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  • Covid-19 – planetcirculate https://planetcirculate.com Wed, 20 Mar 2024 03:11:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 St. Paul Public Schools approves $37.5M in teacher pay increases, but budget cuts loom – Twin Cities https://planetcirculate.com/st-paul-public-schools-approves-37-5m-in-teacher-pay-increases-but-budget-cuts-loom-twin-cities/ https://planetcirculate.com/st-paul-public-schools-approves-37-5m-in-teacher-pay-increases-but-budget-cuts-loom-twin-cities/#respond Wed, 20 Mar 2024 03:11:48 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/st-paul-public-schools-approves-37-5m-in-teacher-pay-increases-but-budget-cuts-loom-twin-cities/

    Members of the St. Paul school board on Tuesday night locked in new raises and benefits for district education staff, though school budget cuts are ahead. Under a new two-year contract agreement approved by the school board, St. Paul Public Schools will increase wages and benefits for teachers and other staff represented by the St. […]

    The post St. Paul Public Schools approves $37.5M in teacher pay increases, but budget cuts loom – Twin Cities appeared first on planetcirculate.

    ]]>



    Members of the St. Paul school board on Tuesday night locked in new raises and benefits for district education staff, though school budget cuts are ahead.

    Under a new two-year contract agreement approved by the school board, St. Paul Public Schools will increase wages and benefits for teachers and other staff represented by the St. Paul Federation of Educators by $37.5 million — a 10.1% increase over the previous contract.

    About $19.2 million of that will go toward the first year and will be offset using one-time funds. But with a more than $107 million budget shortfall expected in the coming year in large part tied to the expiration of federal pandemic aid, the district will have to find other areas to reduce spending. So far, it’s identified about $71 million in possible cuts.

    “This does not change the fact that there will be budget cuts, including layoffs, across the district due primarily to the expiration of American Rescue Plan funds,” said SPPS spokesperson Erica Wacker.

    St. Paul schools and the teachers union arrived at a contract agreement a little over two weeks ago as a strike loomed. They were able to reach a deal after a marathon of weekend negotiations.

    The new contract contains more than three times the $12.4 million in increases for education staff the school district had initially told the union it could accommodate. But it’s also significantly under the more than $112 million in additional spending the district estimated initial union requests would cost.

    Even if the district didn’t go past its ceiling for teacher compensation, it would still need to make cuts to its current budget, which sits at around $1 billion.

    What’s in the contract?

    Three groups represented by the 3,700-member teachers union will see raises: teachers, educational assistants and community service professionals. The new two-year contract goes into effect retroactively as the last contract expired in June 2023.

    In the new agreement, teachers will get a $3,500 pay increase for 2023-24. Since the last two-year contract expired last year, the pay increase will apply retroactively to Jan. 1. In 2024-25, teachers will see a 4% salary increase.

    Community service professionals will see a raise of $3,084 for the first year, and a 4% increase in the second year.

    In the first year of the new contract, insurance contributions from the district for teachers and community service professionals will increase from $870 per month to $920 for single employees, and from $1,200 to $1,375 for families. In the second year, those amounts increase to $945 and $1,450, respectively.

    Educational assistants will see a raise of $2.25 an hour in the first year and a 4% raise in the second year. They will also receive higher insurance contributions.

    In addition to the pay increases, the school district will maintain current class sizes and staffing for mental health teams in each school.

    The district will also establish a “site council” at each school that includes educators, parents, teachers and administrators to “ensure all voices are heard in decisions on budget priorities, events and other site-level issues.”

    Special education teachers will get more time to complete paperwork and early childhood special education teachers will have reduced caseloads.

    This was the fourth consecutive two-year bargaining cycle where St. Paul teachers have either gone on strike or threatened to do so. In 2020, teachers walked out for four days, and in 2022, the district was within minutes of canceling class when the sides reached a deal.

    In this year’s negotiations, pay and insurance were the biggest sticking points. Teachers in St. Paul Public Schools have a starting salary of about $49,000 if they have a bachelor’s degree. The district says half of its teachers make $90,000 or more.

    Union and district leaders say school board members were present for much of the negotiation process, something that may have made a difference in this year’s contract discussions. At Tuesday’s school board meeting, some union members used the public comment period to thank members for their involvement.

    SPFE isn’t the only union representing school employees. The school board also on Tuesday approved a new 2024-26 contract for school bus drivers. Drivers represented by the Teamsters Local 320 will get an average wage increase of 3.7% in the first year and 1% in the second year, as well as higher health insurance payments and severance pay.



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    The Maryland woman who kept asking questions and revolutionized the FDA’s drug approval process https://planetcirculate.com/the-maryland-woman-who-kept-asking-questions-and-revolutionized-the-fdas-drug-approval-process/ https://planetcirculate.com/the-maryland-woman-who-kept-asking-questions-and-revolutionized-the-fdas-drug-approval-process/#respond Tue, 19 Mar 2024 11:14:46 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/the-maryland-woman-who-kept-asking-questions-and-revolutionized-the-fdas-drug-approval-process/

    Dr. Frances O. Kelsey, a medical officer with the Food and Drug Administration, is credited with preventing the drug Thalidomide from becoming widely available in the U.S. and saving a generation of babies from severe birth defects. This Aug. 1, 1962, file photo shows Dr. Frances O. Kelsey of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, […]

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    Dr. Frances O. Kelsey, a medical officer with the Food and Drug Administration, is credited with preventing the drug Thalidomide from becoming widely available in the U.S. and saving a generation of babies from severe birth defects.

    This Aug. 1, 1962, file photo shows Dr. Frances O. Kelsey of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, who is credited with keeping the birth-deforming drug Thalidomide off the U.S. market. Kelsey, a Canadian doctor known for her tenacity in keeping a dangerous drug given to pregnant women off the U.S. market, has died at age 101. She died Friday, Aug. 7, 2015, less than 24 hours after receiving the Order of Canada in a private ceremony at her daughter’s home in London, Ontario.
    (AP Photo/File)

    AP Photo/File

    Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, third from left, the government medical officer who prevented the marketing of the drug Thalidomide in the United States, wears the distinguished Federal Civilian Service medal presented to her at the White House by President John F. Kennedy, center, Aug. 7, 1962. She said she was "impressed and overwhelmed." Others in the photo are unidentified. (AP Photo/John Rous)
    Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, third from left, the government medical officer who prevented the marketing of the drug Thalidomide in the United States, wears the distinguished Federal Civilian Service medal presented to her at the White House by President John F. Kennedy, center, Aug. 7, 1962. She said she was “impressed and overwhelmed.” Others in the photo are unidentified.
    (AP Photo/John Rous)

