Top Three
New COVID-19 Variant's Spread Draws Concern From CDC: Via FierceHealthcare:
"In the last two weeks the BF.7 has doubled its incidence nationally from 0.8% to 1.7%. The largest growth has been in the Northeast United States, Region 1, where the incidence is now over 3%."
“Scientists are taking notice of BF.7 because it’s making headway in an increasingly crowded field of Omicron subvariants,” Fortune reports. “For months they’ve watched BA.2.75—dubbed Centaurus by the Twitterverse—as a variant of interest with potential to surge this fall. But this week, BF.7 surpassed it.”
Scott Gottlieb: "While it accounted for 1.7% of sequenced infections in America in recent week, it now represents 25% in Belgium, while Denmark, Germany and France have each recorded 10% of the world’s identified cases."
Yunlong Richard Cao: "In short, BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 are the most antibody-evasive convergent variants tested, far exceeding BA.5 and approaching SARS-CoV-1 level."
Related via CIDRAP: "Health officials in the United Kingdom and the European region as a whole are seeing early signs of rising COVID activity, patterns that US experts closely watch as a harbinger of how the next months might unfold."
Moderna Seeks FDA Nod for Omicron-targeted COVID Shot for Adolescents, Younger Kids: Via Reuters:
"The company is seeking emergency use authorization of its updated vaccine in two age groups - adolescents aged 12 to 17 years and children aged six to 11."
Related: On Tuesday, Dr. Peter Marks said during an event that he’s “confident” the FDA will authorize the new shots for that age group soon, noting that vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna are in the process of submitting necessary data.
Building Upgrades, SEL: 100 Large & Urban Districts Plan Their Pandemic Recovery: CRPE's Bree Dusseault in The 74:
"Eight recovery strategies clearly stood out in district plans for ESSER spending. Almost all districts plan to upgrade facilities (95). Social-emotional supports are next most common (88), followed by technology (85), professional development (84), extended learning opportunities (83), mental health (79), tutoring (79) and internet connectivity and access (78)."
"Just two-thirds mention using evidence-based strategies involving data (64) or small-group interventions (60) to catch up students academically. Similarly, about two-thirds (60) are considering investments to strengthen career and postsecondary pathways. Around half of districts plan to re-engage students or work to increase enrollment (52), or invest in new testing systems (35) to better capture academic or social-emotional data."
Federal
DHS: $1 billion federal cybersecurity grant to be distributed to states over 4 years.
OSTP: Dr. Arati Prabhakar was confirmed by the Senate last night. She is the first woman, immigrant or person of color to serve as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Congrats Arati!
Covid-19 Research
Slow Booster Rollout: "Updated COVID-19 boosters have gone into 4.4 million arms in the United States since a new revaccination campaign began three weeks ago, government data shows, a slower pace for the shots targeting the Omicron variant of the coronavirus than the rollout of the first boosters last year."
COVID Raises Risk of Long-term Brain Injury: Reuters reports on a new study.
"People who had COVID-19 are at higher risk for a host of brain injuries a year later compared with people who were never infected by the coronavirus, a finding that could affect millions of Americans, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday."
"The year-long study, published in Nature Medicine, assessed brain health across 44 different disorders using medical records without patient identifiers from millions of U.S. veterans."
"Brain and other neurological disorders occurred in 7% more of those who had been infected with COVID compared with a similar group of veterans who had never been infected. That translates into roughly 6.6 million Americans who had brain impairments linked with their COVID infections, the team said."
"Al-Aly and colleagues at Washington University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System studied medical records from 154,000 U.S. veterans who had tested positive for COVID from March 1, 2020 to Jan. 15, 2021."
"They compared these with records from 5.6 million patients who did not have COVID during the same time frame, and another group of 5.8 million people from the period just before the coronavirus arrived in the United States."
"People infected with the virus also were 50% more likely to have an ischemic stroke, which is caused by blood clots, compared with the never infected group."
Japan’s $2-billion Initiative to Prep Pandemic Vaccines in 100 Days: Via Nature.
Why is Obesity An Important Risk Factor for Severe Covid? New study.
State
New York: Where are New York state test results?
"City officials refused to release the results of their own assessments of student performance last year. And while the state education department sent standardized test results in reading and math to local school districts — which distributed them to schools and families — officials instructed districts not to release the scores to the general public."
"But on Thursday, state officials reversed course after facing pressure from some district leaders, giving districts the green light to release the data if they choose. Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the city’s education department, said the city plans to release scores on Sept. 28."
Oregon: Test scores fell by 9 percentage points at the state level — and even more sharply at some large districts — in the first set of statewide test results in three years.
Pennsylvania: These parents are making DIY air purifiers for Philly schools. They want one in every city classroom.
Texas: Houston ISD is the largest district in Texas, but it’s getting smaller. What does that mean for funding?
"From the 2019-20 to the 2020-21 school years, HISD's enrollment declined by about 13,000. More than 10,000 of those students were from elementary schools, according to data HISD reported to the Texas Education Agency."
"The State of Texas gives the district a little over $6,000 annually for each enrolled, attending student. The decline in enrollment over the past few years represents more than $130 million in annual base allotments from the state."
Resources
SpaceX Is Working to Bring Starlink to School Buses: Via PCMag.
E-rate Spending Reveals Schools’ Tech Evolution: Via eSchoolNews.
"E-rate funding requested in Category One, which includes data transmission services and internet access, has declined for five straight years, largely a function of increasing marketplace competition and decreasing per-megabit prices."
"But funding requests for Category Two services have soared in the same time period. Category Two funds can be spent on wireless access points, network switches, data cabling and other resources essential for on-campus connections."
"Pre-pandemic, 45% of schools reported having a computer for each student, according to a National Center for Education Statistics report on the 2019-20 school year. At least one more recent study said this figure nearly doubled to 86% as schools scrambled to give students devices to allow remote learning."
Republicans and Democrats Differ on Rewards of Work, American Greatness: WSJ Poll
"The vast majority of Republican voters—85%—believe anyone who works hard can get ahead, while 53% of Democrats feel that way. Only a third of Republicans—34%—think the current generation will do better than the one that came before, whereas 55% of Democrats think that."
"In a separate assessment of potential dissatisfaction with civic life, the Journal survey found that Republican and independent voters are more likely than Democrats to agree with the statement that they often feel like they are “one of the people the elites in this country look down upon.” Just 40% of Democrats feel that way, compared with 61% of Republicans and 53% of independent voters.
Pups at the Office: Bentley and Teddy asked me to pass this along to you.
EdChoice's Schooling in America Survey: Interactive Dashboard / Summary / Report / Questionnaire and Toplines
Next Level Playhouse: This Dad built his son a playhouse with an elevator and the baby's reaction is pure joy.
I had a great view while assembling tonight’s update. Excited for the weekend.