Covid-19 Updates & Info

[ti-amie]

I'm surprised he didn't try and distribute them to the poors before admitting their existence.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[Deuce]

These idiots are social media 'influencers' (who would have ever thought that we'd descend to the lowly societal level of calling pitiful, desperate, attention seeking people 'influencers'?)... Reportedly, 25 or so of them have tested positive for COVID-19 in Mexico. Well deserved.
Some who have been identified have been fired from their jobs. Also well deserved.

[ti-amie]

Just in case you haven't heard about the latest scam treatment.




I'll see myself out

[Suliso]

Found on twitter

[ponchi101]

, Yep, I have seen it too.
A new thing now is also that PCR testing "can give false negatives".
Yes, at a known rate.
The level of scientific illiteracy is insane.

[ti-amie]

via Protection Circle @protectioncirc

[dryrunguy]

Here's the latest Situation Report. I can't pinpoint the reasons why, but this was one of the most frustrating briefs I've read to date.

::

US COVID-19 STRATEGY Amid a record surge in new COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant of concern (VOC), the administration of US President Joe Biden is facing criticism over its handling of the pandemic, particularly surrounding public health guidance and communication. Several top government health officials are testifying today in a US Senate Health Committee hearing, where they will face tough questions regarding the US COVID-19 response. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who will appear before the committee, will face questions regarding the agency’s guidelines on masking, isolation and quarantine, and testing, which have led to several messaging missteps among administration officials and confusion among the public. Dr. Walensky reportedly has undergone media training in recent months and earlier this week held the CDC’s first solo press briefing since heading the agency.

Other questions witnesses could face include how the US is faring during the Omicron wave; how well rapid antigen tests are working and when 500 million free tests will be available; and whether the US needs to reframe its COVID-19 strategy. New daily COVID-19 cases are at a record high and related hospitalizations are on track to soon reach a record high, with some hospitals nearing capacity and facing critical staffing shortages. The Biden administration announced this week that, as of January 15, private health insurers will be required to cover up to 8 at-home rapid antigen tests per month per person on their plans.* The administration also is finalizing plans for 500 million free at-home tests to be available for order through a new website and delivered via the US Postal Service. The administration hopes the strategies to provide easy-to-use, free tests to people at home can help slow the spread of the virus, allow people to gather more safely, and help get kids back to school and people back to work more quickly. It remains unclear how the efforts address the nationwide limited supply of tests, questions surrounding the sensitivity of the tests to detect Omicron, and whether a positive test indicates infectiousness.

Late last week, several former advisors to President Biden’s transition team published a series of articles calling for the administration to revamp its COVID-19 response strategy and set clear goals for a “new normal.” The viewpoint pieces, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), lay out dozens of explicit recommendations on strategies for testing, surveillance, mitigation, vaccines, and therapeutics, including modernizing public health data infrastructure; investing in more tests; providing more high-quality masks free to US residents; implementing more far-reaching vaccine mandates; developing variant-specific and universal coronavirus vaccines; and rebuilding public trust in health institutions. According to The Washington Post, White House officials are pulling together a longer-term funding request to Congress for additional COVID-19-related health spending, including tens of billions more dollars for treatments and vaccine efforts domestically and abroad.
*Most of the authorized SARS-CoV-2 test kits contain 2 tests. We are interpreting this as insurers will be required to cover 8 test kits per person per month containing a total of 16 tests.

US HOSPITALS US COVID-19 hospitalizations are on track to reach a record high, as early as this week. The current 7-day average is at 109,874 as of January 8, up 34% over the prior week and far surpassing the US CDC’s forecast. Pediatric hospitalizations among children with COVID-19, while still lower than any other age group, also are up, with the rise attributed to hospitalizations of children under the age of five who are not yet eligible for vaccination and driven by the increased transmissibility of Omicron. However, hospitalization data does not always provide an accurate picture of COVID-19 severity and may include incidental infections; for example, in New York, 42% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were hospitalized for reasons unrelated to COVID-19 and tested positive during routine testing.