    AP Photo/John Rous

    A three-year-old girl, born without arms to a German mother who took the drug thalidomide, uses power-driven artificial arms fitted to her by Dr. Ernst Marquardt of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, 1965.  The child activates the artificial arms by moving her shoulders.  (AP Photo)
    A three-year-old girl, born without arms to a German mother who took the drug thalidomide, uses power-driven artificial arms fitted to her by Dr. Ernst Marquardt of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, 1965. The child activates the artificial arms by moving her shoulders.
    (AP Photo)

    AP Photo

    Many of the children of the mothers who took the drug, a sedative prescribed between 1950 and 1960 to combat morning sickness, were born with abnormally short limbs and in some cases without any arms, legs or hips. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
    Spaniards born with severe defects wait for the trial against German company Gruenenthal Group to start at the Court in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Oct. 14, 2013. Spaniards born with severe defects after their mothers used the drug Thalidomide during their pregnancies are suing its producer, the German company Gruenenthal Group. The Monday trial will last one day and a ruling is expected within a month. Many of the children of the mothers who took the drug, a sedative prescribed between 1950 and 1960 to combat morning sickness, were born with abnormally short limbs and in some cases without any arms, legs or hips. Gruenenthal, who withdrew Thalidomide in 1961, has refused to accept liability, but last year it apologized to victims.
    (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

    AP Photo/Andres Kudacki

    Sen. Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., takes a bottle of thalidomide from a box as he talks with Dr. Frances Kelsey of the Food and Drug Administration, Aug. 6, 1962, in Washington. Dr. Kelsey met with the Senate judiciary Committee behind closed doors to testify in Washington on President Kennedy's proposed amendments to drug control legislation sponsored by Kefauver. (AP Photo/Henry Griffin)
    Sen. Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., takes a bottle of thalidomide from a box as he talks with Dr. Frances Kelsey of the Food and Drug Administration, Aug. 6, 1962, in Washington. Dr. Kelsey met with the Senate Judiciary Committee behind closed doors to testify in Washington on President Kennedy’s proposed amendments to drug control legislation sponsored by Kefauver.
    (AP Photo/Henry Griffin)

    AP Photo/Henry Griffin

    As part of Women’s History Month, WTOP explores the story of one Food and Drug Administration medical officer who persisted in asking questions and prevented more mothers from taking a drug that could harm their babies.

    When she asked why she did not have any hands, the answer Leslie Mink, of Silver Spring, Maryland, got was God wanted her that way.

    Paul Koneczny, of Christiansburg, Virginia, figured it was just “bad luck” that he did not have a working elbow on his right arm. It was just something that happened and he didn’t know how.

    Mink and Koneczny are two of several dozens in the U.S. whose birth defects were similar to those linked to a drug called Thalidomide that some pregnant women took during the 1950s and 1960s.

    Some of the babies that were born exhibited a rare congenital anomaly called phocomelia — where upper or lower limbs are shortened or missing so that feet or hands are closer to the body.

    Many of the children of the mothers who took the drug Thalidomide, a sedative prescribed between 1950 and 1960 to combat morning sickness, were born with abnormally short limbs and in some cases without any arms, legs or hips. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

    It’s a small number compared to the thousands born with the disorder in Germany, England, Canada and Australia, where the drug had been on the market for several years before its U.S. application reached the desk of Dr. Frances O. Kelsey, a medical officer with the Food and Drug Administration.

    It was one of the first drug applications that Kelsey had to review as part of a job she had just started in 1960. But she was up to the task, said FDA historian Dr. John Swann.

    Kelsey had a doctorate in pharmacology and a medical degree from the University of Chicago. She was a faculty member in the pharmacology department at the University of South Dakota and a practicing doctor. Among the few full-time medical officers at the FDA in 1960, she was the only woman.

    A ‘very easy’ drug to approve

    The German firm Chemie Grünenthal, which had acquired Thalidomide, licensed it to American firm Richardson-Merrell, which then submitted a new drug application in the U.S. under the brand name Kevadon.

    While Thalidomide was used as a sedative, it was also often prescribed to pregnant women to address morning sickness. It was widely distributed and when it came on the market in Germany, it was even offered as an over-the-counter drug, Swann said.

    U.S. law at the time required that all new drugs must be shown to be safe for use in order to go on the market. The FDA then had 60 days to review the application. If more information was needed, the clock could be reset. That happened several times in the thalidomide application, Swann said, because Kelsey kept asking for evidence to show that it was safe.

    The so-called evidence that had been supplied relied on testimonials or references to show how it was used in other countries, and, “that’s not what Dr. Kelsey was looking for under the law. She needed evidence, for example, of its long-term toxicity, since sedatives often are used over the long-term,” Swann said.

    “On 25 May 1961, I wrote a letter to Dr. Murray (contact man for Richardson-Merrell) expressing concern that evidence of neurological toxicity apparently was known to Merrell without being forthrightly disclosed in the application. I think Dr. Murray was rather upset at receiving this letter. He thought it was slightly libelous.” — Dr. Frances Kelsey, “Autobiographical Reflections”

    Kelsey and her team of experts continued to ask for more evidence, data and clarification, which surprised Richardson-Merrell.

    “They were expecting this to be a pretty easy call. Well, Dr. Kelsey had other ideas,” Swann said.

    “I came on the first of August 1960 and I think I got the thalidomide application in early September 1960. I believe it was the second one that was given to me. I was the newest person there and pretty green, so my supervisors decided, ‘Well, this is a very easy one. There will be no problems with sleeping pills.’” — Dr. Frances Kelsey, “Autobiographical Reflections”

    A year later, researchers in Germany and Australia linked the drug to “to clusters of rare, severe birth defects — hands and feet projecting directly from the shoulders and hips — that eventually were shown to involve thousands of babies,” according to the FDA website, describing the impact of what could have happened in the U.S. as a “near disaster.”

    “Here was a drug that given for three or four months could cause severe neuropathy. With thalidomide, a growing infant might, perhaps, be exposed to it for five or six or up to nine months. This was the sort of drug that was taken as a mild sedative/hypnotic, and the mother might take it a lot during pregnancy. I do not know exactly what the genesis of this concern was. But I think it was the fact that this was something we were thinking about in terms of all drugs, due to other recent examples. It was in the setting; it was really a new thing — this concern about safety of drugs and childhood. — Dr. Frances Kelsey, “Autobiographical Reflections”

    ‘(My mother) carried a ton of guilt’

    While Thalidomide was never approved in the U.S., it was allowed to be distributed to some physicians for “investigational purposes,” but oversight of clinical investigations at this time were not terribly strict, Swann said.

