Top Three
CDC Director Encourages Schools to Stay Open With Covid-19 Precautions: Via WSJ.
"Nearly 700 children age 17 years and younger are being hospitalized daily due to COVID-19... more than twice the rate of hospitalizations seen in this age group in September."
"Children still have lowest hospitalization rates of any age group, but they are higher now than they've ever been since the start of the pandemic," Walensky said."
She said that “while she understood concerns among parents and teachers about risks posed by the Omicron variant, the CDC’s updated guidance and established safety measures provide schools with the tools to remain open for the rest of the school year."
“Vaccines, masks, increased ventilation and testing are all important layers of prevention that keep our children safe and keep them in school for in-person learning,” she said."
“A negative antigen test doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s an absence of virus,” said Henry Walke, director of the CDC’s Center for Preparedness and Response. “So regardless of the test result, wearing a well-fitting mask after those five days of isolation is still recommended.”
She was also on GMA and Today this morning responds to criticisms on COVID-19 guidance.
"We are now standing on the shoulders of years of science that has demonstrated that if you are infected, you are most contagious in the one to two days prior to your symptoms and the two to three days after your symptoms," Walensky told Savannah Guthrie. "So we know that the vast majority of your contagiousness by day five is really behind you."
"Walensky framed getting tested at the end of the isolation period as a choice rather than a recommendation."
Omicron Is Not a Reason to Keep Schools Closed: Leana Wen in the Washington Post.
"The split-screen on the issue is astounding. On one hand, governors in Texas, Georgia and Iowa are actively fighting mask mandates in schools. Florida’s surgeon general is discouraging the use of covid-19 tests for school kids. And rampant right-wing disinformation has contributed to low vaccine uptake among children."
"Meanwhile, left-wing activists are pushing for schools to remain closed. Chicago’s teachers union has successfully shut down in-person instruction in the city, even though more than 90 percent of school staff are fully vaccinated, indoor masking is required and the city is recording less than half the deaths than during previous peaks. The union is insisting on remote learning until a host of demands are met."
"Schools must be open now, not in two weeks, as some have suggested. While some kids may stay isolated at home, many others will be in alternative child-care situations or gather with friends — settings that likely have greater transmission risk than school. There’s also no guarantee that omicron will pass in two weeks or that problems such as testing availability will be resolved by then. This uncertainty is a logistical nightmare for parents and creates further disruption for kids."
State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds: Treasury issued the Final Rule for the $350 billion State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds program. No major changes for education but a few noteworthy items:
"Treasury is clarifying that improvements to or new construction of childcare, daycare, and early learning facilities are eligible capital expenditures."
"Under the final rule, addressing the impact of lost instructional time and/or learning loss is an enumerated eligible use for impacted households. When providing services to address lost instructional time, recipients may presume that any K-12 student who lost access to in-person instruction for a significant period of time has been impacted by the pandemic and is thus eligible for responsive services."
"Interventions or services that address the impact of lost instructional time may include offering high-quality tutoring and other extended learning opportunities, providing differentiated instruction, implementing activities to meet the comprehensive needs of students, expanding and improving language access for parents and families, providing information and assistance to parents and families on how they can effectively support students, including in a distance learning environment, improving student engagement in distance education, and administering and using high-quality assessments to assess students’ academic progress, among others."
"Treasury is clarifying that improvements or new construction of schools and other educational facilities or equipment are eligible capital expenditures for disproportionately impacted communities."
Federal
SCOTUS Hears Arguments on Vaccine Mandate: Audio here.
SCOTUS Blog has the best summary.
"Members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed skeptical on Friday that the Biden administration has the legal power to mandate that the nation’s large employers require workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or to undergo frequent testing. A federal workplace safety law, they indicated during a two-hour argument, did not provide legal authority for the sweeping emergency measure," the NYT reports.
"The court seemed more likely to sustain a separate requirement that health care workers at facilities that receive federal money be vaccinated. That regulation, the subject of a second argument, was in keeping with other kinds of federal oversight and was supported by virtually the entire medical establishment, some justices noted."
COVID-19 Research
West Virginia To Seek Authorization for Fourth Shot: Gov. Justice said he would ask the CDC for authorization to begin offering fourth doses to people 50 and older and essential workers. Press release and letter.
Assessment of Mask Research: Evidence on face masks in schools 'inconclusive' based on a review of the research by the UK Department of Education.
"In a weighted sample of secondary schools that did not use face masks, the average COVID-19 absence rate fell by 1.7 percentage points from 5.3% on 1 October 2021 to 3.6% in the 3rd week of October. This is equivalent to a 32% decrease."
"In secondary schools that did use face coverings, the average COVID-19 absence rate fell by 2.3 percentage points from 5.3% on 1 October 2021 to 3.0% in the 3rd week of October. This is equivalent to a 43% decrease."
"There is a level of statistical uncertainty around the result. The analysis is non-peer reviewed and with the current sample size, shows a non-statistical and unknown clinical significant reduction in infection in a short follow up period, including that a ‘false positive’ (i.e. finding that face coverings saw reduced absence when the finding is actually by chance) would emerge around 15% of the time; a 5% threshold is widely used to declare statistical significance in academic literature."
