The Washington Post - USA (2021-12-22)

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE B5

about supply, with the city pro-

ducing new kits each day. D.C. has

also ordered 1 million rapid tests

to be available to residents start-

ing Wednesday, Ashley said.

He added that D.C. leaders are

in daily talks with hospitals to

discuss capacity and staffing

problems. Ashley said they have

plenty of space, noting that less

than 5 percent of people who

contract the coronavirus in the

District are hospitalized. “They

all feel comfortable that they’re

able to meet this surge,” he added.

[email protected]

michael.brice-saddler

@washpost.com

[email protected]

[email protected]

Michelle Boorstein, Julie Zauzmer

Weil and Ovetta Wiggins contributed

to this report.

and here I am today,” said Groves,

who works at Kipp DC College

Prep. “My parents are in the age

range where they could potential-

ly have more symptoms if they

test positive. I just want to make

sure that before I leave for the

holidays that they’re fine.”

Later, at the Benning Stoddert

Recreation Center in Southeast, a

line of more than 80 people

stretched down East Capitol

Street SE just after 1:30 p.m.

Some people said they had waited

more than an hour and a half for a

test.

Ashley could not specify how

many tests the city has been

processing in recent days but said

the District has seen “tremen-

dous demand” — with about a

third of the volume coming from

public testing sites.

He said there is no concern

library to pick up new PCR tests

and drop off used ones. Within

minutes, residents hoping to ac-

quire a test were forced to turn

around in disappointment after

the available supply had run out.

At walk-up testing sites around

town, many people waiting in

long lines said they were unaware

of the city’s take-home test pro-

gram.

Tyler Groves, a Navy Yard resi-

dent, was among the last to get a

test at Farragut Square on Tues-

day; he wanted to make sure he

was negative for the coronavirus

before visiting his family in New

York. He had tried going to multi-

ple pharmacies, only to learn they

weren’t doing testing. He even

tried his primary care provider,

which had no walk-ups available

until January.

“I decided to do some research,

those in Maryland.

Northam, a pediatric neurolo-

gist, on Monday tweeted a re-

minder to residents: “Hi Virginia,

it’s your doctor-governor here.

Vaccines and boosters are the

very best way to protect yourself

and your family from

#COVID19—particularly over the

holidays.”

Spokeswoman Alena Yar-

mosky said Northam is keeping

an eye on rising hospitalization

rates but noted that the state

remains below earlier peak levels.

Julian Walker, a spokesman for

the Virginia Hospital and Health-

care Association, said coronavi-

rus hospitalizations peaked in

January at around 3,200 patients,

compared with around 1,500 now.

He said Virginia hospitals have

added some 3,700 beds in re-

sponse to the ongoing crisis.

The pandemic has magnified

existing staffing challenges,

Walker said, but hospitals are

using traveling nurses and flexi-

ble staffing to respond.

The Virginia Department of

Health is distributing free rapid-

response tests through 38 library

systems around the state, Yar-

mosky said, as well as through

Walgreens pharmacies, long-

term-care facilities and free clin-

ics. Residents can locate tests on

the health department website.

In D.C., the city council granted

final approval Tuesday to a bill

that will require all public school

students to get vaccinated against

the coronavirus once the FDA

fully authorizes a vaccine for their

age group. The bill instructs the

school system to begin enforcing

the vaccination requirement next

fall. It will now go to Mayor

Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) desk for

her signature.

The council also voted unani-

mously to allow Bowser to extend

the city’s state of emergency up

until March 17 if she chooses, and

to require schools to continue

sporadically testing students for

the coronavirus until at least

April.

City officials sought to raise

awareness of self-testing options

Tuesday morning at the Shaw

Library. There, Patrick Ashley, the

emergency response leader at

D.C. Health, and other health

officials demonstrated how to

properly use take-home PCR

tests, which became available at

36 city locations Monday, up from

27. They also discussed a new
    program that starts Wednesday
    to provide residents with rapid
    antigen tests at eight D.C. librar-
    ies.
    As Ashley spoke, dozens of
    people streamed in and out of the

erage at 1,563 on Tuesday.

Maryland hospitals have about

500 fewer beds than this time last

year, a 5 percent decrease, be-

cause there are not enough medi-

cal workers to staff them, said Ted

Delbridge, executive director of

the Maryland Institute for Emer-

gency Medical Services Systems.

Some Maryland hospitals are

spending three and four times the

normal rate for traveling nurses,

who are in high demand across

the country, Bob Atlas, the presi-

dent and chief executive of the

Maryland Hospital Association,

recently said.

“We’re paying extra to get trav-

el nurses, and that is costing a

large fortune for many of our

institutions,” Atlas said.

Hospitals with fewer beds are

also contending with a surge of

flu patients that did not material-

ize last winter, state health offi-

cials said, leading to potentially

long waits in emergency rooms

and fewer surgeries for non-covid

patients.

In Prince George’s County, the

signs of a surge are clear, officials

said Tuesday, but there remains

no county-specific data because

of the continued fallout from a

cyberattack on the state health

department.

