education

What is the Covid-19 New 2022 timeline? The warning by the government’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, that the crisis won’t be under control until spring of next year.  It also meant that Biden’s best-laid plans of triumphing over the pandemic and riding an economic wave into the campaign for congressional election results in November next year now look at risk.

Most Americans, encouraged by Biden himself, had already expected that kind of normality to be restored and may be in no mood to contemplate months more of deprivation. The spike in Covid-19 cases that has hit many areas of the country has already turned what was sold as a summer of freedom from the virus into a replay of some of the worst parts of the pandemic as hospitals are overrun by Covid patients.

Covid storm in US schools

full document here

The long-awaited full approval by the US Food and Drug Administration of the Pfizer/BioNTech is coming too late to prevent the Delta surge — and the newest Covid storm that is already here in US schools.

Millions of kids are returning to in-person classes at the worst moment yet of the crisis for children, as the Delta variant — more dangerous to minors than previous manifestations of the virus — sweeps the nation.

“Cases among children are still rare, and severe cases among children are very, very rare, but I know that parents are thinking about their own kids. It’s not as reassuring as anyone would like it to be,” Biden said on Monday.

While the President is right that severe cases of Covid-19 are rare, hospitalizations of children with the disease have hit record highs this month as the national daily average of all new infections hit 150,000 per day and average daily deaths hit 1,000. Anecdotally, many parents now have experience with kids or their friends testing positive for the much more infectious Delta variant.

 The political frenzy over the virus, vaccines and Covid-19 treatments is escalating. Several Republican governors, are waging cultural wars over mask mandates in schools ahead of reelection races and possible presidential bids.

Who Should Wear a Mask?

full document here

• People, including children older than 2, who are not fully vaccinated
• Fully vaccinated people with weakened immune systems
• To maximize protection from the Delta variant and prevent possibly spreading it to others, fully vaccinated people should wear a mask indoors in public if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission

The Kids and Covid 19, just days into the new school year, thousands of kids are under quarantine in public school districts after being exposed to Covid-19.  The highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus makes up about 90% of new infections among kids, according to experts.

Some data for the past weeks:

 full story here

While parents and school officials battle over back-to-school safety measures, schools are overwhelmed with the task of keeping kids safe while attending class in person.

• Over 10,000 students in Florida school district isolated or quarantined a week into school year. The district has reported more than 1,800 confirmed Covid-19 cases. Hillsborough is the seventh-largest school district in the U.S., with more than 213,000 students. As of Wednesday, 10,384 students and 338 staffers are isolated or under quarantine, the district told ABC News. Full story here
• Nearly 1,000 students and staff in Nashville, Tennessee, were in quarantine or isolation.
• New Orleans School District saw 299 active Covid-19 cases and more than 3,000 students and staff in quarantine, according to district data. (The Nola PS Covid-19 Case Tracker provides the number of active and cumulative positive cases of Covid-19 by school site, total number of currently quarantined students and staff, and the number of positive cases of Covid-19 reported over time for the district and by school site. Check on it’s website here
• Ware County in Georgia closed all its public schools after an increase in cases.
• 20,000 students are quarantining across Mississippi.
• Schools in Texas counties shut down because of ashortage of staff members.

Should kids wear masks in school?

Full Story here

While some states have banned schools from requiring masks for students, experts say the practice will keep kids safer. Children under 12 are still not eligible for vaccines against Covid-19. And just in time for back-to-school season, the highly contagious delta variant is causing pediatric cases of the coronavirus to skyrocket.

The good news is experts agree on how to keep kids and teachers safer at in-person school. Adults and older children should be vaccinated, and everyone should wear masks. But many schools aren’t requiring them – and many states say they can’t, even if administrators and parents want to.

Most states have lifted mask mandates in schools but allow local districts to impose them as they see fit. Twelve states have imposed mask mandates in schools, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico – a group that has grown in the past week.  Click here to check on your State.

Wearing a mask provides instantaneous protection. It can guard a person from infection even in environments where not everyone is masked, such as schools without mask mandates. 

Should everyone wear masks?

CDC new mask recommendation here

Delta’s threat: CDC reveals data on why masks are important for the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

• Updated information for fully vaccinated people given new evidence on the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant currently circulating in the United States.
• Added a recommendation for fully vaccinated people to wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission.
• Added information that fully vaccinated people might choose to wear a mask regardless of the level of transmission, particularly if they are immunocompromised or at increased risk for severe disease from Covid-19, or if they have someone in their household who is immunocompromised, at increased risk of severe disease or not fully vaccinated.
• Added a recommendation for fully vaccinated people who have come into close contact with someone with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 to be tested 3-5 days after exposure, and to wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days or until they receive a negative test result.
• CDC recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status.

In Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida announced that nearly 6,000 students and staff members were out because of quarantine, necessitating an emergency board meeting to discuss how to prevent further spread, including putting mandatory masking on the table. 

In Kentucky, Lee County Public Schools Superintendent Sarah Wasson announced schools would temporarily close at the beginning of this week.   “This will be a tough year, and we don’t want to have to shut down this early, but if we can determine who is positive now, we believe we can stay in school longer,” Wasson said.