FDA authorizes COVID-19 booster shots for the immunocompromised
The FDA determined people with suppressed immune systems may not have gotten adequate protection from initial doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Staff video, USA TODAY
Coronavirus cases in Mississippi, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant, continue to climb, with 5,023new cases Friday. It's the highest daily case count ever reported since COVID-19 came into the state in March 2020.
On Tuesday, the state saw the highest one-day coronavirus-related deaths, 36, since early March when the department reported 44 deaths.
7-day takeaway: MSCOVID-19 cases reach over 20k, over 100 deaths in aweek
Mississippireported 31coronavirus-related deaths Friday. Nineteendeathsoccurred between June 1and Aug. 8, as identified from death certificate reports.
Since the virus hit the state in March 2020, a total of 381,147cases and 7,761coronavirus-related deaths have been reported.
On Friday, the Mississippi State Department of Healthreported 166outbreaks at Mississippi nursinghomes. There have been 10,824cases of the coronavirus in long-term care facilitiesand 2,019deaths reported as of Friday.
According to aNew York Times database, at least 1,022new coronavirus deaths and 138,595new cases were reported in the UnitedStateson Thursday. Over the past week, there has been an average of 125,894cases per day,an increase of 76% from the average two weeks earlier.
Dire measures: UMMC prepping field hospital as COVID-19 cases surge
Residents between the ages of 25 and 39represent the largest portion of the infected population in the state,with 83,833cases reported Tuesday, the latest figureavailable.
Among patients under18, children between the ages of 11 and 17 have the highest infection rate, with 29,852cases identified. The 65 and older age group has the highest total number of deaths with 5,778reported.
According tohealth department data, 1,292,407people have begun the vaccination process in Mississippi, as of Thursdaymorning. Since December, about 1,065,743people are fully immunized against COVID-19.
Approximately 326,558people are presumed recovered from the virus as of Tuesday, according tothe health department's website.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Hinds County has the highest number of reported cases in the state with 26,196, followed closely by DeSoto County with 24,662,Harrison County with 24,410,Jackson County with 17,861and Rankin County with 17,004.
Reeves: Extends emergency declaration amid COVID-19 surge to ensure federal help
Schools: More than 4,000 MSK-12 students quarantined due to COVID exposure
Daily number of new deaths: 3
Daily number of new cases: 204
Total deaths: 473
Total cases: 25,992
Daily number of new deaths: 2
Daily number of new cases: 78
Total deaths: 235
Total cases:11,789
Daily number of new deaths: 0
Daily number of new cases: 170
Total deaths: 301
Total cases:17,004
Have a health story? Or a health-related tip? Send it along toshaselhorst@gannett.com, onTwitter at @HaselhorstSarahor call 601-331-9307.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of August 13, 2021, there have been 3,207,734 total confirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 171,950 total cases and 2,976 deaths.
DHHR has confirmed the death of a 62-year old female from Raleigh County.
We are deeply saddened by this news, a loss to both the family and our state, and extend our deepest sympathies, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. Vaccines are safe and effective, and if you are eligible, please do your part to end the pandemic by scheduling a COVID vaccine.
CASES PER COUNTY: Barbour (1,303), Berkeley (13,442), Boone (2,454), Braxton (1,282), Brooke (2,000), Cabell (9,171), Calhoun (415), Clay (568), Doddridge (665), Fayette (3,575), Gilmer (936), Grant (1,545), Greenbrier (2,070), Hampshire (1,979), Hancock (2,414), Hardy (1,515), Harrison (6,505), Jackson (2,373), Jefferson (4,666), Kanawha (16,401), Lewis (1,878), Lincoln (1,949), Logan (3,151), Marion (4,292), Marshall (3,171), Mason (2,020), McDowell (1,232), Mercer (5,535), Mineral (3,545), Mingo (2,585), Monongalia (9,080), Monroe (1,575), Morgan (1,909), Nicholas (2,101), Ohio (4,111), Pendleton (729), Pleasants (987), Pocahontas (724), Preston (3,515), Putnam (5,636), Raleigh (7,232), Randolph (3,111), Ritchie (788), Roane (706), Summers (888), Taylor (1,989), Tucker (570), Tyler (794), Upshur (2,898), Wayne (3,909), Webster (633), Wetzel (1,222), Wirt (479), Wood (8,585), Wyoming (2,202).
Free pop-up COVID-19 testing is available today in Berkeley, Grant, Jefferson, Lincoln, Logan, Marshall, Mineral, Monongalia, Ohio, Putnam, and Taylor counties.
