Top Three
COVIDTests.Gov: Is live - a day early. Took me less than 30 seconds to place an order.
CDC Updates Mask Guidance, Says N95s Offer Highest Protection: CDC updated its guidance on Friday.
"But the agency stopped short of saying that people should opt for certain masks instead of others, saying that the "CDC continues to recommend that you wear the most protective mask you can that fits well and that you will wear consistently," NBC News reports.
School Closures Were a Catastrophic Error. Progressives Still Haven’t Reckoned With It: Via Jonathan Chait:
"But in relatively short order, growing evidence showed that the century-old precedent did not offer much useful guidance. While the Spanish flu was especially deadly for children, COVID-19 is just the opposite. By the tail end of spring 2020, it was becoming reasonably clear both that remote education was failing badly and that schools could be reopened safely."
"What happened next was truly disturbing: The left by and large rejected this evidence. Progressives were instead carried along by two predominant impulses. One was a zero-COVID policy that refused to weigh the trade-off of any measure that could even plausibly claim to suppress the pandemic. The other was deference to teachers unions, who were organizing to keep schools closed. Those strands combined into a refusal to acknowledge the scale or importance of losing in-person learning with a moralistic insistence that anybody who disagreed was callous about death or motivated by greed."
"The head of the largest state’s most powerful teachers union insisted on the record “there is no such thing as learning loss” and described plans to reopen schools as “a recipe for propagating structural racism." Within blue America, transparently irrational ideas like this were able to carry the day for a disturbingly long period of time."
COVID-19 Research
WHO Says No Evidence Healthy Children, Adolescents Need COVID-19 Boosters: Via CNBC and Reuters.
CDC Updates Guidance on School Sports: "As part of its guidance last updated on January 13, the CDC advised schools to “cancel or hold high-risk sports and extra-curricular activities virtually” any time a community has a “high” Covid-19 transmission rate."
Is Omicron Signaling a Shift to Endemic COVID?: New executive brief from BCG.
Experts Criticize CDC Report on COVID-19 and Diabetes Risk in Kids:
Via Emily Oster with a great overview along with this
"There are (at least) two important problems with this study. By far the most important is that the authors are unable to control for any characteristics of individuals other than age and sex."
"Essentially, this is a problem of “residual confounding” or “omitted variable bias.” The two groups — the COVID and non-COVID group — are likely different in a number of ways that the authors do not adjust for. BMI is the most obvious, but others include race and socioeconomic status, as well as other conditions. Without this information, it is very difficult to know if COVID-19 is the cause of the higher rates of diabetes or if it is one of the many other differing factors."
Via NYT, Dr. Jeffrey Flier, a diabetes researcher and a former dean of Harvard Medical School:
"Design of the study had many confounding influences that could easily negate the proposed association once factored in. This seems likely."
"Even if the association proved true, the risk to any child would be tiny, of a magnitude that would be extremely unlikely to cause alarm."
"The C.D.C. erred in taking a preliminary and potentially erroneous association and tweeting it to specifically create alarm in parents about the risk of diabetes going up in their children should they get Covid, which has a very low risk of harming their children."
Via Healthline. "Dr. Sarah D. Corathers, an associate professor in the division of endocrinology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, says… the report did not account for other health conditions, medications that can increase blood sugar levels, race or ethnicity, obesity, and other social determinants of health contributing to diabetes. These factors might influence children’s risk of acquiring the coronavirus and diabetes."
Israeli Trial, World’s First, Finds 4th Dose Not Good Enough Against Omicron: Via Reuters and this article:
"We see an increase in antibodies, higher than after the third dose,” Regev-Yochay said. “However, we see many infected with Omicron who received the fourth dose. Granted, a bit less than in the control group, but still a lot of infections,” she added."
“The bottom line is that the vaccine is excellent against the Alpha and Delta [variants], for Omicron it’s not good enough."
Johns Hopkins Study Suggests Rapid COVID-19 Tests Could Be As Accurate As PCR Tests With Children: New study via MSN.
Concerns Grow Over CDC Isolation Guidelines: Via Axios.
"New data suggests that people with the Omicron variant frequently stay infectious for longer than five days, raising concerns about the CDC's updated isolation guidelines."
"A new study of NBA players and staff — which has yet to be peer-reviewed — found that a large percentage of Omicron-infected people still had viral loads over a certain threshold five days after their first positive test."
The Most Consistently Botched Part of the US Pandemic Response: Via Vox.
"The problem of unsound or indecisive policy creating bad messaging has been repeated over and over again throughout the pandemic, which has deepened skepticism about the agency’s recommendations and created a fertile environment for disinformation to flourish."
"The initial mistake in the messaging around masks — in effect, misleading the American people, seemingly to preserve the supply of masks — set the stage for what would follow: a pattern of public health authorities adopting a patronizing attitude toward the public they are supposed to serve."
"Mezuk voiced her frustration with phrases like “follow the science” that were used to justify various policies. Individual people have to account for all kinds of other variables in their daily decisions — making money, educating their kids, caring for loved ones — as they make risk assessments regarding Covid-19, she said."
“Instead, they went with ‘we are following the science,’ which was interpreted by the public as, ‘so if you disagree with our decision, you must not be following the science,’” she said. “That is just a false dichotomy, and people knew that. And so the CDC and other leaders lost a lot of credibility that I think the public would have freely given them had they not latched onto that simplistic narrative.”
