IN THE CATEGORY OF "Fresh Off the Press"

–Today's Briefing Highlights–

• 41,053,723 Cases World-wide (Johns Hopkins)
• The rest of THIS WEEK'S CONVERSATIONS
• COVID-19 passed in only brief interactions
• Parent support– the help that helps
• The Lancet– an uncommon editorial and science that cuts through the politics
• The West reels, and Asia keeps the virus at bay
• A fourteen-year-old with a key COVID-19 discovery
• A few minutes of peace: A POEM TO CONSIDER

–QUICK LINKS FOR BUSY PEOPLE–

Today's Quote to Consider: 

 

" (The) herd immunity approach suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak in the low-risk population while protecting the vulnerable. Proponents suggest this would lead to the development of infection-acquired population immunity in the low-risk population, which will eventually protect the vulnerable. This is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence. Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed."

–The Lancet Editorial

THE REST OF THIS WEEK'S

LEADERSHIP CONVERSATIONS 

with International School Leaders Around the World

Weekly Learning as a Community– All international school senior leaders are welcome.  A Weekly CONVERSATION  between School Heads and Senior Leaders. Our discussions continue to be contemporary, important and a time we teach each other.  Thanks to Will Richardson who has facilitated our Thursday CONVERSATIONS, since the very beginning. 

The weekly Thursday CONVERSATIONS between Latin America school heads and senior leaders in collaboration with Tri-Association and AASSA. All are welcome to join the discussion. Our sessions are hosted by Sonia Keller and Dereck Rhoads.  

Thanks to all who came to FRIDAY's conversation about strategies and tools during our second week of discussion on AAIE New School Principle #1:

 

ADAPTIVE CHANGE - “WE USE FEARLESS INQUIRY TO CONTINUALLY INTERROGATE AND SHED EMBEDDED PRACTICE THAT DOES NOT AMPLIFY AND INSPIRE PROFOUND LEARNING THROUGHOUT OUR SCHOOL COMMUNITIES.”

 

In Friday's session we reviewed some great curated resources around the principle gathered by Bonnie Ricci and Anna Sugarman (which you can find on our Curator's Padlet here: bit.ly/aaiensp2 .) And then we broke into small groups to begin discussing how to begin living the Adaptive Change principle by looking at what we would stop doing, what we would continue to do, what new approaches we would take, and what of our current practice we would modify or tweak?  All discussions will be collated and shared at next week's meeting. 

 

THIS WEEK:  We take on Principle #2:

 

CAPACITY:  WE DEVELOP THE CAPACITY IN OUR PEOPLE TO  IMPLEMENT HIGH QUALITY AND SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS IN A TIME OF RAPID AND UNMITIGATED CHANGE.

 

Building school capacity will be the focus of our work this week as we spend time in discussion, deepening our understanding of the meaning and language of the principle. The more participants we have in these conversations, the more clarity and power we can bring to this work. So please join us if you can, and bring a friend or two as well. 

When it Can Feel Almost Impossible to Give Parents the Support they Need,

What is the Help that Helps?

FIRST:  LISTEN DEEPLY TO YOUNG PEOPLE

Rosalind Wiseman:  "One of the things we need to say to young people is 'I don't know what it's like to grow up today. Can you tell me before we give other young people advice?"

 

 

From an international school survey with a word cloud describing the struggles of middle school students– they are delivering strong messages to parents and teachers that all is not as we think.

A second word cloud from grades 11-12 international school students, demonstrating the intensity of their emotions.

SECOND:  FOR PARENT WELL-BEING,

NO EXPECTATION FOR PERFECTION

Rosalind Wiseman: The leadership approach to parents is to confirm a partnership and that seeking perfection stifles confidence and involvement. In a most self-conscious way, we must help parents to know their place is to be a positive and "can-do" role model. 

