ABSTRACT
La educación media superior es el nivel educativo con la mayor tasa de abandono escolar en México. Esta situación había presentado un decrecimiento constante hasta antes del ciclo escolar 2020-2021, período en el que comenzaron a manifestarse los efectos de la pandemia por la covid-19. En este artículo se expone un análisis exploratorio sobre el abandono escolar de este nivel en México considerando los efectos de la pandemia y las intervenciones mediante las políticas públicas que intentan desalentarlo. Una parte fundamental del texto se dedica a caracterizar el fenómeno en función de la multicausalidad identificada en la literatura, los efectos mediadores, así como las principales vías de atención al problema a través de instrumentos de política pública que sirvan como marco de análisis. En cuanto al diseño metodológico, con datos obtenidos de diversas fuentes, incluyendo la Encuesta para la Medición del Impacto COVID-19 en la Educación 2020, se presentan estadísticas descriptivas que permiten elaborar la interpretación de los hallazgos sobre la discontinuidad escolar pre y pospandemia. Entre los principales resultados encontramos que las cuestiones económicas han sido la principal causa para no continuar en la educación media superior, además de que no existieron estrategias propias para este nivel educativo a fin de desalentar el abandono escolar por razones vinculadas a los efectos de la covid-19.Alternate :Upper secondary education is the educational level with the highest dropout rate in Mexico. This situation had shown a steady decrease until before the 2020-2021 school year, when the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic began to manifest themselves. This article presents an exploratory analysis of school dropout at this level in Mexico, considering the effects of the pandemic and interventions through public policies that attempt to discourage it. A large part of the text is devoted to characterizing this phenomenon in terms of the multicausality identified in the literature, mediating effects, and the main ways of addressing the problem through public policy instruments that serve as a framework for analysis. Regarding methodological design, with data obtained from various sources, including the Survey for the Measurement of the COVID-19 Impact on Education 2020, descriptive statistics are presented that allow us to elaborate the interpretation of the findings on pre- and post-pandemic discontinuity in schooling. Among the main results, we find that economic issues have been the main cause for not continuing in upper secondary education, in addition to the fact that there were no strategies at this particular educational level to discourage COVID-related school dropout.
ABSTRACT
The rapid development and deployment of mRNA-based vaccines against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) led to the design of accelerated vaccination schedules that have been extremely effective in naïve individuals. While a two-dose immunization regimen with the BNT162b2 vaccine has been demonstrated to provide a 95% efficacy in naïve individuals, the effects of the second vaccine dose in individuals who have previously recovered from natural SARS-CoV-2 infection has not been investigated in detail. Here we characterized, SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific humoral and cellular immunity in naïve and previously infected individuals during and after two-doses of BNT162b2 vaccination. Our results demonstrate that, while the second dose increases both the humoral and cellular immunity in naïve individuals, COVID-19 recovered individuals reach their peak of immunity after the first dose. These results suggests that a second dose, according to the current standard regimen of vaccination, may be not necessary in individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.Funding: Research reported in this publication was supported in part by National Cancer Institute of the NIH (5R01HD102614-02; R01CA249204 and R01CA248984) and ISMMS seed fund to EG. The authors gratefully acknowledge use of the services and facilities of the Tisch Cancer Institute supported by the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA196521). MS was supported by a NCI training grant (T32CA078207). This work was supported by ISMMS seed fund to JO; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, COV20-00668 to RCR; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (COVID-19 Research Call COV20/00181) co-financed by European Development Regional Fund “A way to achieve Europe” to EP; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain (COV20/00170); Government of Cantabria, Spain (2020UIC22-PUB 0019) to MLH; Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI16CIII/00012) to PP; Fondo Social Europeo e Iniciativa de Empleo Juvenil YEI (Grant PEJ2018-004557-A) to MPE; REDInREN 016/009/009 ISCIII; This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme VACCELERATE under grant agreement No [101037867] to JO.Conflict of Interest: AB declares the filling of a patent application relating to the use of peptide pools in whole blood for detection of SARS-CoV-2 T cells (pending). The other authors declare no competing interests.Ethical Approval: The study protocols for the collection of clinical specimens from individuals with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection were reviewed and approved by Hospital La Paz, Hospital 12 de Octubre, Hospital Gregorio Marañón, IIS-Fundación Jimenez Díaz, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla-IDIVAL and Hospital Puerta de Hierro Clinical Research Ethics Committee (CEIm), and Mount Sinai Hospital Institutional Review Board (IRB).
Subject(s)
Coronavirus Infections , Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome , Multiple Sclerosis , Cross Infection , Neoplasms , COVID-19ABSTRACT
Several genomic epidemiology tools have been developed to track the public and population health impact of SARS-CoV-2 community spread worldwide. A SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern (VOC) B.1.1.7, known as 501Y.V1, which shows increased transmissibility, has rapidly become the dominant VOC in the United States (US). Our objective was to develop an evidenced-based genomic surveillance algorithm that combines RT-PCR and sequencing technologies to identify VOCs. Deidentified data were obtained from 508,969 patients tested for COVID-19 with the TaqPath COVID-19 RT-PCR Combo Kit (ThermoFisher) in four CLIA certified clinical laboratories in Puerto Rico (n=86,639) and in three CLIA certified clinical laboratories in the US (n=422,330). TaqPath data revealed a frequency of S Gene Target Failure (SGTF) >47% for the last week of March 2021, in both Puerto Rico and US laboratories. The monthly frequency of SGTF in Puerto Rico steadily increased exponentially from 4% in November 2020 to 47% in March 2021.The weekly SGTF rate in US samples was high (>8%) from late December to early January, and then also increased exponentially through April (48%). The exponential increase in SGFT prevalence in Puerto Rico is concurrent with a sharp increase in VOCs among all SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Puerto Rico uploaded to GISAID (n=461). B.1.1.7 frequency increased from <1% in the last week of January 2021 to 51.5% of viral sequences from Puerto Rico collected in the last week of March 2021. The exponential increase in SGTF and B.1.1.7 prevalence in Puerto Rico and US requires an urgent response. According to the proposed evidence-based algorithm, approximately 50% of all positive samples should be managed as potential B.1.1.7 carriers with VOC quarantine and contact tracing protocols while their lineage is confirmed by WGS in surveillance laboratories. Patients infected with VOCs should be effectively triaged for isolation, contact tracing and follow-up treatment purposes.
Subject(s)
COVID-19ABSTRACT
The rapid development and deployment of mRNA-based vaccines against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) led to the design of accelerated vaccination schedules that have been extremely effective in naive individuals. While a two-dose immunization regimen with the BNT162b2 vaccine has been demonstrated to provide a 95% efficacy in naive individuals, the effects of the second vaccine dose in individuals who have previously recovered from natural SARS-CoV-2 infection has been questioned. Here we characterized SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific humoral and cellular immunity in naive and previously infected individuals during full BNT162b2 vaccination. Our results demonstrate that the second dose increases both the humoral and cellular immunity in naive individuals. On the contrary, the second BNT162b2 vaccine dose results in a reduction of cellular immunity in COVID-19 recovered individuals, which suggests that a second dose, according to the current standard regimen of vaccination, may be not necessary in individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.