Covid-19 Policy Update #586
Wednesday 10/12
Top Three
FDA/CDC Authorizes Updated Covid Booster Shots for Children 5 to 11: FDA Statement. CDC Statement. More via the NYT.
"The revised shot developed by Pfizer-BioNTech previously had been cleared for those 12 and older, while Moderna’s updated booster was available only to those 18 and older. The action by the Food and Drug Administration will expand access to Pfizer’s shot to children as young as 5, and to Moderna’s shot to children 6 and older."
“Since children have gone back to school in person and people are resuming prepandemic behaviors and activities, there is the potential for increased risk of exposure to the virus,” said Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator. While Covid-19 is typically less severe in children than adults, he said, “more children have gotten sick with the disease and have been hospitalized” as the pandemic has progressed."
ACT Test Scores Drop to Lowest in 30 Years: The AP on new ACT report. More via The 74.
"The class of 2022′s average ACT composite score was 19.8 out of 36, marking the first time since 1991 that the average score was below 20. What’s more, an increasing number of high school students failed to meet any of the subject-area benchmarks set by the ACT — showing a decline in preparedness for college-level coursework."
"42% of ACT-tested graduates in the class of 2022 met none of the subject benchmarks in English, reading, science and math, which are indicators of how well students are expected to perform in corresponding college courses.In comparison, 38% of test takers in 2021 failed to meet any of the benchmarks."
"Students without access to rigorous high school curriculum suffered more setbacks during pandemic disruptions, Babington said. Those students are from rural areas, come from low-income families and are often students of color."
Struggling L.A. Students Won't Get a Longer School Year but Can Seek Help During Vacation: Via the LA Times.
"Los Angeles parents who want their children to receive extra academic help can send them to school on the first two weekdays of winter and spring break, a revised learning plan that won teacher union support but also prompted Supt. Alberto Carvalho and several school board members to criticize the labor group."
"The district had originally announced the school year would be expanded by four days, from 180 to 184, with the extra learning days woven into the calendar at strategic points around mid-semester to enable struggling students to have an opportunity to do better in class."
"In response, the union filed a labor complaint alleging that the district acted illegally by adding four additional days because such calendar changes are subject to negotiations. The union said funding would be better spent on strategies including "smaller class sizes, hiring more counselors, psychiatric social workers and school psychologists and investing in teacher development.”
"UTLA also called for its members to boycott the first acceleration day on Oct. 19."
"The principles of equity would dictate that we need to give [students] more of what works, more of what we value," Carvalho said. "And I may be wrong, but I value teaching. I value teaching by teachers in front of students. So if it's good for the first 180 days, it cannot necessarily become bad, terrible, a stunt or a waste of money on the 181st day."
"Without naming UTLA, he added: "If anybody wants to claim a win or celebrate the win, because we were not able to, on these Wednesdays, bring kids to our schools ... count me out. Count me out. I will always show up for the kid because that was the right thing."
Federal
White House: Released their National Security Strategy which includes a section on strengthening our pandemic and biodefense strategies. Education, specifically STEM, is also mentioned in the context of the policy aims of CHIPS and the IRA and the rapid decoupling from China. More via the NYT and Foreign Policy.
NSF: Heartland Forward explores the 679 submissions into the NSF's Regional Innovation Engines competition.
HHS: Robert Gordon was official sworn in yesterday as Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources. Congrats Robert!
Covid Research
‘We Are In Trouble’: Study Raises Alarm About Impacts of Long Covid: Washington Post on a new study.
"The Scottish study found that between six and 18 months after infection, 1 in 20 people had not recovered and 42% reported partial recovery. "
"Jill Pell, a professor of public health at the University of Glasgow who led the research, emphasized that the study revealed the wide-ranging impact of long covid on people’s lives. “There are lots of different impacts going beyond health to quality of life, employment, schooling and the ability to look after yourself,” she said."
"The study found that the risk of long covid was greater among women, older people and those who live in economically disadvantaged communities. People who already suffered from physical and mental health problems, such as respiratory disease and depression, were also more prone to long covid."
"Crucially, this study also identified a sub-cohort of 11 percent who deteriorated over time. This is something seen often in patient groups but has not been discussed enough in the public conversation,” said Hannah Davis, a member of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, a group of patients who have been engaged in long-covid research."
Europe Likely Entering Another Covid Wave, Says WHO and ECDC: Via Reuters. Joint statement.
Novavax Says Covid Booster Dose Shows Benefit Against Omicron Variants: Via Reuters. "Data from studies in adults and adolescents showed that the booster dose of its COVID vaccine produced robust antibodies against several Omicron variants, including BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5."
A UV Lamp That’s Bad for COVID but Not for You: Via The Atlantic.
"Light with such a wavelength—called far-UVC, from the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum—is deadly for microbes, researchers are learning, but appears safe for human beings. And that offers tantalizing possibilities as the pandemic rolls on."
"The researchers took air samples from the room every five minutes. Then they counted how many living bacteria were present in samples retrieved before and after switch-on. These showed that the light had worked—with astonishing effectiveness. “We were pretty gobsmacked at the reduction in the pathogen,” says Ewan Eadie, a medical physicist at NHS Tayside in Dundee, Scotland."
"The team published their results in the journal Scientific Reports in March 2022. Since then, they have tested the technology on two other pathogens—Pseudomonas aeruginosa and a bacteria-infecting virus called Phi 6—with similar success. The researchers are confident that the lamps would also destroy SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19: Experiments in a different setting by other teams have shown that far-UVC does inactivate SARS-CoV-2, potentially through UV light damaging the genome of the virus."