THIRD: PRINCIPLES MOST HELPFUL TO PARENTS

Rosalind Wiseman:  The principles chosen for the Distance Learning Playbook are a suggested compass for people with different ideas and in different situations and scenarios to go to as a foundation for guiding their behavior, thoughts and actions. The principles, as we define them at Cultures of Dignity are that principles guide behavior. The principles most helpful to parents right now are: treat everyone with dignity; activating curiosity, especially when we're uncomfortable is the key to learning; no one knows everything - together we know a lot; be easy on people but hard on ideas; conflict is inevitable and collaboration is essential to resolution; listening is being prepared to be changed by what you hear and asking for help is a skill not a weakness. 

FOURTH: CATEGORIZE DIGITAL LEARNING ISSUES SO KIDS LISTEN 

Rosalind Wiseman: If we separate technology and social media into Connection, Creation and Consumption, people have a much better understanding of how to manage themselves.  Consumption is the part that is really a problem. Most parents are overwhelmed with the concept of Social Media and technology making it hard to establish boundaries because they can't separate it. Separating it into what kind of use it is, you can go from 'use' to 'how much'. In affirming connection and creation for young people, they will start to listen much more because it doesn't come across as 'you hate that they play video games'. Young people need this important connection to their friends through multi player games. Parents acknowledging and affirming this makes the relationships and the conversation much different so we can get to the consumption part more effectively. Every student should work with their families and schools to create structure: to support friendships AND other areas of well-being like exercise, getting outside, reading and being with family. It should also include a tech free ritual around sleep.

 

Scientific Consensus on the COVID-19 Pandemic:

We Need to Act Now

"...we face rapidly accelerating increase in COVID-19 cases across much of Europe, the USA, and many other countries across the world. It is critical to act decisively and urgently. Effective measures that suppress and control transmission need to be implemented widely, and they must be supported by financial and social programs that encourage community responses and address the inequities that have been amplified by the pandemic."

– The Lancet

In the initial phase of the pandemic, many countries instituted lockdowns (general population restrictions, including orders to stay at home and work from home) to slow the rapid spread of the virus. This was essential to reduce mortality, prevent health-care services from being overwhelmed, and buy time to set up pandemic response systems to suppress transmission following lockdown.

 

Although lockdowns have been disruptive, substantially affecting mental and physical health, and harming the economy, these effects have often been worse in countries that were not able to use the time during and after lockdown to establish effective pandemic control systems. In the absence of adequate provisions to manage the pandemic and its societal impacts, these countries have faced continuing restrictions.

This has understandably led to widespread demoralization and diminishing trust. The arrival of a second wave and the realization of the challenges ahead has led to renewed interest in a so-called herd immunity approach, which suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak in the low-risk population while protecting the vulnerable. Proponents suggest this would lead to the development of infection-acquired population immunity in the low-risk population, which will eventually protect the vulnerable. This is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.
Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed.

 

Uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity and mortality across the whole population. In addition to the human cost, this would impact the workforce as a whole and overwhelm the ability of health-care systems to provide acute and routine care. Furthermore, there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection, and the endemic transmission that would be the consequence of waning immunity would present a risk to vulnerable populations for the indefinite future. Such a strategy would not end the COVID-19 pandemic but result in recurrent epidemics, as was the case with numerous infectious diseases before the advent of vaccination. It would also place an unacceptable burden on the economy and health-care workers, many of whom have died from COVID-19 or experienced trauma as a result of having to practice disaster medicine. Additionally, we still do not understand who might suffer from long COVID.
 

Defining who is vulnerable is complex, but even if we consider those at risk of severe illness, the proportion of vulnerable people constitute as much as 30% of the population in some regions.

Prolonged isolation of large swathes of the population is practically impossible and highly unethical. Empirical evidence from many countries shows that it is not feasible to restrict uncontrolled outbreaks to particular sections of society. Such an approach also risks further exacerbating the socioeconomic inequities and structural discriminations already laid bare by the pandemic. Special efforts to protect the most vulnerable are essential but must go hand-in-hand with multi-pronged population-level strategies.

