Top Three
Early Reports Suggest Omicron May Be Less Dangerous:
“U.S. health officials said Sunday that while the omicron variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the country, early indications suggest it may be less dangerous than delta, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalizations,” the AP reports.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: “Thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it. But we have really got to be careful before we make any determinations that it is less severe or it really doesn’t cause any severe illness, comparable to delta.”
But, Zvi reminds us:
Omicron doesn’t cause substantially more severe disease than Delta when it infects you, but we don’t know if it causes less severe disease yet, our evidence is ambiguous.
Omicron cases on average are much more mild because there will be a much higher percentage of re-infections and breakthrough cases, which are highly protected against severe disease.
What’s Really Behind Global Vaccine Hesitancy: Important piece in The Atlantic
"If policy makers want to limit the damage that Omicron and future variants do, they’ll have to better understand why people reject vaccines."
"Something as complex as vaccine hesitancy is bound to have many causes, but research suggests that one fundamental instinct drives it: A lack of trust."
"Getting people to overcome their hesitancy will require restoring their trust in science, their leaders, and, quite possibly, one another. The crisis of vaccine hesitancy and the crisis of cratering trust in institutions are one and the same."
"The world over, people feel lied to, unheard, and pushed aside. They no longer have any faith in their leaders. They’re lashing out against their governments and health officials, in some cases by rejecting the COVID-19 vaccine."
"Vaccine hesitancy and political populism are driven by similar dynamics: a profound distrust in elites and experts,” Jonathan Kennedy, a sociologist at Queen Mary University of London.
"Though many factors contributed to the erosion of trust in government and science, Kennedy highlighted one in particular: As the postwar narrative of optimism and progress failed to pan out for some people, they became suspicious and angry. “There’s large amounts of the population that haven’t benefited economically from globalization,” he said. “There’s lots of people who feel increasingly disenfranchised by politics; they feel like mainstream politicians are aloof and aren’t interested in them.”
“Populism and anti-vax sentiment, then, “seems to be a kind of rejection of this narrative of civilizational progress ... It’s kind of like a scream of helplessness.”
Revisiting COVID-19 Policies: 10 Evidence-based Recommendations for Where to Go From Here: Published in BMC which includes revisiting school closures:
"Schools have not been shown to be major drivers of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, when studied in a variety of settings employing a range of mitigation strategies and intensity."
"However, their prolonged closure have had disastrous academic, psychosocial, and other harmful consequences on children, including access to essential services, especially in lower-income populations"
"Contact tracing studies worldwide have found children are less likely to infect adults or other children, and that most SARS-CoV-2 infections among children are mild and are contracted at home or in the community, not at school."
"The emergence of variants does not warrant closing or delaying the reopening of schools unless compelling evidence unexpectedly indicates that a new mutation affects children in some substantially new way."
Omicron
Tracking Omicron: Has been found in at least 52 nations.
"In Denmark, the local health authorities confirmed that there were 183 known cases of the variant, more than triple the total number of suspected cases reported on Friday, and called the figures “worrying.”
Detected in 17 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Georgia.
Omicron Cases and Hospitalizations Skew Much Younger:The FT visualizes the data from South Africa.
Making Sense of What Lies Ahead: Great thread by Muge Cevik on how to make sense of the emerging data and what it says about Omicron.
Two Reports: Issued by the UK Health Security Agency on Omicron. Meagan Kall breaks them down.
She also notes that the UK has more than 25 Omicron studies underway.
Majority of Adults Back Variety of Public Health Measures in Light of Omicron: Via Morning Consult.
Norway Christmas Party Outbreak: "Our working hypothesis is that at least half of the 120 participants were infected with the Omicron variant during the party. This makes this, for now, the largest Omicron outbreak outside South Africa."
All attendees were fully vaccinated and had tested negative before the event, Reuters said.
Fifty people had positive PCR tests for coronavirus, while another ten have tested positive on lateral flow tests, according to the Norwegian state broadcaster NRK.
Federal
ED: Launched two Communities of Practice to help states address impact of the pandemic on students
OMB: President Biden nominated Shalanda Young to serve as Director, Office of Management and Budget.
