COVID-19 Policy Update #449
Tuesday 3/8
Top Three
How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal? Asks Ed Yong in The Atlantic.
"The United States reported more deaths from COVID-19 last Friday than deaths from Hurricane Katrina, more on any two recent weekdays than deaths during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more last month than deaths from flu in a bad season, and more in two years than deaths from HIV during the four decades of the AIDS epidemic."
"COVID is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S., after only heart disease and cancer, which are both catchall terms for many distinct diseases. The sheer scale of the tragedy strains the moral imagination."
"Every American who died of COVID left an average of nine close relatives bereaved. Roughly 9 million people—3 percent of the population—now have a permanent hole in their world that was once filled by a parent, child, sibling, spouse, or grandparent. An estimated 149,000 children have lost a parent or caregiver."
"Why were so many publications and politicians focused on reopenings in January and February—the fourth- and fifth-deadliest months of the pandemic?" Why did the CDC issue new guidelines that allowed most Americans to dispense with indoor masking when at least 1,000 people had been dying of COVID every day for almost six straight months? If the U.S. faced half a year of daily hurricanes that each took 1,000 lives, it is hard to imagine that the nation would decide to, quite literally, throw caution to the wind. Why, then, is COVID different?"
"With no lapping floodwaters or smoking buildings, the tragedy becomes contestable to a degree that a natural disaster or terrorist attack cannot be."
"America is accepting not only a threshold of death but also a gradient of death. Elderly people over the age of 75 are 140 times more likely to die than people in their 20s. ... Unvaccinated people are 53 times more likely to die of COVID than vaccinated and boosted people; they’re also more likely to be uninsured, have lower incomes and less education, and face eviction risk and food insecurity. Working-class people were five times more likely to die from COVID than college graduates in 2020, and in California, essential workers continued dying at disproportionately high rates even after vaccines became widely available."
"Within every social class and educational tier, Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous people died at higher rates than white people.... People of color also died at younger ages: In its first year, COVID erased 14 years of progress in narrowing the life-expectancy gap between Black and white Americans."
"Older, sicker, poorer, Blacker or browner, the people killed by COVID were treated as marginally in death as they were in life. Accepting their losses comes easily to “a society that places a hierarchy on the value of human life, which is absolutely what America is built on,” Debra Furr-Holden, an epidemiologist at the Michigan State University, told me."
"Richard Keller, a medical historian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says that much of the current pandemic rhetoric—the premature talk of endemicity; the focus on comorbidities; the from-COVID-or-with-COVID debate—treats COVID deaths as dismissible and “so inevitable as to not merit precaution,” he has written. “Like gun violence, overdose, extreme heat death, heart disease, and smoking, [COVID] becomes increasingly associated with behavioral choice and individual responsibility, and therefore increasingly invisible.”
Masks in Schools:
New CDC study, "In Arkansas during August–October 2021, districts with universal mask requirements had a 23% lower incidence of COVID-19 among staff members and students compared with districts without mask requirements."
Preprint out of Spain: "Face Covering Masks mandates in schools were not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 incidence or transmission, suggesting that this intervention was not effective. Instead, age-dependency was the most important factor in explaining the transmission risk for children attending school."
Return to Learn Tracker, Mask Edition: Via Nat Malkus at AEI. R2L monitors over 8,000 public school districts on a weekly basis.
Data also revealed that current mask requirements don’t align with current CDC guidance. Almost half of the students in districts that CDC recognizes as “low risk” are required to wear a mask — a substantially higher proportion than required in “high risk” districts.
Districts in counties that voted for Biden are far more likely to have required masks for most of the year, compared to Trump districts.
It’s ‘Alarming’: Children Are Severely Behind in Reading: Via NYT:
"As the pandemic enters its third year, a cluster of new studies now show that about a third of children in the youngest grades are missing reading benchmarks, up significantly from before the pandemic."
“We’re in new territory,” Dr. Hogan said about the pandemic’s toll on reading. If children do not become competent readers by the end of elementary school, the risks are “pretty dramatic,” she said. Poor readers are more likely to drop out of high school, earn less money as adults and become involved in the criminal justice system."
Federal
FCC: Announced that it is committing $63 million in the 11th wave of Emergency Connectivity Fund program support.
Since its June 2021 launch, the program has committed nearly $4.69 billion in funding connecting over 12.5 million students with broadband connections and equipment.
Total commitments to date have funded over 10 million connected devices and 5 million broadband connections.
COVID-19 Research
Most mRNA COVID Vaccine Adverse Events Mild: New study and more via CIDRAP.
