Sorry, the FDA. Why are they asking this week? Why didn't they look at the study protocols in MARCH? This is going to set back approval. This lands on Biden. Zero urgency.


July 26 (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have asked Pfizer Inc -BioNTech and Moderna Inc to expand the size of ongoing trials testing their COVID-19 vaccines in children aged between five and 11, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The Food and Drug Administration has indicated that the current strength of the studies was inadequate to detect the rare side effects, including myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining around the heart, the report said. (https://nyti.ms/3xgzuWZ)

The health regulator has asked the companies to include 3,000 children in their trials, almost double the original number of study participants, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

FDA, Pfizer and Moderna did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. (Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the public schools will start in person but as the weather gets colder and the cases of the delta variant increase then the schools will shut down and be virtual by the winter.
That’s why we opted for private for our kids this year.

Or.....nothing will happen and we are all flying into a panic based on last year's debacle.

Did we see this article about the UK?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain-covid-cases-plummet-mystery/2021/07/28/4fa3a734-ef7c-11eb-81b2-9b7061a582d8_story.html

Something strange is happening in Britain. Covid cases are plummeting instead of soaring.

They have an over 70% adult vax rate. We don't and aren't close.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This wave will be over before school starts, folks. I’m not a COVID denier (I’ve never stopped masking indoors and we kept DS home all year last year) but I doubt there will be any political will to shut schools down like they did last year. Teachers, kids, parents, and the government all want them back. Barring a very serious/large outbreak in DC, I think they’ll remain open all year (potentially minus small, single-school shut downs).

STICK THIS SENSE OF CALM DIRECTLY INTO MY VEINS.

Yes, let me get some of that too.

I felt so absolutely betrayed and shocked by decisions made out of nowhere last year, that I would put nothing past our DC government, school leadership, even other parents.

I don't know where the political will or any other will lies, to be honest.

The War Has Changed
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/

The delta variant of the coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants

the agency knows it must revamp its public messaging to emphasize vaccination as the best defense against a variant so contagious that it acts almost like a different novel virus, leaping from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or the common cold.

there are 35,000 symptomatic infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans.

Because public health officials had emphasized the great efficacy of the vaccines, the realization that they aren’t perfect may feel like a betrayal. “We’ve done a great job of telling the public these are miracle vaccines,” Seeger said. “We have probably fallen a little into the trap of over-reassurance, which is one of the challenges of any crisis communication circumstance.”

f the war has changed, as the CDC states, so has the calculus of success and failure. The extreme contagiousness of delta makes herd immunity a more challenging target, infectious-disease experts said.
“I think the central issue is that vaccinated people are probably involved to a substantial extent in the transmission of delta,” Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University epidemiologist, wrote in an email after reviewing the CDC slides. “In some sense, vaccination is now about personal protection — protecting oneself against severe disease. Herd immunity is not relevant as we are seeing plenty of evidence of repeat and breakthrough infections.”

The message I take from this is that there is no reason to NOT have in-person school, if all kids are going to get it and there's no ability to fight it.

I take from it that we should probably get kids vaccinated before sending them to get infected.

That's my thought. In a way, I wish Trump were in charge of the 12 and below vaccinations. I loved the way he leaned on the red tape. I read THIS week that the CDC has asked Pfizer and Moderna to double their kid test pools. Why did they not ask that when the kid trials started in March? I am 100% not a Trumper, but the way his administration leaned on efficiency in pushing the vaccine development through was brilliant. I want a safe vaccine for under 12s, but I am also pissed off at the thought that any time has been wasted for the deployment of a vaccine for them this fall. Apropos of that--what are we looking at. November? December? DCPS should just delay opening until then and go through summer 2022. Ugh.

Our Plan B is moving for the year. I was looking at options last night. Will rent in another state with fulltime in person and either rent out our AUPark house or leave it empty and eat the costs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am somewhat confident that we will not have to go to Plan B...but I am wavering a bit lately.