Broadband Provisions in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: I wrote an overview of the broadband provisions in the infrastructure package.
Key parts of implementation will fall to states who have to develop plans and prioritize projects.
Some states are well positioned to leverage these funds and others will need some additional capacity, creating an opportunity for philanthropic support.
ESSER Spending: Burbio has now tracked $40 billion of ESSER III allocations from over 1,600 districts that make up 39% of K-12 students.
Early Childhood/PreK:
Biden’s pre-K plan might not be as universal as he hopes, via Vox
Build Back Better’s early childhood proposals will strain state budgets, via Fordham
COVID-19 Research
Summarizing Where Things Stand: Great piece by Noah Smith. Read the whole thing...
"I have two thoughts this week. The first is about the end of the Covid pandemic. Mass vaccination back in early 2021 gave us the hope that the end of this global nightmare was finally in sight, and people are certainly tired of things like masking, social distancing, and (especially) school closures. Delta, with its increased infectiousness, pushed the date of the end of the pandemic further out. But Omicron, with its immune escape properties, is raising the question of whether this will ever be over in any meaningful sense."
"Even if we make variant boosters against each new variant that comes out, that would still be an eternal battle if the virus keeps evolving to escape each booster. Are we going to have to spend the rest of our lives wearing masks and sending our kids to school over Zoom?"
"No. First of all, if we keep weathering new variants, eventually we’ll just have so many different kinds of antibodies and T-cells built up that new escape variants will be less and less deadly, and Covid will become like the flu — a yearly danger, but not something that alters the face of our society."
"In the meantime, since new therapeutic drugs are still not being manufactured in sufficient quantities, our best tool against the virus remains vaccine boosters. And here it’s becoming ever clearer that U.S. public health authorities have dropped the ball, and badly. A big reason that America lagged the rest of the developed world in booster shots was that our public health authorities, including the CDC, failed to encourage third doses."
"This failure should cause us as a nation to rethink a couple of things. First, it should serve as yet one more reminder — as if we needed another! — that our CDC and FDA are deeply damaged institutions that need to be thoroughly rebuilt."
"But also, the symbolic and ideological nature of the anti-booster campaign should illustrate how our nation’s political unrest has compromised our effectiveness in preserving the safety of our people."
How a Vaccine Side-effect Database Sowed Doubt in Vaccinations: Via Bloomberg and Dallas Morning News
"In general, public health entities haven’t much focused on education about topics such as vaccine side effects or efficacy rates. The result of this lack of investment is an information vacuum that can unwittingly provide an opportunity for anti-vaccine narratives to take hold."
"Take the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, a government-run clearinghouse for potential issues with vaccines that has become a favored talking point among anti-vaccine groups."
"It doesn’t take much to twist facts out of context. The Children’s Health Defense typically cites accurate statistics from the VAERS database in misleading newsletter headlines. But headlines often omit or misrepresent context, touting the numbers as proof of harmful vaccine side effects when they are nothing of the sort."
"Transparent communication is especially key to gaining the trust of those skeptical or hesitant of vaccines. And trust — far more than facts — is critical to changing people’s minds."
"Vaccines, he said, are like shark attacks — something we naturally and inexplicably tend to fear more than any data suggests we should."
"The tricky part, he said, is that not only do people tend to overestimate the risks, but they also tend toward what’s called an omission bias: they are more afraid of the slim risks of harm if they do vaccinate than the much more realistic risk of harm if they don’t. That means it’s crucial to not only be transparent about the possibility of a vaccine side effect but also to frame it relative to other risks."
NYC Sets Vaccine Mandate for Private Employers: "Mayor de Blasio said the aggressive measure, which takes effect Dec. 27 and which he described as the first of its kind in the nation, was needed as a “pre-emptive strike” to stall another wave of coronavirus cases and help reduce transmission during the winter months and holiday gatherings."
"Employees who work in-person at private companies must have one dose of the vaccine by Dec. 27; remote workers will not be required to get the vaccine. There is no testing option as an alternative."
"The current rule will also expand to require two vaccine doses instead of proof of only one as far as people age 12 and older are concerned, the mayor said. That excludes people who were vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson's single-dose shot."