Even incidental COVID-19 cases place incredible strain on hospitals, as coronavirus patients need to be isolated and require a greater amount of hospital resources than non-infected patients. Around 80% of hospital and ICU beds are occupied nationwide, according to US government data, with about 21% and 31%, respectively, occupied by COVID-19 patients. Hospitals continue to report that patients admitted for COVID-19 who experience poor outcomes are mostly unvaccinated. Additionally, nearly one-quarter of hospitals nationwide report critical staffing shortages. Many healthcare workers are out sick with breakthrough infections—even after changes to CDC guidelines that allow for a shortened period of isolation—and burnout is causing droves of workers to leave their positions or the healthcare profession entirely. In order to compensate for the strain, some hospitals have been forced to cancel or postpone elective procedures and hospitals in several states are implementing crisis standards of care.

BOOSTER & ADDITIONAL VACCINE DOSES Last week, the US FDA amended the authorization and the US CDC updated recommendations for reducing the interval period between the primary vaccination series and booster doses from 6 months to 5 months for both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. According to the FDA, the change was made in response to the dramatic rise in US cases attributable to the highly transmissible Omicron variant. Third doses of the mRNA vaccines have been shown to increase immune system responses that could help protect against infection with or severe disease from Omicron. In New York, healthcare workers are now required to receive vaccine boosters in addition to the full primary series, with exemptions only allowed for medical reasons.

Now, discussion among the pharmaceutical and scientific community is turning to whether a fourth dose (ie, second booster) is warranted later this year. Moderna’s CEO publicly voiced that recipients of the company’s vaccine may need an additional fourth dose in the fall to compensate for waning antibody levels. Researchers from Israel recently announced findings from unpublished studies documenting a 5-fold increase in antibodies after a second Pfizer-BioNTech booster. Israel already is offering a fourth dose to certain populations, including healthcare workers and higher-risk older adults. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice has requested permission from US health agencies to follow Israel’s example to provide fourth doses to some residents. The state has the third oldest population of all US states, and many residents have underlying conditions that raise their risk of severe COVID-19. Additionally, the US CDC updated its guidance to allow some moderately or severely immunocompromised individuals to receive 4 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, including a third primary dose and a fourth booster dose. However, the WHO warns that providing continual boosters every few months is not a fiscally or operationally sustainable long-term strategy, and some experts predict continuous boosters could dampen immune responses. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna both have plans to roll out vaccine booster doses that target Omicron later this year.

US VACCINE REQUIREMENTS The US Supreme Court on January 7 heard nearly 4 hours of oral arguments in 2 sets of cases involving federal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine requirements. At issue are 2 federal regulations: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that requires all workers at firms with 100 or more employees either get vaccinated or be tested weekly and wear a mask to work (National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, No. 21A244) and a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regulation issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requiring vaccination for nearly all workers at hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities that receive federal funds through Medicare and Medicaid (Biden v. Missouri, No. 21A240). Both cases came to the court last month on an emergency basis, and the justices elected to fast-track the cases for oral arguments to determine whether the Biden administration can continue enforcement of the rules while litigation continues.

The court’s conservative majority signaled it is unlikely to permit the Biden administration to enforce the OSHA rule, with several justices questioning the agency’s authority to issue such a wide-ranging emergency regulation without explicit congressional authorization. The court’s 3 liberal justices, on the other hand, indicated the regulation clearly meets OSHA’s authority to take actions to protect workers from “grave danger.” The rule is currently being enforced after the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dissolved a stay of the ETS issued by the Fifth Circuit. If the court allows the rule, OSHA expects to begin issuing citations for noncompliance no sooner than February 9.

In the CMS case, more justices appeared to support the Biden administration’s authority to require certain healthcare workers to be vaccinated, unless they qualify for a medical or religious exemption. Notably, Chief Justice John Roberts suggested a clear association between healthcare workers and the safety of patients. Additionally, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that none of the facilities or workers covered under the mandate are challenging the requirement and questioned whether the Republican-led states behind the challenge had the legal authority to do so because they operate only some of the facilities affected by the mandate. The CMS requirement is currently blocked in 25 states due to a lower court injunction. The federal government is asking the Supreme Court to lift that injunction. CMS said on December 28 it plans to begin phased enforcement for facilities located in states not covered under the stay, and those facilities’ employees will need to be fully vaccinated by February 28.

