Top Three
Supreme Court Blocks Biden Vaccine Rules for Private Employers, Allows Them for Healthcare Workers: Opinion for employers; Opinion for healthcare workers. We turn, as we always do on such matters, to SCOTUS blog.
The vote in the employer mandate case was 6 to 3, with liberal justices in dissent. The vote in the health care case was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joining the liberal justices to form a majority.
“Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly.... OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID–19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here."
Dissent: "When we are wise, we know not to displace the judgments of experts, acting within the sphere Congress marked out and under Presidential control, to deal with emergency conditions...Today, we are not wise. In the face of a still-raging pandemic, this Court tells the agency charged with protecting worker safety that it may not do so in all the workplaces needed. As disease and death continue to mount, this Court tells the agency that it cannot respond in the most effective way possible."
State of Affairs: Pediatrics and Omicron: Katelyn Jetelina with a really interesting piece today.
"In this post, I frame the data a little differently to address “numerator thinking” vs. “denominator thinking.” Dr. Lindsey Leininger (a Dartmouth-based policy expert and co-founder of Dear Pandemic) recently introduced this perspective to me, and it was incredibly eye-opening. In fact, I think explains why there is substantial disagreement throughout the pandemic on almost everything."
"Numerator thinking: A heavier lens on the absolute numbers—How many children are hospitalized? Is this number increasing? How many children have died?"
"Denominator thinking: A heavier lens on the population in which the numerator arises—How many children have died compared to adults? How many myocarditis cases per 1,000,000 doses?"
"One puts weight on each differently based on history, background, culture, employment, and context. For example, clinicians care for these patients every day, and the numerator is top of mind. As a parent, having my kid in the numerator is not comforting even if the probability of that happening was small. Policymakers, on the other hand, need a more denominator-oriented perspective. But, everyone needs to consider both elements."
Colleges Lost 465,000 Students This Fall: The Washington Post reports on new National Clearinghouse Data.
"The longer this continues, the more it starts to build its own momentum as a cultural shift and not just a short-term effect of the pandemic disruptions,” Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, said in an interview.
“Students are questioning the value of college. They may be looking at friends who graduated last year or the year before who didn’t go and they seem to be doing fine. They’re working; their wages are up.”
Total undergraduate enrollment dropped 3.1 percent from the fall of 2020 to the fall of 2021, bringing the total decline since the fall of 2019 to 6.6 percent — or 1,205,600 students.
COVID-19 Research
Unvaccinated Pregnant Woman Are At Higher Risk for Covid Complications and Newborn Deaths: Study and article in Stat.
Should Schools Be Open During the Omicron Surge: Experts from JHU weigh in.
Soaring COVID-19 Cases Renew US Debate Over Mask Mandates: Via the AP.
Dogs May Be Able to Detect Long COVID: New study.
Supports earlier evidence that dogs may be able to detect long COVID when presented with sweat samples.
BioNTech and AI Start-up Develop Tool to Predict High-Risk Coronavirus Variants: Via the FT.
“More than 10,000 novel variant sequences are discovered every week and human experts simply cannot cope with complex data at this scale,” said Karim Beguir, co-founder and chief executive of UK-based InstaDeep. “For the first time, high-risk variants could be detected on the spot, potentially saving months of precious time.”
COVID-Hospitalization Numbers Are as Bad as They Look: Ed Yong in The Atlantic.
"More Americans are now hospitalized with COVID-19 than at any previous point in the pandemic. The current count—147,062—has doubled since Christmas, and is set to rise even more steeply, all while Omicron takes record numbers of health-care workers off the front lines with breakthrough infections."
"Some reporters and pundits have claimed that this picture is overly pessimistic because the hospitalization numbers include people who are simply hospitalized with COVID, rather than for COVID—“incidental” patients who just happen to test positive while being treated for something else."
