>>14281484For children 12 to 17, for the week ending November 29, prior to Omicron being detected in the US, vaccine effectiveness against infection compared to the unvaccinated showed an 85 percent protection rate. By mid-December, when Omicron represent 19 percent of all sequences, the effectiveness dropped to 65 percent. By January 24, 2022, with Omicron dominant, the effectiveness had dropped to 50 percent, as noted in the figure below. Vaccine effectiveness for older teens remained higher at 73 percent, but this too was down from a high of 94 percent.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new guidelines and the repealing of all mask mandates in school by state officials will have a significant impact on the health of children. According to Education Week, a newly formed coalition called The Urgency of Equity, which include Yale University Epidemiology Professor Gregg Gonsalves, has called on schools to make high-quality masks available for all students and defended universal masking.
They wrote, “Healthy schools mean fewer children bringing the virus home to their families where it can spread to other vulnerable family members, including grandparents and younger siblings. Over 200,000 children have lost a caregiver during the pandemic, causing emotional stress, poor mental health, and severe disruptions to learning … Tragically, more than 400 teachers have died.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration had promised $130 billion from his American Rescue Plan towards the improvement of school ventilation and also to allow schools to access tests and hire more teachers, nurses, and other staff. Such promises have yet to materialize, and may never.
