I’m wrapping up vacation this week and will resume the regular publishing schedule next Monday. In the meantime, here are some important developments…
Top Three
BA.4/BA.5 Boosters Likely Available After Labor Day:
Pfizer and Moderna both submitted EUA applications to the FDA for BA.4/BA.5 Omicron-targeting bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccines.
FDA and CDC scheduled a two-day meeting of its advisory panel of experts for Sept. 1 and 2.
FDA plans to authorize bivalent boosters by Labor Day, sources say
NPR: "For the first time, the FDA is planning to base its decision about whether to authorize new boosters on studies involving mice instead of humans. "For the FDA to rely on mouse data is just bizarre, in my opinion," says John Moore, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. "Mouse data are not going to be predictive in any way of what you would see in humans."
CDC Operational Planning Guide: "Wave 1 pre-ordering of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccines will start on or about August 17 at 10:00 AM EDT and end on or about August 24 at 9:00 AM EDT. Wave 2 pre-ordering of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccines will start on or about August 24 at 10:00 AM EDT (with a threshold expansion) and end on or about August 30."
Katelyn Jetelina: "Omicron changed the game in terms of evading immunity, which caused protection against infection to wane quickly. Vaccine protection against severe disease wanes, but ever so slightly. Mix this with the fact that coronaviruses thrive in winter, and that Omicron continues to mutate, and there is a strong possibility of a winter resurgence."
Eric Topol: "It’s actually striking that in 2 months from the June 28th FDA meeting, there is a BA.5 vaccine booster made at scale. That is finally in keeping with all the excitement about the plasticity of the mRNA vaccine platform, that it could be ideal for rapid updating."
Student Achievement Gaps and the Pandemic: A New Review of Evidence From 2021–2022: Via CRPE
On average, children at all grade levels have suffered significant delays in learning.
Learning delays occurred at every grade level, but it’s unclear which age group has been most negatively affected.
Learning delays were greatest in 2019–20, but many students also lost ground in 2021–22.
Learning delays are closely related to the amount of time students spent out of school or in remote instruction.
Low-income students and students of color, who on average spent the most time in remote instruction, experienced the greatest learning delays and fell even farther behind their white, advantaged peers.
Student Loan Forgiveness: Including this because it actually has a COVID connection. ED's legal rationale makes the argument that the HEROES Act of 2003 gives ED the authority for these actions due to the national emergency created by the pandemic.
ED announcement and program website where individuals can apply.
The program is limited to borrowers making less than $125,000 per year for individuals and less than $250,000 for married couples or heads of households. Pell Grant recipients who meet the income threshold can receive up to $20,000 in relief. Private loan holders are not eligible for relief.
More from Under Secretary James Kvaal
Penn Wharton Budget Model: "We estimate that forgiving federal college student loan debt will cost between $300 billion and $980 billion over the 10-year budget window, depending on program details. About 70% of debt relief accrues to borrowers in the top 60% of the income distribution."
Bloomberg: "Biden’s Student-Loan Relief Adds New Wrinkle to Inflation Debate"
Jason Furman thread, "Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless. Doing it while going well beyond one campaign promise ($10K of student loan relief) and breaking another (all proposals paid for) is even worse."
Nina Turner: "Canceling $10,000 in student debt when the average white borrower is $12,000 in debt, while Black women hold on average over $52,000 isn’t just unacceptable, it’s structural racism."
Federal
ED: Secretary Cardona made the rounds on some of the Sunday shows talking about teacher shortage: Meet the Press and Face the Nation.
Fauci: Announced that he plans to retire in December.
White House: Dr. Ashish K. Jha with a thread on the new school year.
Covid-19 Research
Pfizer Effectiveness With Under 5s: Pfizer's vaccine was 73% effective in protecting children younger than 5 as omicron spread in the spring, the company announced Tuesday. More via the AP.
Safety Monitoring of Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Doses Among Children Aged 5–11 Years: Via the CDC.
"No reports of myocarditis or death after receipt of dose 3 were received."
