Covid-19 News and Discussions

[Yommie]

As students head back to class, are schools ready to handle COVID-19?

As students get ready to head back to class across the U.S. -- and COVID-19 cases keep trending upward -- are schools ready to handle the virus?

abcnews.go.com

As students head back to class, are schools ready to handle COVID-19?​

COVID test positivity and ER visits have been trending upward since the spring.
ByMary Kekatos
August 11, 2024, 5:01 AM

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

2:56

Are schools ready for COVID-19 as students head back to class?
Are schools ready for COVID-19 as students head back to class?

Since spring, COVID-19 test positivity has steadily climbed, yet hospitalizations and deat...Show More


As summer begins to wind down, most children and teenagers across the U.S. are getting ready to head back to school.

Not far behind the start of the school year is the typical start of the season for respiratory viruses, including flu, RSV and COVID-19.

Since early May, COVID-19 test positivity and emergency department visits that are diagnosed as COVID-19 infections have steadily increased, although hospitalizations and deaths continue to remain at historically low levels, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

MORE: COVID was 10th leading cause of death in 2023, down from 4th in 2022: CDC​

Despite these upward trends, school officials from various districts told ABC News that they feel prepared to handle cases of any respiratory viruses that may emerge, and to try and prevent classroom disruptions because of them as much as possible.

"We're always preparing, and I feel very confident that we're going to have a great school year, and we'll get through this respiratory season with no problem," Kim Baumann, lead county nurse for Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) in Georgia, told ABC News.

Limiting school closures​

During the first year of the pandemic, schools switched to remote learning to help stem the spread of the virus.

Since then, individual classrooms and, in some cases, entire schools have temporarily gone virtual when outbreaks have popped up.

This year, schools generally are trying to avoid closing if they can, should another viral outbreak surface, in part to avoid the student academic performance losses widely seen during pandemic remote learning. A recent study conducted in collaboration with the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, for example, looked at math and reading scores for grades three through eight and found that "academic achievement gaps that widened during the pandemic still remain and have worsened in some states."

First day back to school at Apollo Elementary in Bossier City, LA, Aug 8, 2024.
Henrietta Wildsmith/USA Today
Arizona State Superintendent of Education Tom Horne told ABC News that he wants schools to operate normally, regardless of a surge in cases. While noting that Arizona is a "local control state," meaning that it's up to the local school boards to decide if they want to close schools, he is adamantly against school closures.

"Closing of the schools that occurred last time was an unbelievable disaster," he said. "Kids are way behind academically. We're still experiencing it now, and I think some of them will be affected for the rest of their lives."


Horne pointed to research that has suggested COVID-19 infection tends to affect children less severely than older adults or those with pre-existing medical conditions.

"So, it makes no sense to close the schools, and I will strongly advocate against it," Horne said.

MORE: There may be an increase in COVID cases this summer. Experts say this is why many shouldn't be concerned​

By comparison, the leaders in Gwinnett County, Georgia, say they are not advocating for school closures, but that any decision regarding whether classes need to be conducted remotely due to outbreaks will come after conversations with the local health department.

Vaccinating to prevent severe illness​

Doctors and other public health experts say that one of the best things students can do to prepare themselves for the upcoming year is to receive the updated COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC recommends everyone aged 6 months and older receive an updated vaccine.

Vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna will be available for those aged 6 months and older, while the Novavax vaccine will be available for those aged 12 and older. The updated vaccine will likely be released either late August or early September and will target the JN.1 variant of the virus, an offshoot of the omicron variant.

The vaccine "reduces, not only the chance for hospitalization, but also reduces disease burden overall, just so that kids and adults alike are not severely impacted by it, and of course, it is continued to be recommended," Dr. Jay W. Lee, a member of the Board of Directors at the American Academy of Family Physicians, told ABC News.

A young child receives a Moderna Covid-19 6 months to 5 years vaccination at Temple B...Show more
Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images
Lee said sometimes he encounters parents who are reluctant to vaccinate their children because of research suggesting children are not affected by COVID-19 as severely as adults. However, he said he tries to explain to parents that the benefits of vaccinating children far outweigh any risks, using their reluctance as "an opportunity for me to lean in and ask questions about why it is that they're feeling that way."

Lee said he also tells parents that "we do continue to have ongoing concerns about long COVID and the impacts that it has on cognitive abilities as well as respiratory and cardiac issues," adding that "The science is not fully complete yet on the impacts of long COVID, but we are seeing more and more of it as we escape the gravitational pull of the pandemic."

Kim Baumann, the lead nurse in Gwinnett County, said schools in the district will host vaccine clinics in coordination with the local health department throughout the year "which will include COVID and flu, or however that combination is going to look this coming fall," further noting that "we always provide frequent vaccine clinics and get that information out to our families to make it readily available."