"But the “with COVID” hospitalization numbers are more complicated than they first seem. Many people on that side of the ledger are still in the hospital because of the coronavirus, which has both caused and exacerbated chronic conditions. And more important, these nuances don’t alter the real, urgent, and enormous crisis unfolding in American hospitals. Whether patients are admitted with or for COVID, they’re still being admitted in record volumes that hospitals are struggling to care for."
"If you’re 90 percent full and you suddenly have 10 percent more patients, I don’t care if it’s half COVID, all COVID, incidental COVID—it just matters that you’re full,” Faust said."
State
Illinois: Chicago Teachers Union votes (55.5%) to continue in-person learning with Covid-19 measures.
Louisiana: Teachers in the East Baton Rouge branch of the Louisiana Association of Educators announced a planned “sickout” to protest the school system’s response to the recent COVID-19 surge and teacher shortages this semester.
Minnesota: Minneapolis schools will go virtual for two weeks.
New Jersey: Shortens COVID quarantine for schools to 5 days.
New Mexico: A cyberattack against Albuquerque Public Schools prompted the city to cancel all classes districtwide on Thursday and possibly Friday, the Albuquerque Journal reports.
New York: UFT: "We have over 200,000 children who have not been in school for two weeks. It's time for the city to think about a remote option."
Oklahoma: Oklahoma City Public Schools will close all its schools for the rest of the week because too many employees are out with COVID-19.
Tennessee: TNDOE announces that DOL approved them to become the state to sponsor Registered Teacher Occupation Apprenticeship.
West Virginia: West Virginia Department of Education’s Educator Preparation Taskforce (EPT) identified five challenges facing their teacher shortage:
Lack of a robust multi-channel marketing campaign
Costs associated with teacher preparation and licensure
Barriers created by licensure testing and content-hour requirements
Beginning teachers lack access to consistently high-quality induction and mentoring programs
Lack of a comprehensive, single platform to provide data on teacher preparation, recruitment and retention.
International
Denmark: Will offer fourth coronavirus shot while easing restrictions.
Economic Recovery
Record Omicron Wave Punches A Hole in US Workforces: Via the FT.
"More than 5m Americans — or 2% of the nation’s total workforce — could be isolating at home this week, according to an analysis by Andrew Hunter, senior US economist at Capital Economics."
The PC Market Grew 14.8% in 2021: Manufactures shipped the largest number of desktops, laptops, and workstations in a single year since 2012.
“We’re going from one PC per household to one PC per person per household, which is the smartphone model,” said Tikoo, senior vice president for Dell’s Client Product Group. “I think PCs are are in the middle of transitioning to that now.”
Resources
Anxious? You Are Not Alone: Emily Oster asked parents of the under-5 set to weigh in on their pandemic experiences. More than 20,000 responded.
Business Roundtable Announced the Establishment of a New Corporative Initiatives Group: Led by Dane Linn who was also promoted to Senior Vice President.
American Rescue Plan State Funding Profiles: Via NGA.
A High School Principal on Why, Even With Omicron, Remote Classes Aren’t Coming Back: Via Slate.
We’re Having the Wrong Conversation About School: Via NYMag.
Schools Ask for Volunteer Teachers to Avoid Remote Learning During Omicron Surge: Via Edsurge.
Decade of Data Highlights SEL Best Practices From 20 Districts: Over at K12 Dive.
Schools Are Open Despite the Omicron Surge. They Should Stay That Way: Via Nat Malkus in USA Today
Podcast With Diane Tavenner and Michael Horn: I had a great time doing this podcast. Michael wrote up some of his reflections here.
Assessment Item: From someone over on Instagram:
"You know 10 years from now there is going to be a standardized test with a math problem that says, "If Matt was exposed to Covid on Tuesday and had no symptoms four days later and he got it from Susie who caught it at a party three days before Matt and tested positive five days later, how likely is Matt's little brother going to test positive on an antigen test if he tests two days after Matt tests positive?"
Cha Cha Slide: With this dog.