Top Three
Omicron Booster: "The FDA is expected to authorize new COVID-19 booster shots this week without a staple of its normal decision-making process: data from a study showing whether the shots were safe and worked in humans."
WSJ: "I’m uncomfortable that we would move forward—that we would give millions or tens of millions of doses to people—based on mouse data,” said Paul Offit, an FDA adviser and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia."
"In addition to evaluating the boosters without clinical-trial data, the FDA won’t convene another element from its earlier Covid-19 vaccine reviews: a meeting of advisers who make recommendations whether the agency should authorize a shot."
“If we waited for clinical-trial results, thank you very much, we’d get them in the spring. It takes time to do clinical trials,” said William Schaffner, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a nonvoting liaison to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee that will decide whether to recommend the shots, should the FDA sign off. “This is just an updating of the previous vaccine that we used.”
"Infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 Breakthrough Infections and Reinfections During Omicron: Study with some important findings related to transmission:
"We estimate that vaccination, prior infection, and both vaccination and prior infection reduced an index case’s risk of transmitting to close contacts by 24% (9-37%), 21% (4-36%) and 41% (23-54%), respectively."
"Booster vaccine doses and more recent vaccination further reduced infectiousness."
"These findings suggest that although vaccinated and/or previously infected individuals remain infectious upon SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection in this prison setting, their infectiousness is reduced compared to individuals without any history of vaccination or infection."
The ‘Mass Exodus’ of Teachers Never Happened:
The 74 on a new paper which suggests, "Teacher turnover rates are actually about the same as they were before the pandemic."
Derek Thompson in The Atlantic writes, "There is no national teacher shortage,"
NYT: "How Bad Is the Teacher Shortage? Depends Where You Live."
AP: "School districts move to ease teacher stress, burnout."
Federal
ED: Releases Back-to-School Checklist for Parents
ED: Announced 11 awards totaling over $29 million to 10 states under the 2022 Competitive Grants for State Assessments.
Free Covid Tests Ends This Week: Reports Axios.
Student Loan Forgiveness:
Explainers
Via AEI, CAP, Whiteboard Advisors, and Kevin Carey (in Vox)
Some of the most forceful defense from the Administration is coming from NEC Deputy Bharat Ramamurti's Twitter account.
Implementation Challenges
"The Education Department doesn't have income data for most of the 43 million Americans eligible for forgiveness. That means 35 million people — including Pell Grant recipients — will have to attest that they make less than $125,000 per year and apply for relief," reports Axios.
Costs & Inflation
Secretary Cardona struggled on CNN to explain how much the plan would cost.
CRFB: "The student debt cancellation and relief measures announced earlier this week by the Biden Administration would cost around $500 billion over a decade and would meaningfully boost inflation. Assuming current economic conditions continue and increased spending mostly flows through to prices, we estimate these changes would boost inflation by 15 to 27 basis points over the next year."
Tax Foundation, "Thirteen States May Tax Student Loan Debt Cancelation"
Behind the Decision
The Washington Post: "How President Biden decided to go big on student loan forgiveness"
"The concerns were not only political. Career staffers at the Education Department thought they were being asked to take on too much at once and would struggle to accomplish it all. Centrist Democrats worried the plan would be too generous to Americans not in need of help. As rumors swirled of potential debt cancellation, Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) argued on the Senate floor that relief should be targeted more directly to the lowest earners. Bennet later told senior White House officials that loan relief could do too much to help affluent Americans, one person familiar with the matter said. Bennet aired similar criticisms publicly on Wednesday after the White House released its plan."
"The NAACP made an even stronger statement. Its president, Derrick Johnson, said $10,000 in forgiveness amounted to “pouring a bucket of ice water on a forest fire.”
"Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary and former Federal Reserve chair, was one of the chief skeptics among Mr. Biden’s inner circle of top advisers. She, like others, worried that the economic effects of a giant giveaway could be profound, especially as the Federal Reserve struggled to keep inflation at bay, according to several officials. Her message was echoed by top Democratic economists, who peppered the White House with concerns about the potential effects."
Legal Questions
"Student Loan Forgiveness Raises Emergency Powers Questions," in UpHill.
NYT: “Because Mr. Biden used executive action, rather than legislation, to forgive the loans, legal challenges are expected. It is unclear, however, who would have the standing to press their case in court. A recent Virginia Law Review article argued that the answer might be no one: States, for example, have little say in the operation of a federal loan system.”
"‘Advocates and policymakers who pushed to take this unprecedented step are responsible for also communicating to borrowers that there is a strong chance it will never come to fruition,’ said Lanae Erickson, who heads social policy at Third Way said. ‘Given that the application may not be available until the end of the year, the strong likelihood is that courts will enjoin this action before it gets started — leaving borrowers in limbo.’
IDR
Matt Bruenig, "The New Income-Driven Repayment System Could Cause Some Big Problems."
"At some point, it seems like expensive private universities will realize that providing tens of thousands of dollars of need-based discounts to certain borrowers who are likely to wind up on IDR does not make sense and that they should instead charge the maximum amount a student can cover through federal loans. As the law schools show, the surplus generated by that scheme could even be shared a bit with the students via an LRAP."
"Even certain public universities may end up reconsidering the wisdom of state-funded tuition subsidies. Tuition subsidies that lower the cost of attendance for public university students that wind up on IDR don’t actually benefit the student. Instead, they are just indirect transfers of money from state governments to the federal government."
Covid-19 Research
Clinical Features and Burden of Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children and Adolescents: Study
"In this large-scale, exploratory study, the burden of pediatric PASC that presented to health systems was low. Myocarditis was the most commonly diagnosed PASC-associated condition. Acute illness severity, young age, and comorbid complex chronic disease increased the risk of PASC."
Moderna Sues Pfizer and BioNTech Over Covid-19 Vaccine: "Moderna is suing Pfizer and BioNTech, alleging they copied technology that Moderna first developed years before the pandemic in producing the first COVID-19 vaccine approved in the U.S., the company announced Friday.
mRNA COVID Vaccines Protect Against Severe Omicron for at Least Half a Year: CIDRAP on a new study.
"We found that booster mRNA vaccination markedly increased protection against severe COVID-19 and was durable over at least a 6-month period regardless of vaccine combination, suggesting that a fourth mRNA vaccine dose is not required for adults without risk factors for additional protection against severe COVID-19 in this time interval," the researchers wrote."
"But because VE against Omicron infection wanes rapidly after two and three mRNA vaccine doses, a fourth mRNA dose may increase protection, the authors said."
"Our results support consideration of boosting following a 2-dose or 3-dose inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine regimen," they concluded. "Ongoing monitoring of booster effectiveness over longer time intervals and in response to any further SARS-CoV-2 variants is crucial to determining optimal COVID-19 vaccination strategies."
AAP on Masking: New Twitter thread.
Omicron’s Mutations Impaired Vaccine Effectiveness, CDC Says: Via Bloomberg, 40% of hospitalizations during BA.2 were vaccinated, boosted; waning immunity and Covid’s frequent mutations play a role.
"CDC scientists found that vaccines and boosters did a better job of keeping people with delta infections out of the hospital than those with later variants. Effectiveness decreased slightly with the BA.1 variant, then changed significantly with BA.2 -- with a much greater share of hospitalized adults who had been vaccinated with at least one booster."
Why Efforts to Make Better, More Universal Covid Vaccines Are Struggling: Via Science.
"Lawrence Corey of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, who co-led the clinical trials network for Operation Warp Speed, is most interested in COVID-19 vaccines that set their sights higher still and promise to reduce the risk of infection and transmission of all SARS-CoV-2 spinoffs. “Do we really want to have 90,000 COVID deaths [in the United States] a year?” Corey asks. And he calls for more government backing so as to not squander the momentum of the field. “There are plenty of ideas,” he says. “What’s not forthcoming is the commitment.”
