Top Three
Summer Learning Is More Popular than Ever. How to Make Sure Your District’s Program Is Effective: RAND's Catherine Augustine in The 74.
CDC Introduced A Quarantine and Isolation Calculator: To help people exposed to or diagnosed with COVID-19 determine how long to quarantine or isolate.
We Study Virus Evolution. Here’s Where We Think the Coronavirus Is Going: Sarah Cobey, Jesse Bloom, Tyler Starr and Nathaniel Lash in the NYT with some interactive visualizations.
"But although many scientists, including us, expected SARS-CoV-2 would be under evolutionary pressure to transmit better, it’s been remarkable just how well the virus has responded to that pressure."
"Recent variants like Omicron and Delta are several times more transmissible than the strain that first spread around the globe in early 2020. That’s a huge increase, and makes SARS-CoV-2 more contagious than many other human respiratory viruses. These big jumps in contagiousness have played a major role in driving the pandemic so far."
"How much more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 can become is an open question, but there are limits. Even evolution is constrained: a cheetah can’t evolve to be infinitely fast, and SARS-CoV-2 won’t become infinitely transmissible."
"Taking all this together, we expect SARS-CoV-2 will continue to cause new epidemics, but they will increasingly be driven by the ability to skirt around the immune system. In this sense, the future may look something like the seasonal flu, where new variants cause waves of cases each year. If this happens, which we expect it will, vaccines may need to be updated regularly similar to the flu vaccines unless we develop broader variant-proof vaccines."
Federal
Biden Admin Operated With Missing Data as CDC Issued Pandemic Guidance, Emails Show: Via Fox News based on FOIAed emails by Americans for Public Trust
"We don't have federally collected data on what is happening inside schools," Donna Harris-Aikens, deputy chief of staff at the Department of Education, said during a Feb. 11, 2021, briefing between CDC and department officials and Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat."
"There are private vendors examining issue but believe there is an important role for the federal govt. to robustly collect this data for the entire country," she added, according to a transcript of the meeting contained within the emails provided to Fox News."
COVID-19 Research
Free COVID-19 Tests Ending for Uninsured Americans: Via ABC News.
"With funding stalled in Congress, providers must absorb costs or start charging."
"Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing companies in the country, told ABC News that patients who are not on Medicare, Medicaid or a private health plan will now be charged $125 dollars ($119 and a $6 physician fee) when using one of its QuestDirect PCR tests either by ordering a kit online or visiting one of the 1,500 Quest or major retail locations that administer the tests, such as Walmart or Giant Eagle."
Second COVID Vaccine Booster Significantly Lowers Death Rate: Israeli study shows.
Reuters reports: "Senior citizens who received a second booster of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination had a 78% lower mortality rate from the disease than those who got one only"
"The main conclusion is that the second booster is lifesaving," said Ronen Arbel, Health Outcomes Researcher at Clalit and Sapir College."
Efficacy of a Fourth Dose of Covid-19 mRNA Vaccine Against Omicron: New study.
"Our data provide evidence that a fourth dose of mRNA vaccine is immunogenic, safe, and somewhat efficacious (primarily against symptomatic disease)."
"Along with previous data showing the superiority of a third dose to a second dose, our results suggest that maximal immunogenicity of mRNA vaccines is achieved after three doses and that antibody levels can be restored by a fourth dose."
"Furthermore, we observed low vaccine efficacy against infections in health care workers, as well as relatively high viral loads suggesting that those who were infected were infectious. Thus, a fourth vaccination of healthy young health care workers may have only marginal benefits. Older and vulnerable populations were not assessed."
Co-infection with Covid and Flu Led to More Severe Illness: Adult COVID-19 patients also infected with the flu are four times more likely to require mechanical ventilation and 2.4 times more likely to die than if they had COVID-19 alone, finds a UK study published late last week in The Lancet.
Most Americans Have Now Had Covid-19: According to a new Monmouth poll (and Washington Post story which dives into if the partisan gap is really that large).
52% of Americans say they’ve contracted the coronavirus, including 57% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats.
More than 3 in 4 Americans (77%) endorse the C.D.C. relaxing its face mask and social distancing recommendations in areas with low Covid rates. Just 34% of the public supports instituting or reinstituting face mask and social distancing guidelines in their state at the current time, which is down significantly from 52% in January.
Understanding Long Covid: Good piece from the NYT.
Covid Vaccinations, Including Boosters, Fall to Lowest Levels Since 2020: Via the Washington Post.
"A CDC spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. Representatives from the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to an email asking about the declining number of vaccinations."
State
Alabama: Tutoring to help kids rebound academically from pandemic.
California:
The state has distributed more than 14.3 million COVID-19 at-home tests to schools for students and staff.
California schools prepare to spot post-break COVID-19 cases
Only 30% of LA County kids are vaccinated, reports the LA Times.
Illinois: Via Chalkbeat, What 5 graphics tell us about COVID vaccine disparity in Chicago schools.
Ohio: ‘Greater need than ever before:’ Too few therapists to cope with COVID-19 pandemic mental health crisis.
West Virginia: Friends With Paws placing therapy dogs in some schools.
International
China: Shanghai to lock down 25 million people, half of the city at a time
"Any suspension of commercial activity in Shanghai will likely have global ripple effects as the city is one of China’s primary centers for finance, manufacturing and goods trade. The city hosts the regional headquarters of hundreds of multinational companies and manufacturers like car makers Tesla Inc. and General Motors Co. run factories there."
Resources
Dollars to Dashboards: Via Allovue, How districts can craft a winning strategy to combat ESSER misconceptions.
46-years Ago Today:Schoolhouse Rock!’s “I'm Just A Bill” premiered.
Nothing But Net: Jules Hoogland, 17, who is blind, can be seen in this video preparing to shoot as the 2,500 people inside the gym watch in silence.
Classroom aide Cheryl Beute then taps the bottom of the backboard with a yellow pole to signal the location of the hoop, before Hoogland takes her shot.