NOVAVAX Novavax expects its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine to receive regulatory approval in multiple countries, including the US, over the next several months, the company’s CEO, Stanley Erck, said on January 10. As expected, Novavax completed its data submission on its protein-based vaccine to the US FDA on December 31, a prerequisite for emergency use authorization (EUA) application. The company expects to file a request for an FDA EUA at the end of this month, and it has recently applied for authorization in other nations, including Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and the UK. Shipments of the vaccine have begun to the European Union, which authorized the vaccine last month. The WHO has issued emergency use listings for 2 versions of the vaccine (NVX-CoV2373): Nuvaxovid, which will be manufactured in Europe and is authorized for use by the European Medicines Agency; and Covovax, which will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and is authorized for use by the Drugs Controller General of India. Some experts feel the vaccine’s 6-month stability under simple refrigeration storage will make it particularly useful in low-income countries.

INDIA Several states in India are imposing COVID-19 restrictions amid a sharp increase in the number of new cases due to the Omicron variant of concern (VOC). The country experienced an 8-fold rise in new cases in the 10 days since January 1, reporting the most daily COVID-19 cases since early June. More than 1 million healthcare and frontline workers and high-risk older adults received a third dose of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine on January 10, the first day of the country’s “precaution” dose rollout. The government reported an additional 277 deaths on January 11, bringing the official total to 484,213. Notably, an analysis published last week in Science questions the official count, suggesting instead that close to 3 million people have died of COVID-19 in the country. The analysis—which several outside experts praised for its robust design—shines a light on the potential for undercounting COVID-19 mortality in other countries with anomalously low death rates, including Russia, Tajikistan, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Belarus, and Egypt.

CORBEVAX & PAN-SARS VACCINES Researchers in Texas (US) are celebrating India’s recent regulatory authorization of CORBEVAX, a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine designed using traditional technology specifically for use in resource-poor settings. Researchers from Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development (Texas Children’s CVD) and Baylor College of Medicine developed the protein subunit vaccine and licensed it, without patents, to Biological E. Limited (BioE) for manufacturing. India already has ordered 300 million doses, and BioE plans to deliver more than 1 billion doses to other countries. While some questions remain about CORBEVAX’s effectiveness against Omicron and a lack of publicly available data, the vaccine’s development—funded by private philanthropies with no strings attached—represents a model for future vaccine development and vaccine equity. Unlike vaccines using newer technology, CORBEVAX’s intellectual property is available to manufacturers worldwide.

Similarly, scientists with the US Department of Defense’s Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are developing a pan-SARS vaccine aimed at providing broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants and other coronaviruses that could be useful in low- and middle-income countries because it does not require ultra-cold freezer storage. The investigational Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle (SpFN) vaccine completed phase 1 clinical trials in December with positive results that are currently under analysis. The vaccine uses a ball-shaped ferritin nanoparticle that allows scientists to attach up to 24 spike proteins of various coronaviruses, which they hypothesize will induce potent and broad immune responses. The SpFN vaccine has not yet been tested against Omicron and needs to undergo phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials.

[ponchi101]

Indeed, a sobering read.
I wrote it two years ago, when this started. I hate to sound so arrogant, but I said it then: this disease has defeated us. Between the anti-vaxxers, the lack of scientific understanding, the pressures for economies to re-open, and the speed of mutation for this virus, it is hard to see a path to victory. And if in the USA the SCOTUS decides that OSHA and related agencies cannot enforce procedures to reduce this wave, then there is really no way out, other than some miracle pill that will stop the virus on its track once detected.

[ti-amie]

Late last week, several former advisors to President Biden’s transition team published a series of articles calling for the administration to revamp its COVID-19 response strategy and set clear goals for a “new normal.” The viewpoint pieces, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), lay out dozens of explicit recommendations on strategies for testing, surveillance, mitigation, vaccines, and therapeutics, including modernizing public health data infrastructure; investing in more tests; providing more high-quality masks free to US residents; implementing more far-reaching vaccine mandates; developing variant-specific and universal coronavirus vaccines; and rebuilding public trust in health institutions.

This was discussed on the financial podcast I listen to.

The point has been made that technically the 1918 flu is still with us and is the reason there is a new flu vaccine every year. There will be no going back to the way we were.

[ti-amie]

[atlpam]

Heard from a good friend that her sister is in ICU after suffering a Covid blood clot induced heart attack (also has double-pneumonia).
This was the result of a family gathering over the holidays. Her daughters flew in for the visit with grandkids under 5. All of the adults were double-vaxed and boosted. All 9 of them have tested positive for Covid. (Not sure if her sister has other health issues that increased her risk).

