Top Three
First Case of Omicron Variant Identified in the U.S: This was expected, and the only surprise was that it took this long to identify a case. CDC press release. More via Stat:
"The Covid-19 case was identified by the California and San Francisco health departments in a person who had traveled to South Africa and returned on Nov. 22."
"The individual, who was fully vaccinated and had mild symptoms that are improving, has been isolating since testing positive on Nov. 29. All close contacts have tested negative thus far, health officials said."
COVID-19 Vaccines For Children: Exploring Immunization Strategies For Individuals Under 12: Great set of resources from NGA.
Pfizer: Submitted a request to the FDA to to expand the emergency use authorization of a booster dose to include 16- and 17-year-olds.
Omicron
South Africa: Reports 8,561 new coronavirus cases, up 571% from last week amid increased testing.
Positivity rate: 16.5% (+6.3)
In hospital: 2,550 (+136)
In ICU: 235 (+1)
New deaths: 28
Polling:
Harris polled on the variant:
While close 69% of vaccinated people were familiar with Omicron, only 44% of unvaccinated people were.
Of those familiar with the new variant, 78% are concerned that it will evade existing vaccines, a fear among vaccinated (81%) and even unvaccinated (61%) Americans.
Despite concern over what Omicron may bring, overall fear of new variants remains unchanged from prior weeks this weekend at (73%), as does fear of a surge in new cases (70%), and those who believe the worst is behind us (56%).
7 in 10 Americans now believe that the COVID-19 pandemic will be with us in 2023 - up 10 points from last week.
We Can Prevail Over Omicron. We Just Need to Use the Tools We Have: Great oped in the Guardian by Eric Topol
"But no matter the results of these lab studies and what tracking of new cases around the world show, we have all the tools to prevail over Omicron. That includes mitigation measures like masks, especially medical grade ones, physical distancing, ventilation and air filtration."
"Moreover, that third shot induces remarkably high neutralizing antibodies, much higher than the second vaccine dose, and much broader activity against variants. Furthermore, the T-cell response to vaccines are far less variant sensitive than neutralizing antibodies, which puts us in good stead for fully vaccinated people to reduce the risk of severe disease."
"Although Omicron is a source of concern, our problem now is lack of containment of Delta in the United States, with more than 90,000 new cases a day and more than 50,000 hospitalizations. We are the number one source of new infections in the world, and they are now all Delta."
EU Could Approve Shot Against Omicron in 3-4 Months: Via Reuters. "Speaking to the European Parliament, European Medicines Agency (EMA) executive director Emer Cooke said it was not known if drugmakers would need to tweak their vaccines to protect against Omicron, but the EMA was preparing for that possibility."
A Reason for Optimism on Omicron: Our Immune Systems Are Not Blank Slates: Via Stat.
"Anna Durbin, director of the Center for Immunization Research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said T cells — which have been trained by vaccine or infection to look for and attack a particular pathogen, in this case SARS-2 — may not be enough to prevent infection with the Omicron variant, but should help shut down the disease it triggers, if infection occurs."
Boosters May Help: "An Israeli doctor caught Omicron, then met dozens of people. Just one contact has tested positive"
"These initial results have led the infectious disease experts at Sheba, which houses one of Israel’s leading coronavirus laboratories, to cautiously hope that people who have been vaccinated three times may not be as vulnerable to Omicron as was first feared."
"It is important not to extrapolate too much from isolated cases, said Prof. Gili Regev-Yochay, director of the infectious disease epidemiology unit at Sheba, who has helped lead research into the virus. “But this does tell us that, in some cases, Omicron is not as infectious if you’re vaccinated,” Prof. Regev-Yochay said. “And I think that’s a major thing.”
Federal
USDA: Is accepting grant and loan applications for rural broadband expansion.
COVID-19 Research
Severe Covid Infection Doubles Chances of Dying in Following Year: According to a new study. More via the Guardian.
"The increased risk of dying was greater for patients under 65, and only 20% of the severe Covid-19 patients who died did so because of typical Covid complications, such as respiratory failure."
