Coronavirus

State’s Top Educator to Families: “Translate Fear into Action” as Schools Reopen

Millions of students are returning to in-person classes at California’s public schools, amid parents and teachers’ fears about the inability to vaccinate children under 12 and the spread of the COVID Delta variant.

Published

2 years ago

August 25, 2021

Christy Price

Back to School/Shutterstock

During a briefing hosted by Ethnic Media Services and California Black Media, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond asserted that the districts have implemented all “safety and COVID mitigation measures” to resume in-person instruction.

“The state allows independent study for those who have a medical need or need an alternative to in-person instruction. But we have learned that our students have suffered from a lack of educators and peers, while mental health needs have increased and our learning gaps have been exacerbated,” said Thurmond, speaking from the campus of the Girls’ Academic Leadership Academy (GALA).

Students of color and low-income students have been the most affected by the pandemic, not only in terms of loss of human life within their families and the trauma that this entails, but also because of their difficulties in accessing online education.

One million students statewide still lack access to high-speed internet. Thurmond said California is creating “infrastructure for more broadband” in rural and border communities.

“We recognize that many students have experienced the trauma of the pandemic,” Thurmond said. “There is more than $4 billion available for mental health services for youth up to age 25, more than $3 billion for community schools to have comprehensive mental health support, and support for families with universal meals.”

Other initiatives include hiring more staff to work with students in literacy programs, one-on-one tutoring, professional development, special education, and multilingual learning.

The superintendent acknowledged that “our families are skeptical and scared,” but he invited them to “translate that fear into action” by vaccinating their children and relatives older than 12.

He said that last week the district contacted 500,000 California households to spread a message in several languages: vaccines are available and free for everyone regardless of immigration status or health insurance. They have even awarded $100 gift cards to some of those vaccinated.

“While (vaccines) are new to most of us, they are not new to scientists,” Thurmond reiterated.

Messengers such as California General Surgeon and pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris, labor rights leader Dolores Huerta, activist Karen Korematsu, daughter of Fred T. Korematsu, who was detained at a Japanese internment camp, and former professional basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, have been talking about the importance of people across all racial groups and backgrounds getting vaccinated.

“We’ve given money to our schools to support outdoor classrooms, air purification and air filtration systems, improving ventilation, and access to PPE (personal protective equipment), ” Thurmond said. His office is also providing support to families with students in schools affected by fires and natural disasters.

Due to fears that some students and parents have of going back to school because of the hate crimes that have occurred since the beginning of the pandemic, especially in the Asian American community, Thurmond launched an initiative called “education to end hate” that provides implicit bias training to educators.

Thurmond acknowledged that the system hasn’t done enough for all students.

This is our moment to build it better, to ensure equity at the center… We have the way to begin the work that we need to close those learning gaps that we were dealing with historically, and the ones that have been exacerbated by the pandemic,” he said.

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BayCityNews

FDA Updates Approval of Pfizer Booster Vaccine for Children Under 5

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its approval Tuesday of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, making it available to some children under age 5. Before this update, children under 5 were not eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. Instead, they received three doses of the regular vaccine.

Published

1 week ago

March 22, 2023

Oakland Post

As of December 2022, children age 4 and younger who have not been vaccinated receive the omicron variant-specific booster vaccine as the third dose in their primary vaccine series, following two doses of the original Pfizer vaccine.

By Eli Walsh
Bay City News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its approval Tuesday of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, making it available to some children under age 5.

Before this update, children under 5 were not eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. Instead, they received three doses of the regular vaccine.

However, children in that age range who completed their initial vaccination series before December 2022 only received three doses of the original Pfizer vaccine, and are less protected against more infectious variants of the virus as a result.

FDA officials updated the vaccine’s emergency use authorization Tuesday to allow those children who only received the original Pfizer COVID vaccine to receive one dose of the bivalent booster if it has been at least two months since they completed their initial series.

Other children under age 5 are not eligible for the booster, although everyone age 5 and up is eligible for a booster.

“Currently available data show that vaccination remains the best defense against severe disease, hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19 across all age groups, and we encourage all eligible individuals to make sure that their vaccinations are up to date with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine,” said Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Clinical data has found that both the original Pfizer vaccine and the booster vaccine that targets the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are safe for everyone aged 6 months and up and effective at preventing the worst outcomes of COVID infection, including serious illness and death.