August 13
Berkeley County
10:00 AM 5:00 PM, 891 Auto Parts Place, Martinsburg, WV
Grant County
11:00 AM 3:00 PM, Petersburg City Parking Lot, South Main Street (across from Walgreens), Petersburg, WV (please do not block the fire station entrance)
Jefferson County
10:00 AM 5:00 PM, Shepherd University Wellness Center Parking Lot, 164 University Drive, Shepherdstown, WV
Lincoln County
Logan County
Marshall County
12:00 PM 5:00 PM, Benwood City Building, 430 Main Street, Benwood, WV
Mineral County
10:00 AM 4:00 PM, Mineral County Health Department, 541 Harley O. Staggers Drive, Keyser, WV
Monongalia County
9:00 AM 12:00 PM, WVU Recreation Center, Lower Level, 2001 Rec Center Drive, Morgantown, WV
Ohio County
9:00 AM 3:30 PM, Ohio Valley Medical Center (Former main entrance/turning circle), 2000 Eoff Street, Wheeling, WV
Putnam County
9:00 AM 4:00 PM, Liberty Square, 613 Putnam Village, Hurricane, WV
Taylor County
2:00 PM 4:00 PM, Grafton-Taylor County Health Department, 718 West Main Street (parking lot at Operations Trailer), Grafton, WV
Free pop-up COVID-19 testing is also available tomorrow in Lewis County.
August 14
Lewis County
The City and Borough of Juneau Emergency Operations Center reports 30 new individuals 26 residents and four nonresidents identified with COVID-19 in Juneau for August 12.
Of the resident cases, Public Health attributes 11 to secondary transmission, two to community spread, and the rest are under investigation. Two resident cases are part of the cluster associated with an out-of-town youth sports event. That cluster is now at 18 cases 15 are active, three are recovered. Of the four nonresidents, two are in the tourism sector and two are visitors; Public Health attributes three cases to secondary transmission and one to out-of-state travel.
Cumulatively, Juneau has had1,717 residentstest positive for COVID-19 and 215 nonresidents. There are 110 active cases and 1,816 individuals have recovered. All individuals with active cases of COVID-19 are in isolation. There are currently six people with COVID-19 hospitalized at Bartlett Regional Hospital.
Due to the volume of positive cases in Juneau, if youve received a positive COVID-19 test result and havent heard from Public Health, please contact Public Health at 465-3353.
Statewide, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services reports406 new people identified with COVID-19 378 are residents and 28 are nonresidents. The state also reports three deaths a female Ketchikan resident in her 80s, a male Anchorage resident in his 50s, and a male Wasilla resident in his 70s bringing the total number of resident deaths to 395. Alaska has had 76,030 cumulative resident cases of COVID-19 and a total of 3,455 nonresidents.
As a practicing primary-care doctor, I fully empathize with parents who worry about their unvaccinated kids potential exposure to the coronavirus. Raising my own children is a daily exercise in vulnerability. One rainy night this summer, my teenage son, a new driver who was running late for a babysitting job, asked for my keys. Cant you walk there instead? I pleaded. He rolled his eyes. I let him use the car, but not before peppering him with reminders to be careful and to use the headlights and wipers. Shielding my kids from danger is a fundamental instinct; tolerating risk for them is hard emotional work.
So I understand why many parents were alarmed when, on July 27, the CDCs director, Rochelle Walensky, said that vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant could transmit the virus with the same capacity as an unvaccinated person. For people who thought that the pandemic was ending, her televised statement was like the scene late in A Nightmare on Elm Street when Freddy Kruegers claw reaches up from within Glens bed and pulls him in.
The phones at my office started ringing immediately. Are my kids no longer safe around me? Should we cancel our trip to visit the grandparents? Do the vaccines not work like they used to? Since then, reports that pediatric hospitals are filling up with COVID-19 patients in states with low vaccination rates has heightened the perception that children are uniformly in danger.
Read: Why is it taking so long to get vaccines for kids?
For most of the pandemic, children were assumed to be at low risk of serious illness from the coronavirus. But recent developments are naturally triggering many adults protective instincts. Although the evidence calls for prudence, not paniceven as the Delta variant spreadsmany parents will struggle to keep fear from racing ahead of the data.
