Top Three
CDC Updates School Quarantine and Isolation Guidance: Updated K12 guidance for quarantines and isolation came out tonight which answers some questions, but continues to raise others. Note that there is now a "should test" to leave quarantine but no test to leave isolation.
Quarantine:
Students, teachers, and staff who came into close contact with someone with COVID-19 should quarantine for at least 5 days.
These individuals could also be eligible for Test to Stay programs that would allow them to stay in the school setting during the quarantine period.
They should test at day 5 but continue to wear a mask for another 5 days (awkwardly written as "until after 10 days from their last close contact")
"If they are unable to get a test 5 days after their last close contact with someone with COVID-19, they can leave their home after day 5 if they have been without COVID-19 symptoms throughout the 5-day period."
Who does not need to quarantine:
People 18 and older who are vaccinated and have a booster.
5–17 years and completed the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines.
People who had confirmed COVID-19 within the last 90 days
They should wear a mask for 10 days and test at day 5.
Isolation:
All people with COVID-19 should undergo isolation for at least 5 full days.
They should continue to wear a well-fitting mask around others at home and in public until day 10 (day 6 through day 10).
If they develop symptoms after testing positive, the 5 day isolation period should start over.
Health Advisers to Biden’s Transition Team Call for a New Covid Strategy: Via NYT:
"Now, six of these former advisers have gone public with an extraordinary, albeit polite, critique — and a plea to be heard. In three opinion articles published on Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, they are calling for Mr. Biden to adopt an entirely new domestic pandemic strategy — one that is geared to the “new normal” of living with the virus indefinitely, not to wiping it out."
"The authors also said that vaccine mandates should be imposed more broadly, including for schoolchildren, and that N95 masks should be made free and readily available to all Americans, as should oral treatments for Covid."
Papers:
Inside a Covid-19 School Closing: A Pennsylvania Superintendent AgonizesOver Going Remote: Good piece by the WSJ.
"But even with many teachers vaccinated, which can mean breakthrough Covid-19 cases are milder, more adult staffers at schools are staying home either to care for a sick family member or out of wariness of close contact with others. School officials report shortages among teachers, administrators, cafeteria and custodial workers, bus drivers and others."
"When we started seeing the numbers climb really across the board—when nurses started dropping out, when we started hearing reports that bus driver absences might become problematic—the sum total of it said: You know what? We need to take a collective pause,” said Superintendent Christopher Dormer of the Norristown Area School District."
"One of those parents is Ashley Okereke, a single mother of a 7-year-old daughter. She works full time in a probation office and has a second job in the evening as a home healthcare aide. Because she can’t work from home, Ms. Okereke said she is using vacation time to stay with her daughter. In the evening, she takes her daughter to her second job."
Omicron
South Africa:The South African Medical Research Council reported that while they experienced a record number of daily COVID-19, excess deaths in the country peaked at just more than 3,000 per week during the Omicron wave, well below the weekly excess-death peaks of the Beta wave (16,115 last January) and Delta wave (10,000 last July).
Are Hospitalizations Decoupling from Deaths?: Via the FT: "Key question with Omicron wave is whether severe disease — hospitalisations & ICU — decouples from cases. In the UK it has, but there are signs the US decoupling is weaker, perhaps due in part to lower vax rates."
Omicron May Produce Fewer Serious Illnesses, But This Wave Is Far From Mild: Via Poynter:
"It’s true, no doubt, that a lower percentage of people who are infected with omicron end up getting seriously ill compared to previous COVID-19 infections. And it seems to be true that people who are hospitalized are not as sick, on the whole, as we saw with the delta variant."
"But they are still hospitalized. In the United States, 97,364 people are hospitalized with or because of COVID-19, and the number is growing."
"Should anybody consider 2,366 daily COVID-19 deaths to be a reason for relief? Those are the same death figures as September 2020. We are going backward."
"If this is “mild,” then your neighbors and family members are mildly filling hospitals beyond capacity."
Federal
White House: Says decision to enact vaccine mandates for schools up to local school districts.
ED: Via The 74: "Following a two-year pause, states must resume the process of pinpointing their lowest-performing schools and those with persistent achievement gaps, according to a recent draft of guidance."
Ed/DOT: Announces Joint Temporary Action to Help Address School Bus Driver Labor Shortage
"The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is giving states the option of waiving the portion of the commercial driver’s license (CDL) skills test that requires applicants to identify the “under the hood” engine components. All other components of the written and road test will remain."
COVID-19 Research
Protection Afforded by Prior Infection: New large study out of Qatar. Eric Topol summarizes it: How well does Prior Covid (without vaccination) protect vs symptomatic infection? It depends on the reinfection variant:
Alpha 90% (60,98)
Beta 85% (75,91)
Delta 92% (88,95)
Omicron 56% (51,61)
"Protection afforded by prior infection in preventing symptomatic reinfection with Alpha, Beta, or Delta is robust, at about 90%.”
“While such protection against reinfection with Omicron is lower, it is still considerable at nearly 60%. Prior-infection protection against hospitalization or death at reinfection appears robust, regardless of variant.”
Test to Release From Isolation After Testing Positive for SARS-CoV-2: New study.
