ways and Means.
The Treasury released their estimate on the Build Back Better framework suggesting it would reduce deficits. Moody's also released their macroeconomic analysis.
Vaccine Mandate:
The rule will apply to some schools too (Chalkbeat / EdWeek)
"A number of those states already have vaccine-or-test rules for teachers and public school employees. But about a dozen — including Michigan, Indiana, and Tennessee — don’t, and will soon be required to adopt rules that are “at least as effective” as OSHA’s. Those rules would then apply to employees of school districts in those states with 100 or more employees."
NC Superintendent Truitt released a statement expressing concerns.
11 states sue the Biden administration over its vaccination mandate.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition for review in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the constitutional validity of the administration’s mandate.
School Learning Modalities: New CDC and ED mapping/data tool.
The sources include: Burbio, MCH, Return to Learn, and State Dashboards
It's encouraging to see this, but they're missing quarantine data which have been far more disruptive this year.
COVID-19 Research
Here’s Why Rapid COVID Tests Are So Expensive and Hard to Find: A (maddening) ProPublica piece:
"The answer appears to be a confounding combination of overzealous regulation and anemic government support — issues that have characterized America’s testing response from the beginning of the pandemic."
"Companies trying to get the Food and Drug Administration’s approval for rapid COVID-19 tests describe an arbitrary, opaque process that meanders on, sometimes long after their products have been approved in other countries that prioritize accessibility and affordability over perfect accuracy."
"In late May, WHPM head of international sales Chris Patterson said, the company got a confusing email from its FDA reviewer asking for information that had in fact already been provided. WHPM responded within two days. Months passed. In September, after a bit more back and forth, the FDA wrote to say it had identified other deficiencies, and wouldn’t review the rest of the application. Even if WHPM fixed the issues, the application would be “deprioritized,” or moved to the back of the line."
"Nanōmix, a diagnostics designer based in Emeryville, California, developed a rapid test with the help of a federal grant and submitted it to the FDA in February. In early June, an FDA reviewer sent back a list of questions, giving Nanōmix a deadline of 48 hours to respond. The company couldn’t provide answers that quickly, so it was sent to the back of the line. We start development on a set of guidance,” said Nanōmix CEO David Ludvigson. “Then they change the guidance after we’re done, and expect us to have conformed to their revised guidance.”
Rapid Home Tests for COVID-19: Issues with Availability and Access: Via KFF
The UK government provides up to seven tests per day to those who cannot get tests from work or school and recommends each individual screen themselves twice weekly.... Germany, until recently, made rapid antigen tests freely available as well...
"While the FDA has not suggested it will lower the recommended threshold for tests, on October 25, 2021, HHS announced that the NIH “would establish an accelerated pathway to support FDA evaluation of tests with potential for large-scale manufacturing” through its new Independent Test Assessment Program (ITAP), an extension of its Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative."
"The lack of up-front federal investment in testing, including advance purchasing of tests, is another factor that appears to have impacted testing availability and affordability. Whereas the federal government channeled billions of dollars into accelerating vaccine development and advance purchasing of millions of doses, which helped to mitigate manufacturer risk and allowed for vaccines to be provided at no cost to all in the United States, no similar strategy was undertaken for testing."
The Case for Mandating Covid-19 Vaccines for Kids: Via Vox.
These States and Cities are Offering to Pay Kids if They Get Vaccinated: Via CNN.
Some Schools Are Dropping Mask Mandates. Should Yours?: Via EdWeek.
State
Arizona: Gov. Ducey is defying a demand that he stop using federal coronavirus relief money to fund an education grant program that can only go to schools without mask mandates.
Illinois: Chicago Public Schools will close Nov. 12 to give kids COVID vaccines.
Kansas: School enrollment in Kansas has dropped by over 15,000 students since 2019 as virtual and homeschool enrollment has increased.
Minnesota: St. Paul Public Schools vaccine mandate finds 35% of employees out of compliance. "As of Monday, 378 students still were being held out of school."
New York: NYC children qualify for a $100 incentive for getting COVID shots at school.
Texas: Blended Learning PD Reimbursements for the 2021-2022 school year.
International
Austria: Vienna will begin vaccinating children as young as 5 without official approval from the EU.
UK: "COVID-19 prevalence in England rose to its highest level on record in October, Imperial College London said on Thursday, led by a high numbers of cases in children and a surge in the south-west of the country."
Economic Recovery
Jobs Report: 531,000 jobs were added in October, beating expectations. The unemployment rate fell to 4.6% from 4.8%
More significant is that the September jobs report was revised upward by an additional 312,000.
Unemployment rate rose for women and stayed flat for Black workers.
Job Switchers Get Higher Wages: Interesting data out of the Atlanta Fed showing the highest wage growth going to job switchers.
Labor Force Participation: The Peterson Institute offers a chart visualizing the mystery behind the numbers. Half is due to aging and weak labor markets but half is just "other."
Equitable Value Explorer: BMGF released an interactive website that students can study to evaluate more than 4,000 colleges and universities on factors such as racial composition of the student body, net cumulative price of attendance, completion rates, the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants, and median earnings ten years after enrollment.
Resources
Big Teacher Is Watching: How AI Spyware Took Over Schools: Via Bloomberg
A Text From An Ex: This woman adds a sad violin to an ex's apology text. Wait for the end.