Hopes were high during the spring and early summer, as vaccination rates rose and hospitalization rates fell. Kids enjoyed indirect protection from COVID-19 as more adults became immunized. A relatively normal return to school in the fall started to seem possible. Even now, some reassuring facts remain: So far the Delta variant isnt thought to be more lethal than prior variants. Although clearly more contagious, Delta doesnt seem to specifically target kids. No one should be surprised that nonimmune children account for a bigger share of the total number of infections as more adults get vaccinated. Although cases are certainly increasing among children as well as adults, a recent report by the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that 0.9 percent of COVID-19 cases in children have resulted in hospitalizationa slight increase since the spring but well below the corresponding percentage for most of last yearand 0.01 percent have resulted in death.
A recent peer-reviewed study in Britain of nearly 260,000 children (1,700 of whom showed symptoms) reminds us that for most kids, a coronavirus infection will manifest as the common coldif anything. Also reassuring is that only 4.4 percent of children diagnosed with COVID-19 in this study had symptoms after 28 days (and 1.8 percent after 56 days). Probably not surprising to any parent, about 1 percent of kids in this study who had upper-respiratory symptoms and tested negative for COVID-19 also had lingering symptoms at 56 daysa reminder that COVID-19 is only one potential cause for a childs malaise.
Abundant evidence indicates that coronavirus transmissions rates in schools are roughly equal to or less than those of the surrounding community. In other words, educational settings are not inherently dangerous for younger children. This should reassure parents and policy makers who are nervous about sending them back to the classroom.
I do not dismiss the continuing danger that COVID-19 presents to kids. As of August 11, the CDCs National Center for Health Statistics reports, more than 350 children (out of 74 million) across the United States have died from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. (For perspective, weve lost more than 600,000 American adults to COVID-19, and adults older than 85 are more than 600 times more likely to die from the disease than kids are.) Pediatric hospitalizations are rising in regions of the country where vaccine uptake is low. Long COVIDthough rare in children, at least before Deltacan cause lasting symptoms for some otherwise healthy youngsters.
But fragmentary data and muddled messaging from the CDC and elsewhere have stoked the publics collective fearespecially among parents. The younger, sicker, quicker narrativewhich asserts that Delta infects people more intensely and at an earlier agehas taken hold on TV news and social media. The Delta surge has also created new opportunities for grifters, anti-vaccine propagandists, and others to spread misinformation that preys on parental anxiety.
Read: Delta is bad news for kids
Not all fear is irrational; some is actually required for survival. When parents are faced with a perceived or real threat to their childrens safety, stress hormones pour into the bloodstream, allowing us to sprint from danger, maintain alertness, and react quickly to sudden changes in our environment. During the coronavirus pandemic, individual vigilance has been essential to interpreting and responding to the steady stream of new information.
Being constantly wired like this nevertheless carries a cost: Rational thought is hijacked. Our risk tolerance goes down. Our instinct to protect shifts into overdrive. We default to primitive thought patterns including black-and-white thinking (School isnt safe until all kids are vaccinated) and catastrophizing (My childs runny nose will probably land him in the hospital). We also engage in filtering, a cognitive distortion whereby we sort through masses of information and latch onto specific ideas that reinforce a personal fear (After reading that ICU doctors Facebook post about a hospitalized infant, Im certain my child will get sick with COVID-19).
Marinating in a toxic brine of fear and uncertainty can make us sickwhether from fatigue and insomnia or irritability and burnout. And when our children hear us processing endless loops of what if thinking, they can become worried and depressed too. Fixating on a single threat to childrens health can keep us from recognizing their broad human needs. I too can be a victim of my own mental gymnastics. (Just ask my kids.)
Reclaiming rational thought amid ongoing uncertainty can be vexingly difficult, yet it is crucial for our health. Parents must first absorb the scientific evidence on Delta. We must cross-check our internal narratives about our own kids against the facts of our local public-health landscape by checking in with trusted health-care professionals.
Next, we must accept the unpleasant reality that risk is everywhere. Children face many serious threats to their well-being, including other diseases, mental illness, and accidents. Vehicular crashes kill more than 1,000 Americans younger than 15 each year. Yet weve accepted this risk; we also dont revisit it with every news story about a car crash.
When my patients ask me whether a given activity is safe, I usually tell them the answer isnt a firm yes or no. Absolutism itself can do harm. Rather, I ask about individual patients circumstances, explain medical evidence, and try to help frame their decision by offering advice about relative risks and benefits. As with fear, risk cannot be eliminated; it can only be mitigated. Health stems from allowing fear to protect us from dying but not allowing it to prevent us from living.