CO2 Ventilation Monitors to Control COVID-19 in Schools: In a new UK Government initiative to reduce the spread of COVID, schools across the UK have received CO2 monitors for better ventilation.
Patients Drive Hours to ERs as Omicron Variant Overwhelms Rural Hospitals: Via WSJ.
School Closures: Via Burbio, the number of schools that went virtual or closed for at least one day last week rose to 6,273 versus 5,513 the previous week.
Say Goodbye to Self-Isolating, WFH Mandates, Mass Testing: Therese Raphael and Sam Fazeli in Bloomberg.
"The balance of power between human and virus is shifting. Better armed against a lesser enemy, our species no longer needs to hide in a bunker waiting for a viral wave to pass. That means it’s time for our Covid response to change."
"What restrictions do we need as we move into the endemic era? Let’s first look at what we can do away with. Self-isolation requirements, for one. The Centers for Disease Control in the U.S. reduced self-isolation from 10 days after a positive test to five days. The U.K. has now amended its own rules to allow people to stop self-isolating earlier if they get two consecutive negative lateral flow tests on days six and seven."
"Free, ubiquitous rapid tests should be a no-brainer for American states battling low vaccination rates and high levels of infection."
State
California: "In Los Angeles, schools saw a massive 130,000-student drop in daily attendance when students returned from winter break this week, the latest pandemic hit to education."
Illinois:
Frustrated by Chicago Public Schools’ union battles, a growing number of weary parents enroll kids in city’s Catholic schools. "But in fall, months before the latest standoff between CPS and the CTU shuttered city schools for five days, the archdiocese schools reported a 5% jump in student enrollment — the first increase the school system has seen in 40 years."
The new report from the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools says school officials across Illinois say a shortage of teachers and substitutes is forcing them to cancel course offerings, move them online or fill open positions with underqualified candidates.
88% of districts believe they have a teacher shortage
96% believe they have a substitute teacher shortage
2,040 open positions
17% of open teacher positions either unfilled or filled with someone less than qualified for the position
412 canceled courses; 385 converted to online
Kansas: When the pandemic closed KC schools, this man took meals to kids. Then COVID took his life.
Massachusetts: Gov. Baker announced the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Public Health will allow schools to sign up to receive at-home rapid antigen tests for weekly use by participating students and staff.
Pennsylvania: School District of Philadelphia, Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium team up for vaccine clinics.
Texas: Austin ISD said because of the increase in student COVID-19 cases, it is partnering with an online company called HeyTutor to offer free help while in quarantine or whenever they need it.
Virginia: "School districts are responding differently to an executive order signed by Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) in the early hours of his administration."
"Executive order two says, “parents of any child enrolled in a elementary or secondary school or a school based early childcare and educational program may elect for their children not to be subject to any mask mandate in effect at the child’s school or educational program.”
“Governors don’t have the authority to issue any order that would be in violation of state statute or other provision of higher law,” Preis said. “What that statute did was essentially say follow CDC guidelines, unless you a really good reason not to. Now that this executive order comes in, it seems to be saying ‘school boards don’t require anyone to follow CDC guidelines or don’t adopt CDC guidelines on their own. That’s not what the statute requires.”
Washington: Students’ test scores drop significantly in first exams since pandemic began.
Resources
Outschool Support for Schools Shifting to Remote Learning: Outschool is offering unlimited Outschool classes to any school in the country that needs to switch to remote learning or has been closed.
Remote Schooling’s Perverse Social Divide: Via Bloomberg.
"Parents with lower education levels, who were less likely to be able to work from home and thus supervise their kids there while keeping their jobs, were more likely to have kids doing remote school and less likely to have kids attending in-person school. The same holds when you sort the respondents by race and ethnicity."
Inside the Student-Led Covid Walkouts: Via Wired.
Schools Battle Covid Pandemic Disruption for Third Academic Year: Via WSJ.
Lawmakers Are Rewriting Rules as Schools Grapple With Teacher Shortages: Via NPR.
"Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an executive order that expedites the hiring process and gives schools more flexibility in staffing decisions, including allowing substitute teacher contracts to be extended and removing barriers for recently retired teachers to return to the classroom. The order expires at the end of March."
"In Kansas, state officials are now open to having teens with no college experience take charge of students. The state Board of Education on Wednesday announced it lowered requirements for obtaining an emergency substitute teaching license as a "last resort."
"The problem is so severe in Broward County that in November students from multiple classes with no teachers were warehoused together in cafeterias, auditoriums or gymnasiums."
Experts Provide Insight on Omicron, Boosters and Schools During Town Hall: Via AFT.
2022 Class of Presidential Leadership Scholars Announced: Some great folks in this year's cohort.
MLK Day:
"I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.” Dr. Martin Luther King's visit to Cornell College - Cornell College.
"...This has also led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between soft minded religionists and tough-minded scientists, but not between science and religion. Their respective worlds are different and their methods are dissimilar. Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism." Dr. Martin Luther King, A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart,1959 (H/T Eduwonk)
This Is So Great: Nickelodeon's Young Dylan interviews the 49ers' Deebo Samuel.