"Kids aged 5 to 11 only need to show proof of one dose when the requirement for them kicks in on Dec. 14, considering they only first became eligible for their initial doses in early November and must wait at least 21 days between Pfizer's doses."
Overhyping Covid? “Overhyping Covid? It’s already killed 780,000 Americans and over 5 million people worldwide. So I don’t have any clue of what he’s talking about.” Dr. Fauci, on CNN, responding to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) who accused him of “overhyping” Covid-19.
State
Louisiana: Gov. John Bel Edwards plans to add COVID-19 vaccine to required school shots list.
Michigan: Updates COVID-19 quarantine guidelines for schools.
Missouri: Less than 2% of school districts offering regular COVID testing.
New York: NYC Mayor-elect Eric Adams names education transition team members. Some great names on this list including Saskia Thompson, Geoffrey Canada, Dan Weisberg, Jade Grieve, Karine Apollon, Paymon Rouhanifard.
Economic Recovery
Economic Impact of Childcare Breakdowns on U.S. States: Via the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Three Steps to the Future: Benedict Evans is out with his annual deck, covering metaverse, web3, VR, and more.
Start Up Boom: Entrepreneurs applied for federal tax-identification numbers to register 4.54 million new businesses from January through October this year, up 56% from the same period of 2019, the largest number on Census Bureau records that date back to 2004
Resources
School Closures: Via Burbio: "The cumulative number of districts affected by closures this year went from 916 to 948 (+32) while cumulative school closures went from 9,313to 9,606 (+293)."
Teens Struggle to Socialize, Engage in Post-online Learning: "Teachers report that teens are withdrawn or slow to engage with one another. Staff say when students do interact they struggle with conflict resolution."
“I think small things escalate into big things really quickly,” said Flowers. “There is a heightened kind of apprehension, anxiety, and tension for students in particular when interacting and handling conflict with one another.”
"When kids feel seen and when kids feel heard, there’s an academic connection to academic success,” said Ward. “It’s a byproduct of that.”
Survey Suggests School and Childcare Situation Continues to Improve for Families: Survey from the nonpartisan National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and AEI.
Black Parents: New poll from Morning Consult and EdChoice.
Although Black parents' comfort with their children returning to school has increased over the past couple of months, they remain less comfortable than white parents.
Both Black and white parents experienced a decrease in willingness to vaccinate their children. Hispanic parents are currently the most willing to vaccinate their children.
School parents – regardless of race or ethnicity – generally are positive about how local school boards are handling matters in K-12 right now. Black and Hispanic parents are much more likely to give the Biden Administration high marks when compared to white parents. Additionally, Hispanic parents are the most likely to give good grades to their State’s governor and legislature.
Among Black parents, interest in learning pods has held steady this month with about one-third still indicating they have some level of consideration.
Black parents continue to express their very high levels of support for education savings accounts (ESAs), school vouchers, and public charter schools.
380 Polls: Invaluable resource maintained by EdChoice.
A Policymaker’s Guide to Virtual Schools: Via ECS including some recent state legislative summaries.
Pandemic Hit Gen Z Hardest: A AP-NORC poll (story) finds that among Americans in Gen Z (ages 13 to 24), 46% said the pandemic has made it harder to pursue their education or career goals, compared with 36% of Millennials and 31% in Generation X.
Medicare's Telehealth Use Soars: New HHS report.
Fee-for-service telehealth visits by Medicare beneficiaries jumped from 840,000 in 2019 to 52.7 million last year.
The largest increase in telehealth use in 2020 was for visits to behavioral health specialists. Telehealth comprised a third of all visits to behavioral health specialists for the year as a whole, and by the end of 2020, telehealth visits to these providers were equally common as in-person visits.
Schools Can Help with the Youth Mental Health Crisis: Via EdNext.
Covid-19 Brought New Technology into Elementary School. It’s Time to Remove It: Argues Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post.
Very Merry: The White House and Google teamed up to let you virtually walk through the Christmas decorations with Google Street View.
Just the Best: "I love you" face off between brothers.