In more positive news, from looking at trend data, it looks like we may be on the downslope in Georgia from our Omicron peak.

[dryrunguy]

Here's the latest Situation Report. Haven't read it yet.

::

EPI UPDATE The WHO COVID-19 Dashboard reports 312 million cumulative cases and 5.5 million deaths worldwide as of January 12. Global weekly incidence again increased substantially last week, up 59% over the previous week. This is the 12th consecutive week of increasing weekly incidence, setting another new record with 15.58 million new cases. The increase continues to largely be due to surges in the Americas (+78.8%) and Europe (+37%), but nearly all WHO regions reported increases last week. Notably, the WHO reported a decrease in the Africa region (-11%), potentially signaling the Omicron surge there has peaked. The Omicron surge in the UK also appears to have peaked, with government data showing the weekly average number of cases down 19% over the previous week. However, weekly average mortality within 28 days of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test is up 44.3%. Global weekly mortality increased for the first time in 5 weeks, up 2.7% from the previous week with 43,522 total deaths.

Global Vaccination
The WHO reported 9.2 billion cumulative doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines administered globally as of January 11. A total of 4.59 billion individuals have received at least 1 dose, and 3.89 billion are fully vaccinated. Analysis from Our World in Data indicates that the overall trend in global daily vaccinations increased from mid-October (21.7 million doses per day) through mid-December (39.1 million). Daily vaccinations have decreased since December 20, down to 35 million.* Our World in Data estimates that there are 4.69 billion vaccinated individuals worldwide (1+ dose; 59.53% of the global population) and 3.98 billion who are fully vaccinated (50.5% of the global population).
*The average daily doses administered may exhibit a sharp decrease for the most recent data, particularly over the weekend, which indicates effects of reporting delays. In an effort to reflect the longer-term trends, the numbers reported here may not correspond to the most recent data.

UNITED STATES
The US CDC is currently reporting 62.5 million cumulative cases of COVID-19 and 840,286 deaths. The US is averaging 761,535 new cases and 1,656 deaths per day.* Notably, the US reported 1.35 million new COVID-19 cases on January 10. This exceeds the previous single-day record, set on January 3, by 397,521 cases.
*Changes in state-level reporting may affect the accuracy of recently reported data, particularly over weekends. In an effort to reflect the longer-term trends, the numbers reported here may not correspond to the most recent dates.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US set a record high this week, passing the previous record of 16,497 new hospitalizations per day (January 8, 2021). The 7-day average as of January 10 is 20,269. The CDC is also reporting a surge in the number of current hospitalizations, up from an average of 91,030 hospitalized COVID-19 patients on January 3 to 124,163 on January 10, an increase of 36.4% over that period. The current average is slightly above the previous record high—124,031 on January 11, 2021. Daily mortality is increasing, and the surge in hospitalizations is placing severe strain on health systems nationwide, which could contribute to increased mortality for COVID-19 patients as well as those seeking care for other conditions.

US Vaccination
The US has administered 522.5 million cumulative doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. The trend in daily vaccinations continues to decline, down from a recent high of 1.74 million doses per day on December 6 to 1 million on January 7.*

A total of 247.7 million individuals have received at least 1 vaccine dose, equivalent to 74.6% of the entire US population. Among adults, 86.6% have received at least 1 dose, as well as 24 million children under the age of 18. A total of 208 million individuals are fully vaccinated**, which corresponds to 62.7% of the total population. Approximately 73.4% of adults are fully vaccinated, as well as 18.7 million children under the age of 18. Since August 13, 77.1 million fully vaccinated individuals have received an additional or booster dose. An estimated 37% of fully vaccinated individuals have received a booster, including 60.8% of fully vaccinated adults aged 65 years or older.
*Due to delays in reporting, estimates for the average daily doses administered are less accurate for the most recent 5 days. The most current average provided here corresponds to 5 days ago.
**Full original course of the vaccine, not including additional or booster doses.

