Top Three
Pfizer Asks FDA to Authorize Booster Shots for Kids 5-11: Press Release and more via NPR.
Via Reuters: "It is unclear how much demand there is for a third vaccine dose in the age group. Just 28% of children aged 5 to 11 years - around 8.2 million - are fully vaccinated, according to data from the CDC."
Did Faulty Assumptions Dash Parents’ Hope for an Under-5 Vaccine?: Via Zeynep Tufekci in the NYT.
"Less than two weeks after Pfizer announced on Feb. 1 that it would begin seeking authorization to administer two doses of a vaccine for children under 5, the Food and Drug Administration said the consideration would be delayed “to allow more time to evaluate data,” given the emergence of the Omicron variant. Pfizer has said it will continue its trials, evaluating the efficacy of a third dose."
"Then, last week, Moderna reported that it would soon file for emergency authorization for its vaccine for children under 5 years old. A day later, that possibility, too, seemed dashed when Politico reported that the F.D.A. might delay the Moderna authorization until early summer, when Pfizer is expected to complete the third-dose trials."
"So why would rolling out vaccines one at a time dissuade people from getting their children vaccinated? Parents who are eager to vaccinate their children are going to be eager as soon as vaccines are available. What kind of a message does delaying the rollout of a vaccine send to parents who are not eager about vaccinating their children? Could vaccination really be that important if officials delay the vaccine’s availability in this manner?"
"More than two years into the pandemic, the F.D.A. can rely more on markers besides symptomatic infection, such as how well a vaccine gets the immune system to form antibodies and protects other age groups, especially from severe outcomes."
"Based on the totality of such data, the agency could have authorized a two-dose regimen of the Pfizer vaccine for children under age 5 during the Omicron wave. It could then have waited for the data to decide whether to recommend a third dose — adults got their third dose added later, too. It could also have explained the available data to parents and let them know that the vaccine provided a great benefit to their children even if it provided lesser protection against lesser symptoms."
"So what should the F.D.A. do? First, it should stop all the five-dimensional chess games that predict blowback due to perverse behavioral outcomes, and often do so without a sound social science basis... Transparency is great, proper communication is essential, and, above all, providing tools that help protect children as soon as possible is crucial."
"There is no logic for leaving the youngest children unprotected any longer. Vaccines save lives, reduce the incidence of unwanted outcomes, and shorten the duration of illness and contagious period, for everyone. The littlest among us deserve just as much protection, now."
Enrollment Fell and Fell Again in Schools That Operated Virtually: AEI Return to Learn tracker and Washington Post article
"Districts that operated in person last school year were far more likely to rebound in enrollment this year than those that continued to operate virtually."
"Districts that were most likely to be remote last year lost an average of 3.2 percent of their students in 2020-2021, then continued losses this school year for a two-year enrollment drop of 4.4 percent."
"Those that offered the most in-person classes last year lost fewer students to start with — falling by 2 percent last year. Then in fall 2021 they bounced back, gaining students. Their two-year net decline was a modest 1.1 percent."
"Schools in urban areas and those with more students of color were, in general, slower to return to in-person schools than others. That’s partly because Black and Hispanic communities, hard-hit by the virus, were often more hesitant to go back to in-person classes. It’s also partly because big cities are more likely to have strong teachers unions, many of which resisted efforts to return, arguing it was not safe. Some large districts also faced greater logistical challenges implementing coronavirus mitigation measures."
Federal
White House: Fact Sheet: Biden Administration Increases Access to COVID-19 Treatments and Boosts Patient and Provider Awareness
Biden Struggles to Solve the Manchin-Sinema Puzzle:
Politico: “With the clock ticking on their hopes of clinching a major climate and deficit reduction deal before Memorial Day, Democratic leaders are again struggling to make progress — stymied by a lack of clear direction or an understanding of what both Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), their two biggest obstacles, are prepared to support.”
Said one White House insider: “The White House is hamstrung by the Venn diagram of Manchin and Sinema asks.”
“Currently, informal reconciliation talks center on three major areas: climate change, prescription drug reform and deficit reduction. While the White House has yet to acknowledge other social spending elements have been moved off the table, multiple people familiar with the talks said President Joe Biden’s ambitions on child and elder care are all but dead."
Title 42:
DHS issued a memo outlining the Biden administration’s plan for the southern border if Title 42 is lifted next month. The memo acknowledges that “migration levels will increase” in response to the move, and pledges DHS will surge additional resources to the border and increase processing efficiency.
Via Punchbowl: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats are furious with the White House for its handling of the decision to rescind Title 42 public health authority to expel migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border."
Covid-19 Research
Children’s Stress Declined With Vaccine Rollout: “Children who are living in states with higher vaccination rates may be less worried about the future of this pandemic,” said lead author Yunyu Xiao, assistant professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. “Getting vaccinated may also affect the mental health of parents and the home environment that kids are living in.”
European Studies Shed Light on Long COVID Risk and Recovery: Via CIDRAP. "A trio of new observational studies from Europe describes long COVID prevalence in Luxembourg, the effect of initial infection severity on risk in Sweden, and an occupational therapy program to ease symptoms in Ireland"
Entering The Endemic Phase?:
The European Union says the emergency phase of the pandemic is over. "The European Union said on Wednesday that it was moving out of the emergency phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, while focusing on vaccination, pandemic surveillance and testing in preparation for a possible new pandemic wave in the fall."
State
California: To address pandemic-related learning losses that students have not recovered from, the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education has approved four optional days of extra instruction for struggling students as well as three additional days of professional development – also optional – for staff for the 2022-23 academic year.
New Jersey: Newark will decide by week’s end whether to continue require mask-wearing in buildings to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Ohio: Gov. DeWine signed higher ed legislation making permanent a program awarding $2,000 grants to students who return to class within five years of stopping out of postsecondary education.
The initiative, called the Second Chance Grant Program, launched as a pilot in October after lawmakers set aside as much as $3 million for it. Last week's legislation expands the program, making more students eligible.
Students who attended public, private nonprofit and for-profit institutions in the state — including Ohio career and technical education centers — can now qualify for the grants. The pilot program only covered students who stopped out of Ohio's public community colleges or universities. The newly expanded program also makes eligible students who have not been enrolled for a minimum of two semesters, compared to three under the pilot.
Washington: Substitute teachers vanished, so WA schools turned to new ideas.
Economic Recovery
Child-care Workers Are Quitting the Industry for Good in the U.S.: Via Bloomberg.
"Employment in daycare services remains more than 10% below pre-COVID levels, compared with just 1% for the labor market at large. LinkedIn data suggest many of these women — early child-care work is almost entirely done by women — moved to other jobs, primarily in education."
"Staffing shortages — paired with the thousands of child-care centers that never reopened — leave about 460,000 families struggling to find alternatives, based on Wells Fargo & Co. estimates, keeping some of these parents, especially mothers, out of the labor force. As Wells Fargo economists put it in a note last month: The daycare industry's challenges are making hiring more difficult and expensive for all sectors."
Addressing The Dearth Of Digital Skills Data: Opportunities For States: Via NGA.
Resources
The Pandemic Is Not Over for the Parents of Youngest Kids: Via CNN
5 Questions on How States Can Put Federal Broadband Funds to Use: Via AEI with a panel with former FCC Chairman Pai, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), myself, Mark Jamison of AEI, Evan Feinman of NTIA, Sarah Oh Lam of the Technology Policy Institute (TPI), and Brent Skorup of George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.
Best Teammate Ever: I need this kid to pump me up after a bad day.