"The researchers tracked the electronic health records of 13,638 patients who underwent a PCR test for Covid within the University of Florida health system, with 178 patients experiencing severe virus symptoms, 246 mild or moderate Covid-19 and the rest testing negative."
"This suggests that the patients had experienced an overall decline in their health that left them vulnerable. “Since we now know that there is a substantial risk of dying from what would likely be considered to be an unrecognized complication of Covid-19, we need to be even more vigilant in decreasing severe episodes of Covid-19,” said Mainous."
"In both unadjusted and adjusted analyses, severe COVID-19 infection has a significantly increased risk compared to those with no COVID-19. In addition to the greater mortality risk relative to no COVID-19, the severe COVID-19 group had a significantly increased risk of death compared to the mild/moderate COVID-19 group in adjusted analyses."
The Coronavirus in a Tiny Drop: Amazing set of animations and visualizations of the coronavirus.
"To create the model, the researchers needed one of the world’s biggest supercomputers to assemble 1.3 billion atoms and track all their movements down to less than a millionth of a second. This computational tour de force is offering an unprecedented glimpse at how the virus survives in the open air as it spreads to a new host."
States Address School Vaccine Mandates and Mask Mandates: Useful maps and data from NASHP.
State
Arkansas: Sees its biggest COVID-19 case jump since September.
California: Rady Children's therapy dogs brings comfort before COVID vaccine shot.
"The anticipation of a jab at Rady's vaccine clinic had 9-year-old Avery Smith in tears. Then Ollie came in and sat at her feet."
"It helped me because I never had a COVID vaccine before and I didn't know what it felt like. But when I saw the dog it helped me calm down," Avery said."
Illinois: CPS launched a Test-to-Stay pilot allowing some students to test their way out of COVID-19 quarantine. More via Chalkbeat.
"Even with the new test-to-stay program, the district has made little progress in getting families to sign students up for the school-based testing months into school reopening. Only about 9% of the district’s student body, or about 31,100 students, had enrolled in the testing program across Chicago Public Schools as of Nov. 1, according to public records."
Michigan:
Gov. Whitmer wants lawmakers to allocate $300 million in federal pandemic rescue funding to support COVID-19 testing at schools amid a fourth surge of infections in the state.
Oxford High School shooting:
NYT: What We Know About the Michigan High School Shooting
A student from inside the school captured footage of the possible shooter trying to get into the classroom by impersonating a sheriff. It's terrifying.
Ohio: Nine schools in a district in north-east Ohio shut for the day on Monday because of understaffing.
Texas:
Test to Stay launches at public schools in Las Cruces
Brian Lopez in the Texas Tribune: "The pandemic has undone years of educational gains in Texas schools. Here’s what the road to recovery looks like."
"But what’s happening now is markedly different, experts say, because the pandemic took a toll not only on the way children learn, but it also disrupted their home lives entirely. And critics of the state’s extra tutoring law say it is unfair to identify “learning loss” in students through one test."
"In the middle of a pandemic, when people are stressed out, traumatized, upset, depressed, angry — how well are they performing on that kind of an assessment?” said Meghan Dougherty, an instructional coach for secondary social studies in the Round Rock Independent School District, north of Austin. “This idea that somehow we have to run even faster to catch up, right when our energy resources are already depleted, is demoralizing.”
"Districts must keep to a ratio of one teacher per three students for these tutoring sessions. But with pandemic-related staffing shortages meeting that ratio is proving a struggle for most school districts."
"In El Paso, the school district is hiring temporary “high-impact” tutors with a rate of up to $50 an hour to meet the demands of the bill."
Vermont: Reported its highest number of hospitalizations from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. A total of 84 people were hospitalized, with 22 in intensive care, according to the Vermont Department of Health. Unvaccinated people made up 71% of the hospitalizations and 81% of critical care stays over the last seven days, according to state data.
Virginia: "For the second straight year, enrollment in Virginia public schools has dropped, with 46,000 fewer students enrolled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic."
International
France: Records highest one-day tally in COVID-19 cases since April.
Germany: Reported the highest number of deaths from coronavirus since mid-February as hospitals warned that the country could have 6,000 people in intensive care by Christmas, above the peak of last winter.