Clear language on how to stay safe​

School officials said that they are getting the word out regarding when parents should keep their children home from school.

Tom Horne, in Arizona, said whenever a student or staff member is sick – whether they have COVID-19 or the common cold – they should stay home so that they have the proper rest and so they don't infect others

MORE: Where COVID cases are increasing in the US amid summer 'bump'​

Baumann said one of the ways officials are preparing for the new school year is to send reminders through schools' newsletters, websites and other media about best practices to stay safe, including "Good hand washing, [and] using respiratory hygiene, as far as covering your coughs and sneezes."

Baumann also said there is a team of custodians who make sure schools, particularly in high-touch areas, are cleaned and sanitized throughout the day, especially during peak season of respiratory viruses

She added that children can wear masks to school if they so choose. GCPS is also distributing reminders of reasons to stay home, including if a student develops respiratory virus symptoms such as fever, chills, fatigue, cough, runny nose, and headache, said Baumann.

"We understand COVID is going to be with us. This is not something that's going away. It's going to be something that we're going to have to continue to deal with," Bernard Watson, director of community and media relations at GCPS, told ABC News. "So, we've sort of accepted that as part of our new normal, and that's why we're taking all these steps to ensure that we're hitting the high-touch areas to make sure that they are clean. We have our nurses on standby to deal with situations where students are sick."

A group of siblings arrive for school at Challenger 7 Elementary in Port St. John, FL, July 22, 2024.
Tim Shortt/FLORIDA TODAY/USA Today
"But the most important thing … is letting parents know and letting our staff know that if [students or staff] feel sick, it's okay to stay home and seek treatment, because we all know that if we have a healthy environment in our schools, then our kids are learning better," Watson continued. "But if people are coming to school when they're sick and they're spreading it, that's not good because it puts other people in danger of getting sick, and it interrupts teaching and learning, which is our primary focus."

Dr. Lee of the American Academy of Family Physicians said one of the best things that schools can do to be prepared for a potential viral outbreak is offer clear policies and language regarding when students should stay home.

"There's a lot of pressure on parents to send their kids to school. Maybe they've got work or job or other obligations," he said. "Unfortunately, when you send a child to school that has an illness and they're confined in small spaces – and especially younger kids, [who] are not as good about kind of washing their hands or covering their mouth and those types of things – it can be a source for rapid spread in a community."

"And so, I think if the schools can continue to have very clear language and policy around when children should stay at home under the guidance of the local public health agencies, I think that would be super helpful," Lee said.

 

[Yommie]

The coronavirus lab leak hypothesis is damaging science

The rhetoric being thrown at virologists must be toned down. Viruses are the real threats to humanity, not virologists.

www.statnews.com

The coronavirus lab leak hypothesis is damaging science​

By John P. Moore Aug. 2, 2024

Transmission electron micrograph of a SARS-CoV-2 virus particleNIAID
Where and when the Covid-19 pandemic began — in Wuhan, China in late 2019 — is well known. How it began is a matter of heated controversy. There are two competing hypotheses, one of which is hindering the process of scientific discovery and could hold back the development of vaccines and other antiviral agents in the U.S.

The zoonosis hypothesis proposes that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, was naturally transmitted from an animal to one or more humans in a so-called wet market in Wuhan selling fresh produce, meat, fish, and live animals. The lab leak hypothesis posits that the virus was modified (possibly through gain of function maneuvers), or even created, in the Wuhan Institute for Virology (WIV) and somehow escaped the laboratory.

Many politicians, pundits, and the general public now favor the lab leak idea. Most scientists, particularly virologists, do not. This schism threatens their legitimate and ultimately socially important work, as outlined in a peer-reviewed publication published on August 1 in the Journal of Virology that was written by 41 virologists. I am one of them.

The zoonosis hypothesis is solidly evidence based. Viruses often spill over from animals to humans, although usually as dead-end events without the sustained human-to-human transmission that sparks a pandemic. Wildlife coronaviruses have long been poised to infect humans. An estimated 66,000 people are infected with SARS coronaviruses each year due to human-bat contact, almost all resulting in asymptomatic infections with little or no further transmission.

That said, zoonotic transfer of three different coronaviruses (MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-1, and SARS-CoV-2) from other animals to humans have resulted in epidemics or pandemics in the past 25 years. The 2002-2003 SARS-CoV-1 outbreak started in a Chinese wet market.

The influenza pandemic of 1918, which began from an animal-human cross-over, most likely from a pig in the U.S. heartland, killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

The illegal wildlife trade and wet markets are a $20 billion global industry with clear zoonosis risks. The more that humans and “exotic” animals mingle in close proximity, the greater the risk of viral transmission. There is the potential for a devastating pandemic with the H5N1 avian influenza virus entering birds and cattle and, sporadically, humans, in the U.S.