Plan B for us is to immediately go and rent a 2 BR apartment in the closest MD or VA district that is open, and my husband and I and our son will live there. We can handle a long commute for a year (no, we will not commit residency fraud and keep living in our DC house while we attend school elsewhere). DS is a senior in high school, and I am desperate for him to have one full, in-person year to finish it out.

Fairfax will be stay open because of the governor's race. The Republican candidate is running in part on a platform that schools need to be open. The democrat will lose if schools close. I bet Fairfax stays open through hell or high water this school year.

I never thought Republicans would show leadership on educational issues until this pandemic. (I still hope he loses, but glad he is putting this pressure on.)

LOL, that should tell you something about the wisdom of opening schools.

No, that tells me that even a blind chicken sometimes finds a seed.

And your response tells me that a big reason many liberals dug in on the school issue is their reflexive opposition to anything Republicans say.

I will say, the school closures did not make me a Republican, but they gave me some respect for the Republican value of small government and self-reliance. While those qualities don’t always lead to policy choices I agree with, they did lead to an orientation of not being consumed with preventing all covid risk. But at the end of the day, I’m also not sure if it wasn’t just pure interest group politics. Because of course all sorts of childcare remained open in Democratic states and cities. It was just unionized schools that closed (with charters and neighboring jurisdictions riding coattails).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am somewhat confident that we will not have to go to Plan B...but I am wavering a bit lately.

Plan B for us is to immediately go and rent a 2 BR apartment in the closest MD or VA district that is open, and my husband and I and our son will live there. We can handle a long commute for a year (no, we will not commit residency fraud and keep living in our DC house while we attend school elsewhere). DS is a senior in high school, and I am desperate for him to have one full, in-person year to finish it out.

Fairfax will be stay open because of the governor's race. The Republican candidate is running in part on a platform that schools need to be open. The democrat will lose if schools close. I bet Fairfax stays open through hell or high water this school year.

I never thought Republicans would show leadership on educational issues until this pandemic. (I still hope he loses, but glad he is putting this pressure on.)

LOL, that should tell you something about the wisdom of opening schools.

No, that tells me that even a blind chicken sometimes finds a seed.

And your response tells me that a big reason many liberals dug in on the school issue is their reflexive opposition to anything Republicans say.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This wave will be over before school starts, folks. I’m not a COVID denier (I’ve never stopped masking indoors and we kept DS home all year last year) but I doubt there will be any political will to shut schools down like they did last year. Teachers, kids, parents, and the government all want them back. Barring a very serious/large outbreak in DC, I think they’ll remain open all year (potentially minus small, single-school shut downs).

STICK THIS SENSE OF CALM DIRECTLY INTO MY VEINS.

Yes, let me get some of that too.

I felt so absolutely betrayed and shocked by decisions made out of nowhere last year, that I would put nothing past our DC government, school leadership, even other parents.

I don't know where the political will or any other will lies, to be honest.

The War Has Changed
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/

The delta variant of the coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants

the agency knows it must revamp its public messaging to emphasize vaccination as the best defense against a variant so contagious that it acts almost like a different novel virus, leaping from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or the common cold.

there are 35,000 symptomatic infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans.

Because public health officials had emphasized the great efficacy of the vaccines, the realization that they aren’t perfect may feel like a betrayal. “We’ve done a great job of telling the public these are miracle vaccines,” Seeger said. “We have probably fallen a little into the trap of over-reassurance, which is one of the challenges of any crisis communication circumstance.”

f the war has changed, as the CDC states, so has the calculus of success and failure. The extreme contagiousness of delta makes herd immunity a more challenging target, infectious-disease experts said.
“I think the central issue is that vaccinated people are probably involved to a substantial extent in the transmission of delta,” Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University epidemiologist, wrote in an email after reviewing the CDC slides. “In some sense, vaccination is now about personal protection — protecting oneself against severe disease. Herd immunity is not relevant as we are seeing plenty of evidence of repeat and breakthrough infections.”

The message I take from this is that there is no reason to NOT have in-person school, if all kids are going to get it and there's no ability to fight it.