“The concern is that we have all

been flying, to some extent, a little

bit in the dark,” County Executive

Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) said at a

news conference. “Because we

haven’t been able to get that data

from the state.”

Prince George’s was the hard-

est-hit jurisdiction in the Wash-

ington region in the beginning of

the pandemic but for months

reported case rates among the

lowest in the state. Now, officials

said, the county’s contact tracing

center has been swamped be-

cause of outbreaks at schools and

nursing homes.

There were 994 students and

261 teachers who tested positive

for the coronavirus last week, said

schools chief Monica Goldson.

The outbreak — which left more

than 16,000 students quaran-

tined — “significantly” affected

learning and led to her decision to

temporarily suspend in-person

classes.

Hospitals in the county are

about 43 percent full, said health

officer Ernest Carter, although he

added that he knew that figure is

“going to rise fast.”

Virginia’s surge has so far been

less severe than i n Maryland and

D.C. A spokeswoman for Gov.

Ralph Northam (D) credited the

state’s efforts to promote vaccines

and boosters, though its vaccina-

tion rates are slightly lower than

Enter Galiatsatos, who special-

izes in lung and critical care treat-

ment at Johns Hopkins Medicine

and co-leads the institution’s Med-

icine for the Greater Good initia-

tive, a partnership between Hop-

kins, schools and communities

that aims to promote health and

wellness through education.

Along with several of his Hopkins

colleagues, he created a free cur-

riculum and educational program

to teach K-12 learners about the

science behind the disease.

He helps train and deploy Hop-

kins students studying medicine,

public health and nursing into

classes to lead sessions, a way to

reach even more schools.

No question is too big or small

for Galiatsatos or his trainees, who

say they take each one seriously

and never try to shame a student

for what they believe or don’t un-

derstand. Galiatsatos said they’re

there to arm students with the

science they need to become am-

bassadors for public health.

The more than 160 student vol-

unteers for the Johns Hopkins

Health Education and Training

Corps, also known as the HEAT

Corps, have logged more than

2,200 sessions in about 200 class-

rooms, with several in Baltimore

and others as far away as Guate-

mala, India and Sudan. Galiatsa-

tos visits more on his own, includ-

ing a recent stop at Navajo Prepa-

ratory School in New Mexico,

where he helped answer parents’

questions about booster shots and

how to safely gather during the

winter holidays.

A joint venture of Hopkins-affil-

iated researchers, clinicians and

educators, the HEAT Corps curric-

ulum launched in July 2020 and

has been revised and compressed

in the months since. It’s funded

with annual contributions of

$200,000 from Johns Hopkins

University and $100, 000 from

Hopkins Health System, and it

received a two-year, $300,000-

per-year grant from the Baltimore

City Health Department in July to

deliver the curriculum across the

city’s public school system.

The idea stemmed from the

number of teachers calling on Gal-

iatsatos for help during the initial

months of the pandemic as school

buildings closed and students ex-

pressed worry over how long they

would be stuck at home. He had

relationships with schools from

his work with Medicine for the

Greater Good and had v isited

classrooms to talk about topics

such as lung health and air pollu-

tion. Now, could he come back and

explain this new world to them?

In Nutsugah’s classroom, Gali-

atsatos c aptivates the students.

Through fist bumps, jokes and

kid-friendly analogies, he earns

their attention. By the end of class,

nearly every student had spoken.

S ince the coronavirus arrived in

early 2020, he has visited class-

rooms — virtually or in person —

to challenge students to think

about how they can advocate for

public health.

“So, you’re here to convince us

to get the vaccine?” asks Priyasha

Morris, who sits near the front of

Nutsugah’s classroom.

No, Galiatsatos says. But that

doesn’t mean they’re off the hook.

“I was invited by your teacher to

help you do something no other

generation has done before,” he

said, daring them to think of

themselves as characters in a Mar-

vel movie. “What role can you play,

right now, to end the pandemic?”

“Wow,” a student responds.

to gather with family for the
holidays. In many cases, pharma-
cies were sold out. Legions of
District residents landed at a pub-
lic walk-up testing site Tuesday in
Farragut Square, where the line of
people snaked throughout the
park until the site closed at noon.
With concern deepening,
Washington National Cathedral
announced Tuesday that it was
canceling Christmas Day services
and moving its holiday organ
recital to online-only, citing “con-
sultations with epidemiologists,
church leaders and government
officials.” The cathedral also can-
celed its Dec. 23 family Christmas
Eve service but said other events
— including its Sunday service —
will continue with the require-
ment that everyone in attendance
wear a mask, in keeping with
D.C.’s reinstated indoor masking
mandate.
In Maryland, Hogan and state
health officials said they expect
hospitalizations to peak in Janu-
ary at the same time the regular
flu season crests, leaving the al-
ready-strained medical system
struggling to operate. Hogan an-
nounced that $50 million would
be used to rapidly hire medical
personnel to staff hospitals di-
minished by employee burnout
and shortages.
The governor said he’s asked
for testing hours and capacity to
be expanded at state-run sites in
Anne Arundel and Prince
George’s counties, and he prom-
ised $50 million to help pay for
testing and treatment in the
state’s nursing homes.
He encouraged residents to get
fully vaccinated and receive
booster shots, warning that the
small minority of unvaccinated
residents now make up 75 percent
of hospitalized covid-19 patients.
Maryland officials said the
omicron variant has been found
in 40 percent of the samples
sequenced in the state, but the
flood of hospitalized covid-19 pa-
tients is due to the delta variant.
Hospitalizations in Maryland are
climbing to levels not seen since
February, with the seven-day av-

