Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Birx Calls For College 'Surge' Testing While Trump Urges In-Person Classes
Center For Public Integrity: On Private Call, White House’s Birx Recommends Robust Testing For Colleges
White House Coronavirus Task Force leader Dr. Deborah Birx, on a private call with state and local leaders Wednesday, recommended that universities test students returning for fall classes as well as set up “surge” testing. “Each university not only has to do entrance testing,” she said, according to a recording of the call obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. “What we talked to every university about is being able to do surge testing. How are you going to do 5,000 samples in one day or 10,000 samples in one day?” (Essley Whyte, 8/19)
The Hill: Trump Pushes For Universities To Reopen Even As Coronavirus Cases Spike On Campuses
President Trump on Wednesday pushed for universities to reopen for classes in the fall amid coronavirus outbreaks on campuses that have reopened — and in some cases closed — this month. “We have learned one thing, there’s nothing like campus, there’s nothing like being with a teacher as opposed to being on a computer board,” Trump said Wednesday at a briefing. “The iPads are wonderful but you’re not going to learn the same way as being there.” (Klar, 8/19)
AP: Teachers Could Stay In Classroom If Exposed To COVID-19
New guidance from the President Donald Trump’s administration that declares teachers to be “critical infrastructure workers” could give the green light to exempting teachers from quarantine requirements after being exposed to COVID-19 and instead send them back into the classroom. Keeping teachers without symptoms in the classroom, as a handful of school districts in Tennessee and Georgia have already said they may do, raises the risk that they will spread the respiratory illness to students and fellow employees. Experience from schools that reopened for face-to-face instruction in recent weeks shows multiple teachers can be required by public health agencies to quarantine for 14 days during an outbreak. That could stretch a district’s ability to keep providing in-person instruction. (Amy, 8/20)
In more school news from the states —
NBC News: UConn Students Evicted From Dorms For Holding Pandemic Party As Schools Grapple With COVID-19 Crisis
Several University of Connecticut students were looking for new digs Wednesday after the dangers of reopening universities during a pandemic were laid bare in a video that showed undergrads living it up at a packed dorm room party where almost nobody was wearing a mask and there was zero social distancing. While the worst offenders were slapped with eviction notices, UConn officials gave no sign that they intend to follow the lead of other colleges, like the University of Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, that canceled in-class instruction and sent students home for the semester after coronavirus outbreaks on their campuses. (Winter and Siemaszko, 8/19)
Boston Globe: Most Mass. Students Will Be Required To Get The Flu Vaccine This Year
In what is believed to be a first in the nation, Massachusetts on Wednesday mandated that nearly all students under the age of 30 get a flu vaccine by the end of this year amid fears that concurrent outbreaks of influenza and COVID-19 in the fall could overwhelm the state’s health care system. The mandate, hailed by public health experts nationwide, requires the vaccination for anyone 6 months or older in child care centers, preschool, kindergarten, K-12 schools, and colleges and universities, unless they have a religious or medical exemption, are home-schooled, or are a higher education student living off campus and taking remote-only classes. (Lazar, Gans and Stoico, 8/19)
New Orleans Times-Picayune: As Louisiana Schools Balance Coronavirus Safety With Privacy, State Eyes Policy Changes
Parents of students at St. Martin's Episcopal School in Metairie received what's becoming a more commonplace email Tuesday morning: Because of possible exposure to coronavirus, a handful of students and one faculty member had been told to quarantine off campus. But that note home included a caveat: The Rev. Michael Kuhn, the acting head of the Metairie school, said it would be the last time the school notified all parents of such cases due to medical privacy concerns. (Hasselle, 8/19)
AP: Arizona Close To Meeting Virus Metrics For School Reopenings
Arizona’s downward trend of coronavirus cases means parts of the state could meet all three metrics the state’s health and education departments set for at least a partial reopening of schools by Labor Day, according to a former state health director. And bars and nightclubs in at least some counties could meet the parameters for reopening shortly after that, according to Will Humble, who now leads the Arizona Public Health Association. (Christie, 8/19)
The Washington Post: Pandemic Parents: Why Can Child-Care Open In Schools That Won’t Allow Classes?
Schools in Montgomery County won’t open for traditional classes in the fall, but hundreds, maybe thousands, of elementary schoolchildren may be taking part in “distance learning hubs” in the same buildings that were closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. In programs run by child-care providers long based in county schools, students would take their Chromebooks to school daily and join small cohorts of their peers — akin to parent-organized “pandemic pods” that are popular across the country. Children ages 5 to 12 would follow online learning schedules and participate in activities during free time. (St. George, 8/19)