Once again, we face a rapidly accelerating increase in COVID-19 cases across much of Europe, the USA, and many other countries across the world. It is critical to act decisively and urgently. Effective measures that suppress and control transmission need to be implemented widely, and they must be supported by financial and social programs that encourage community responses and address the inequities that have been amplified by the pandemic.

 

Continuing restrictions will probably be required in the short term, to reduce transmission and fix ineffective pandemic response systems, in order to prevent future lockdowns. The purpose of these restrictions is to effectively suppress SARS-CoV-2 infections to low levels that allow rapid detection of localized outbreaks and rapid response through efficient and comprehensive find, test, trace, isolate, and support systems so life can return to near-normal without the need for generalized restrictions.

 

Protecting our economies is inextricably tied to controlling COVID-19. We must protect our workforce and avoid long-term uncertainty.

Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories. The evidence is very clear: controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive within the coming months. We cannot afford distractions that undermine an effective response; it is essential that we act urgently based on the evidence.

–TODAY's POEM TO CONSIDER–

A Poem, just for you as a source of peace and reflection...

THE THING IS...

–by Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you down like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

–THE NEWS of COVID-19–

41,053,723

Cases Worldwide (Johns Hopkins CSSE)

Covid-19’s Global Divide: As West Reels,

Asia Keeps Virus at Bay

It Takes a 14-Year-Old

With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, a 14-year-old from Texas has won a national science competition for identifying a molecule that can bind to the virus and potentially disable it. Anika Chebrolu, who hails from Frisco, used computer modeling to search for a compound that binds tightly to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein — a structure that juts off the coronavirus surface and plugs into human cells to trigger infection. In theory, such a compound should prevent the virus from infecting cells. When designing new antiviral drugs, scientists often perform computational studies, just like Chebrolu's, as a critical first step. (Science Alert, Live Science)

 

COVID-19 Caseload and India’s Politics

India is battling one of the world’s highest coronavirus caseloads, its worst-ever economic slump, shuttered factories, farmer protests and the deadliest border fighting with China in decades. Yet Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to remain as popular as ever. Opinion polls in Bihar, where from Oct. 28 to Nov. 7 he faces his first major electoral test since the pandemic, show his coalition comfortably retaining control of the state government. A separate India Today “Mood of the Nation” poll in August said 78% rated his performance as “good to outstanding” compared with 71% last year. ( Bloomberg)

 

Contagion Rates Continue to Climb in Europe

Leaders in Europe intensified efforts to slow contagion rates, reviving lockdowns in some areas as piecemeal curbs have made little impact on a disease that has infected 4.9 million people. New cases in Germany and Bulgaria hit a record, and Hungary and Ukraine reported their highest daily virus death tolls. (via Bloomberg News)

 

Multiply By Three in Russia

A former employee of the Kremlin’s statistics agency says Russia’s daily coronavirus mortality figures understate the real toll from the disease in a country where excess deaths could soon be the highest in Europe. Alexey Raksha worked as a demographic forecaster at the Federal Statistics Service for more than six years until he left in July amid a dispute over the virus data. He says he was asked to leave after he criticized the agency, known as Rosstat, which says he left of his own accord. The publicly-available statistics on daily mortality rates “need to be multiplied by three,” Raksha, 42, who now runs a one-man demographic consultancy, said in an interview in Moscow. “There is a risk Russia’s excess mortality per capita will be the highest in Europe.” (Bloomberg News)

 

 

Johns Hopkins Researchers Identify Immune System Pathway That May Stop COVID-19 Infection

While the world waits eagerly for a safe and effective vaccine to prevent infections from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers also are focusing on better understanding how SARS-CoV-2 attacks the body in the search for other means of stopping its devastating impact. The key to one possibility — blocking a protein that enables the virus to turn the immune system against healthy cells — has been identified in a recent study by a team of Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers.

Based on their findings, the researchers believe that inhibiting the protein, known as factor D, also will curtail the potentially deadly inflammatory reactions that many patients have to the virus.

 

Making the discovery even more exciting is that there may already be drugs in development and testing for other diseases that can do the required blocking.