Moderna: FDA shortens booster interval for Moderna to five months.
Pfizer Vaccine Protects Children Against Rare COVID-19 Complication: Via Reuters:
"Two doses of the Pfizer I vaccine are highly protective against a rare but often serious condition in children that causes organ inflammation weeks after COVID-19 infections, according to a CDC report."
"The vaccine was estimated to be 91% effective in preventing Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) in 12- to 18-year-olds, the study said."
"MIS-C causes inflammation in children in organs including the heart, lungs, kidneys and brain two to six weeks after a mild or asymptomatic infection."
Association Between Menstrual Cycle Length and COVID-19 Vaccination: New study
"Overall, COVID-19 vaccine was associated with a less than 1-day change in cycle length for both vaccine-dose cycles compared with prevaccine cycles"
Via the NYT: “It validates that there is something real here,” said Dr. Taylor, who has heard about irregular cycles from his own patients. At the same time, he added, the changes seen in the study were not significant and appeared to be transient. “I want to make sure we dissuade people from those untrue myths out there about fertility effects,” Dr. Taylor said. “A cycle or two where periods are thrown off may be annoying, but it’s not going to be harmful in a medical way.”
Transmission in Danish Households: New study.
The household secondary attack rate (SAR) was 31% for Omicron and 21% for Delta.
"Our findings confirm that the rapid spread of the Omicron VOC primarily can be ascribed to the immune evasiveness rather than an inherent increase in the basic transmissibility."
State
California: "Poway Unified School District is one of many districts and charter schools in the county that picked up their allotments of home test kits at the San Diego County Office of Education after the shipments from the state were delayed, "Due to unprecedented rain over the last two weeks.”
Georgia: Governor Kemp and Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey released a letter saying that school employees no longer have to quarantine after they are exposed to the virus, even if they are unvaccinated or test positive for the virus as long as they wear a mask and don't develop symptoms.
"The letter also says contact tracing in schools is now optional, meaning schools may no longer have to notify other students or employees exposed to people who are sick with COVID-19."
Illinois:
Chicago Public Schools canceled classes district-wide for a third consecutive day on Friday as a standoff continues over whether to return to remote learning.
CER announced $5 million of grants available to assist schools or programs that can immediately start or expand existing schools for students in Chicago.
New York: Chalkbeat reports: NYC schools remain open during COVID surge, but learning is disrupted
Tennessee: Shortens how long schools can shift to remote learning from COVID.
Texas: Houston ISD is hiring 500 students and alumni as elementary school tutors.
International
School Systems Around the World Debate New Closures as Omicron Spreads: Via the Washington Post.
"The staffing situation is already so critical in some schools that 4% of heads have had to send classes or year groups home for online learning, while almost 7% have combined classes or year groups in response to teacher absence."
"More than a quarter (27%) had in excess of 10% of their teachers off on the first day of term for Covid-related reasons. Nearly all of those surveyed (95%) reported pupil absences, and three in 10 (29%) were missing 10% of their pupils."
Economic Recovery
Jobs Report: Nonfarm payrolls rose by 199,000 jobs in December, well below the 422,000 forecast.
Nov. was revised up to 249,000 jobs instead of 210,000.
The unemployment rate dropped to 3.9% from 4.2%.
Resources
Ask the Doctor: Navigating the ‘New Math’ of Omicron in Schools: Helpful piece by The 74
Frustrated They Can’t Get Covid-19 Tests, Americans Go About Their Lives: Via the WSJ.
Schools Encounter ‘Hunger Games’ Scramble for Covid Tests: Via Politico.
Why I Soured on the Democrats: Angie Schmitt in The Atlantic, "COVID school policies set me adrift from my tribe."
The Alternative to Closing Schools: Stephanie Murray in The Atlantic, "As stifling as Britain’s pandemic rules for adults were, the country seemed determined, in stark contrast to America, to ask as little as possible of children."
"School closures offer one of the clearest illustrations of this split. European countries generally regarded school closures as a measure of last resort, which is why schools here were closed for much shorter spells than in America."
"Many of my American family members and friends are surprised to learn that schools in the U.K. have never entirely shut down. Even during the strictest portion of last year’s lockdown, when all pubs and restaurants were closed and sitting on a bench with someone you ran into at the park was illegal, in-person schooling remained available for vulnerable kids and children of essential workers."
"Given that one of the primary goals of pandemic management is to protect hospital capacity, the U.K.’s decision not to pull the child-care rug out from under nurses and doctors seems sensible."
Secretary Buttigieg: Had an interesting line during his CES keynote:
“There's a belief that our institutions and the people who lead them cannot be trusted because they do not deliver. Across the board, public trust in our institutions, government, corporations, media — even philanthropy — has been careening toward an all-time low in recent years."
"And volumes of commentary could have been written about the various reasons contributing to that problem."
"I'm convinced that one of the most important solutions is to make sure that the actual outcomes of public policy are better and better understood. And that they're better not just for a select few, but for all Americans.”
Schools Sticking With In-person Learning Scramble For Subs: Via The AP.
Breaking News: A former television reporter has gone viral for turning her toddler’s tantrum into a hilarious news segment.