UPDATES -- Flu, Pandemic Learning Loss, & COVID Vaccines
Three Things Thursday (the day-late edition)
Three Things Thursday highlights three things I am paying attention to as an epidemiologist each week. And yes, I know this is coming to you on Friday. I spent yesterday with my daughter & her best friend, celebrating the end of 10th grade. We ate sushi and spent time at the book store. I’m almost done reading Betrayal of Trust: The collapse of global public health and then will move onto Rough Sleepers or The Demon of Unrest. I ended my day visiting with a friend who is fostering five very tiny kittens. It was a perfect day of rest for me. My apologies for getting this week’s Three Things to you a little late..
Please note, this week is National CPR and AED Awareness Week. According to the American Heart Association —
“Did you know about 70 percent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen in homes? If you are called on to give CPR in an emergency, you will most likely be trying to save the life of someone you love. Be the difference for your parent, spouse, or child. What if it were them?”
We should all learn CPR and how to use an AED.
In addition to National CPR and AED week, this week’s Three Things includes news about avian influenza (H5N1 & H5N2), pandemic learning loss, and the fall 2024 COVID-19 vaccine.
Hoping this post helps to educate and empower you
to be healthy and create healthy communities.
Avian Influenza
Only three humans (who work on dairy farms) have contracted H5N1 in the United States. On Wednesday Iowa became the tenth state to report H5N1 in dairy cows. Genetic analysis indicates that the cows in Iowa contracted the virus from infected egg-laying hens (Iowa has reported more than 4 million sick hens). As the number of sick chickens and cows increases, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases released its research agenda for avian influenza this week, which focuses on understanding the virus’s biology, prevention, developing therapeutics, and supporting diagnostic techniques.
In addition to H5N1 spreading in the United States…
The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a man in Mexico has died from H5N2, a strain of influenza that has never been diagnosed in humans before. It isn’t clear how the man contracted H5N2; however —
“Although the source of exposure to the virus in this case is currently unknown, A(H5N2) viruses have been reported in poultry in Mexico.”
More than likely this man contracted H5N2 via exposure to poultry.1
Despite H5N2 being diagnosed in a single human and H5N1 continuing to spread in the United States the risk of avian influenza to the general public (in both the United States and Mexico) remains low.
Pandemic Learning Loss
As the school year ends (my daughter finished yesterday; my son will be done at noon today!), I thought we’d take a minute to talk about pandemic learning loss… According to The New York Times elementary and middle school students have made up a lot of lost learning since schools closed in 2020. Across the country — students have made up one-third of the math learning lost in 2020. And one-quarter of the reading skills that were lost during the pandemic.
The Education Recovery Scorecard Report (published in January) demonstrated that the educational gains over the past year significantly exceeded what students would typically learn during an academic year (based on previous data). Sean Reardon, Professor of Poverty & Inequality in Education and a co-author of the report notes —
“We should thank teachers and principals and superintendents for what they’ve done for American schoolchildren in the last year. Their efforts have led to strikingly large improvements in children’s learning. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that
the recovery has been uneven, and we have a long way to go.”
The report also revealed that the achievement gaps between districts that have high vs. low poverty rates (in the community where the school is located) have widened since 2019. We assume that this achievement gap is the result of larger initial losses in poor districts and the slower recovery of poor students within the average district.
While progress is being made, more work needs to be done.
Until the pandemic learning loss has been made up — summer school will be necessary. Students need more time in the classroom to improve their reading comprehension and math skills. Additionally, students need to be encouraged to read more. They should get involved in summer reading programs at local libraries or book clubs at other organizations. Parents, we should read to our children or set aside time to read together as a family over the summer.
When it comes to pandemic learning loss — there is good news & some not-so-good news.
We have work to do. The educational impacts of the pandemic persist.
Fall 2024 COVID-19 Vaccine
On Wednesday, the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met and voted unanimously to update the COVID-19 vaccine formula for the Fall.
NOTE: The FDA is calling the newest shots “updated vaccines” in anticipation of needing to provide updated formulas annually, similar to the flu shot. These NOT booster doses.
This means that formula for the annual/fall COVID shot will be updated to include one of the variants that are currently spreading. The vaccine, therefore, will prime your immune system to fight the latest variant of COVID — keeping you from getting sick and keeping you from developing severe symptoms or needing to be hospitalized.
In the coming weeks, the FDA will decide if the updated vaccine will target either the JN.1 variant or one of its FLiRT descendants. The decision will be made soon. The process of creating, testing, producing, and distributing a vaccine takes time. Vaccines need to be ready to administer in the fall — so work to develop the vaccines needs to begin in the coming weeks.
FDA has approved updating the vaccine.
It will soon decide what the make-up of the vaccine will be so that production of the vaccine can begin.
Who will be eligible to receive a vaccine is still to be determined.
CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meets at the end of the month to discuss who will be eligible to get the updated vaccine.
The updated vaccine is safe & effective.
Do you have questions about CPR? AEDs? avian flu? pandemic learning loss? or the fall COVID vaccine? What about concerns? Worrying about traveling this summer? Please ask me your questions —
And please share this post with your friends and family. By sharing accurate information — we can keep each other healthy, create healthy communities, and fight the epidemic of misinformation.
Epi(demiology) Matters is written by Dr. Becky Dawson, PhD MPH — an epidemiologist, teacher, mom, wife, and dedicated yogi. She is a tenured professor at Allegheny College, Research Director at a community hospital, and an exclusive contributor (all things health & medicine) at Erie News Now (NBC/CBS). Her goal is to create healthy communities for all. She writes Epi Matters — first & foremost because epidemiology does matter (to all of us) and she hopes that each post will help to educate and empower readers to be healthy and create healthy communities.
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How avian influenza is spread from animal to human —