The study was published recently in the journal Blood.

 

Scientists already know that spike proteins on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus — making the pathogen look like the spiny ball from a medieval mace — are the means by which it attaches to cells targeted for infection. To do this, the spikes first grab hold of heparan sulfate, a large, complex sugar molecule found on the surface of cells in the lungs, blood vessels and smooth muscle making up most organs. Facilitated by its initial binding with heparan sulfate, SARS-CoV-2 then uses another cell-surface component, the protein known as angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), as its doorway into the attacked cell.

 

The Johns Hopkins Medicine team discovered that when SARS-CoV-2 ties up heparan sulfate, it prevents factor H from using the sugar molecule to bind with cells. Factor H’s normal function is to regulate the chemical signals that trigger inflammation and keep the immune system from harming healthy cells. Without this protection, cells in the lungs, heart, kidneys and other organs can be destroyed by the defense mechanism nature intended to safeguard them.

 

“Previous research has suggested that along with tying up heparan sulfate, SARS-CoV-2 activates a cascading series of biological reactions — what we call the alternative pathway of complement, or APC — that can lead to inflammation and cell destruction if misdirected by the immune system at healthy organs,” says study senior author Robert Brodsky, M.D., director of the hematology division at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “The goal of our study was to discover how the virus activates this pathway and to find a way to inhibit it before the damage happens.” (SciTechDaily)

 

The Vaccine News That Really Matters

“Never before have there been vaccine trials that have been followed so closely from inception to onset to conduct,” Dan Barouch, a vaccine researcher at Harvard and collaborator on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, says. Over the next few months, the companies behind the leading vaccine candidates will start releasing the first data from large clinical trials. Most likely, they will not be unalloyed good news or bad news. Keeping expectations measured will require understanding when a vaccine clears just one of many hurdles—it doesn’t have to be perfect, but it must be good enough.

 

Clinical trials usually follow three phases, with the first two focused on questions of safety and dosing. By Phase 3, a vaccine should already be proven safe for most people, which leads to the key question: How well does it actually work? Five vaccines—from Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax—have already begun or are beginning Phase 3 trials that seek to recruit tens of thousands of volunteers in the U.S.

 

Phase 3 trials are always large, but the ones for COVID-19 vaccines are especially so, Ruth Karron, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Immunization Research, says. Vaccine trials depend on volunteers getting exposed to COVID-19 as they live their life: The incidence of illness in the treatment group compared with the placebo group shows how effective the vaccine is. A normal vaccine trial might recruit 3,000 to 6,000 volunteers, but could run for years. We don’t have that kind of time with COVID-19. Each trial plans for a certain number of COVID-19 infections, and to hit that number, companies can either wait a long time for fewer volunteers to get naturally infected or they can recruit lots and lots of volunteers, which is what they’ve done. “We want to be able to detect an efficacy signal as quickly as possible,” Karron says.

 

The public now knows exactly how many infections these COVID-19 trials are planning for—and how many would trigger an interim analysis of early data. In an unprecedented but much-applauded move, the leading vaccine companies have released detailed trial protocols. Moderna, for example, will conduct two interim analyses at about 53 and 106 infections. AstraZeneca is doing one at about 75 cases. Pfizer is doing four at 32, 62, 92, and 120 cases. “Pfizer’s, from what I can see, is the most aggressive,” Derek Lowe, a chemist who writes about drug discovery for his blog, In the Pipeline, says. Companies are not required to release interim analyses, but they might in this case, given the extraordinary public interest in a COVID-19 vaccine; promising results could also be the basis for applying for an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. This is why Pfizer was the only company to once suggest that its vaccine might be authorized before the election—though it has since said it will wait until at least mid-November to finish collecting safety data.

 

Pfizer is still likely to be the first out of the gate with interim results on efficacy. “I very much hope that Pfizer does their first interim, and it kicks ass. But who knows?” Lowe says. “They also then have a better chance of doing an interim readout and having it not quite come out as strong as they want it, because they’re doing it earlier.” With such small numbers—the first interim analysis will occur after only 32 infections—it may still be unclear how well the vaccine actually protects against disease.