    The FDA initially believed there were just a few dozen physician investigators, but it turned out to be much more.

    “How they were distributing the drug turned out to be much more cavalier than the agency was aware of,” Swann said.

    Koneczny’s mother did not get the pill from a doctor, but from a co-worker. Koneczny, who’s in his 60s, said his mother was having horrible nausea during her first trimester. She took just one pill, didn’t like the effect and stopped taking it.

    “It was only a single pill. But the effect that it had …” Koneczny said. The bone in his right forearm did not grow. He does not have a working elbow on his right arm, which he said just hangs all the way to a fully functional hand, “But I just have one bone.”

    Koneczny had an inkling years before he had a conversation with his mother that his arm may be attributed to Thalidomide after a doctor told him about the drug and how it was circulating around the time he was born.

    “My mom never really talked about it. She carried a ton of guilt,” Koneczny said. “She just felt so bad that she put me in this position for the rest of my life. … She knew she had taken a pill, but she didn’t know much about it.”

    Looking for answers

    Mink, of Silver Spring, has been combing records and searching for proof on whether her mother took Thalidomide. Growing up, people would ask whether she was a “thalidomide baby.”

    Leslie Mink poses for a photo
    Leslie Mink, of Maryland, says her mother never talked about taking a drug linked to causing rare birth defects. (Courtesy Leslie Mink)

    “I would say no because my mom said no, that it was just like a fluke that happened,” Mink said. “And so that’s what I believed because she never said anything more. And nobody else in my family ever said anything.”

    She hasn’t been able to obtain any records that indicate whether her mother took the drug. Since it was a sample drug, there may be no records to show that. She never asked her mother, who died when Mink was 27 years old, whether she took the drug.

    “I don’t have any proof that I’m a thalidomide baby. But, I’m in the right year,” said Mink, who will turn 65 in August. “My mother either didn’t know she took it or she didn’t want to admit that she took it.”

    Swann said the FDA was able to confirm 17 cases linked to the investigational drug, including five or so cases where the mother had received imported Thalidomide from sources abroad, but he added that recent research indicates a lot more babies were affected than previously thought.

    “Given the rarity of this kind of birth defect, one can easily be compelled by the evidence to link this to Thalidomide,” Swann said. “And indeed, some of the interviews I’ve read with some of those affected certainly indicate that it was caused by Thalidomide.”

    ‘A legend’ within the FDA

    The thalidomide scandal and Kelsey’s role in preventing a “near disaster” were some of the catalysts in the passing of the Kefauver-Harris Amendments in 1962, which required that before marketing a drug, firms had to prove not only the safety but the effectiveness of the drug for its intended use.

    The Kefauver-Harris Amendments formalized manufacturing practices, required that adverse events be reported, and transferred the regulation of prescription drug advertising from the Federal Trade Commission to the FDA.

    Swann said Kelsey is a “legend” not just with the FDA.

    “The stand that she took has been meaningful to everyone.”

    In 1962, Kelsey was awarded the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by President John F. Kennedy, the highest honor given to a civilian in the U.S. She was the second woman to ever receive the award.

    Kelsey lived in Maryland until 2014, until she moved to Canada, where she was born. She died in 2015 at age 101.

    President John F. Kennedy giving an award to Dr. Frances Kelsey
    President John F. Kennedy, center right, decorates Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey with the distinguished Federal Civilian Service medal during a White House ceremony, Aug. 7, 1962. Dr. Kelsey is the government medical officer who prevented the marketing of the drug Thalidomide in the United States. The medal is the highest honor for a civilian employee. Sen. Hubert Humphrey, D-Minn., can be seen in background, center. (AP Photo/John Rous)

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    Supreme Court seems favorable to Biden administration over efforts to combat social media posts – Twin Cities https://planetcirculate.com/supreme-court-seems-favorable-to-biden-administration-over-efforts-to-combat-social-media-posts-twin-cities/ https://planetcirculate.com/supreme-court-seems-favorable-to-biden-administration-over-efforts-to-combat-social-media-posts-twin-cities/#respond Mon, 18 Mar 2024 20:45:21 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/supreme-court-seems-favorable-to-biden-administration-over-efforts-to-combat-social-media-posts-twin-cities/

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed likely Monday to side with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security. The justices seemed broadly skeptical during nearly two hours of arguments that a lawyer […]

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    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed likely Monday to side with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.

    The justices seemed broadly skeptical during nearly two hours of arguments that a lawyer for Louisiana, Missouri and other parties presented accusing officials in the Democratic administration of leaning on the social media platforms to unconstitutionally squelch conservative points of view.

    Lower courts have sided with the states, but the Supreme Court blocked those rulings while it considers the issue.

    Several justices said they were concerned that common interactions between government officials and the platforms could be affected by a ruling for the states.

    In one example, Justice Amy Coney Barrett expressed surprise when Louisiana Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga questioned whether the FBI could call Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) to encourage them to take down posts that maliciously released someone’s personal information without permission, the practice known as doxxing.

    “Do you know how often the FBI makes those calls?” Barrett asked, suggesting they happen frequently.

    The court’s decision in this and other social media cases could set standards for free speech in the digital age. Last week, the court laid out standards for when public officials can block their social media followers. Less than a month ago, the court heard arguments over Republican-passed laws in Florida and Texas that prohibit large social media companies from taking down posts because of the views they express.

    The cases over state laws and the one that was argued Monday are variations on the same theme, complaints that the platforms are censoring conservative viewpoints.

    The states argue that White House communications staffers, the surgeon general, the FBI and the U.S. cybersecurity agency are among those who coerced changes in online content on social media platforms.

    “It’s a very, very threatening thing when the federal government uses the power and authority of the government to block people from exercising their freedom of speech,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a video her office posted online.

    The administration responds that none of the actions the states complain about come close to problematic coercion. The states “still have not identified any instance in which any government official sought to coerce a platform’s editorial decisions with a threat of adverse government action,” wrote Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer. Prelogar wrote that states also can’t “point to any evidence that the government ever imposed any sanction when the platforms declined to moderate content the government had flagged — as routinely occurred.”

    The companies themselves are not involved in the case.

    Free speech advocates say the court should use the case to draw an appropriate line between the government’s acceptable use of the bully pulpit and coercive threats to free speech.

    “The government has no authority to threaten platforms into censoring protected speech, but it must have the ability to participate in public discourse so that it can effectively govern and inform the public of its views,” Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement.