The lab leak hypothesis, in contrast, is essentially evidence-free: It relies on a chain of events that are unproven and highly speculative. A recent New York Times guest essay by Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, reiterates arguments first made in 2020 through 2022, but presents no new evidence.

The online and scientific literature support the zoonotic transfer hypothesis and/or counter the notion that a lab leak occurred.

Five of seven reports from the U.S. intelligence community favor the zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2, based on declassified scientific evidence and investigations. These five reports found no evidence that Wuhan Institute for Virology possessed SARS-CoV-2 or a closely related virus before the end of December 2019, and conclude that it is unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered.

Yet the lab leak hypothesis is now dominating discussions in the public square. It is being promoted by right-wing politicians and media celebrities, and even embraced by high-profile newspapers like The New York Times. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has accepted the lab leak as established fact, dismissing the zoonosis hypothesis on dubious grounds. That matters, as the report outlines future government policies on relations with China.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), testified in June 2024 before the House of Representatives subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He stated that people should keep an open mind on the competing hypotheses, pending definitive proof for one or the other. Despite taking a balanced position, Fauci was viciously abused, even told that he should be “prosecuted” and imprisoned for “crimes against humanity” because NIAID had sent grant funds for coronavirus research to the Wuhan Institute for Virology via an EcoHealth Alliance subcontract.

My concern, and that of many other virologists, is that the evidence-light lab leak hypothesis is damaging the virology research community at a time when it has an essential role to play in the face of pandemic threats. The attacks on Fauci are far from unique. Coronavirus virologists have been falsely accused of engineering SARS-CoV-2, allowing it to escape from a lab due to inadequate safety protocols, being participants in an international cover-up, and taking grants as bribes from NIAID for favoring the zoonosis hypothesis. There is mounting harassment, intimidation, threats and violence towards scientists that are particularly vile in the online space.

In a survey conducted by Science magazine, of 510 researchers publishing coronavirus research, 38% received insults, threats of violence, doxing (publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual), and even face-to-face threats. A second survey of 1,281 scientists found that 51% had experienced at least one form of harassment, sometimes repeatedly for years.

As a result, scientists have withdrawn from social media platforms, rejected public speaking opportunities, and taken steps to protect themselves and their families. Some have even diverted their work to less controversial topics.

There are now long-term risks that fewer experts will help combat future pandemics; and that scientists will be less willing to communicate the findings of sophisticated, fast-moving research on global health topics. Pandemic preparation research has already been deferred, diverted or abandoned. Most worrisome is that the next generation of scientists has well-founded fears about becoming researchers on emerging viruses and pandemic science.

All virologists embrace the need for laboratory safety. None of them ignore the implications of the lab leak hypothesis — that there could be a future escape of a dangerous virus from a research laboratory. However, lab leak anxiety underpins proposals for policies that would unnecessarily restrict research on vaccines and antiviral agents in the U.S. The overarching concern here is that the lab leak narrative fuels mistrust in science and public health infrastructures. The increasingly virulent and widespread anti-science agenda damages individual scientists and their institutions, and hinders planning to counter future epidemics and pandemics.

Science is humanity’s best insurance policy against threats from nature, but it is a fragile enterprise that must be nourished and protected. Scientific organizations need to develop programs to counter anti-science and protect the research enterprise in the face of mounting hostility.

And the rhetoric being thrown at virologists must be toned down. Viruses are the real threats to humanity, not virologists.

John P. Moore, Ph.D., is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. This essay is adapted from a longer article written with 40 colleagues that was published in the Journal of Virology.

 

[Yommie]

Monday's Pandemic Update: The Summer Covid Death Wave Is Growing.​

 

[Yommie]

Are schools ready to handle COVID-19 as students head back to class?​

 

[Yommie]

Rise in COVID-19 cases during summer months​

 

[Yommie]

CDC says COVID wastewater levels are 'very high' in VA and NC​

 

[Yommie]

Noah Lyles Feared Bronchitis After Positive COVID-19 Test​

 

[Yommie]

14% Increase in Shootings involving Security Force Members | MOH: Covid 19 Cases on the Increase​

 

[Yommie]

Ian O'Connor on Aaron Rodgers COVID Regrets, Family Drama, & More | The Dan Le Batard Show​

 

[Yommie]

U.S. faces COVID-19 surge ahead of schools reopening​

 

[Yommie]

Health Officials Warn of COVID-19 Spike​

 

[Yommie]

Mpox news, CDC RSV vaccine for adults, COVID summer surge and the end of free COVID vaccines​

 

[Yommie]

OH NO! Did Aaron Rodgers just BEND THE KNEE to the COVID Vax mob?​

 

[Yommie]

COVID-19 inpatients numbers surge as the elderly make up the bulk of serious cases​

 

[Yommie]

Reinfection with Covid-19 Leads to Heart Damage - What You Need to Know​