I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. And Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate. May you - and all of us - have peace, love, and happiness.
The last few days contained a number of surprises that included the arrival of a troubling new variant, Michigan beating Ohio State, and the way the Beatles came up with Get Back.
So tonight's update will be a bit longer than usual given the rapidly unfolding events surrounding Omicron. Three things to keep in mind. First, while there are reasons to be concerned, it will take time to answer some of the most important questions including if there is any increase in disease severity. Second, regardless of Omicron, the Delta wave sweeping through Europe could serve as an early warning of another wave in the U.S. We're already seeing a rise in parts of the country and among children. And third, all of this uncertainty means we need to make the most use of the time we have now to ensure preparations are in place should they be needed. This includes more robust COVID testing programs, refined quarantine procedures, higher quality online learning, and working with parents and pediatricians to improve vaccination rates. On to tonight’s update…
Top Three
Merck’s Covid-19 Pill Was 30% Effective in Final Analysis: Reports the WSJ.
"FDA staff said [molnupiravir] was effective at reducing the risk of hospitalization and death, but they didn’t take a position on whether the agency should authorize the drug. The agency also said no major safety concerns turned up in late-stage testing."
The company told "the agency earlier this week the pill was 30% effective in a final analysis of the late-stage study results. After taking an early look at results, the companies had reported in October that molnupiravir was 50% effective."
"The latest molnupiravir efficacy rate is disappointing, but the drug could still be a helpful treatment because it will be more convenient and easier to access than the antibody drugs currently available, said Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious-disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco."
School Staffing Shortages: The Philadelphia School District has nearly 1,900 vacant positions. That’s so many that about 50 staffers from the district’s administrative offices will leave their posts to answer phones, teach classes, and monitor cafeterias in a handful of schools that Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. has deemed “in crisis with staffing.”
The Biggest Problem Areas That Districts Are Seeing in Student Learning Loss: EdWeek surveyed teachers, school leaders, and district leaders asking which specific areas they see the need for the most support this fall.
Omicron
President Biden: Nov 26 statement and remarks from today.
"Sooner or later, we are going to see cases of the omicron variant here in the U.S.,” Biden cautioned. He called it a cause for concern, “not panic.”
Said today that the "administration was not recommending further restrictions on businesses or in-person gatherings to combat the coronavirus pandemic amid concerns about the new omicron variant,” The Hill reports.
WHO: “Given mutations that may confer immune escape potential and possibly transmissibility advantage, the likelihood of potential further spread of Omicron at the global level is high,” the WHO said in its risk assessment in a technical brief sent to its 194 member states.
Scientists Studying Severity: "Scientists scrambled on Sunday to gather data on the new Omicron variant, its capabilities and — perhaps most important — how effectively the current vaccines will protect against it."
"The early findings are a mixed picture. The variant may be more transmissible and better able to evade the body’s immune responses, both to vaccination and to natural infection, than prior versions of the virus, experts said in interviews."
"Within an hour of the first alarm, scientists in South Africa also rushed to test Covid vaccines against the new variant. Now, dozens of teams worldwide — including researchers at Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — have joined the chase.
South African Doctor Who Raised Alarm Says Symptoms Are "Unusual but Mild": In an interview with the Telegraph. "She said, in total, about two dozen of her patients have tested positive for Covid-19 with symptoms of the new variant. They were mostly healthy men who turned up “feeling so tired”. About half of them were unvaccinated."
Patience Is Crucial: Why we won't know for weeks how dangerous Omicron is, via Science.
"The world is watching as researchers work nights and weekends to learn what a new variant has in store for humanity. Is Omicron more infectious? More deadly? Is it better at re-infecting recovered people? How well does it evade vaccine-induced immunity? And where did it come from? Finding out will take time, warns Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust: “I'm afraid patience is crucial.”
"Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center thinks people who recovered from COVID or were vaccinated are unlikely to completely lose their ability to neutralize the virus. “But I would expect, based on this particular combination of mutations, that the drop in neutralization is larger than for all the other major variants.”