    A panel of three judges on the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled earlier that the Biden administration had probably brought unconstitutional pressure on the media platforms. The appellate panel said officials cannot attempt to “coerce or significantly encourage” changes in online content. The panel had previously narrowed a more sweeping order from a federal judge, who wanted to include even more government officials and prohibit mere encouragement of content changes.

    A divided Supreme Court put the 5th Circuit ruling on hold in October, when it agreed to take up the case.

    Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas would have rejected the emergency appeal from the Biden administration.

    Alito wrote in dissent in October: “At this time in the history of our country, what the Court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the Government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news. That is most unfortunate.”

    A decision in Murthy v. Missouri, 23-411, is expected by early summer.



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    Here’s how St. Paul compares to a decade ago – Twin Cities https://planetcirculate.com/heres-how-st-paul-compares-to-a-decade-ago-twin-cities/ https://planetcirculate.com/heres-how-st-paul-compares-to-a-decade-ago-twin-cities/#respond Sun, 17 Mar 2024 10:33:28 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/heres-how-st-paul-compares-to-a-decade-ago-twin-cities/

    Imagine St. Paul a decade ago. CHS Field, the future home of the St. Paul Saints, was still under construction in Lowertown, one of the downtown communities leading the way in the city’s long-awaited population resurgence in 2014. But just a few years past the Great Recession, citywide multi-family housing construction was still in the […]

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    Imagine St. Paul a decade ago. CHS Field, the future home of the St. Paul Saints, was still under construction in Lowertown, one of the downtown communities leading the way in the city’s long-awaited population resurgence in 2014. But just a few years past the Great Recession, citywide multi-family housing construction was still in the doldrums.

    The Green Line — Metro Transit’s second light-rail line — debuted that June, inspiring hopes of economic renewal amidst fears of gentrification. And cellphone footage of a Black man being tasered and arrested as he was waiting in the downtown skyway for his kids to get out of day care went viral online, like a digital preview of future flashpoints in police-community relations in the Twin Cities.

    Now imagine St. Paul five years ago. Soccer fans celebrated the opening of Allianz Field, a 19,000-seat stadium in the Midway. St. Paul reached an agreement with the Ryan Cos. to develop thousands of housing units on 122 acres of land at the former site of the Ford auto manufacturing campus in Highland Park. Citywide multi-family housing construction climbed considerably.

    And St. Paul today? The city has weathered a bruising pandemic, only to discover fresh challenges in the era of online shopping and remote work. Crime rates, which rose during the pandemic, appear to be stabilizing, but the population during the pandemic actually declined. By number, homeowners have regained an edge in a city that is no longer renter-majority.

    Demographic changes are now firmly reflected in the youngest and most racially and ethnically diverse city council in St. Paul history. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and the St. Paul Downtown Alliance have together set a goal of growing downtown by 20,000 more residents — triple the current number — as well as 20,000 more jobs and a 20% increase in visitors relative to 2018.

    There’s more worth taking into account over the past 10 years. Take a gander at 30 indicators of the state of the capital city across the past decade, compiled with the help of the city of St. Paul, Ramsey County, the St. Paul Downtown Alliance and Wilder Research’s Minnesota Compass.

    Property taxes

    Property taxes are up as downtown values falter: St. Paul’s citywide tax levy — the sum total of all property taxes collected in the city to fund city operations — has doubled in the past 10 years, from just over $101 million to about $202 million, not accounting for cumulative inflation across the decade (about 31%) or the 2018 shift in street maintenance fees onto property taxes.

    Business advocates fear that as downtown property owners contest valuations, the amount of property tax dollars contributed from downtown could stay flat or decline, shifting more tax burden onto homeowners, renters and small businesses. Downtown accounts for 9% of the citywide tax revenue, according to the St. Paul Downtown Alliance.

    Housing construction

    Even a few years after the Great Recession, construction permits for St. Paul apartment buildings and other multi-family housing were still sluggish in 2014.

    By 2019, they had picked up considerably, only to begin to falter after peaking in 2021, according to federal data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some have blamed high interest rates, rent control, remote work, crime trends and other economic and social uncertainty post-pandemic. HUD found a little more than 400 new housing units permitted in multi-family buildings in 2014, which climbed to 1,500 in 2019 and then fell to 1,156 in 2023.

    Apartment values grow fastest

    The estimated market value of all residential properties, apartment buildings and commercial/industrial properties in St. Paul rose 85% over the course of the decade, according to  Ramsey County. Total values climbed from $19.1 billion in 2014 to $26.9 billion in 2019 to $35.5 billion this year. Apartment values grew fastest, more than doubling from $2.6 billion to $6.9 billion, a 167% increase. Residential values grew from $13.1 billion to $23.3 billion in that time, a 77% increase. Commercial/industrial values climbed from $3.4 billion to $5.3 billion, a 56% increase. Those numbers have not been adjusted for inflation.

    The number of apartment units surge

    The number of St. Paul housing units in apartment buildings has grown in the past decade, while smaller residential properties — single-family, two- and three-family houses, condos and townhomes — have stayed fairly flat. Apartment units increased 25%, from 39,200 apartments in 2014 to about 49,120 units this year, according to figures provided by Ramsey County. There were 78,520 smaller residential properties in 2014, compared to about 77,750 this year, a 1% decline. Commercial/industrial properties grew 41% from about 3,290 properties in 2014 to 4,630 properties this year.

    Occupied housing

    A bar chart showing the numbers of owner-occupied, renter-occupied and vacant property units.The number of occupied housing units in St. Paul grew about 14% in eight years. There was little change from 111,978 housing units in 2014 to 110,782 units in 2019, followed by an increase to 126,654 units in 2022, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. In other words, St. Paul has more occupied housing than a decade ago.

    Housing costs, renters

    St. Paul is no longer a renter-majority city, at least as of 2022. The percentage of housing units that are owner-occupied in St. Paul has grown from 47.2% in 2014 to 52.2% in 2019 to 53.8% in 2022, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. Renters dropped in step, from comprising 52.8% of the city in 2014, to 47.8% in 2019 and then 46.2% in 2022. That’s at least partially a function of some renters leaving during the pandemic, but homeownership has increased in the past decade, especially when interest rates fell to record lows.

    Rents surge

    Median gross rents in St. Paul climbed 46% from 2014 to 2022, or 18% after adjusting for inflation. However you slice it, rent went up a lot. The median gross rent in 2014 was $831 per month, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. It climbed to $1,000 per month in 2019 and $1,216 per month in 2022.

