Contents
COVID
Children and Schools
A study was published this past week that aligned well with the start of the school year, hence a little deeper dive into the impacts of COVID on children and how schools play a role in community spread.
In this multi-center study of 898 children, 147 of which were uninfected controls, the authors intentionally broke down the analysis into cohorts of school age-children and adolescents. The older group was composed of 4,469 adolescents (1,360 controls). The results were clear.
“In models adjusted for sex and race and ethnicity, 14 symptoms in both school-age children and adolescents were more common in those with SARS-CoV-2 infection history compared with those without infection history, with 4 additional symptoms in school-age children only and 3 in adolescents only. These symptoms affected almost every organ system. Combinations of symptoms most associated with infection history were identified to form a PASC research index for each age group; these indices correlated with poorer overall health and quality of life.”
44% of the children had problems with memory, focus, and sleep. In addition, daytime sleepiness was reported among 52% of the younger children and 89% of adolescents. This certainly suggests a contributing factor in the drop in ACT scores since the start of the pandemic.
I have many other studies on the impacts on children with links and quotes here. This sample of studies should make it quite obvious that we are doing a great deal of harm to children. In addition, those harms will also impact society in the future when they become adults who cannot function at their full potential. These societal impacts are also happening now while they are still in school.
It certainly didn’t help that people like Emily Oster wrote pieces like this that downplayed the role of schools in community spread. She has had many incorrect takes on the disease throughout that pandemic and is a poor source of pandemic information. I don’t understand why anyone would listen to an economist about anything related to the pandemic. They have overall been some of the worst minimizers. The truth is that about 70% of cases in households were caused by children bringing the disease home.
Vinay Prasad is another physician who seems to be completely fine with diseasing and killing kids who is a darling of the minimizers.
It’s not just a problem in the US. This person claims to be an infectious disease physician and PhD. I have my doubts based on some of the things that they have said which have no basis in science. Worse though is that they spread propaganda like this which harms and kills people. Don’t listen to anything that they say. It’s usually a tell when someone won’t identify themselves by name.
Another study found “This analysis shows that an increase in visits to both K–12 schools and colleges is associated with a subsequent increase in case and death growth rates. The estimates indicate that fully opening K–12 schools with in-person learning is associated with a 5 (SE = 2) percentage points increase in the growth rate of cases. We also find that the association of K–12 school visits or in-person school openings with case growth is stronger for counties that do not require staff to wear masks at schools.”
The data from that study is also a strong case for the benefit of requiring respiratory protection in schools.
The mean start date of schools in the US is between August 12th and 16th, yet some schools have already had to close due to COVID outbreaks. Of course, given the poor guidance coming from places like the CDC, one only planned to be closed for two days to do “thorough cleaning and sanitization before reopening.” The fact that schools think that this will do anything to help shows just how bad public health messaging has been through the pandemic.
While it may appear that we have reached a peak in wastewater in the US, it is likely short lived now that schools are opening.
Lung Supply and Demand
In 2022, there were 4,228 candidates awaiting lung transplant in the US, compared to 4,208 in 2020. What appears to be a stable demand could simply be due to COVID killing a number of people who need lung transplant. In fact, the demand will be increasing due to COVID.
One meta-analysis of COVID survivors found that about 45% of them developed pulmonary fibrosis, and COPD, which can also lead to the need for lung transplant, was the only comorbidity. That itself should be alarming, because “once the lung tissue becomes scarred, the damage cannot be reversed.” At one pulmonary transplant center that is part of the University of Texas, they claim that about 45% of their lung transplant population has pulmonary fibrosis. We don’t know what percentage of people diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis need transplant though.
Currently, 10% of lung transplants are going to COVID patients. That certainly suggests what will be an increasing demand in the pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive disease, which means that it worsens over time.
In addition, some people are removing themselves from donor lists because they don’t like that programs require organ recipients to be vaccinated. That requirement is nothing new. It’s simply a political reaction to vaccine mandates. Recipients have been required to have certain vaccines to prevent themselves from being bumped to the bottom of the list. It’s the same idea as requiring those who were to get a lung transplant to have stopped smoking six months beforehand. There is no reason to give a scarce organ to someone who isn’t going to protect it.