Vaccines: Pfizer and Moderna are studying the new variant and developing responses:
The New York Times says “vaccines are expected to provide some protection against Omicron because they stimulate not only antibodies but immune cells that can attack infected cells… Mutations to the spike protein do not blunt that immune-cell response.”
Pfizer said that if necessary they expect to be able to ship a new vaccine tailored to the emerging variant in approximately 100 days.
"Moderna Inc said in a statement it is working to advance a booster candidate tailored to the new variant and has also been testing a higher dose of its existing booster and to study other booster candidates designed to protect against multiple variants."
Moderna Chief Medical Officer Paul Burton said he suspects the new Omicron variant may elude current vaccines, and if so, a reformulated shot could be available in early 2022.
"This is the highest level of alert we’ve ever been on, by far,” since devising the initial batch of vaccines last year, said Stephen Hoge, Moderna’s president. “What’s most scary about this virus is it’s managed to put all of its greatest hits into one [omicron] variant, and then has added maybe 10 mutations that we don’t even know what to think of yet.”
New York Tightens Restrictions: New York Gov. Hochul declared "a state of emergency Friday in response to a cold-weather surge of coronavirus infections and the threat of the newly detected omicron variant, making her state one of the first in the country to impose measures against Omicron."
Naming the Variant: WHO skips ‘Xi’ and ‘Nu’
"The WHO said it had skipped them because Nu was too easily confused with “new,” while Xi is a common surname."
"The body cited best practices for naming diseases that seek to avoid causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups."
Travel Bans Hurting Research: One of the scientists who sent the early warning about Omicron is now flagging that South Africa is at risk of running out of research supplies due to planes not flying to the country.
The New Variant is Worrying – But It Doesn’t Change How We Tackle Covid: Good advice from Kit Yates over in the Guardian.
"The only way to stop B.1.1.529 and other mutations is through testing, masks, and getting vaccines to everyone in the world"
"We should be taking mitigation measures to prevent spread in schools, where pupils are again seeing the highest rates of Covid among any age group."
"Masks should be made mandatory again in enclosed public spaces, on transport and in supermarkets, and businesses should be encouraging people to work from home where they can."
Closing UK Schools ‘Last Possible Option’ In Fight Against Omicron: Reports the Telegraph. Teacher unions are calling for tougher measures to be implemented to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Emily Oster: Offering a good, balanced perspective based on what we know and don't know at this point.
The Early Warning on Omicron Variant Is Invaluable: Zeynep Tufekci:
“But an early warning on what? Ah, that is the beauty of it. The earlier the warning, the less we know. I’ve done my best to keep up on all the information being shared by scientists on this (amazing! so much open science!) and my current conclusion is that everything is on the table, including that this just fizzles out or turns out to be a catastrophe.”
“There are three open questions: transmissibility, immune evasion, disease course in infected people.”
“Of the three, I think some level of immune evasion in terms of antibodies is the clearest prediction: this looks like it could cause more breakthrough infections in vaccinated or previously-infected people. But that is not, by itself, a catastrophe if the virus doesn’t make people very sick, or if it doesn’t transmit well. Both are still unknown, and all the possibilities are more or less on the table.”
Data Rich, Information Poor: Good observation from Derek Thompson: "The pace and sophistication of the science is miraculous. But there's something uncanny about these sort of news purgatories where information is abundant but meaning is scarce, and the only reasonable thing is to not draw conclusions from an abundance of factoids."
Federal
IES: The What Works Clearinghouse requests information on rigorous research on interventions that promote postsecondary success.
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund Tracker: Via NCSL
FDA: FDA nomination slips after Biden admin fails to send papers to Congress, reports Politico.
"The delay means that Califf is now unlikely to get a confirmation hearing until mid-December at the earliest, effectively ruling out the possibility of a full Senate floor vote on his appointment before the end of the year."