WHO ON SARS-COV-2 VACCINES A WHO panel of vaccine subject matter experts known as the Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-CO-VAC) released an interim statement on January 11 regarding vaccination strategies to combat the ongoing pandemic. The TAG-CO-VAC advised increasing access to primary and booster doses of current vaccines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to prevent the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants and updating vaccine composition to cover currently circulating variants. Vaccine inequity is an issue often discussed by the WHO, and it is believed to be a large driver for the emergence of new variants that have the potential to escape vaccine-induced immunity, such as Omicron. Increasing efforts to provide initial vaccination doses to under-immunized nations has the potential to slow the emergence of new variants and take pressure off health systems that are buckling under the weight of new cases. TAG-CO-VAC also stated that promoting a vaccination strategy that relies on multiple booster doses of the original vaccine design is unlikely to be effective. TAG-CO-VAC called for an updated vaccine design that protects against infection and severe disease, is based on currently circulating variants, and elicits a robust immune response. The best options for new vaccine design include multivalent vaccines that protect against many circulating variants or pan-SARS vaccines that provide protection from current and future variants.

OMICRON SEVERITY Real-world evidence is supporting the theory that the highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant of concern (VOC) causes less severe disease than the Delta VOC, but officials are warning that Omicron cannot be described as “mild” and unvaccinated individuals remain at risk for severe outcomes. A study posted January 11 to the preprint server medRxiv examined the outcomes of nearly 70,000 COVID-19 patients in California and suggests Omicron causes less severe disease than previous variants. The findings, which are not yet peer-reviewed, align with similar data from research conducted in South Africa, the UK, and Denmark. Additionally, laboratory studies show Omicron’s lower virulence might be due to its tendency to replicate more in cells of the upper respiratory tract instead of the lungs, where the virus can lead to more serious breathing problems. While more is being learned about how well vaccine-induced or natural immunity helps to protect against severe outcomes in Omicron cases, early reports indicate infections are less severe in people with some prior immunity. Additionally, it is too soon to conclude whether Omicron is less lethal than previous variants. While real-world anecdotes suggest people infected with Omicron are less likely to need intensive care including breathing support, COVID-19 hospitalizations set a new record this week in the US. Hospitals nationwide already are overwhelmed with an enormous number of people with COVID-19—as well as with other health conditions—all while facing staffing shortages exacerbated by workers themselves becoming ill. Most agree that this surge of Omicron will help push the world further toward COVID-19 endemicity, but the short- and long-term costs remain to be realized.

SARS-COV-2 IMMUNITY Emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, which has a highly mutated spike protein when compared with the Beta or Delta variants, has increased international attention on how mutations impact immunity and neutralizing antibody production. A preprint study from Japan provides evidence that fully vaccinated individuals who have also had breakthrough infections—known as hybrid immunity—may be better protected against infection with Omicron. According to the study, which is not yet peer-reviewed, the greater the span of time between the last vaccination and a breakthrough infection directly correlates with the quality of protection. The results of this study imply that countries that were hit harder by the Delta wave could be in a better position to withstand the current Omicron wave, but the authors urged a cautious approach when trying to understand how population immunity interacts with new and future variants.

An additional preprint study from India suggests that Omicron’s rapid global spread may be due to decreased efficacy of neutralizing antibodies in both vaccine-only and hybrid immunity populations. According to the study, which also is not yet peer-reviewed, neutralizing antibodies were extremely effective against the original strain of the virus but efficacy was much lower against the Omicron variant. Despite the lower efficacy, the study also provided further confirmation that hybrid immunity provides better protection than vaccine-only immunity.

Discussions about the impact of spike protein mutations on immunity typically focus on neutralizing antibodies, but a subset of immunologists are highlighting the importance of T-cells. Current evidence shows that new SARS-CoV-2 variants, such as Omicron, remain susceptible to T-cell mediated immunity. Susceptibility of Omicron to T-cell immunity means that vaccinated populations are likely to be protected from severe disease, hospitalization, and death despite a drop in neutralizing antibody titers. Vaccination remains the best tool to defend against severe outcomes, and it is becoming increasingly clear that natural immunity from prior infection alone is not sufficient for protection. Unvaccinated populations in the US are 20 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated populations.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC GROWTH SLOWDOWN The quick rise of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant of concern (VOC), as well as the threat of other potential variants, is helping to fuel a global economic slowdown, endangering economic recovery in emerging and developing economies, scaling back progress on reducing poverty, and disrupting social cohesion and global cooperation, according to 2 reports released this week. The World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report predicts the pandemic will continue to disrupt economic activity in the near term, causing a deceleration in global growth from 5.5% in 2021 to 4.1% in 2022 and 3.2% in 2023. Notably, growth in emerging and developing countries is expected to drop from 6.3% in 2021 to 4.4% in 2023, at an output level 4% below the pre-pandemic trend. President of the World Bank Group David Malpass said more international action and national-level policy responses are needed to address the pandemic, inflation, inequality, security challenges, and general uncertainty. The report highlights prioritizing vaccine equity and alleviating vaccine deployment bottlenecks in low- and middle-income countries as one way to bring the pandemic under control.