    Housing cost burdens

    Housing officials consider households that devote more than 30% of their income toward housing to being “housing cost-burdened.” In St. Paul, 38% of households fell into that category a decade ago, compared to 33.4% in 2019 and 37% in 2022, according to Wilder Research and the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Population, demographics



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    After the pandemic, young Chinese again want to study abroad, just not so much in the US – Twin Cities https://planetcirculate.com/after-the-pandemic-young-chinese-again-want-to-study-abroad-just-not-so-much-in-the-us-twin-cities/ https://planetcirculate.com/after-the-pandemic-young-chinese-again-want-to-study-abroad-just-not-so-much-in-the-us-twin-cities/#respond Sun, 17 Mar 2024 01:25:01 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/after-the-pandemic-young-chinese-again-want-to-study-abroad-just-not-so-much-in-the-us-twin-cities/

    By DIDI TANG (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — In the Chinese city of Shanghai, two young women seeking an education abroad have both decided against going to the United States, a destination of choice for decades that may be losing its shine. For Helen Dong, a 22-year-old senior studying advertising, it was the cost. “It […]

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    By DIDI TANG (Associated Press)

    WASHINGTON (AP) — In the Chinese city of Shanghai, two young women seeking an education abroad have both decided against going to the United States, a destination of choice for decades that may be losing its shine.

    For Helen Dong, a 22-year-old senior studying advertising, it was the cost. “It doesn’t work for me when you have to spend 2 million (yuan) ($278,000) but find no job upon returning,” she said. Dong is headed to Hong Kong this fall instead.

    Costs were not a concern for Yvonne Wong, 24, now studying comparative literature and cultures in a master’s program at the University of Bristol in Britain. For her, the issue was safety.

    “Families in Shanghai usually don’t want to send their daughters to a place where guns are not banned — that was the primary reason,” Wong said. “Between the U.S. and the U.K., the U.K. is safer, and that’s the biggest consideration for my parents.”

    With an interest in studying abroad rebounding after the pandemic, there are signs that the decades-long run that has sent an estimated 3 million Chinese students to the U.S., including many of the country’s brightest, could be trending down, as geopolitical shifts redefine U.S.-China relations.

    Cutting people-to-people exchanges could have a lasting impact on relations between the two countries.

    “International education is a bridge,” said Fanta Aw, executive director of the NAFSA Association of International Educators, based in Washington. “A long-term bridge, because the students who come today are the engineers of the future. They are the politicians of the future, they are the business entrepreneurs of the future.”

    “Not seeing that pipeline as strong means that we in the U.S. have to pay attention, because China-U.S. relations are very important,.”

    Aw said the decrease is more notable in U.S. undergraduate programs, which she attributed to a declining population in China from low birthrates, bitter U.S.-China relations, more regional choices for Chinese families and the high costs of a U.S. education.

    But graduate programs have not been spared. Zheng Yi, an associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, has seen the number of Chinese applicants to one of the school’s engineering programs shrink to single digits, compared with 20 to 30 students before the pandemic.

    He said the waning interest could be partly due to China’s growing patriotism that nudges students to attend Chinese institutes instead.

    Andrew Chen, chief executive officer of Pittsburgh-based WholeRen Education, which has advised Chinese students in the U.S. for the past 14 years, said the downward trend is here to stay.

    “This is not a periodic wave,” he said. “This is a new era.” The Chinese government has sidelined English education, hyped gun violence in the U.S., and portrayed the U.S. as a declining power. As a result, Chen said, Chinese families are hesitant to send their children to the U.S.

    Beijing has criticized the U.S. for its unfriendly policy toward some Chinese students, citing an executive order by former President Donald Trump to keep out Chinese students who have attended schools with strong links to the Chinese military.

    The Chinese foreign ministry also has protested that a number of Chinese students have been unfairly interrogated and sent home upon arrival at U.S. airports in recent months. Spokeswoman Mao Ning recently describing the U.S. actions as “selective, discriminatory and politically motivated.”

    State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said fewer than “one tenth of 1%” of Chinese students have been detained or denied admission. Another State Department official said Chinese students selected for U.S.-funded exchange programs have been harassed by Chinese state agents. Half of the students have been forced to withdraw, and those who participated in the programs have been faced with harassment after returning to China, the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

    The U.S.-China Education Trust acknowledged the predicament facing Chinese students. “Students from China have been criticized in the U.S. as potential spies, and in China as too influenced by the West,” the organization said in a report following a survey of Chinese students in the U.S. between 1991 and 2021.

    Still, many young Chinese, especially those whose parents were foreign-educated, are eager to study abroad. The China-based education service provider New Oriental said the students hope degrees from reputable foreign universities will improve their career prospects in a tough job market at home, where the unemployment rate for those 16 to 24 stood at nearly 15% in December.

    But their preferences have shifted from the U.S. to the U.K., according to EIC Education, a Chinese consultancy specializing in international education. The students like the shorter study programs and the quality and affordability of a British education, as well as the feeling of safety.

    Wong, the Shanghai student now studying in the U.K., said China’s handling of the pandemic pushed more young people to go abroad. “After three years of tight controls during the pandemic, most people have realized the outside world is different, and they are more willing to leave,” she said.

    The State Department issued 86,080 F-1 student visas to Chinese students in the budget year ending in September, up nearly 40% from the year earlier. Still, the number remains below the pre-pandemic level of 105,775.

    Under communist leadership, China only opened its doors to the U.S. in the late 1970s when the two countries established formal ties. Beijing, desperate to revive its economy through Western technology, wanted to send 5,000 students to American universities; President Jimmy Carter replied that he would take 100,000.

    The number of Chinese students in the U.S. picked up after Beijing in 1981 allowed Chinese students to “self-fund” their overseas studies, rather than relying on government money. Generous scholarships from U.S. schools allowed tens of thousands of Chinese students to study here, but it wasn’t until 2009 when the number of Chinese students exceeded 100,000, driven by growth in family wealth.

    In the following decade, the number of Chinese students in the U.S. more than tripled to peak at 372,532 in the 2019-2020 academic year, just as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. The number slipped to 289,526 in 2022.

    The Institute of International Education, which publishes annual reports on international students, has found that U.S. schools are prioritizing students from India over China, especially for graduate programs. However, it also found that 36% of schools reported increases in new Chinese students in fall 2023.

    In its most recent report, the Council of Graduate Schools said U.S. universities have seen a surge in applications and enrollments from India and countries in sub-Saharan Africa since fall 2020, while those from Chinese nationals have declined.

    “Increasing competition from Chinese institutions of higher learning and the growing geopolitical tension between China and the United States may be contributing to this trend,” the council report said.



