Laura Ungar and Samantha Young
Kaiser Health News
California mom Megan Bacigalupi has had enough. She wants her kindergartner and second-grader back in their Oakland classrooms.
But the coronavirus is spreading too quickly to open schools in Alameda County, based on current state standards. And the local teachers union hasn’t agreed to go back – even after teachers have been vaccinated. So she expects her kids will be logging on to school from home for a while.
“The impediments to opening are just too great,” said Bacigalupi, who is lobbying California lawmakers to establish firm, statewide health metrics that, once met, would require schools to open. “In the end, it comes down to a lack of political will to get the kids back in the classroom.”
USA TODAY
Concerned about new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced late Thursday that it is developing guidance to help vaccine, drug and testing manufacturers adapt.
Existing vaccines, treatments and tests still work well, emphasized the FDA s acting commissioner Janet Woodcock. But now is the time to get ready for a future when they may not. We must prepare for all eventualities, she said in a call with reporters.
Within the next few weeks, the FDA will provide draft guidance to manufacturers on how to adapt their products as needed, Woodcock said. Feedback from companies and others will help refine that guidance.
USA TODAY
In late December, the idea that safe, effective vaccines against COVID-19 had been created in less than a year seemed miraculous – a triumph of science and American ingenuity.
It took only six weeks to tarnish that image.
Pride in the remarkable feat has been replaced by confusion, accusations of unfairness, frustrating waits and the nightmare of vaccine vials gathering dust while tens of thousands of people die of what is now a preventable disease.
Even people leading the effort are at a loss to explain how and why things took such a bad turn so fast. I would love to understand it, said Moncef Slaoui, head of the vaccine development effort under the Trump administration and an adviser to the Biden administration.
In Alamogordo, New Mexico, Florence Nightingale is known for being a bit cantankerous.
She’s an older, bigger lady and when she stops working, she often needs some gentle coaxing before she’ll start again. The coronavirus pandemic has pushed her to the brink, and working so much overtime depleted her tank. She spent the holiday break getting some much-needed pampering.
Flo, as her friends call her, is a 40-foot Winnebago turned into a mobile nurse s station. She s Alamogordo Public Schools most lauded health care provider, purchased with CARES funding.
Her most frequent passenger? School nurse Lisa Patch, who is also the health services director for the rural school district just 80 miles from the Mexican border.