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Risks Report 2021 also warns that the pandemic and vaccine inequality are causing lost opportunities for large parts of the global population—including job losses, a widening digital divide, and shifts in markets—that will result in social unrest, political fragmentation, and geopolitical tensions impacting how the global community responds to other key economic threats such as cyberattacks, space exploitation, weapons of mass destruction, and, “most notably,” climate change. Of about 1,000 global experts and leaders from academia, business, civil society, government and other organizations surveyed in the WEF’s Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), more than 84% are worried or concerned about the global outlook. Vaccine inequality is driving growing gaps in economic recovery—a “global divergence”—which threatens to compound pre-existing social cleavages and geopolitical tensions. The WEF said policymakers must prepare for the next pandemic now and outlined 4 governance opportunities to improve overall resilience, including taking a holistic and systems-based approach to risk impacts; investing in “risk champions” to encourage national and international action; improving risk communications and combating misinformation; and exploring new forms of public-private partnership.

SCHOOL IMPACTS As many schools worldwide reopen to in-person learning, some scientists, public health experts, and teachers are wondering why more mitigation measures—including vaccination, masking, regular testing, contact tracing, improved ventilation, desk-spacing, outdoor area use, and handwashing—are not in place. In the US, COVID-19 cases among school-aged children are increasing exponentially, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Pediatric hospitalizations are at the highest rate in the pandemic; the vaccination rate among 5- to 11-year-olds remains low, just over 17%; and children under age 5 remain ineligible for any SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and likely will remain so for at least a few more months. With teachers’ unions and local governments at odds over returning to in-person instruction in some districts, including Chicago, students are organizing to have their voices heard. In Massachusetts, an online petition has gained nearly 6,000 signatures in favor of a remote learning option, and students in New York and Michigan walked out of classrooms in protest over their schools’ COVID-19 policies. The Biden administration on January 12 announced it will increase the number of SARS-CoV-2 tests available to schools by 10 million per month*, in addition to other testing capacities, which they hope will help schools operate safely.

In France today, members of 11 educator unions took part in a walkout in protest over pandemic work conditions, forcing the closure of schools and classrooms nationwide. France is in the midst of a record-breaking surge in Omicron cases, and government changes to school rules have caused a “mess,” teachers say. In Uganda, students this week celebrated the reopening of schools after being closed nearly 2 years because of COVID-19. However, not all students celebrated. Officials warned at least 30% and as much as 50% of students may never return, with those from low-income and rural families impacted the most. Some students instead began working, while others became pregnant or married early. Many cannot afford tuition fees for high school. Some educational experts feel an entire generation of learners may have been lost during the pandemic, though others disagree. Additionally, some teachers could not go without pay and found other employment, and thousands of schools, both public and private, are likely to remain closed permanently. COVID-19 school closures and other indirect damage in several African nations have hit young women harder than men, and the extent is difficult to measure. But the pandemic likely has set girls’ progress back, leaving questions about whether recovery is possible.
*The administration intends to send 5 million rapid tests and 5 million lab-based PCR tests to schools per month at no cost.

US LAW ENFORCEMENT For the second year in a row, COVID-19 was the leading cause of death among US law enforcement officers. According to preliminary data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 458 local, state, tribal, and federal officers died in the line of duty in 2021, a 55% increase over 2020 and the highest total since 1930. Of those deaths, 301 were related to COVID-19, with the virus reportedly contracted in the line of duty. Some law enforcement and police unions have pushed back against local government regulations requiring vaccines for workers, threatening resignations and legal action. A federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by Los Angeles police officers challenging the city’s SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and testing mandate, saying the rule did not violate their constitutional rights.