COVID-19 Research
UK Vaccinations: The UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization met today and changed its vaccine recommendations (more via the Politico). Among the recommendations:
Boosters should be available to everyone over the age of 18.
The gap between second dose and booster should be reduced to three months from the current six-month gap
Children 12-15 should also be allowed to receive a second dose three months after their first.
Southern States Fall Behind in Vaccinating Kids: Via the Washington Post
Europe's COVID-19 Surge Highlights Warnings for US: Via The Hill.
Real-time Alerting System for COVID-19 Using Wearable Data: Study in Nature.
"We built a real-time smartwatch-based alerting system that detects aberrant physiological and activity signals (heart rates and steps) associated with the onset of early infection." Used Fitbit, Apple Watch and Garmin watches.
"In a cohort of 3,318 participants, of whom 84 were infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), this system generated alerts for pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection in 67 (80%) of the infected individuals."
"Pre-symptomatic signals were observed at a median of 3 days before symptom onset."
State
California: Los Angeles School officials are investigating the district’s use of Edgenuity.
"One complaint filed to the agency and reviewed by BuzzFeed News questioned whether LAUSD was using all of the Edgenuity licenses it paid for, whether the product was effective, and whether its pricing model for various products was fair."
Maryland: Baltimore school officials say they’re not ready to enforce employee vaccine mandate. About 90% of Baltimore school’s 10,000 employees are either vaccinated or have a religious or medical exemption. The rate for teachers is 95%. For principals, it’s 98%.
New York: "New York City may already be seeing signs of a winter spike in Covid-19 even though holiday travel, gatherings and colder weather are just getting started."
"The city’s positive test rate rose to a two-month high as hospitals admitted more than 100 new virus patients on Friday, contributing to a 25% jump in hospitalizations in just two weeks."
International
Belgium: Quarantine regulations will once again be tightened, just one month after they were eased.
If two cases are detected in a class, all high-risk pupils must be tested. If there are three cases, classes could go into self-isolation.
Schools will be given a budget of €11 million for the purchase of additional CO2 meters, and an additional €6.5 million for the purchase of COVID self-tests.
Masks will be required in schools for children ages 10 and above.
Denmark: Will start vaccinating children 5 to 11.
Egypt: Authorizes Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for 12 to 15 year-olds.
EU: Authorizes Pfizer vaccines for children aged 5 to 11
Netherlands: Will require masks in secondary schools.
UK: Students are now required to wear masks.
Economic Recovery
Retail Traffic: Traffic at retail stores on Black Friday dropped 28.3% compared with 2019 levels, but was up 47.5% compared to a year-ago.
Investing in Rural Prosperity: Published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis featuring 79 authors. Some great contributions discussing broadband, education, Opportunity Zones, poverty, and place-based strategies.
Why Billions in Broadband Money May Go to the Wrong Places: Via Politico
"The Federal Communications Commission’s maps, based on data from telecom providers, have fueled years of complaints from local government leaders and members of Congress alike."
"In one Mississippi county, the federal estimates of broadband availability are off by 80 percent, a regulator in that state has said. Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan, three states with huge connectivity shortfalls, have little idea how large their coverage gaps are or which counties have the worst problems."
"Congress has required that better maps be in place before the infrastructure money is spent, which should make it easier to target the neediest areas during the second, larger round. But logistical hurdles are already threatening to delay the planned maps, pushing that larger bucket of money well into the future."
Resources
School Closures Aren’t Just for Covid Anymore: Leslie Bienen in the WSJ
"Thousands of schools in dozens of districts across the U.S. have taken previously unscheduled days off or moved back to remote learning for “mental health” reasons. Other schools have cut back time in school buildings because of staffing shortages or for “deep cleaning,” a pointless anti-Covid precaution."
"It seems perverse to respond to the problems caused by school shutdowns with more shutdowns—and to send middle schoolers the message that unruly behavior can get them out of school for three weeks.
We Need Some Hope: So here is the Detroit Youth Choir singing High Hopes and the Color Music Children's Choir from Ukraine performing Something Just Like This.