Similarly, victory over COVID-19 will require accepting our perilous reality, releasing ourselves from the impossible task of eradicating danger, and relishing the sometimes-immeasurable reward that comes from tolerating risk. Had I prohibited my son from driving that rainy night, for example, he might have lost his jobor, worse, his faith in how much I trust him.
When covid is detected in sewage, students, staffers and faculty members are tested, which has allowed the school to identify and isolate infected individuals who aren't yet showing symptoms potentially stopping outbreaks in their tracks.
UC-San Diego's testing program is among hundreds of efforts around California and the nation to turn waste into valuable health data. From Fresno, California, to Portland, Maine, universities, communities and businesses are monitoring human excrement for signs of covid.
Researchers have high hopes for this sludgy new data stream, which they say can alert public health officials to trends in infections and doesn't depend on individuals getting tested. And because people excrete virus in feces before they show symptoms, it can serve as an early warning system for outbreaks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds the practice so promising that it has created a federal database of wastewater samples, transforming raw data into valuable information for local health departments. The program is essentially creating a public health tool in real time, experts say, one that could have a range of uses beyond the current global pandemic, including tracking other infectious diseases and germs' resistance to antibiotics.
"We think this can really provide valuable data, not just for covid, but for a lot of diseases," said Amy Kirby, a microbiologist leading the CDC effort.
The virus that causes covid infects many types of cells in the body, including those in the respiratory tract and gut. The virus's genetic signature, viral RNA, makes its way into feces, and typically shows up in poop days before symptoms start.
At UC-San Diego and other campuses, researchers take samples flowing from individual buildings, capturing such granular data that they can often deduce the number of infected people living or working there. But in most other settings, due to privacy concerns and resource constraints, testing is done on a much larger scale with the goal of tracking trends over time.
Samples are drawn from wastewater, which is what comes out of our sewer pipes, or sludge, the solids that have settled out of the wastewater. They are typically extracted mechanically or by a human with a dipper on the end of a rod.
When researchers in Davis, California, saw the viral load rise in several neighborhood sewage streams in July, they sent out text-message alerts and hung signs on the doors of 3,000 homes recommending that people get tested.
But when covid hit the U.S. amid political chaos and a shortage of tests, local governments scrambled for any information they could get on the virus.
In rural Lake County, California, health officials had identified a handful of cases by sending nurses out to look for infected people. They were sure there were more but couldn't get their hands on tests to prove it, so in spring 2020 they signed up for a free sewage testing program run by Biobot, which pivoted to covid testing as the pandemic took off and now is charging to test in K-12 schools, office buildings and nursing homes, in addition to local governments and universities, said Mariana Matus, CEO and co-founder of the company.
The covid virus turned up in samples at four wastewater treatment facilities in Lake County.
The test data alone doesn't provide much value to health officials it needs to be translated to be useful. Scientists are still learning how to read the data, a complicated process that involves understanding the relationships between how much virus people excrete, how many people are using a wastewater system and how much rainwater is running into the system, potentially diluting the sewage, among many other factors. Since using wastewater to track diseases was not widespread before the pandemic, there's been a steep and ongoing learning curve.
Beleaguered public health officials have struggled to incorporate the new data into their already overwhelming workloads, but the CDC hopes it can address those issues with its new national system that tracks and translates wastewater data for local governments.
"Every piece of this system had to be built largely from scratch," Kirby said. "When I look at that, it really amazes me where we are now."
In the months since the system debuted, it has been able to detect an uptick in cases anywhere from four to six days before diagnostic testing shows an increase, Kirby said.
She hopes that by the end of next year the federal monitoring program will be used to check for a range of diseases, including E. coli, salmonella, norovirus and a deadly drug-resistant fungus called Candida auris, which has become a global threat and wreaked havoc in hospitals and nursing homes.
It's in these smaller communities with limited access to testing and doctors where the practice may hold the most promise, Naughton said. Covid laid bare long-standing inequities among communities that she fears will be perpetuated by the use of this new public health tool.
Public health and wastewater officials said they are thrilled by the potential of this new tool and are working on ways to address privacy concerns while taking advantage of it. Greg Kester, director of renewable resource programs at the California Association of Sanitation Agencies, wrote to CDC officials in June 2020 asking for a federal surveillance network. He can hardly believe how quickly that call became a reality. And he hopes it is here to stay, both for the ongoing pandemic and for the inevitable next outbreak.
