Covid-19 Policy Update #618

Thursday 12/15

Dec 16, 2022

Top Three

Governor DeSantis Petitions Florida Supreme Court for Statewide Grand Jury on COVID-19 Vaccines and Announces Creation of the Public Health Integrity Committee: Press Release:

"Establishes the Public Health Integrity Committee. The Committee will be overseen by the Surgeon General to assess federal public health recommendations and guidance to ensure that Florida’s public health policies are tailored for Florida’s communities and priorities."
"Files petition for a Statewide Grand Jury to investigate crimes and wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19 vaccine."
"Leads further surveillance into sudden deaths of individuals that received the COVID-19 vaccine in Florida, based on autopsy results. The state will collaborate with the University of Florida to compare research with studies done in other countries."
"The Biden Administration and pharmaceutical corporations continue to push widespread distribution of mRNA vaccines on the public, including children as young as 6 months old, through relentless propaganda while ignoring real-life adverse events. At today’s roundtable the Governor and health experts discussed data covering serious adverse events. These risks include coagulation disorders, acute cardiac injuries, Bell’s palsy, encephalitis, appendicitis, and shingles."
"Florida Gov. DeSantis “announced Tuesday that he is forming a new state committee to counter policy recommendations from federal health agencies — a decision that medical professionals said will further politicize medicine in the Sunshine State,” the Washington Post reports.

COVID-19 Vaccines Saved $1.15 Trillion, 3 Million Lives: A Commonwealth Fund study estimates that, through November 2022, COVID-19 vaccines prevented more than 18.5 million US hospitalizations and 3.2 million deaths and saved the country $1.15 trillion. More via Stat.

Autopsies Show COVID-19 Virus in Brain, Elsewhere in Body: "An analysis of tissue samples from the autopsies of 44 people who died with COVID-19 shows that SAR-CoV-2 virus spread throughout the body—including into the brain—and that it lingered for almost 8 months. The study (Press Release) was published yesterday in Nature."

"Analysis showed that SARS-CoV-2, as expected, primarily infected and damaged airway and lung tissue. But the researchers also found viral RNA in 84 distinct body locations and bodily fluids, and in one case they isolated viral RNA 230 days after a patient's symptoms began."

Federal

White House: Fact Sheet: Biden Administration Announces COVID-⁠19 Winter Preparedness Plan

"The Administration is announcing that COVIDTests.gov is open for a limited round of ordering this winter. Starting today, all U.S. households can order a total of four at-home COVID-19 tests that will be mailed directly to them for free."
"HHS will work with states to launch teams and use partner with their Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs), home health agencies, and Emergency Medical Technicians to deliver vaccines to residents of long-term care facilities."

White House: President Biden signs historic bill codifying same-sex and interracial marriage. Remarks.

ED: Via The 74: "Late-in-the-Game’ COVID Relief Fund Guidance Leaves Some Scratching Their Heads."

"Earlier this month, more than two years into schools’ attempts to spend an unprecedented $189 billion in COVID relief funds, federal officials released a 97-page document that “strongly encourages” districts not to spend the windfall on construction."
"There’s one hitch: According to one analysis, districts are already spending, or planning to spend, almost a quarter of funds from the American Rescue Plan on facilities and operations."
“Getting clarifications and new restrictions this late in the game is tough on [districts],” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. “What happens if money is already approved and spent before these recent” guidelines were released?"

Covid Research

Parents More Open to Child's COVID Vaccination When Given Solid Data: Parents in South Korea were three times more likely to have their child vaccinated against COVID-19 when they perceived the information they received on the vaccine to be sufficient and nearly eight times more likely to do so when they found the information credible, according to a study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open.

Deaths Fell This Year, But Not to Pre-COVID Levels:Via the AP, "Preliminary data — through the first 11 months of the year — indicates 2022 will see fewer deaths than the previous two COVID-19 pandemic years. Current reports suggest deaths may be down about 3% from 2020 and about 7% vs. 2021."

Long COVID: An Update and Gauging Risk: Via Katelyn Jetelina

State

Illinois: Chalkbeat: "Chicago Public Schools has spent more than $308 million on computers and other technology from its three main vendors since the pandemic forced schools to pivot to remote instruction in March 2020 through August this year, according to purchase order data reviewed by Chalkbeat and WBEZ. That’s roughly as much as these companies got paid during the previous two decades combined."

"After months of questioning by Chalkbeat and WBEZ and several inaccurate estimates, officials said last week that they bought nearly 311,000 laptops and tablets. More than 41,000 of the devices are sitting in a warehouse or yet to be shipped by a manufacturer, according to CPS."
"Only 174 of 500 district schools have technology coordinators, the district’s most recent staffing data shows."
"In the data provided to Chalkbeat and WBEZ with nearly 270,000 devices, only 86,000 — about one-third — are marked “in use.” The bulk of the devices, 170,000, are listed as “available.”

Massachusetts: MWRA (Boston-area) wastewater SARS-CoV-2 viral levels seem to be punching through post-Omicron record highs.

Minnesota: 'Miles Ahead' of Other Districts: Using New Dashboard, St. Paul Tracks Learning Recovery Spending: Via The 74.

New York: As COVID, flu, and RSV cases spike, NYC school officials recommend masking indoors.

"On Monday, 1,858 students and staffers reported testing positive for coronavirus, bringing this school year’s total to 48,265 reported cases, according to public data. That’s nearly three times the number of cases reported at the same time last year.”

Tennessee: Nashville Public Schools awarded a five year transportation contract to Zūm,

Texas: Via Texas 2036: Thousands of Texas students have little or no access to advanced courses in middle school and high school, especially in rural communities.

International

China:

Chinese residents and the country's medical system are bracing for a wave of COVID infections.
"Feng Zijian, who advises China's COVID task force, said last week that COVID could infect up to 840 million people."
Via the NYT, "Traumatized by Covid, but Ruled by a Party That Never Apologizes."

Economic Recovery

Inflation: WSJ: "The consumer-price index climbed 7.1% in November from a year ago, down sharply from 7.7% in October. The pace built on a trend of moderating price increases since June’s 9.1% peak, but it remained well above the 2.1% average rate in the three years before the pandemic."

Distressed Communities are Still Struggling to Recover Pandemic Job Losses: EIG analysis of the latest BLS data finds that the post-pandemic economic recovery remained highly uneven across geographies and tiers of economic well-being.