COVID-19 Policy Update #440
Wednesday 2/23
Top Three
CDC Updates Vaccine Dosing Interval: The new guidance says first and second doses of Pfizer or Moderna's coronavirus vaccines can be spaced as long as eight weeks apart.
Axios: New research suggests that spreading the doses out over a longer period of time may reduce the risk — already small — of mRNA vaccines leading to myocarditis in young men. It may also increase how long vaccine protection lasts, according to the CDC.
Expecting a Tidal Wave of Cardiovascular Events: Via the Washington Post.
"Five months after being infected with the coronavirus, Nicole Murphy’s pulse rate is going berserk. Normally in the 70s, which is ideal, it has been jumping to 160, 170 and sometimes 210 beats per minute even when she is at rest — putting her at risk of a heart attack, heart failure or stroke."
"A pivotal study that looked at health records of more than 153,000 U.S. veterans published this month in Nature Medicine found that their risk of cardiovascular disease of all types increased substantially in the year following infection, even when they had mild cases."
“We are expecting a tidal wave of cardiovascular events in the coming years from direct and indirect causes of covid,” said Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association.
"Multiple studies suggest that Americans’ collective blood pressures has jumped since the crisis began. According to a December study in the journal Circulation, for example, the average blood pressure among a half-million U.S. adults studied from April to December 2020 went up each month for both of the numbers measured by monitors."
"The overall message from providers is that “covid by itself is a risk factor for heart disease” like obesity, diabetes, or high blood pressure, according to Saurabh Rajpal, a cardiologist at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center."
Crisis Breeds Innovation: Pandemic Pods and the Future of Education: New report from CRPE (stories in EdWeek, The 74, and Marketplace)
Families valued pods’ student-centered learning environments.
Families participating in pods that primarily relied on remote instruction were less satisfied with their experience.
Pods brought families closer together—often for better, sometimes for worse.
Families tended to pod with “like-minded” people, but some sought to increase diversity and inclusion.
Instructors turned to pods to weather a crisis, but many also perceived a career opportunity.
Instructors gained freedom in their teaching and opportunity to build close, personal relationships with students.
"School and district resistance cut off pods from critical supports and services. While some parents and instructors shared positive stories of collaboration between the pod and individual teachers who provided remote learning, most stories about pods’ relationship with the school district were negative. Pod families described “aggressive emails” and “vengeful” actions implicitly or explicitly discouraging the formation of pods. One district’s policy aimed to coerce in-school learning by not counting virtual learning toward attendance."
COVID-19 Research
Exploring a 4th Booster: Via Axios, "federal health officials, experts and the vaccine makers are already preparing for a potential fourth COVID shot to protect against whatever may come next."
"The federal government plans to test new vaccines that combine multiple strains of the virus to find what offers the broadest coverage, a senior Biden administration official told Axios. The goal is to increase the odds of having a shot ready that works against whatever strain comes next."
Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline Booster: Will seek approval for Covid vaccine candidate
"Early data from the late-stage trial of the vaccine as a standalone two-dose shot showed it was 100% effective against severe Covid-19 and hospitalization, with 75% efficacy against moderate or severe disease."
Masks in Schools: Districts Get Caught Between Health Authorities and Parent Pushback: Via WSJ.
How Long Covid Exhausts the Body: Incredible visualization in the NYT.
School-Based Health Services in Virginia and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Study and survey:
"Schools reported delivering fewer health services to students during the 2020-2021 school year and heightened concern about students' mental health. Understanding what schools need to deliver health services can assist state and local education and health officials and promote child health."
"Reports show that mental health was a top concern for students increased from 15% before the pandemic to 27%"
Urgency of Equity: "Toolkit was developed by a coalition of public health experts and grassroots organizations to help educators, parents, and communities advocate for safer, equitable schools, and separate fact from fiction about COVID-19 protections." Seems to be a response to the Urgency of Normal toolkit.
State
Mississippi: Students to get free mental health telehealth services.
New York: Survey: "a majority of New Yorkers, 58%, says that we should wait for early March data before deciding whether to lift the school mask mandate, compared to 30% who say the school mask mandate should have ended already, and 10% who want to see it end after this week’s school break."
North Carolina: Contact tracing ends in schools.
Economic Recovery
Cities Leading the Economic Recovery: New report from EIG.
The 2021 Paycheck Protection Program Reboot: Loan Disbursement to Employer and Nonemployer Businesses in Minority Communities: NBER paper.
"We find a strong positive relationship between PPP flows, as measured by the number of loans per employer business or loan amounts per employee, and the minority share of the population or businesses in the third round."
"In contrast, the relationship was negative in the first round of 2020 and less positive in the second round of 2020."
Resources
Reading Reimagined: Several updates:
Paper outlining their inclusive research and development efforts in 2022 and beyond, including the foundational research grounding our literacy work.
Launched their first research request for proposals focused on supporting word recognition and fluency development with our priority students - Black, Latino, Native American, and those experiencing poverty - in grades three through eight: RFP: Equitable Foundational Literacy Research with Older Learners.
Media Thinks It's Time for Governors to End School Mask Mandates — If They're Democrats: Via Rick Hess
Effect of Artificial Intelligence Tutoring vs Expert Instruction on Learning Simulated Surgical Skills Among Medical Students: Very cool study out in JAMA which found "that learning surgical skills in simulation was more effective with metric-based assessment and formative feedback on quantifiable criteria and actionable goals by an AI tutor than remote expert instruction."
As Schools Push for More Tutoring, New Research Points to Its Effectiveness: Via The 74.
Expanding Educational Options: Emergent Policy Trends: Via Bellwether
Every Day This Week: Is a palindrome:
This Reporter Getting Interrupted By His Mother: Is so great.