Over the study period, 298,792,852 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were administered.
Of the 340,522 adverse-event reports, 92.1% were nonserious, 6.6% were serious, and 1.3% were deaths, according to VAERS. Over 80% of deaths occurred in participants 60 years and older.
The most common reactions were injection-site pain (66.2% of 6,775,515 participants after dose one and 68.6% of 5,674,420 after dose two), headache (27.0% after dose one and 46.2% after dose two), most often on the day after vaccination. Less than 1% of participants said they sought medical care (0.8% after dose one and 0.9% after dose two).
Study author Dr Tom Shimabukuro said: “VAERS and v-safe are important tools CDC can use when evaluating vaccine safety and to help identify any unexpected or unusual events. These data are reassuring that reactions to both mRNA vaccines are generally mild and subside after one or two days—confirming reports from clinical trials and post-authorization monitoring."
WHO Plan for COVID Vaccines To Tackle New Variants: The WHO technical advisory group issued a statement saying they strongly recommend the current vaccines and boosters, because they continue to provide high levels of protection. However, they said to optimize protection in the future, different approaches may be needed, such as monovalent versions that target a specific variant or a polyvalent vaccine that protects against multiple ones.
A Call to Action on Improving our National Strategy for Pandemic Preparedness and Patient Safety: Via APIC (Axios story).
Long COVID Mini-Series: The Heart: Good summary of the latest research via Katelyn Jetelina.
"Although relatively rare, SARS-CoV-2’s long-term impact on the heart can be detrimental even among previously healthy individuals and among those with mild COVID19 disease. Vaccination continues to be our best bet to reduce the chances of disease, like the impact on the heart."
Children and COVID-19: AAP State-Level Data Report
"For the week ending March 3rd, almost 69,000 additional child COVID-19 cases were reported. This marks the first time weekly child cases have dropped below 100,000 since early August 2021 and the 6th consecutive weekly decrease from the pandemic peak of 1,150,000 added the week ending January 20th."
State
Florida: Florida’s decision on Covid vaccines for healthy kids adds to confusion and distrust, reports Stat.
Illinois: Chicago Public Schools to drop mask mandate March 14.
New Jersey: Masks are still required inside Newark Public Schools District school buildings, but district officials did ease up on some coronavirus safety protocols and procedures as Gov. Phil Murphy's lift of the statewide face mask mandate went into effect today.
Rhode Island: Masks are now optional in most school districts.
International
Europe: Cases begin to tick up again:
French health authorities reported 93,050 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, the highest daily total since Feb 22, and an increase of 16.6% versus a week ago.
Meaghan Kall is also puzzled by a similar uptick in the UK. One hypothesis is that it's waning immunity.
Resources
The National Center on Education and the Economy: Named Dr. Vicki Phillips as the organization’s new CEO.
Future of Work: The US Fish and Wildlife Service is hiring a grizzly bear conflict manager. You will have to relocate to Montana but will be paid up to $100,000 a year.
The American Association of University Professors and the AFT: Announced plans to expand their affiliation and become a stronger faculty voice in national, state and campus-based discussions about the future of higher education.
16 Under 16 in STEM: Via The 74:
"That’s why we’re asking for your help to identify our inaugural class of “16 Under 16 in STEM.” We are looking for 16 of the most impressive students who are 16 years of age or younger who have shown extraordinary achievement in STEM-related activities."
Cut the Regulations and Allow Microschools To Flourish: Writes Michael Horn in the New York Sun.
TFA: As pandemic complicates recruitment, Teach for America’s incoming class expected to hit a 15-year low.
School Counselors and Psychologists Remain Scarce Even as Needs Rise: Via EdWeek.
My Time As An Unqualified Substitute Teacher During The Pandemic: Interesting piece in The Guardian.
"The hope entering this school year was that kids could get back on track after years of mass closures and on-off virtual learning. But the road has been bumpier than expected. The shortage has led to people like me, with no education background – and, frankly, no interest in pursuing one – standing in front of classrooms with little knowledge on how to guide students, teach them, or how to manage their behavior."
“Now all of the quizzes are on their laptops online,” McKinney said. “So it’s really a matter of classroom discipline, and making sure they’re staying on task, not cutting up, disrupting class,” he said."
"Hays district is still averaging about 185 teacher absences per day, although its pool of substitutes grew to 400 after the initiative was launched and was covered in local press."
Doggy Flop: I can relate with this.
"Most mRNA COVID Vaccine Adverse Events Mild"
I can't even imagine a headline like that for another vaccine. There would be riots.