 

If most of the infections are in the placebo group—say 26 out of 32—that would suggest the vaccine is at least 76 percent effective. That’d be pretty good. But scientists have cautioned that a COVID-19 vaccine might be less effective than we’d like, based on how vaccines against respiratory viruses tend to work. The FDA has set a bar of at least 50 percent efficacy for a COVID-19 vaccine. It’ll take longer and more cases for trials to reach a conclusion if vaccine efficacy is on the lower side. So if the first interim results are a little disappointing, that “doesn’t mean this is a failed vaccine,” Lowe says. “We’re just going to keep on rolling.” We’ll have a better idea of efficacy once we’ve seen how the vaccine performs in more people. (The Atlantic)

 

A Human Challenge Trial Will Begin in January,

in Which Volunteers are Deliberately Exposed to the Virus.

Researchers at Imperial College London are planning to deliberately infect healthy volunteers with the coronavirus early next year as part of the world’s first effort to study how people immunized with different vaccines respond to controlled exposure to the virus.

 

The study, known as a human challenge trial, is scheduled to begin in January at a quarantine facility in London with 34 million pounds, or $44 million, of British government funding, the government announced on Tuesday. Such a study could save time in the race to winnow down a large number of vaccine candidates.

 

Rather than testing vaccines the usual way — by waiting for vaccinated people to encounter the virus in their homes and communities — researchers would expose them to the virus in a controlled setting. In the first stage of the study, scientists will try to determine the smallest doses of the virus required to infect people. The scientists will test gradually increasing doses of virus on up to 90 healthy volunteers from 18 to 30 years old until they reach a level that reliably infects them.

 

Once they have decided on a dose — potentially by late spring, the government said — researchers will begin to compare a set of coronavirus vaccine candidates by immunizing people and then deliberately infecting them. The government will decide which vaccines to test, but it has not announced them yet. It is possible that by early next year, some of the vaccine candidates now undergoing trials will have already received approval.

 

But experts in medical ethics are divided over whether such a study is acceptable, largely because there is no highly effective treatment for Covid-19. The Imperial College London researchers said they would use the antiviral medicine remdesivir, but that drug has been found to have only modest benefit. Most other challenge trials have involved diseases like cholera and typhoid, which can be quickly and reliably cured with drugs. (New York Times)

 

Upcoming Holidays in India–A Strong Voice at the Top

In a televised address Tuesday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India urged citizens to tighten up their vigilance against the coronavirus as the Hindu festival season approaches.

 

“Recently, we saw many photos and videos which clearly proved that people have lowered their guard,” he said. “This isn’t right.” In the next few weeks, more than a billion Indians will celebrate several major Hindu holidays, including Dussehra and Diwali, and authorities are worried about people packing together.

 

India is rapidly catching up to the United States in terms of its reported infections, almost 7.6 million known cases there compared with 8.2 million in the United States. India had been outpacing the United States in new infections, reaching nearly 100,000 new daily infections in mid-September. But in recent days that number has come down. As of Monday, the seven-day average for new daily cases in India was approximately 61,000, according to a New York Times database, just slightly higher than the average over the same time in the United States.

 

Some experts say that the decline might reflect that the virus is reaching a plateau in India. Other scientists caution that the decrease could also be explained by a shift in testing methods. India is increasingly using cheaper, less reliable rapid antigen tests.

Mr. Modi said that the precautions taken by Indians since the pandemic started have left India in a “stable situation.” But he cautioned that “We must not let it deteriorate.” (New York Times)

–Tracking the Virus Around the World–

–FROM JOHNS HOPKINS CSSE–

The Cultures of Dignity Resources for Supporting

Social-Emotional Wellness 

A Final Note: The AAIE COVID-19 Briefing is provided to support your leadership for the school community you serve. We encourage you to use these resources in any way, shape or form that helps you, your communications and toward furthering close relationships across your community.  – The AAIE Board