"We find that the number of infectious days in the community can be reduced to almost zero by requiring at least 2 consecutive days of negative tests, regardless of the number of days' wait until testing again after initially testing positive."
"On average, a policy of fewer days' wait until initiating testing (e.g 3 or 5 days) results in more days saved vs. a 10-day isolation period, but also requires a greater number of tests."
Record 4,000 Children Hospitalized Amid Omicron Surge: Via Washington Post. "Less than two weeks ago, on Christmas, fewer than 2,000 children were in hospitals with covid."
Masks: A lot of discussion (and debate) about masks right now even though many health officials were saying over a year ago that mask quality was important (e.g. this Nov. 2020 oped by Scott Gottlieb)
Emily Oster on Kids and Masks from back in Nov.
USA Today, "Most people are still wearing cloth masks. Here's why that's a problem with omicron"
WSJ yesterday, "Why Cloth Masks Might Not Be Enough as Omicron Spreads" which includes the chart below but similar charts like this have been around for the last two years, including the second one below from CIDRAP that calculates the time with a non-fitted and fitted mask.
Why Parents Still Hesitate to Vaccinate Their Children Against COVID-19: Article in JAMA.
Study Raises Doubts About Rapid Tests’ Reliability In Early Days After Infection: Study (small sample) with more via Stat and Axios.
"On days 0 and 1 following a positive PCR test, all of the antigen tests used produced false-negative results, even though in 28 of the 30 cases, levels of virus detected by the PCR test were high enough to infect other people."
"In four cases, researchers were able to confirm that infected people transmitted the virus to others during the period before they had a positive result on the rapid antigen test."
“I think that with every new variant that comes, scientists have to question whether the things that were previously true are still true,” said Blythe Adamson, the lead author of the paper and the principal epidemiologist at Infectious Economics in New York. “This one has a different way it travels, a different mechanism of action of symptoms, it has different windows of transmission.”
Long Covid: Why Do Some People Have Symptoms Months After Infection?: Via the FT. "A meta-analysis of studies by Penn State researchers found more than half of the 236m people who had Covid-19 when the paper was published — which has since risen to 275m — had symptoms lasting more than six months."
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Faces a Surging Virus—And a Crisis of Trust: Via Time
"The decision reflects the balancing act that Walensky has been performing since becoming director of the CDC last January: integrating the scientific reality that an infectious and quickly adapting virus ideally requires intensive lockdown with the economic and social realities that make it impossible to do so for lengthy periods of time."
"Walensky knows better than anyone else that the CDC has an image problem. Because of changing, often conflicting advice about everything from masks to booster shots, and slow release of guidance on how to safely reopen schools and businesses, the CDC has become a scapegoat for missteps throughout the pandemic response. Walensky is keenly aware that such credibility issues can be as contagious as the virus the agency is confronting, eroding the already weakened trust and integrity that are crucial to everything the agency does."
"Walensky and her team also still need to persuade the public not to give up. As the Omicron variant has exploded across the U.S., Walensky remains convinced that a multi-layered approach—getting vaccinated, getting boosted, wearing masks in indoor public settings and self-testing before small gatherings—will better position us to fight the virus this year than last year."
For CDC’s Walensky, a Steep Learning Curve on Messaging: Via the NYT.
"Two days before Christmas, with the Omicron variant driving a near-vertical rise in new coronavirus cases, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted the White House that she planned to recommend that people infected with the virus isolate for five days instead of 10."
"Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the surgeon general, were concerned that the new guidance did not urge people to get a negative Covid test before ending their isolation. After the new recommendation became public, they both took issue with it on national television, saying they expected the C.D.C. to clarify its advice."
"On Wednesday, nine days after the guidance was issued and a day after it was slightly modified to include some advice on testing, the C.D.C. was still having a hard time explaining itself. “How do you expect people to keep track of what they can and can’t do?” a CNN reporter demanded of Dr. Walensky at a White House briefing"
"Some suggest the White House has gone too far in its hands-off, let-the-scientists-rule approach, leaving a vacuum of leadership and forcing ad-hoc coordination between the various public health agencies. That has been exacerbated by a health secretary, Xavier Becerra, who receives routine briefings from scientists but does not settle interagency disputes about the pandemic response."
"Dr. Frieden said there were three rules to putting out public health guidance: it must be technically correct, simple and workable in the real world."
The CDC Is Hoping You’ll Figure Covid Out on Your Own: Via Zeynep Tufekci
"It’s just luck that this highly transmissible variant appears to be less dangerous than other variants to those with prior immunity. If it had been more deadly — as Delta has been — the U.S. government’s haphazard and disorganized response would have put the whole country much more at risk."
"Students and teachers are returning to classrooms without reliable access to tests. With many districts failing to invest enough in ventilation and HEPA air filtration to lower airborne transmission, there will be outbreaks in schools. We can’t just keep telling parents that most children will be fine. And when those rapid tests finally become available, will we have to convince parents that the same tests that were supposedly not useful are suddenly able to detect infectiousness?"
"Which brings me to another important question: Why aren’t we rushing to do studies to gauge the infectious period for Omicron? Why didn’t we start in late November when it became clear it would be causing many breakthroughs and a rapid increase in cases?"
