Enlarge / California Gov. Gavin Newsom talks with 7th grade students at James Denman Middle School on October 01, 2021 in San Francisco, California. (credit: Getty | Justin Sullivan )

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday announced that the state will add COVID-19 vaccines to the list of immunizations students are required to get to attend in-person public and private schools.

California is the first state to announce such plans. COVID-19 vaccines will join the ranks of vaccine for measles, mumps, polio, hepatitis B, pertussis, tetanus, and chicken pox, which are already required for school attendance.

The mandate isn't immediate. The requirement will not kick in until the vaccine is fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration for school aged children. As such, the requirement will be phased in by grade groups—grades 7 through 12 and K-6—and begin at the start of the school term following full FDA approval.

Enlarge / The US Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland. (credit: Getty | Xinhua News Agency )

Two top vaccine regulators have resigned from the Food and Drug Administration, revealing anger, frustration, and turmoil at the federal agency as it faces intensifying pressure to authorize COVID-19 vaccine booster shots and doses for children under the age of 12.

The two regulators leaving are Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review (OVRR), and OVRR Deputy Director Phil Krause. Gruber has been with the FDA for more than 30 years, and Krause has been at the agency for more than a decade.

Their resignations, first reported by pharmaceutical trade publication BioCentury , were apparently sparked by frustration that the Biden administration had overstepped the FDA in announcing plans to offer COVID-19 booster shots beginning on September 20. The pair also clashed with higher-up Peter Marks, who reportedly went along with the administration's plans. Marks is the director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), which includes the OVRR.

Enlarge / Two classrooms had to be shut down due to a series of problems with maintaining policies meant to limit the spread of the pandemic. (credit: Andrew Lichtenstein / Getty Images )

On Friday, the CDC released a report that traced the spread of the Delta variant through a California elementary school. It's tempting to make this into a story of gross irresponsibility—a teacher was unvaccinated and read to the class while unmasked. But beyond that, it provides a number of warnings about how our public health system remains under stress as we close in on two years since the start of the pandemic. It also reemphasizes how the Delta variant ensures that small errors can easily explode into big problems.

One bad apple

The school in question was a small one, with only a bit over 200 students and 24 staff. It is an elementary school, meaning that its student population is also younger than the cutoff for approved vaccine use. The school did a number of things right, though. Class sizes were kept small, and individual classes were kept in separate rooms, with doors and windows kept open and air filtration equipment installed. There was also a standing policy requiring mask use in place.

But not everything was ideal. The CDC notes that two of the 24 staff members were unvaccinated. While the vaccinated can clearly transmit the Delta variant, they are likely to be less infectious, and in a worst case they'd be infectious for a shorter period of time.

Enlarge / tablets of Ivermectin drugs in Tehatta, West Benga, India on 19 May on 2021. (credit: Getty | Nurphoto )

Amid the current delta-fueled wave of COVID-19, officials have noted a dangerous surge in the misuse of a deworming drug routinely used in livestock. The result is an uptick in calls to poison control centers, empty shelves in farming supply stores, and pleas from regulators.

In an attention-grabbing tweet over the weekend, the Food and Drug Administration wrote bluntly: "You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it."

The agency stressed that the drug, ivermectin, is not FDA-approved to treat or prevent COVID-19 and, so far, there is no evidence that it does either of those things. However, it can cause serious side effects and overdoses, which can be life-threatening, the agency warned. Overdoses can result in nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hypotension (low blood pressure), allergic reactions (itching and hives), dizziness, ataxia (problems with balance), seizures, coma, and even death.

Enlarge / President Joe Biden speaks to a member of the media after delivering remarks in the East Room of the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris, left, in Washington, DC, on Monday, May 17, 2021. Biden plans to send an additional 20 million doses of vaccines abroad by the end of June. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg )

President Joe Biden announced on Monday that the United States will share at least 20 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines with other countries over the next six weeks.

The pledged doses will be in addition to 60 million stockpiled doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine the administration has previously said it will donate after they’re cleared by the Food and Drug Administration.

The announcement comes amid mounting pressure for the US and other rich nations to share doses with low- and middle-income countries, some of which are struggling with COVID-19 surges amid a dearth of doses. It also comes as the US has a glut of vaccine doses and is now struggling to convince a vaccine-hesitant portion of the population to take the available shots.

Enlarge / Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adjusts her protective mask during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg )

Criticism and confusion have erupted following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s abrupt recommendation last Thursday that fully vaccinated people can immediately shed masks in most settings. The agency is yet again on the defense over its mask guidance.

Mask usage has been one of the most contentious issues throughout the pandemic—and that seems unlikely to change anytime soon. Just last Tuesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky faced a grilling from Senate Republicans , who suggested that the agency was being too slow and too conservative in its health guidance, particularly on the issue of outdoor mask use.

At the time, the agency recommended that fully vaccinated people should continue to wear masks in many uncrowded indoor settings as well as in crowded outdoor settings. “We will continue to recommend this until widespread vaccination is achieved,” Walensky said in an April 27 briefing. On that day, around 29 percent of the US population was fully vaccinated.