"As vaccination rates increase and we get the variants, it's still going to be important because clinical testing is decreasing," Kester said. "We really want to make this part of the infrastructure."
This story was produced by KHN (Kaiser Health News), a national newsroom that provides in-depth coverage of health issues and that is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KHN is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
The rapid spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant is raising borrowing costs for leisure-and-travel companies as debt investors recalculate the risks facing those industries.
Cruise operator Royal Caribbean Group borrowed $1 billion in bond markets Wednesday but the deal came at a hefty premium relative to the interest rate the company paid just a few weeks ago. Investors demanded a yield of 5.5% on the new five-year debt, up from the 4.25% they accepted when the company issued a similar bond in July. Royal Caribbean didnt immediately return requests for comment.
Bond yields remain well below the elevated levels companies were forced to pay to raise cash during the spring of 2020. But the spread of Delta is forcing airlines, cruise operators, hotel companies and others to reduce revenue forecasts for the rest of the year.
The difference, or spread, between the yield of junk-rated bonds in the leisure industry and the yield of U.S. Treasurys has jumped 0.42 percentage point since June to 3.80 percentage points, according to research firm CreditSights.
Loan prices for such companies with below-investment-grade credit ratings also are taking a hit.
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Heather Robertson has been on lockdown since March 2020. While restaurants, stadiums and stores have reopened across the state, Robertson and her Sugar Land family have not been afforded the comfort of pre-pandemic life.
Her 7-year-old son, Reid, had a liver transplant when he was 10 months old, leaving him immunosuppressed and more at risk for complications from COVID-19. Even before the pandemic, it was hard for Reid to fight off viruses.
Her other son, 11-year-old Reece, isnt under the same predicament. But with COVID-19 surging once again, masking optional at his school and vaccines not available for children under 12, he runs the risk of passing the virus along to his brother. So Robertson is scrambling to find a safer option for her kids.
That scramble is being replicated across the state by school administrators, teachers and other parents. For the second straight school year, schools must worry about how to keep their staff and their children safe and ensure that theyre providing the best possible education during a pandemic that has killed more than 50,000 Texans. Complicating the matter this year: Gov. Greg Abbott has banned mask mandates in schools and the state will not provide funding for remote learning.
Its still unclear when vaccines will be available for those under 12, but best-case scenarios suggest it could be late September or early October before theyre approved.
Worried parents across the state have found some hope this week as big-city school districts such as Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio and other Bexar County schools opted to defy Abbott and require masking for everyone on campus.
Under Abbotts executive order, districts or government entities can be fined $1,000, but it is unclear how this would apply to school districts. Abbott, along with Attorney General Ken Paxton, made clear this week that they plan to take school districts to court if they dont comply with his order.
And Paxton on Wednesday told Dallas radio host Mark Davis that Texas could go the route of Florida, where the GOP governor there, Ron DeSantis, has threatened to pull the funding of school districts that violate his ban on mask mandates. Paxton said the Texas Legislature would have to be involved, but he thinks there are definitely avenues [Abbott] will look at well look at with him to enforce these laws.
In El Paso, where school started more than a week ago, Jewel Contreras sends her young daughters to school with masks, even though El Paso ISD is not requiring them.
That doesn't really do anything because they come home and theyre not wearing masks, she said.
Contreras said her daughter's dad is epileptic and if he gets sick it triggers seizures. If virtual learning was an option at El Paso ISD, they wouldnt have to worry about the potential health risks. If cases keep rising, Contreras said she will consider pulling her daughters out and home schooling them.
For Robertson, the Sugar Land parent, the same concerns arise. Masking is optional at Lamar Consolidated Independent School District, and like many other school districts across the state, there is no virtual learning option.
Last spring, when the pandemic hit, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath issued a waiver allowing districts to receive full funding for virtual learning. That has since expired and a bill that wouldve established and expanded virtual learning this fall died in the regular session after Texas House Democrats walked out to prevent passage of a GOP-backed bill that would outlaw local voting options, among several other changes to state elections.
During this months special legislative session, Senate Bill 15, another virtual learning bill similar to the one considered in the regular session, was approved by a committee in the Texas Senate on Tuesday. The bill allows for school districts and charter schools that received a C grade or higher in the most recent round of state accountability grades to offer remote learning to students. Under the bill, however, districts cant have more than 10% of their student population enrolled online.
The measure has provisions to keep virtual learning in place until 2027, but several senators cant get behind that. Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, suggested the bill end in 2023, when the Legislature will meet again.
Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, also expressed concerns over the bill going beyond 2023.
It seems to me that we are having a titanic shift in philosophy at some level over a crisis that we know is temporary, Perry said.
Either way, the future of the bill is uncertain. Democrats have not returned to the state House as they continue to protest the elections bill. Until enough of them return, the chamber cant pass any legislation.
Bob Popinski, director of Raise Your Hand Texas, an education policy and research group, said his organization believes the best form of instruction is in person. But with coronavirus scrapping plans, the organization supports bills like SB 15 that allow school districts to create their own local virtual learning programs.
Some school districts have heard the cries of parents and will offer virtual learning at the cost of their budgets. Austin, Frisco, Round Rock, Leander, Pflugerville, Richardson, Lake Travis and Del Valle school districts are each offering some form of virtual learning, mostly for kids under the age of 12.
Round Rock Independent School District has more than 2,000 students signed up for virtual learning, according to spokesperson Jenny Caputo. That will cost the district between $8 million to $10 million per semester, depending on final figures.
While Round Rock ISD did receive funding from the federal government through both the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan, that wont be enough to cover the costs because the district already had a deficit due to the shutdown of 2020.
We're just relying on our current budget on being able to find savings where we can, Caputo said. However, you know this isn't sustainable long term.
In Austin ISD, more than 7,000 families enrolled for the virtual option but only about 4,034 were accepted. Austin ISD spokesperson Eddie Villa said it will cost the district $10,100 per student, putting the bill at about $40.7 million. About 2,388 of those children are out of district. The district offered the option to out-of-district families because of limited virtual options during the latest coronavirus surge.
Villa said the districts plan is to pay for that through the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds, but that could change as the district looks at its finances.
Other districts offering virtual options will also look toward the federal money to pay for it. In Frisco, the school district has about 8,100 students choosing the virtual option, costing the district about $20 million.
Frisco officials, though, say they are going to use money that the state is giving them in discretionary ESSER funds. Frisco ISD is set to receive about $33 million.
I won't say that I didn't lose sleep over proposing this option, said Mike Waldrip, Frisco ISD superintendent. We just felt compelled as a district to do this in response to the disease level and what we're seeing in preliminary research that [the delta variant] may be affecting children differently and we've got this age group of children that don't have vaccination as an option.
In rural communities, such as Caldwell ISD, virtual learning is not only a funding issue, but an accessibility one, said Superintendent Andrew Peters.
Fifty percent of my families are in poverty, Peters said. They don't have strong internet, they're working off of a cellphone, you know, they don't have a big 20-inch computer screen.
Peters said a lot of people in those families got laid off during the pandemic, and while they want their kids to do well in school, sometimes they're more worried about what theyre going to eat rather than how their kid is doing on a computer screen.
I'm not opposed to [virtual learning], he said. I just don't think that our society is built for that kind of learning environment.
During Tuesdays Senate Education Committee hearing, senators especially expressed concerns over how recent STAAR test scores suggested that remote learning led to considerable learning loss for students over the last year and a half. Morath told senators that the percentage of kids excelling in virtual education is "very small and estimates that learning loss wiped out between 10 to 20 years of statewide educational gains.
In districts where fewer than a quarter of classes were held in person, the number of students who met math test expectations dropped by 32 percentage points, and the number of students who met reading expectations dropped by 9 percentage points compared to 2019, the last time the test was administered.
The learning loss was particularly exacerbated in Hispanic communities. Hispanic students in districts with over three-quarters of learning done remotely saw the largest drops compared with students in other demographic groups, with a 10-percentage-point decrease in the number of students meeting reading expectations and a 34-percentage-point decrease in those meeting math expectations.
But still, for parents like Robertson, virtual learning is the best alternative. She said at least if her children struggled, she was there to help them and still had the assurance that they were safe.
Her 11-year-old, Reece, will attend the Texas Connections Academy at Houston, a full-time virtual school that is part of the Texas Virtual School Network under the TEA. There are seven such schools and most teach grades between 3 to 12. Reid is in second grade, which isnt offered.
One of the schools, iUniversity Prep serves grades 5 to 12, but has a cap on how many students it receives each year. Spokesperson Kaye Rogers said the cap sits at about 1,400 and they usually attract kids who are actors, elite athletes or have health issues. The school has seen more calls coming from parents with coronavirus concerns but they havent been swarmed by requests, she said.
The Texas Tribune contacted the six other online schools but did immediately get a response for an interview request.