Medium COVID Could Be the Most Dangerous COVID: Via the Atlantic.
"Some people’s lives are devastated by long COVID; they’re trapped with perplexing symptoms that seem to persist indefinitely. For the majority of vaccinated people, however, the worst complications will not surface in the early phase of disease, when you’re first feeling feverish and stuffy, nor can the gravest risks be said to be “long term.” Rather, they emerge during the middle phase of post-infection, a stretch that lasts for about 12 weeks after you get sick. This period of time is so menacing, in fact, that it really ought to have its own, familiar name: medium COVID."
"But the risks described above might well be most significant in just the first few weeks post-infection, and fade away as time goes on. When scientists analyzed Sweden’s national health registry, for example, they found that the chance of developing pulmonary embolism—an often deadly clot in the lungs—was a startling 32 times higher in the first month after testing positive for the virus; after that, it quickly diminished."
"The clots were only two times more common at 60 days after infection, and the effect was indistinguishable from baseline after three to four months. A post-infection risk of heart attack and stroke was also evident, and declined just as expeditiously. In July, U.K. epidemiologists corroborated the Swedish findings, showing that a heightened rate of cardiovascular disease among COVID patients could be detected up to 12 weeks after they got sick. Then the hazard went away."
"Even the most familiar maladies of “long COVID”—severe fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and breathing trouble—tend to be at their worst during the medium post-infection phase. An early analysis of symptom-tracking data from the U.K., the U.S., and Sweden found that the proportion of those experiencing COVID’s aftereffects decreased by 83 percent four to 12 weeks after illness started. The U.K. government also reported much higher rates of medium COVID, relative to long COVID: In its survey, 11 percent of people who caught the virus experienced lingering issues such as weakness, muscle aches, and loss of smell, but that rate had dropped to 3 percent by 12 weeks post-infection."
State
California: State tests show 53% of SDUSD students met or exceeded standards in English, down 4 percentage points from 2019. In math, it was 41% of students, down 7 points.
Florida:
Politico: Medical experts reject Florida surgeon general’s Covid-19 vaccine guidance
ABC News: Scientists pan analysis Florida's surgeon general posted on COVID-19 vaccines.
"But if Ladapo wanted to spark a scientific discussion, he would have submitted the health department's work for peer review instead of posting it on the Florida government website, said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine."
"Vaccine experts said the Florida paper raised several red flags: Written anonymously before being released by the Florida Department of Health, the analysis omitted key details on methodology and didn't examine medical records, only deaths."
"Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said among those concerns was that Florida looked at deaths up to 25 weeks after vaccination. He called that a "huge problem" because it's too long and likely impacted by the "seasonality" of outcomes. "No experienced vaccine safety researcher would have a 20- or 25-week control period," he said. "If you submitted that to peer review, any decent journal would reject it," he added."
"The Florida analysis also didn't mention what medical experts and scientists agree has become evident in the past year: The virus is more likely than the vaccine to cause health problems in young men."
International
China: Shanghai quietly shuts down schools, gyms, bars as Covid returns.
Economic Recovery
Inflation: The Producer Price Index, which tracks what businesses receive for the goods and services they produce, showed that prices rose 0.4% last month - higher than expected.
Resources
U.S. Preventive Health Group Recommends Anxiety Screening for Kids 8 to 18: Via Stat.
"An influential national panel of preventive health experts recommended for the first time that children and adolescents between 8 and 18 should be screened for anxiety, but said there was insufficient evidence to say that children 7 and under should be screened."
"The new recommendations, issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and published in JAMA, are for the screening of children and teens who are seen in primary care settings and have no symptoms. Task force members emphasized that any child with symptoms of anxiety, regardless of age, should be connected to care."
"The task force also renewed a previous recommendation for universal screening in primary care for major depressive disorder in adolescents 12 to 18 years, but found that there was insufficient evidence to recommend screening for the disorder in children 11 or younger."
"They also said, even though suicide is the leading cause of death in older children and teens, there was insufficient evidence to recommend screening for suicide in children of any age who do not have symptoms. (As with anxiety, the task force emphasized that children or adolescents at high risk of suicide should be screened.) These recommendations are similar to ones released in 2016."
New Studies Help Explain Why Some Schools Reopened While Others Stayed Virtual: Via Chalkbeat.
"Together, the studies indicate that districts responded to evolving conditions on the ground during a period of intense uncertainty, basing their actions on COVID spread, health guidelines, teacher demands, and parent preferences. As to whether politics or science guided decision-making, the emerging research suggests, the answer is both/and."
No Home Left Offline: EducationSuperHighway’s second No Home Left Offline report released today highlighting the critical steps needed to accelerate Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) adoption and close the broadband affordability gap.
"Our challenge now is to increase ACP adoption, and we are joined in this effort by 25 governors who are making ACP adoption a priority in their states."
"The ACP Enrollment Dashboard provides states and cities with the most up-to-date data on the number of ACP-eligible, enrolled, and unconnected households in their area."
"GetACP.org is a virtual mobile assistant that simplifies the ACP enrollment process by helping applicants to check their eligibility, determine the easiest way to qualify, identify the documents needed when applying, and find "free with ACP" broadband plans available at their address."
"The Affordable Connectivity Program Adoption Toolkit for Local Leaders is a step-by-step guide that contains outreach templates, training materials, and best practices to help leaders get the word out to eligible households."
Great Perspective: View from the droneship of Falcon 9’s launch and landing.
Remember: Work smarter, not harder.