Israel: “Mandatory vaccination needs to be considered, whether through legislation or otherwise, especially given the fact that not only is the pandemic here, but I fear it will get worse,” coronavirus czar Salman Zarka said." He said he changed his mind following the appearance of Omicron.
Economic Recovery
Some Professional Degrees Leave Students With High Debt but Without High Salaries: WSJ with a story and searchable database.
"Professional degrees like dentistry and veterinary medicine are leaving many students with immense college debt, threatening the outlook for fields that provide essential public services, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data."
"The culprits span graduate programs at big state schools, for-profit colleges and some of the U.S.’s elite private universities."
"Roughly 76% of professional programs left recent students with higher debt loads at graduation than earnings two years later, the Journal’s analysis of nearly 500 programs classified as professional degrees found. That is worse than other degree types: About 22% of master’s programs in the data had debt loads that high and 11% of bachelor’s programs."
"NYU, which says it educates nearly 10% of the nation’s dentists, tells current students they should expect to spend more than $572,000 for its four-year program, including living expenses. Federal data showed NYU dentistry students who graduated in the 2015 and 2016 classes had median debt of about $349,000 and, two years later, median earnings of about $82,000."
Resources
What U.S. Mayors Are Really Worried About: "A survey of 126 mayors reveals that city leaders are more concerned about the long-term mental health consequences of the pandemic than other headline-grabbing issues."
"52% of the mayors surveyed cited mental health and trauma as one of two long-term consequences of the pandemic they were most concerned about"
"37% cited the toll on students who lost more than a year of in-person schooling."
"A historic infusion of $350 billion in aid to state and local governments through the American Rescue Plan has given mayors the chance to not only provide Covid relief, but also address these broader issues."
But... "Only 2% chose education as one of their top priorities" for these funds.
70% say the biggest challenge facing their small businesses is access to the workforce they need.
It’s Time to Make Linked Data Work for K–12 Leaders: Chiefs for Change and Data Quality Campaign released a report that outlines how states and districts can track where students go after high school graduation to help design schools and programs that will prepare all young people to succeed in life.
No Extra Resources for Children Orphaned by Covid: Via KHN, "No concerted government effort exists to help the estimated 140,000 children who have lost a parent — or even to identify them."
Pre-K Enrollment Rose Prior to Pandemic: K12 Dive on a new Census report.
"State funding of preschool programs surpassed $9 billion in the District of Columbia and the 44 states that funded preschools in the 2019-20 school year and policymakers are increasingly focusing on early childhood education, including the current administration’s proposed initiative of universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds."
"According to CPS data, the percentage of kids ages 3 and 4 enrolled in school fell from 54% in 2019 to 40% in 2020, the first time since 1996 that fewer than half of the children in this age group were enrolled."
UK Government Design Principles: From 2019 but still useful for today:
Start with user needs
Do less
Design with data
Do the hard work to make it simple
Iterate. Then iterate again
This is for everyone
Understand context
Build digital services, not websites
Be consistent, not uniform
Make things open: it makes things better
Why I’m Backing Charter Schools: WSJ oped by Michael Bloomberg (press release with the details)
"Instead of giving students the skills they need to succeed in college or in a trade, the public education system is handing them diplomas that say more about their attendance record than their academic achievement. This harms students, especially those from low-income families."
"In New York and many other places, enrollment in traditional schools has fallen dramatically since the start of the pandemic as parents search for better alternatives. Meanwhile, across the country, charters saw their largest enrollment increase ever last year—240,000 more children."
"To begin meeting the demand for charters, Bloomberg Philanthropies is launching a five-year, $750 million effort to create seats for 150,000 more children in 20 metro areas across the country."
SEL:
Vicki Phillips: "During COVID, Teachers Looked Beyond the Classroom to Meet Students’ Social-Emotional Needs. That Type of Innovation Must Continue"
Rick Hess: "Social-Emotional Learning and the Perils of Teaching as Therapy"
On This Day: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.
I Never Get Tired of These Videos: Baby hears his parents for the first time.