For now, Robertson is waiting for LCISD to approve her homebound instruction request. Usually, homebound instruction is given to students that are confined to their home or a hospital. Students receive at least four hours of instruction per week and otherwise independently work on assignments.
Still, Robertson is wary of homebound instruction because that will mean someone outside her household has to come to her home and give that work to her child. Another option for parents is home schooling. The Texas Home School Coalition, which advocates for and provides resources to home schooling families, has reported that its call and email volume doubled to 1,016 during the last week of July, up from 536 the week before.
In 2020 we saw the largest surge in home schooling in history. It appears that renewed concern about COVID-19 may be about to replicate a similar trend for 2021, THSC president Tim Lambert said in a statement.
Some teachers and parents are eager to return to classrooms. Stephanie Stoebe, a fourth grade teacher at Teravista Elementary School in Round Rock, said she isnt worried about going back to school in person. She is vaccinated and takes the precautions necessary to be safe, she said.
She has cleaning protocols in place and will move desks apart. She also emphasized that families can send their children to schools with masks on. Policy is beyond her control, she said, but what she can do is be optimistic and give her students the best possible year.
I'm really excited, Stoebe said. It's going to be a fantastic year.
At the end of the day, parents like Robertson will have to make the decision that is right for their children.
I've seen my child on a ventilator, she said. It's really frightening it changes you and I don't want that for anybody's child.
Disclosure: Raise Your Hand Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Woman loses husband to COVID-19 complications, pleads with people to get the vaccine KMPH Fox 26
More than 190 million people have developed COVID-19 since late 2019, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Many other people have likely had the disease but never received a confirmed test result.
You may have had COVID-19 already without knowing it, although its impossible to know for sure unless you undergo an antibody test. And even a positive antibody test comes with a small chance of a false positive.
The most likely way to know that you had COVID-19 is if you had typical COVID-19 symptoms and received a positive diagnostic COVID-19 test when you were sick. But even gold standard PCR tests come with a chance of a false negative result, meaning you have COVID-19, but the test results indicate you do not.
If you didnt receive a positive COVID-19 test when you were sick, its harder to know if you had the disease.
There are no sure signs that you already had COVID-19. But there are some general symptoms you may have experienced, such as
Keep reading as we look at these signs in more depth
COVID-19 can affect many different parts of your body and cause general symptoms that have many potential causes. Some people with COVID-19 dont develop any symptoms.
Its impossible to know if you had an infection for sure without a positive COVID-19 test, but here are some of the potential signs.
Everybody experiences COVID-19 differently, and symptoms can mimic those of other respiratory infections. If you developed any of the most typical COVID-19 symptoms, especially after being in close contact with a someone who had COVID-19, it may be a sign that you had it, too.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the following are the most reported symptoms:
COVID-19, the common cold, and flu can be difficult to tell apart. Sneezing isnt a symptom of COVID-19 and may indicate you had a cold or allergies. Shortness of breath isnt a typical flu symptom but is one of the more common COVID-19 symptoms.
COVID-19 is thought to enter your cells through receptors for the enzyme called angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The virus enters these receptors by tricking your body into thinking its the ACE2 enzyme.
ACE2 receptors are found in various parts of your eyes, such as your retina and the epithelial cells that line your eye white and eyelid.
Some people with COVID-19 develop eye symptoms like:
Eye symptoms are usually accompanied by more typical COVID-19 symptoms, but they may appear alone in some people.
Loss of taste or smell is commonly reported in people with COVID-19. A review of studies found that loss of taste or smell was reported in 47 percent of people and was most common in people with mild to moderate disease.
Some people with COVID-19 also experience a distortion of these senses. Symptoms affecting taste or smell seem to often appear before other symptoms.
An August 2020 study found that in a group of 11,054 people with COVID-19, symptoms affecting smell and taste appeared before general symptoms in 64.5 and 54 percent of cases, respectively.
COVID-19 symptoms often show up in a particular order. In a 2020 study published by the University of Southern California, researchers analyzed the development of symptoms in 55,000 people with COVID-19 and compared them to the symptoms of 2,000 people with influenza.
They found that influenza most commonly started with a cough, while the initial symptom of COVID-19 was most likely to be a fever.
A wide range of initial symptoms of COVID-19 have been reported in scientific literature. Just because you didnt develop a fever first doesnt necessarily mean you didnt have COVID-19.
Some people who develop COVID-19 have symptoms that persist for weeks or months after their infection. These symptoms have been referred to as long-haul symptoms.