+1. Also, Delta is in retreat in England and India.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am somewhat confident that we will not have to go to Plan B...but I am wavering a bit lately.

Plan B for us is to immediately go and rent a 2 BR apartment in the closest MD or VA district that is open, and my husband and I and our son will live there. We can handle a long commute for a year (no, we will not commit residency fraud and keep living in our DC house while we attend school elsewhere). DS is a senior in high school, and I am desperate for him to have one full, in-person year to finish it out.

Fairfax will be stay open because of the governor's race. The Republican candidate is running in part on a platform that schools need to be open. The democrat will lose if schools close. I bet Fairfax stays open through hell or high water this school year.

I never thought Republicans would show leadership on educational issues until this pandemic. (I still hope he loses, but glad he is putting this pressure on.)

LOL, that should tell you something about the wisdom of opening schools.

It's just getting dumb to politicize everything. Much of Europe kept schools open throughout much of last year. Are they also shitty at education?

Anonymous wrote:I think the public schools will start in person but as the weather gets colder and the cases of the delta variant increase then the schools will shut down and be virtual by the winter.
That’s why we opted for private for our kids this year.

Or.....nothing will happen and we are all flying into a panic based on last year's debacle.

Did we see this article about the UK?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain-covid-cases-plummet-mystery/2021/07/28/4fa3a734-ef7c-11eb-81b2-9b7061a582d8_story.html

Something strange is happening in Britain. Covid cases are plummeting instead of soaring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am somewhat confident that we will not have to go to Plan B...but I am wavering a bit lately.

Plan B for us is to immediately go and rent a 2 BR apartment in the closest MD or VA district that is open, and my husband and I and our son will live there. We can handle a long commute for a year (no, we will not commit residency fraud and keep living in our DC house while we attend school elsewhere). DS is a senior in high school, and I am desperate for him to have one full, in-person year to finish it out.

Fairfax will be stay open because of the governor's race. The Republican candidate is running in part on a platform that schools need to be open. The democrat will lose if schools close. I bet Fairfax stays open through hell or high water this school year.

I never thought Republicans would show leadership on educational issues until this pandemic. (I still hope he loses, but glad he is putting this pressure on.)

LOL, that should tell you something about the wisdom of opening schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am somewhat confident that we will not have to go to Plan B...but I am wavering a bit lately.

Plan B for us is to immediately go and rent a 2 BR apartment in the closest MD or VA district that is open, and my husband and I and our son will live there. We can handle a long commute for a year (no, we will not commit residency fraud and keep living in our DC house while we attend school elsewhere). DS is a senior in high school, and I am desperate for him to have one full, in-person year to finish it out.

Fairfax will be stay open because of the governor's race. The Republican candidate is running in part on a platform that schools need to be open. The democrat will lose if schools close. I bet Fairfax stays open through hell or high water this school year.

I never thought Republicans would show leadership on educational issues until this pandemic. (I still hope he loses, but glad he is putting this pressure on.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am somewhat confident that we will not have to go to Plan B...but I am wavering a bit lately.

Plan B for us is to immediately go and rent a 2 BR apartment in the closest MD or VA district that is open, and my husband and I and our son will live there. We can handle a long commute for a year (no, we will not commit residency fraud and keep living in our DC house while we attend school elsewhere). DS is a senior in high school, and I am desperate for him to have one full, in-person year to finish it out.

Fairfax will be stay open because of the governor's race. The Republican candidate is running in part on a platform that schools need to be open. The democrat will lose if schools close. I bet Fairfax stays open through hell or high water this school year.

Good to know. Thanks.

The mayor needs to enforce vaccination for city employees now. Yesterday.

Anonymous wrote:I think the public schools will start in person but as the weather gets colder and the cases of the delta variant increase then the schools will shut down and be virtual by the winter.
That’s why we opted for private for our kids this year.

And then next year we’ll do the same thing for the sigma variant?

I think the public schools will start in person but as the weather gets colder and the cases of the delta variant increase then the schools will shut down and be virtual by the winter.
That’s why we opted for private for our kids this year.