"To prove their worth, pancoronavirus vaccines will have to travel a much rougher road than the first COVID-19 shots. The people in trials of the first COVID-19 vaccines had no specific immunity to SARS-CoV-2, making it straightforward to assess whether the shots provided protection. Today, most everyone has been vaccinated, infected with the virus, or both. Even the lowest hurdle for a pancoronavirus vaccine—proof of protection against all known SARS-CoV-2 variants—will be difficult to establish, predicts NIAID’s Barney Graham, who long worked on pancoronavirus vaccines at NIAID and helped Moderna develop its COVID-19 shot."
Research
DC: Sets new vaccine deadline for students.
"The new deadline gives families with children in kindergarten through fifth grade until Oct. 11 to be vaccinated before they will not be allowed to come to school."
"Middle and high school students will have until Nov. 4 after an initial non-compliance notice on Oct. 3."
"For students required to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the first official notices of non-compliance will begin Nov. 21, officials say.”
Non-compliant students will not be allowed in school starting Jan. 3, 2023."
More via DCIST.
Minnesota: Beth Hawkins breaks down the new state assessment results:
"In reading, 64% of white district students read at grade level, but Black 14%; Indigenous 16%; Latino 17%; English learners 11% and students with disabilities 17%."
"Here's math, in which 52% of white students mastered grade-level content. Black 8%; Indigenous 7%; Latino 11%; students with disabilities 13% and English learners 7%"
North Carolina: "North Carolina’s youngest students made strong gains in early literacy skills during the 2021-22 school year, outpacing the performance of students in other states where the same assessment is used to measure student progress throughout the year."
Ohio: "Parents aren’t impressed by the virtual learning itinerary Columbus City Schools laid out, as the district braces for potential 80-person classrooms Wednesday."
Pennsylvania: "Pittsburgh school district to enforce masking only at a high level of COVID-19, not medium."
International
Canada: The Quebec government has announced that it is ending online learning for students vulnerable to COVID-19 complications, but that isn't stopping one school board from going ahead with a virtual option.
Philippines: Returns to school, ending one of the world’s longest shutdowns.
Taiwan: Begins rollout of Pfizer vaccines for young children.
Economic Recovery
Inflation: The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, increased 6.3% year-over-year in July, down from a 6.8% annual rate in June.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled the Fed would continue aggressively hiking interest rates. “While higher interest rates, slower growth, and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses... These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation. But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain.”
Out of Work Due to Long Covid: "As many as 4.1 million people may remain out of work due to long COVID symptoms, according to a new estimate from Katie Bach, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution."
Five Ways that the Build Back Better Regional Challenge Represents the Next Generation of Economic Growth and Competitiveness: Via America Achieves.
Resources
Many Remote Learning Options Shutting Down as School Reopens for Fall 2022: CRPE in The 74 (spreadsheet)
"Roughly one-third of the country’s largest school districts are ending their remote learning programs this fall... Another third are continuing longstanding programs that had been in place before schools shuttered, and the remaining third are operating new virtual programs created during the pandemic."
COVID Recovery Fellows: Ed Pioneers announced 15 new COVID Recovery Fellows.
Schools to Pilot AP African American Studies Course: The College Board has introduced a new pilot program for 60 high schools to implement an AP course in African American studies, EdWeek reports.
The U.S Open: Begins today.
Serena Williams to play in her final Grand Slam. Powerful ad from 2018: Just Do It׃ Serena Williams
The Promise with Roger Federer and Zizou."It’s been 5 years since Izyan Ahmad, known to most as Zizou, challenged Federer to a match during the U.S. Open press conference. Roger Federer decides to surprise his fan by flying him to Zurich and fulfilling his promise."