Young adults, children, and even people with mild disease can develop long-haul symptoms. Its not clear why some people develop long-haul symptoms, but its thought long-term tissue damage and inflammation may play a role. Some of the most reported symptoms include:
There are four notable COVID-19 variants in the United States named after the first four letters of the Greek alphabet:
These variants seem to spread quicker than standard COVID-19, but the symptoms seem to be similar. For example, a May 2021 study found that the Alpha variant wasnt linked to a change in self-reported symptoms among people in the United Kingdom.
Some variants may cause certain symptoms more often than other variants. Early research published by the University of Edinburgh has found that the Delta variation is associated with an increased risk of hospitalization.
According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the presence of COVID-19 variants in a testing sample may potentially impair the results of some COVID-19 tests. Most tests should still be accurate, but the FDA continues to monitor tests that may be impacted.
Currently, commercially available COVID-19 tests only indicate whether you have COVID-19. They dont tell you if you have a particular variant. A COVID-19 sample needs to undergo a process called genomic sequencing for health professionals to identify variants.
Some rapid antigen COVID-19 tests can provide results in minutes. However, they come with a relatively high chance of receiving inaccurate results.
In a review of studies published in Cochrane,researchers analyzed the results of 64 studies and 24,087 nose or throat samples. The researchers found commercially available point-of-care antigen tests correctly identified confirmed COVID-19 infections in 72 percent of people with symptoms and 58 percent of people without symptoms.
The tests were most accurate during the first week of infection.
In people without COVID-19, the tests correctly identified a negative result in 99.5 percent of people.
Its impossible to know if you had COVID-19 judging by your symptoms alone, since most typical symptoms can also be signs of other respiratory infections.
The most likely way to know if youve had COVID-19 is if you had typical COVID-19 symptoms and a positive diagnostic test result when you were sick. A positive antibody test can also indicate that you previously had COVID-19.
No COVID-19 test is 100 percent accurate. Even if you tested negative for COVID-19 with a diagnostic or antibody test, theres still a small chance that you received a false negative; meaning it was inaccurate.
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Staff video, USA TODAY
Sheletta Brundidgehas three children, and each time she gave birth Brundidge said she almost died.
Medical workers and doctors ignored her concerns and symptoms multiple times, anissue Brundidge says is too common within the Black community.
Her experience with the healthcare system led Brundidge to develop hesitancy toward receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Up until last week, she had no plans to get vaccinated. Instead, she followed socially distanced protocols and kept her mask on in public.
But then, her now 15-year-old sontold her he just had one birthday wish for his mom to get vaccinated.
Aside from her oldest son Andrew, Brundidge also has two autistic children. Andrew worried if his mom was unvaccinated and contradicted COVID-19, the family would be motherless.
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"Andrew told me, 'Mom, no one is going to care for me and my autistic siblings like you will," Brundidgetold USA TODAY. "So I knew I had to ease his anxiety about that. I couldn't add to his worries mentally."
Brundidge is set to receive her vaccine shot this afternoon in Minnesota. Although she said she's still nervous, she's happy to haveGov.Tim Walz by her sidewhen she receives her first dose, as part of an effort to encourage other communities of color to get vaccinated.
As a host ofWCCO Radio and her own podcast, Sheletta Makes MeLaugh, Brundidge said she hopes her story encourages Black and Brown residents to get vaccinated, despite their reservations.
Black people make up about 10% of those fully vaccinated in the U.S., according to the Centers for Control Disease and Prevention. Members of the Black community are also twice as likely to be hospitalized or die if tested positive for COVID-19.
Before confronting his mom, Andrew Brundidge took a few weeks to research and read information about the COVID-19 vaccine and the disease itself. He saw the "scary" odds against the Black community and knew he needed to convince his mother to get vaccinated. After long and open conversations, he said he's happy his mother will complete his birthday wish.
"I didn't want my mom to be another statistic. I told her, 'Who's going to take care of us if something happens to you?'"Andrew told USA TODAY.
Although she's set to be vaccinated today, Brundidge said she still holds some fears. But her reservations are overshadowed by her desire to protect herself and her family.
Brundidge hopes other Black and Brown people will choose to get vaccinated for the sake of their health and others, even if they're scared.
"Do it scared, get vaccinated scared like me. It's worthit, in the end, to send a positive message and be protected.,"
Follow Gabriela Miranda on Twitter: @itsgabbymiranda