COVID vaccines are available at primary care providers, retail pharmacies and some facilities operated by local health departments.

Copyright © 2023 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.

Bay Area

COVID-19 Response Grant Program

The City of Union City will be issuing another round of its COVID-19 Response Grant Program. The program has distributed approximately $620,000 in grant funds and forgivable loans to the community to respond to the impacts of COVID-19 and will distribute another $322,000 through this latest round of funding. The City will utilize federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and CARES Act funds.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 21, 2023

Oakland Post

The City will be holding two informational/technical assistance meetings to support residents and businesses with their applications and respond to any questions. These meetings will be streamed via Zoom. See below for meeting information and Zoom meeting links.

Grants are available through the City’s Road to Recovery Small Business Assistance Program and the Residential Rental Assistance Program. The City began accepting applications on March 6, 2023, at 9 a.m. and will begin reviewing applications (up to 50 applications for each grant opportunity) submitted on or before March 30, 2023, at 5 p.m. The program information and the online application are available on the City’s website:

https://www.unioncity.org/548/COVID-19-Response-Grant-Program

Tuesday, March 14, 2023: 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.

https://unioncity-org.zoom.us/j/89061570160

Wednesday, March 15, 2023: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

https://unioncity-org.zoom.us/j/81868680531

Bay Area

State to End Indoor Mask Requirement in Health Care Facilities, Vaccine Requirement for Health Care Workers

California will draw down several COVID-19-related guidelines next month as the state shifts out of its emergency response to the pandemic, state health officials said Friday. Starting April 3, the state will no longer require the use of a mask in indoor areas that are deemed a high risk of transmission, including health care and long-term care facilities, homeless shelters and jails and prisons

Published

3 weeks ago

March 14, 2023

Oakland Post

The state will also end its COVID vaccination requirement for health care workers and rescind health orders that required hospitals to accept patients from overcrowded facilities and that required the collection of an email address or phone number from a COVID vaccine recipient.

By Eli Walsh
Bay City News

California will draw down several COVID-19-related guidelines next month as the state shifts out of its emergency response to the pandemic, state health officials said Friday.

Starting April 3, the state will no longer require the use of a mask in indoor areas that are deemed a high risk of transmission, including health care and long-term care facilities, homeless shelters and jails and prisons.

“We stand before Californians today with a humble message of thanks for taking the hard steps to help manage COVID-19, and with an ongoing commitment to be prepared for what comes next,” California Department of Public Health Director and state Public Health Officer Dr. Tomas Aragon said in a statement.

In addition to the changes on April 2, the state will update its isolation guidance on March 13 for those who test positive for COVID, allowing them to leave isolation after five days if their condition is improving and if they have not had a fever in at least 24 hours.

People who isolate after testing positive will no longer have to test negative for COVID before leaving isolation, according to the CDPH. The change is consistent with guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The changes are part of the state’s drawdown of its emergency response infrastructure in recent weeks.

State-operated COVID testing and vaccination clinics have shuttered as those services shift to primary health care providers and retail pharmacies.

On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom also rescinded California’s COVID-19 state of emergency, which allowed local governments and the state to more efficiently coordinate public health programs and disperse emergency funding.

State public health officials continue to urge California residents to complete their initial COVID vaccination series if they have yet to do so and, if eligible, receive a booster vaccine dose to reduce the chance of becoming seriously ill or dying due to the virus.

As of March 2, 88.2 million COVID vaccine doses have been administered statewide. Roughly 73 percent of state residents have completed their initial vaccination series.

“Our communities did a lot of the hard work by getting vaccinated and boosted, staying home and testing when sick, requesting treatments when positive, and masking to slow the spread,” Aragon said. “With these critical actions, and a lot of patience and persistence, we have now reached a point where we can update some of the COVID-19 guidance to continue to balance prevention and adapting to living with COVID-19.”

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EliWalsh2132p03/03/23

CONTACT: CDPH media CDPHpress@cdph.ca.gov

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: An image related to this story can be obtained from the following Bay City News Service web link: https://www.baycitynews.com/images/BCN-20221209-VACCINATION-01.JPG

Caption: The CVS Drugstore on Mountain Blvd. in Oakland, Calif on Dec 8, 2022 offers vaccination and COVID test kits to customers. (Anna Moseidjord/Bay City News)

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