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    Why parents text their child at school — and why they should stop https://planetcirculate.com/why-parents-text-their-child-at-school-and-why-they-should-stop/ https://planetcirculate.com/why-parents-text-their-child-at-school-and-why-they-should-stop/#respond Tue, 12 Mar 2024 17:30:09 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/why-parents-text-their-child-at-school-and-why-they-should-stop/

    Parents texting their children who are in school aren’t just staying in touch — they’re sabotaging their children’s learning and development, according to doctors. Parents texting their children who are in school aren’t just staying in touch — they’re sabotaging their children’s learning and development, according to doctors. Although most schools allow a student to […]

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    Parents texting their children who are in school aren’t just staying in touch — they’re sabotaging their children’s learning and development, according to doctors.

    Parents texting their children who are in school aren’t just staying in touch — they’re sabotaging their children’s learning and development, according to doctors.

    Although most schools allow a student to carry a cellphone for an emergency, and some teachers require students to place their phones in a box when entering a classroom, in many cases students are hearing or feeling the buzzing vibration of notifications, while they should be focused on what’s being taught.

    “Anybody under the age of 26 does not have a fully-formed frontal lobe, which is kind of what helps to separate what’s important from what’s not,” said pediatrician John Farrell, from his office in South Riding, Virginia. “Any distraction can really separate them from what they should be paying attention to.”

    Farrell said children, and especially their parents, are still feeling the effects of the COVID pandemic.

    “I think, as a society, we are still recovering. I think there’s still that underlying level of anxiety, so there is certainly something to staying connected,” said Farrell. “Kids texting their parents may be different than their parents texting the kids.”

    Farrell said constant texting between parent and child while the student is in school robs the child of an important aspect of development.

    “Teaching them, through trial and error, is kind of what both a school and parents are trying to do,” said Farrell. “Ultimately, we’re all striving for independent children, who kind of think and make decisions on their own.”

    Some children either feel the need, or are told to immediately report class grades that they receive to their parents.

    Farrell said he hopes parents communicate that that type of information can wait: “I hope they show their kid this isn’t the most important thing, and ask more about how their day went and how their social interactions are, in addition to their grades, and success academically.”

    Much of the important learning has nothing to do with subject matter being taught, says Farrell. “A lot of it is through face-to-face contact with their peers, which every time they’re on their phone, that is minimized.”

    Parents’ anxiety fuels texts to students, adds ‘extra burden’

    Psychologist Judith Danovitch, professor of psychological and brain sciences at University of Louisville, empathizes with parents who feel the need to be in constant touch with their child.

    “I’m a parent of an eighth grader myself, so I’m very familiar with this phenomenon, and I understand why parents might want to text their kids in school,” said Danovitch.

    However, sending the text makes learning more difficult.

    “Particularly for kids, whose executive function and inhibition skills are still developing,” said Danovitch. “It’s like you’re adding another extra burden on top of that.”

    Danovitch said humans are not good multi-taskers.

    “Receiving that text message takes your attention away from what the teacher is saying, away from a math problem that you might be working on,” said Danovitch. “And getting back to it has a cognitive cost — it makes it harder to understand, to comprehend, to figure out the solution to the problem.”

    The distraction has consequences, even if the text message isn’t read — the buzz, beep or vibration from the notification derails the child’s learning.

    “You’re thinking, ‘Whoa, what’s the text message going to say?’” said Danovitch. “You’re not thinking about what was Shakespeare trying to say in this passage.”

    Danovitch said parents feeling the urgency to text their child at school is typically fueled by the parent’s anxiety.

    “We, as parents, should strike to model for children (how to) manage anxiety,” said Danovitch. “Really making thoughtful choices about how to act on it.”

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    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.



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    Paul Offit looks back on COVID-19, misinformation, and how public health lost the public’s trust in new book – Twin Cities https://planetcirculate.com/paul-offit-looks-back-on-covid-19-misinformation-and-how-public-health-lost-the-publics-trust-in-new-book-twin-cities/ https://planetcirculate.com/paul-offit-looks-back-on-covid-19-misinformation-and-how-public-health-lost-the-publics-trust-in-new-book-twin-cities/#respond Fri, 08 Mar 2024 20:42:21 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/paul-offit-looks-back-on-covid-19-misinformation-and-how-public-health-lost-the-publics-trust-in-new-book-twin-cities/

    Abraham Gutman | (TNS) The Philadelphia Inquirer PHILADELPHIA — Trust in public health agencies declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, as misinformation about vaccines and the virus proliferated on social media. But did the public health agencies themselves also play a role in the decline of their credibility? Paul Offit had a front-row seat to federal public health […]

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    Abraham Gutman | (TNS) The Philadelphia Inquirer

    PHILADELPHIA — Trust in public health agencies declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, as misinformation about vaccines and the virus proliferated on social media. But did the public health agencies themselves also play a role in the decline of their credibility?

    Paul Offit had a front-row seat to federal public health agencies’ pandemic response. A pediatrician and vaccine developer from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Offit is a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, which played a critical role in reviewing COVID vaccine research and advising the FDA on vaccine safety.

    In his new book, “Tell Me When It’s Over: An Insider’s Guide to Deciphering Covid Myths and Navigating Our Post-Pandemic World,” Offit chronicles the first years of the pandemic, explains the science of COVID, and traces the rise of anti-vaccine movement and misinformation. He also blames those charged with protecting the nation’s health of taking action against evidence — and in doing so undermining public trust.

    He says public health agencies made mistakes in key moments, such as when the FDA fast tracked in 2020 the authorization of an antimalaria drug with risk of fatal heart side effects that didn’t work against COVID. At the time, President Donald Trump called the medication a “game changer” and promoted it as a COVID treatment. The FDA revoked the authorization a few months later.

    “People lost faith in the FDA,” Offit said. “People saw that you could twist the FDA’s arm.”

    The Inquirer spoke to Offit about his new book, and what steps public health agencies can take to reclaim the public’s trust.

    Best of times, worst of times

    The pandemic saw significant scientific advancement. Scientists were able to produce a safe and effective vaccine to protect against a new virus within a year — a feat that can take more than 10 years. Offit called the vaccine “the greatest” medical achievement in his lifetime.

    At the same time, more people grew suspicious of vaccines, and their mistrust continued to grow through last fall, according to surveys by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. In the center’s most recent survey, 71% agreed that vaccines approved in the U.S. are safe, down from 77% in April 2021.

    The way public health agencies and elected officials communicated also contributed to the public’s loss of faith, Offit said.

    He criticized the response to a July 4, 2021, celebration in Provincetown, Mass. After thousands of people attended the event, nearly 350 fully vaccinated men were among those who developed COVID. Only four of those vaccinated were hospitalized, and the rest developed mild or no symptoms.

