Vermont Was Once a Model for School Reopenings. What Happened?
Last year around this time, Vermont public schools welcomed students back to the classroom with the help of a rigorous, 41-page plan to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In part, the document called for evidence-based measures including masks, staggered arrival and drop-off times, and virtual field trips—and all this despite the fact that Vermont had only five cases statewide at the time.
Fast-forward 12 months, to the start of another school year, and the picture is markedly different. This year's reopening memo is a brief 1.5 pages, and Vermont governor Phil Scott is resisting calls to implement a universal masking mandate. Instead, citing the state's relatively high vaccination rate of 85.7%, officials there are favoring a light touch. Still, Scott's refusal to issue a mask mandate contradicts the latest federal public health guidance, while the new document fails to mention some tried-and-tested mitigation measures, like ventilation.
In other words, after offering the U.S. a textbook for reopening schools safely, Vermont is throwing out the lesson plan, writes Anne N. Sosin, a policy fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy at Dartmouth College. She's also a public health researcher, practitioner and parent in Vermont. In a new piece for TIME, Sosin lambasts Vermont officials for making children "an afterthought of the pandemic response." Governor Scott, Sosin writes, is among several nationwide leaders who "have shown outright disregard for the health and education of children."
As Sosin points out, the timing of Vermont's U-turn is particularly bad. Kids under 12 still aren't eligible to get vaccinated, even as the more transmissible Delta variant takes hold across the country. And recent data indicate that children now account for nearly one in five U.S. cases of COVID-19. The country reported more than 180,000 cases among children during the week that ended Aug. 19, compared to 38,000 the week that ended July 22. Plus, some states are seeing record-high pediatric hospitalizations.
Many states modeled their approach on Vermont's strategy earlier in the pandemic. Now, Sosin argues, the state needs to study back up on where it went right and correct course to ensure students have the safest possible school year. "It's time to stop minimizing the risk of COVID-19 to children and debating minimalistic approaches to reopening schools," Sosin writes. "Vermont's local control approach has left school leaders and unvaccinated children at the mercy of village political whims and expertise."
About 430.1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this afternoon, of which nearly 364.8 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 51.7% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 213.2 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 11 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4.4 million people have died. On August 24, there were 664,817 new cases and 11,042 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 4 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 38 million coronavirus cases as of 11 a.m. E.T. today. More than 630,800 people have died. On August 24, there were 135,245 new cases and 1,405 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Aug. 25, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
U.S. military troops must get vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, the Pentagon ordered today. "I have determined that mandatory vaccination against coronavirus disease ... is necessary to protect the force and defend the American people," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a memo. More than 800,000 active duty service members are currently unvaccinated, the Associated Press reports.
Pfizer and BioNTech are initiating a request for full U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a coronavirus booster shot, they announced today. Third doses are not currently authorized for widespread use in the U.S. However, on Aug. 12, the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization for boosters for those over age 12 who have received an organ transplant or are immunocompromised.
We're only a few weeks into the school year, but some districts have already switched back to remote learning or a hybrid approach amid a surge in infections, the AP reports—more than 1 in every 100 school-aged children in Georgia, for example, tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two weeks. Some schools are delaying the start to in-person classes, while others shifted entirely back to online courses. Other districts may face similar decisions as more reopen over the coming weeks.
While Congress has allotted $46.5 billion for emergency pandemic home rental aid, that money is being distributed at a snail's pace—only $1.7 billion was given out last month, the Washington Post reports, just a slight uptick from June's $1.5 billion figure. While millions of American families are currently protected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest evictions moratorium, they will eventually have to back-pay their rent bills, and many will likely need aid to do so.
COVID-19 vaccinations in Afghanistan dropped by 80% in the week after the Taliban captured Kabul, according to UNICEF. Just 30,500 Afghans were inoculated during the week starting Aug. 15, compared to 134,600 the previous week. Complicating the matter: about 2 million vaccine doses—half the country's supply—will expire in November. Afghanistan had a low vaccination rate even before the takeover: As of Aug. 20, only 1.2 million doses had been administered in the country of 40 million people.
Delta Air Lines isn't mandating vaccination for its employees, but it's trying another tactic to encourage workers to get the shots: effective Nov. 1, unvaccinated Delta employees will have to pay a $200 monthly health insurance surcharge. They'll also be subject to weekly testing as long as transmission rates remain high, the Wall Street Journal reports. "This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company," Delta CEO Ed Bastian wrote in a note to employees; Delta added that each employee hospitalization for COVID-19 has cost the company as much as $50,000
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Angela Haupt and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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