"VAERS received 581 reports of adverse events after receipt of a Pfizer-BioNTech third dose by children aged 5–11 years; 578 (99.5%) reports were considered nonserious, and the most common events reported were vaccine administration errors."
"In the week after third dose vaccination, 6.9% (225) of enrolled children were reported to be unable to attend school, and 12.1% (392) were unable to complete daily activities."
Novavax: The CDC approved the use of Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12 through 17.
Paxlovid: Via the AP:
"Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill appears to provide little or no benefit for younger adults, while still reducing the risk of hospitalization and death for high-risk seniors."
"The results from a 109,000-patient Israeli study are likely to renew questions about the U.S. government’s use of Paxlovid, which has become the go-to treatment for COVID-19 due to its at-home convenience."
Related: "FDA asks Pfizer to test second Paxlovid course in patients with COVID rebound."
Monkeypox: CDC offers guidance for schools.
Long COVID Relatively Rare in Children and Teens: According to a new study.
COVID-19 Vaccines Uncommon for U.S. Children Under Age 5: Via Gallup.
Related: Aaron Carroll in the NYT, "The Abysmal Covid Vaccination Rate for Toddlers Speaks Volumes." "Fear-based messaging can backfire. Shaming people for not agreeing with your policies on Covid prevention will harden their positions, not make them more likely to agree with you."
State
California: Nearly 50,000 LAUSD students, or about 11%, missed the first day of school.
DC:
Via Axios, "One dataset shows that approximately 80 out of 120 schools need backup cooling/heating in place to support the HVAC system in need of repair."
"As of mid-August, around a quarter of D.C. public school students are not compliant with routine pediatric immunization requirements."
Missouri: "The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released preliminary test scores for the 2021-22 school year showing that, just like last year, fewer than half of Missouri students statewide passed with proficient and advanced scores across subjects."
Ohio: "The Columbus Education Association announced Sunday night that more than 94% of its members had voted to reject the Columbus City school board's last final offer and go on strike for the first time since 1975."
Oregon: “Nearly all health and safety protocols will be locally determined,” Oregon Department of Education Director Colt Gill said at a news briefing Wednesday, “with district leaders partnering with local public health authorities to make decisions about how to implement health and safety protocols to keep schools open by keeping staff and students healthy.”
Texas: Houston ISD’s improved TEA rating partly due to tutoring program, officials say.
Virginia: Officials blame lagging test scores on pandemic school closures.
"The differences were particularly stark in mathematics. Two-thirds of students passed math exams last school year, compared to 82 percent before the pandemic. Racial and economic disparities also widened, with White and Asian students making more progress toward their pre-pandemic levels than Black and Hispanic students."
"Passage rates remained more than 20 points behind pre-pandemic levels in math for Black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students, and among students learning English."
"All groups fared better in reading than they did in math, but state officials said that was due to the fact that standards were lowered in 2021, and cautioned against optimism."
SOL Results (Word doc)
“Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera said in her remarks that “the prolonged closure of schools exacerbated downward trends in achievement that began several years before COVID-19 and our efforts to address learning loss must go beyond making up for lost seat time.”
Resources
‘Treat This As You Would Any Illness’: Schools Across U.S. Downgrade COVID Rules: Via The 74.
Was 2022’s Summer Learning ‘Explosion’ Enough To Reverse COVID Losses?: Via The 74.
"The 74 obtained exclusive datasets from Burbio, a data service that tracks school policy, and the research-based Center on Reinventing Public Education auditing publicly shared information about districts’ summer offerings."
"93% of districts, according to Burbio, and 87%, according to CRPE, offered summer learning programs this year."
"79% of school systems that had programs provided them at no cost to families."
"The average program length was 154 hours, just under four weeks and roughly equivalent to 12% of the academic school year. However, some offerings only covered about 30 hours, while others made up nearly 350 total hours."
"School leaders estimated that 18-20% of their students enrolled, compared to 13-16% during a typical year."
Back-to-School Stress is Amplified by Inflation Affecting the Cost of Supplies: Via NPR.
It's Back to School: It's always good to have a friend help carry your books.