    Offit saw a success: the vaccines were working.

    But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used the term “breakthrough infection” to describe the incident, a phrasing choice that Offit said implied failure to offer protection.

    Another mixed message came in August 2021: President Joe Biden promoted booster shots for American adults even though boosters had not been approved by the FDA yet.

    A month later, the FDA advisory committee overwhelmingly voted against the recommendation to offer boosters to people under age 65, because there wasn’t enough evidence at the time that an extra dose would improve protection to people of all ages.

    The conflicting messages added to public distrust, Offit said.

    The FDA began expanding the eligibility for boosters in Nov. 2021, and currently recommends that everyone over a ge 6 months receive an extra shoot.

    Neither the FDA nor the CDC responded to request for comment about Offit’s criticism. A spokesperson for the FDA shared a statement saying the agency stands by the safety and effectiveness of the COVID vaccines.

    Admitting mistakes and going on offense

    Rebuilding trust in public health agencies won’t be easy, Offit said. But he has some ideas for how to move forward.

    Science and knowledge are always evolving, which means the best advice experts can offer may change. Public health agencies shouldn’t shy away from that fact and should do more to explain the scientific process, Offit said.

    “You have to trust the American public to at least tell them the truth,” he said. “It’s OK to make your best guess and get it wrong, but say that.”

    Offit also wants to see public health agencies more aggressively responding to anti-vaccination claims and other misinformation. When misinformation is spread, public health agencies should spend resources on campaigns disputing the claims with science.

    People who advocate against vaccines “harm children,” he said, pointing to the recent measles outbreaks in the U.S, and he wants public health agencies to portray them as such.

    “Hammer back,” Offit said.

    ©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.



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    A man deliberately got 217 Covid shots. Here’s what happened https://planetcirculate.com/a-man-deliberately-got-217-covid-shots-heres-what-happened/ https://planetcirculate.com/a-man-deliberately-got-217-covid-shots-heres-what-happened/#respond Wed, 06 Mar 2024 19:42:14 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/a-man-deliberately-got-217-covid-shots-heres-what-happened/

    One German man has redefined “man on a mission.” A 62-year-old from Magdeburg deliberately got 217 Covid-19 vaccine shots in the span of 29 months, according to a new study, going against national vaccine recommendations. That’s an average of one jab every four days. A 62-year-old man from Magdeburg, Germany, reported receiving 217 Covid-19 shots […]

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    One German man has redefined “man on a mission.” A 62-year-old from Magdeburg deliberately got 217 Covid-19 vaccine shots in the span of 29 months, according to a new study, going against national vaccine recommendations. That’s an average of one jab every four days.


    A 62-year-old man from Magdeburg, Germany, reported receiving 217 Covid-19 shots between June 2021 and November 2023.

    (CNN) — One German man has redefined “man on a mission.” A 62-year-old from Magdeburg deliberately got 217 Covid-19 vaccine shots in the span of 29 months, according to a new study, going against national vaccine recommendations. That’s an average of one jab every four days.

    In the process, he became a walking experiment for what happens to the immune system when it is vaccinated against the same pathogen repeatedly. A correspondence published Monday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases outlined his case and concluded that while his “hypervaccination” did not result in any adverse health effects, it also did not significantly improve or worsen his immune response.

    The man, who is not named in the correspondence in compliance with German privacy rules, reported receiving 217 Covid shots between June 2021 and November 2023. Of those, 134 were confirmed by a prosecutor and through vaccination center documentation; the remaining 83 were self-reported, according to the study.

    “This is a really unusual case of someone receiving that many Covid vaccines, clearly not following any type of guidelines,” said Dr. Emily Happy Miller, an assistant professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine who did not participate in the research.

    The man did not report any vaccine-related side effects and has not had a Covid infection to date, as evidenced by repeated antigen and PCR testing between May 2022 and November 2023. The researchers caution that it’s not clear that his Covid status is directly because of his hypervaccination regimen.

    “Perhaps he didn’t get Covid because he was well-protected in the first three doses of the vaccine,” Miller said. “We also don’t know anything about his behaviors.”

    Dr. Kilian Schober, senior author of the new study and a researcher at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, said it is important to remember that this is an individual case study, and the results are not generalizable.

    The researchers also say they do not endorse hypervaccination as a strategy to enhance immunity.

    “The benefit is not much bigger if you get vaccinated three times or 200 times,” Schober said.

    Raising suspicions

    According to his immunization history, the man got his first Covid vaccine in June 2021. He got 16 shots that year at centers across the eastern state of Saxony.

    He ramped up his efforts in 2022, rolling up his sleeves for shots in both his right and left arms almost every day in January, for a total of 48 shots that month.

    Then he kept going: 34 shots in February and six more shots in March. Around this time, German Red Cross staff members in the city of Dresden became suspicious and issued a warning to other vaccination centers, encouraging them to call the police if they saw the man again, CNN affiliate RTL reported in April 2022.

    In early March, he showed up at a vaccination center in the town of Eilenburg and was detained by police. He was suspected of selling the vaccination cards to third parties, according to RTL. This was during a time when many European countries required proof of vaccination to access public venues and travel.

    The public prosecutor in Magdeburg opened an investigation into the man for the unauthorized issuing of vaccination cards and forgery of documents but did not end up filing criminal charges, according to the study.

    Effects of hypervaccination

    The researchers read about the man in the news and reached out to him through the prosecutor investigating his case in May 2022. By this point, he was 213 shots in.

    He agreed to provide medical information, blood and saliva samples. He also proceeded to get four more Covid shots, against the researchers’ medical advice, Schober said.

    The researchers analyzed his blood chemistries, which showed no abnormalities linked to his hypervaccination. They also looked at various markers to evaluate how his adaptive immune system was functioning, according to the study.

    The adaptive immune system is the subsection of the immune system that learns to recognize and respond to specific pathogens when you encounter them throughout your life, Miller said. There are two main cell types in the adaptive immune system, T cells and B cells.

    In chronic diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis B, immune cells can become fatigued from frequent exposure to the pathogen and lose the ability to combat it effectively, Schober said. Hypervaccination, in theory, could have a similar effect.

    However, that’s not what the researchers found. Hypervaccination in this case increased the quantity (the number of T cells and B cell products) but did not affect the quality of the adaptive immune system, according to the study.

    “If you take the allegory of the immune system as an army, the number of soldiers is higher, but the soldiers themselves are not different,” Schober said.

    In total, the man got eight vaccine formulations, including mRNA vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, a vector-based vaccine from Johnson & Johnson and a recombinant-protein vaccine from Sanofi.

    “The observation that no noticeable side effects were triggered in spite of this extraordinary hypervaccination indicates that the drugs have a good degree of tolerability,” Schober said in a news release.

    While very interesting from a scientific perspective, individual case studies like this must always be taken with a grain of salt, Miller said. Public health recommendations, which are based on very large, randomized control trials, are what people should look to for guidance, she added.

    “I don’t think any physician or public health official would recommend doing what this gentleman did. This is really uncharted territory,” Miller said. “Talk to your doctor, follow the recommended vaccine schedules, and that should be the best thing to keep you both protected from Covid and healthy and safe.”

    The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Covid vaccination for everyone ages 6 months or older in the United States, following the vaccination schedules outlined on its website. Last week, the CDC updated its guidance to recommend an additional dose of the current Covid vaccine for people 65 and older.

    Less than a quarter of adults and only 13% of children in the US have gotten the most recently recommended Covid vaccine, according to CDC data.

    The-CNN-Wire
    ™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.



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    Free home Covid-19 test program to be suspended this week https://planetcirculate.com/free-home-covid-19-test-program-to-be-suspended-this-week/ https://planetcirculate.com/free-home-covid-19-test-program-to-be-suspended-this-week/#respond Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:10:09 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/free-home-covid-19-test-program-to-be-suspended-this-week/

    The US government’s free at-home Covid-19 test program will be suspended Friday, according to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. (CNN) — The US government’s free at-home Covid-19 test program will be suspended Friday, according to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. Since November, residential households in the US have been able to […]

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    The US government’s free at-home Covid-19 test program will be suspended Friday, according to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.

    (CNN) — The US government’s free at-home Covid-19 test program will be suspended Friday, according to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.

    Since November, residential households in the US have been able to submit an order through Covidtests.gov for four individual rapid antigen tests. All orders placed on or before Friday will be fulfilled, according to ASPR, an operating division of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

    “ASPR has delivered over 1.8 billion free COVID-19 tests to the American people through COVIDTests.gov and direct distribution pathways and will continue distributing millions of tests per week to long-term care facilities, food banks, health centers, and schools,” an ASPR spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday.

    The decision to suspend the program’s sixth run comes amid falling Covid-19 cases as the nation’s respiratory virus season winds down, according to the agency.

    Last month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the worst of the season may be over but warned that Covid-19 levels remain elevated across the country.

    “While the respiratory virus season is likely past its peak, it is definitely not over,” the agency said. “There is still a lot of respiratory virus activity, so it’s not time to let our guard down.”

    Rates of Covid-19-related hospitalizations remain elevated but are decreasing in some parts of the country, CDC data shows. Still, thousands of people are being hospitalized with Covid-19 each week: more than 17,000 during the week ending February 24, according to the CDC.

    An ASPR spokesperson says the agency reserves the right to reopen the testing program if needed.

    The government previously suspended the rapid test distribution program in May after the end of the Covid-19 public health emergency. It was reopened September 25.

    Residents who haven’t placed an order since then can now place two, which will provide eight tests in total, according to the US Postal Service. Each order includes four rapid antigen Covid-19 tests.

    These tests can be taken at home and can be used regardless of whether someone has symptoms. The tests should work through the end of the year; some of the dates on the labels may show that they’re expired, but the US Food and Drug Administration has extended those dates.

    The CDC recommends that people test if they have any Covid-19-like symptoms including a sore throat, a runny nose, loss of smell or taste or a fever.

    People may also want to test before they’re going to be a part of a large event, like a concert or a conference, particularly if they aren’t up-to-date on their vaccines. Antiviral medications are available to treat both Covid-19 and flu, and testing can help determine which is needed.

    More information on free testing resources is available on the Covidtests.gov site or at 1-800-232-0233 (TTY 1-888-720-7489).

    CNN’S Deidre McPhillips contributed to this report.

    Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly described ASPR.

    The-CNN-Wire
    ™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.



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    ‘Hypervaccinated’ man had 217 COVID-19 jabs: study https://planetcirculate.com/hypervaccinated-man-had-217-covid-19-jabs-study/ https://planetcirculate.com/hypervaccinated-man-had-217-covid-19-jabs-study/#respond Tue, 05 Mar 2024 21:20:51 +0000 https://planetcirculate.com/hypervaccinated-man-had-217-covid-19-jabs-study/

    Scientists have reported the case of a “hypervaccinated” man who has reportedly received 217 COVID-19 jabs. The man from Germany had dozens of vaccines “for private reasons” over a period of 29 months, according to a study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases. The 62-year-old, from Magdeburg, Germany, had “no signs” of ever being […]

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    Scientists have reported the case of a “hypervaccinated” man who has reportedly received 217 COVID-19 jabs.

    The man from Germany had dozens of vaccines “for private reasons” over a period of 29 months, according to a study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

    The 62-year-old, from Magdeburg, Germany, had “no signs” of ever being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 and had not reported any vaccine-related side-effects, the researchers from University of Erlangen-Nuremberg said.

    Academics heard about the man in a newspaper report and asked if they could study his body’s response to the multiple jabs.

    “We learned about his case via newspaper articles,” Dr Kilian Schober said.

    “We then contacted him and invited him to undergo various tests in Erlangen. He was very interested in doing so.”

    There is official confirmation for 134 of these vaccinations including eight different vaccines, the team said.

    “The observation that no noticeable side-effects were triggered in spite of this extraordinary hypervaccination indicates that the drugs have a good degree of tolerability,” Dr Schober said.

    Researchers looked at previous blood tests the man had had and also examined blood samples as he went on to receive further vaccines.

    Dr Schober continued: “The individual has undergone various blood tests over recent years, he gave us his permission to assess the results of these analyses.

    “In some cases, samples had been frozen, and we were able to investigate these ourselves. We were also able to take blood samples ourselves when the man received a further vaccination during the study at his own insistence.

    “We were able to use these samples to determine exactly how the immune system reacts to the vaccination.”

    Researchers found that his immune system was fully functional.

    Certain immune cells and antibodies against the virus which causes COVID-19 (Sars-CoV-2) were present in considerably higher levels compared to people who had received just three vaccines, the team reported.

    “Overall, we did not find any indication for a weaker immune response, rather the contrary,” said one of the leading study authors Katharina Kocher.

    People in the United Kingdom will have received a maximum of seven jabs through the initial vaccination program and subsequent booster jabs.

    Many working age adults with no underlying health conditions will have had three jabs – two in the initial program and a booster.



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