"After hearing people around me say they were testing positive on Day 8, 9 and beyond even if they were double- and triple-vaccinated, I did an informal poll on Twitter asking people infected in the Omicron wave when they stopped testing positive."
"More than 2,600 people responded, and a whopping 43 percent said they had tested positive on rapid tests on Day 8 and beyond, while about 30 percent said they were testing negative on Day 5 or even earlier."
State
Arkansas: Rules for Arkansas Tutoring Corps near final approval.
California:
Some San Francisco teachers stage ‘sickout’ for COVID safety.
The state looks to add 10,000 mental health clinicians to public schools. "This proposal to increase mental health clinicians on campus is projected to cost $250 million. While the funding source is not clear at this point, Superintendent Thurmond is working with lawmakers, hoping to introduce legislation on this in the coming weeks."
L.A. County public, private school staff must wear high-grade masks; rules for athletes tighten.
DC: "As of 11 p.m. Wednesday, approximately 38,300 of the system’s 50,000 students had returned their results, according to the D.C. deputy mayor of education. Some 9,200 staff members submitted test results. Families reported 2,111 positive cases of the coronavirus; 667 staff members said they were infected."
Georgia: GaDOE is providing cybersecurity infrastructure for all school districts.
Illinois:
"I will not allow them to take our children hostage,” Mayor Lightfoot said of the teachers union. Her concern centers on the many CPS students who come from underserved communities where access to the internet or computer devices isn’t always available and whose families rely on children getting two or three meals a day at school."
"Chicago Public School teachers attempting to teach students remotely on Wednesday discovered they’d been locked out of their digital classrooms, an apparent effort by city officials to prevent a return to remote education amid recent spikes in covid-19 cases among students and teachers."
CNN interviews Natasha Dunn, a Chicago Public School parent, on the district canceling classes after teachers voted to go virtual: "It's really difficult for me to really be able to pay attention to my daughter's learning needs and work full time. I feel like this was a catastrophic failure."
Missouri: School districts struggle to keep classrooms open.
New York: NYC DOE announces new leadership positions. Great to see some amazing folks here. Congrats to First Deputy Chancellor, Daniel Weisberg, Chief of Student Pathways, Jade Grieve, and Chief Diversity Officer, Karine Apollon!!!
Nevada: Las Vegas Valley Catholic schools return to distance learning.
Ohio: Gov. DeWine urges mask mandate for schools amid COVID surge.
Texas: Austin ISD will use focused COVID testing to try to keep schools open.
Resources
Census Report: Parents increased quality time at pandemic’s start.
"The findings of the Survey of Income and Program Participation are based on interviews with one parent from 22,000 households during the first four months of the pandemic in the U.S. "
"In 2020, 69% of parents reported reading to young children five or more times per week compared with 65% in 2018, and 64% in 2019"
Children Cannot Afford Teacher Walkouts: Via Mayor Bloomberg.
Schools Utilize Tech for Help With Bus Driver Shortage: Via Governing.
COVID-19 and Burnout Are Straining the Mental Health of Employed Parents: Via McKinsey.
A New COVID–19 Data Source for Answering Emerging Pandemic Questions: CRPE on the COVID-19 School Data Hub.
This Moment in Education Is Demanding. To Move the Field Forward, We Must Support Educators in Three Key Ways: Via Jessie Woolley-Wilson
A Note Of Reassurance From Your School District Regarding Our Updated Omicron Policies: McSweeney’s reports
"Moreover, due to the unavailability of home tests and the fact that the nearest PCR drive-thru test is in Norway (email us for more info), this is the most expedient route. Please follow these easy steps every morning: Fill out a daily health attestation by 5 a.m. We understand that you will lie. (2) Please screen your child for COVID using an antigen test by 7 a.m. We recognize that at-home tests no longer exist except for five seconds on Walmart’s website before vanishing. With this in mind, our school nurse has approved the use of a Q-tip with six droplets of vodka splashed onto an egg carton instead."
"We plan to conduct all classes outdoors unless temperatures drop below twenty degrees. Our staff psychologist has skimmed early studies concluding that frigid temperatures stimulate the firing of neurons and have been shown to accelerate brain growth. Please contact us to learn more about this new innovation, which we hope to continue even after the pandemic ends."
"We do recognize that the pavement is cold, so please send your child with their own heated quilt, available on Amazon for $254.99. The PTO has partnered with Amazon to offer quilts with our school logo; a portion of proceeds will go toward distributing at-home antigen tests in April 2023."
Reflecting on the Anniversary of January 6:
President Biden addresses the nation on one-year anniversary of U.S. Capitol attack (Text).
How Those Who Were There Look Back on Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, good set of reflections via the WSJ.
What It Was Like to Be Inside the Capitol on January 6, via Harvest Prude
One Single Day. That’s All It Took for the World to Look Away From Us, via Francis Fukuyama.
The cast of Hamilton performed (which seemed a bit out of place) but it is worth rereading Alexander Hamilton's Federalist No 1 and Federalist No. 9 followed by Madison's essay in Federalist No. 10.