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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday issued guidelines for keeping children in school even if they are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated and have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

During a virtual briefing by the White House COVID-19 response team, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the test-to-stay protocol involves testing twice in a seven-day period anyone who has had close contact with someone infected with COVID-19. She said if exposed children meet certain criteria and continue to test negative, they can stay in school instead of quarantining at home.

Walensky said numerous jurisdictions have been experimenting with test-to-stay strategies. Some were testing every day, some every other day, and some twice a week. From those experiments, she said, the CDC will recommend no less than twice-weekly testing to adequately adhere to test-to-stay protocols.

The CDC also published studies conducted in the United States and internationally that looked at how COVID-19 is spread in schools, which helped form the basis for test-to-stay recommendations.

Walensky reported at least 39 U.S. states have more than 75 confirmed cases involving the omicron variant. She said the delta variant continues to circulate widely and remains the dominant strain in the United States, but omicron is spreading rapidly and is expected to become the dominant strain in the coming weeks.

The CDC director said omicron has been found among those who are vaccinated and boosted, and health officials believe these cases are milder or asymptomatic because of vaccine protection. “What we do know is we have the tools to protect ourselves against COVID-19,” she said.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said the U.S. is fully prepared to confront the variant, with ample supplies of vaccines and boosters.

“This is not a moment to panic, because we know how to protect people,” Zients said. “And we have the tools to do it.”

Source: Voice of America

The U.S. government on Thursday permanently eased some restrictions on a pill used to terminate early pregnancies, allowing the drug to be sent by mail rather than requiring it to be dispensed in person.

The decision by the Food and Drug Administration comes as the right to obtain an abortion, established in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance.

The medication, generically known as mifepristone, is approved for use up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and is also sometimes prescribed to treat women who are having miscarriages.

“The FDA’s decision will come as a tremendous relief for countless abortion and miscarriage patients,” said Georgeanne Usova, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The restrictions on the pill had been in place since the FDA approved the drug in 2000 and were lifted temporarily by the government earlier this year because of the pandemic. That enabled women to consult health care providers by telemedicine and receive the pills by mail. The FDA’s decision makes that temporary change permanent.

As a result of the FDA rule change, many patients will not need to go to a clinic, medical office or hospital in person to receive the medication but can opt to receive the pill through the mail from a certified prescriber or pharmacy.

The decision will increase access to medication abortion for women in remote and rural areas without providers nearby.

Low-income women who face obstacles reaching clinics such as lack of transportation and inability to take time off work will also gain greater access to the drug.

However, 19 states including Texas have laws that supersede the FDA decision by barring telehealth consultations or the mailing of abortion pills. Women in those states would not be able to make use of the rule change at home but could potentially travel to other states to obtain medication abortion.

States such as California and New York that have sought to strengthen access to abortion may make the drug available to women from other states.

The change is likely to add to the intense U.S. political debate over abortion. Conservative Supreme Court justices indicated in December 1 oral arguments over an abortion ban in Mississippi at 15 weeks of pregnancy that they were open to either gutting Roe or overturning it entirely. A decision is due by the end of June.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute and Susan B. Anthony List, which advocate against abortion, said in a statement that the FDA decision ignored data on complications and put women at risk.

The groups called on the FDA to restore the in-person dispensing requirement and add restrictions.

FDA records show that of the 3.7 million women who took Mifeprex, the branded version of the drug, to terminate a pregnancy between September 2000 and December 2018, 24 died from complications.

Some restrictions remain

The FDA left in place some restrictions, such as the need to use a certified pharmacy and requiring the prescribers to be certified. The ACLU said it was “disappointing that the FDA fell short of repealing all of its medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, and these remaining obstacles should also be lifted.”

The organization sued the U.S. government on behalf of a Hawaii doctor and several professional health care associations in 2017, challenging the restrictions that it said limited access to medication abortion.

Medication abortion involves two drugs, taken over a day or two. The first, mifepristone, blocks the pregnancy-sustaining hormone progesterone. The second, misoprostol, induces uterine contractions.

Source: Voice of America