Recap: Three angles on "COVID-19 not going away"

• "Delta Surge Drives Home Painful Truth: COVID Isn’t Going Away"

"As alarm mounted over the coronavirus ripping through the country, Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago was barraged with warnings: Lollapalooza was looking increasingly risky. The annual four-day music festival would draw hundreds of thousands of people downtown, unmasked, crowded into mosh pits, city parks, restaurants and L trains, setting up the threat of a superspreader coronavirus event in the Midwest.

The mayor insisted that the festival go on.

The decision to host the event, which injected a dormant downtown with energy and freely spending tourists at the end of last month, reflected a shifting response to the continuing pandemic. One year ago, Chicago was a muted version of itself: Businesses were restricted, schools were preparing to teach remotely, the police blocked access to beaches on Lake Michigan and Lollapalooza was canceled."

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/us/covid-delta-variant-us.html

• Here’s what we know so far about the Delta variant and kids

"With COVID-19 cases rising in the United States once again, fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, and public health officials repeatedly warning that unvaccinated people remain most vulnerable to infections, concerns are mounting for children younger than 12 who are not yet eligible for the shots.

While Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for emergency use in children 12 and older, vaccines have not yet been authorized for those younger than 12. Public health officials hope the shots will be open to younger children in the coming months, but it’s not clear when federal regulators might grant approval.

The Delta variant is now the dominant strain in the country, and data show it’s at least twice as transmissible as the Alpha variant. Here’s what we know so far about the variant and children."

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/08/16/nation/heres-what-we-know-so-far-about-delta-variant-kids/

• "Mass. leaders hope this school year will be back to normal — with no remote learning. Is that realistic?:

"Massachusetts state leaders want this school year to be as normal as possible: all children in school buildings every day, optional masking policies left up to local communities, and absolutely no remote learning.

But amid recent closures of local summer camps, the abrupt shutdown of schools in other states, and rising rates nationwide of children being hospitalized with COVID, some parents, school leaders, and experts are questioning whether the state’s ban on remote learning may be unrealistic — and possibly unsafe. Most schools won’t mandate vaccination and even if they did, many students still are too young for the shot.

The uncertainty has left some schools to quietly create their own contingency plans, including preparing weeks of homework for students to do if they’re forced to go home. Educators — along with researchers and families — widely agree that remote learning harmed many students’ academic, social, and emotional wellbeing, but they also fear it may be too early to completely nix it.

“If we have to shut down a school and remote learning isn’t an option, what the hell are we doing?” Burlington Superintendent Eric Conti said. “We feel like we’re operating without a net.”

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/08/16/metro/mass-officials-hope-this-school-year-will-be-back-normal-with-no-remote-learning-is-that-realistic/

Students waited in line wearing masks during summer school at Salem Public Schools' Horace Mann School. Salem recently implemented a masking mandate for all students and staff for the school year, joining dozens of other school districts in Massachusetts. JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF