US Coronavirus: Officials split over hiding children in schools as pediatric hospitals fill up with Covid-19 patients

But officials at state and local levels have failed to streamline their back-to-school mask-wearing strategy, prompting local districts to create their own rules.

In Texas, the Houston Independent School District will impose masks on returning students on August 23, despite an executive order from GOP Governor Greg Abbott banning counties, public school districts, public health officials and government officials from require masks to be worn.

“I will come up with a mask warrant,” HISD Superintendent Millard House said in a video posted to Twitter. “This mask mandate will be for our students, staff and visitors to all of our schools, buses and facilities. “

The mask warrant measure will take effect when the school board approves it next week, House said, adding that the move comes after local authorities raised the threat level of Covid-19 to red.

“Now we are starting to see a lot of young people crammed into hospitals and a lot of children in pediatric intensive care units. And for me, that is a game changer. We haven’t seen children crammed into the pediatric intensive care units in the South like we haven’t seen this as much last summer, ”Dr. Peter Hotez, Dean of the Hospital, told CNN on Friday. ‘National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Orange County Public Schools in Florida issued a mask warrant for all students on Friday unless parents elect their children to opt out, the district said in a press release. Employees, visitors, volunteers and parents are required to wear masks.

Safe return to school is possible if mitigation efforts, including wearing masks, are implemented, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who heads the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

“The places that have a problem, the places that have diseases that spread in schools, are the places that don’t take prevention strategies. The places that don’t mask. The places where you see children in the hospital, the places where you see pictures of children in the hospital are all places that do not apply mitigation strategies to keep our children safe, ”Walensky said Friday.

“If you are masked and apply all mitigation and prevention strategies, (Covid-19) will not be passed on to school. It will be contained,” Walensky added.

The CDC recommends that everyone – students, teachers, staff and visitors – wear masks in schools.

And while 50% of the total population is fully vaccinated, children under 12 are still not allowed to be vaccinated, according to the CDC. In the meantime, health experts including Hotez and Marty say mitigation efforts in schools should be implemented regardless of students’ immunization status.

“Yes, mask warrants. I think we absolutely need immunization warrants for our schools if we are really going to give the best of ourselves to children,” Hotez said.

Boosters for people with weaker immune systems could be on the horizon

Immunocompromised people may soon hear about a possible recall of the Covid-19 vaccine.

A U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision on the recall could be made before early September, a Biden administration official told CNN.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that within the next week or two, FDA officials are expected to review data on additional vaccine doses for immunocompromised people from the CDC. If the data is verified, the FDA will change emergency use authorizations for at least two Covid-19 vaccines to allow additional doses, The New York Times reported.

This decision could affect millions of people who may not have had an adequate response to the vaccine.

This includes people taking immunosuppressive drugs, some organ transplant patients, and those with certain medical conditions. Research published in the JAMA Network Open estimates that 6 million people in the United States are taking immunosuppressants that could interfere with the vaccine – a number that the researchers say is likely underestimated.

The CDC warned last month that the vaccine may not have been effective for people who are immunocompromised. The agency said those people should continue to take precautions as if they were not vaccinated.

Meanwhile, for others, a booster might just be part of the vaccine completion process, not an annual re-immunization requirement, said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. .

“I don’t think we wanted to think that these vaccines somehow failed us,” Marks said in a discussion hosted by the Covid-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project.

Marks distinguished two ways of looking at third doses: one to help people without an effective immune response, and the other to combat the continued circulation of the virus.

“There’s the third dose of vaccine as part of the initial round for people who don’t have a good immune response – it’s kind of a third dose. And then there may be a third dose, or a booster. , depending on how you look at it, this will be given to make sure we have good immunity to the circulating strains of Covid-19, “Marks said.” I think we have to make sure we present this correctly. “

Hospitals are strained amid delta surge

As cases increase, hospitals and staff are faced with dire situations day in and day out.

In Louisiana, 2,421 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 on Friday, compared to 71 patients compared to the previous day.

“We broke the all-time record that we had in Louisiana on Tuesday, and every day since then we have increased. And I can tell you that the indications are that we will increase by over 100 more for the ratio of tomorrow, ”Governor John Bel Edwards said.

3,939 other children have tested positive for Covid-19 in Louisiana since its last press conference on Monday.

“This means that this week, more than 6,000 children have tested positive. So in light of that and the recommendations of the CDC, the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics, information that we received here from the Office of Public Health and leading pediatricians in Louisiana, and frankly, as a parent myself, I have to ask, why don’t we send our kids to school with masks on? ” asked Edwards.

“Any holistic effort to slow the spread of the virus, which is absolutely paramount right now, in light of everything we are seeing across the state of Louisiana, must simply include these young people,” Edwards added.

Edwards said he was hopeful because over the past month the number of people choosing to receive their first Covid-19 vaccine has increased by more than 300% in the state.

And in Tennessee, the rise in Covid-19 is so high that Republican Gov. Bill Lee issued an executive order allowing hospitals to hire out-of-state healthcare providers and allow healthcare professionals to retirement to easily reintegrate the health personnel. His order also increased the bed capacity for Covid-19 patients.