VIRUS FROM B1

Cases surge

amid low

supply of

testing kits

BY HALLIE MILLER

baltimore — The eighth-grad-
ers at Baltimore Design School
have just one more class period
separating them from a holiday
weekend, the excitement palpable
as the doctor attempts to get their
attention.
P anagis Galiatsatos, a son of
Greek immigrants who dreamed
of serving the city that took them
in, tells them he grew up not far
from the school.
“You can call me Dr. G,” he says.
“It’s also my DJ name, if you ever
want to go to the club with me.”
This intrigues the students,
some of whom believe that all
scientists somehow work for the
government and have an agenda,
according to their health teacher,
Erin Nutsugah.
But that’s the beauty of “Ask an
Expert” day in Nutsugah’s class-
room, the final exercise in her
two-week unit about the coronavi-
rus. With Galiatsatos’s help, she
said, the kids may shake off their
unconscious biases about the
health-care system and get their
questions answered by a knowl-
edgeable source.
Nutsugah, a 10-year educator
who teaches such topics as mental
health, nutrition, substance abuse
and reproductive health, said she
felt compelled to cover the corona-
virus i n class this year and offer
students a way to make sense of
the public health crisis. There was
no state or district curriculum for
her to follow, she said, so she creat-
ed one with support from the
Johns Hopkins Health Education
and Training Corps.
“It’s vital we all understand
what we’re dealing with, because
we’re still dealing with it,” Nutsug-
ah said. “It surprises me what they
do and don’t believe.”
Public health experts have long
worried about the effects of misin-
formation and disinformation on
getting the public vaccinated, say-
ing that just a few malicious actors
have convinced millions of Ameri-
cans that the shots are neither safe
nor effective. The conspiracy theo-
ries, lies and misconceptions
about the vaccines and about the
virus have spread so far that they
have trickled down into the
youngest of minds.

Annette Anderson, assistant

professor at Hopkins’ school of

education, helped design the coro-

navirus c urriculum.

“We are fond of saying, we built

the plane while we were flying it,”

she said. “We were parsing it out to

make it appropriate, but also be-

ing responsive because we were all

trying to figure it out at the same

time.”

Anderson said keeping up with

the pandemic’s latest twists and

turns poses a challenge for the

HEAT Corps, which updated the

curriculum at the beginning of the

school year with more informa-

tion about variants, for instance.

The curriculum designers engage

in debates about what to include

and what to omit, what qualifies as

too graphic and what’s age-appro-

priate for children, she said.

The curriculum shouldn’t be

considered a “catchall,” Anderson

said. For example, it briefly touch-

es on the theory that the coronavi-

rus probably d eveloped out of ani-

mal-to-human contact, known as

“zoonotic” spread, one of the cur-

riculum’s vocabulary words.

Although the virus’s zoonotic

spread theory has not been proved

— even some federal officials in

the United States contend that the

virus could have been developed

and accidentally released from a

lab in Wuhan, China — Anderson

said the designers consulted their

experts and stuck to what they

considered the most plausible and

scientifically sound scenario.

Galiatsatos also i nstructs HEAT

Corps volunteers to be honest

about their own knowledge gaps.

That helps lessen some of the pres-

sure associated with teaching

such a contentious topic, said

Ndeye Silla, a graduate student

working toward her master’s de-

gree at the Johns Hopkins Bloom-

berg School of Public Health who

led a virtual session for third-to-

fifth-grade students in October at

St. Jerome Regional School in

eastern Pennsylvania.

“It’s important to be honest and

explain it as best we can,” Silla

said. “I say: ‘Even though I’m tell-

ing you this information, it could

change. I know it’s hard to under-

stand. Even for adults, it’s compli-

cated.’ ”

Silla and co-leader Britney Mur-

ray’s session at St. Jerome, a C ath-

olic school, covered the basics:

what the coronavirus is and how it

got its name, how it spreads and

what can be done to blunt its

impact. They used visual aids to

demonstrate what a “super-

spreader” event looks like, re-

viewed vocabulary words such as

“contact tracing,” “herd immuni-

ty” and “self care,” and explained

the differences between the avail-

able vaccines.

When Silla and Murray opened

the floor to questions, kids took

turns raising their hands and

sharing the problems they had

been gaming out in their heads.

The questions ranged from the

practical (“If you get the vaccine,

can you still get the virus?”) to the

hypothetical (“What would hap-

pen if you can’t tell you’re sick, but

you go get the vaccine?”)

Even for such young children,

some of their concerns mirrored

those of adults.

“What if you have the virus, and

then you touch your friend?” one

girl asked.

“What happens if you spread

the virus, and you don’t know if

you spread it?” a boy asked.

Murray encouraged the stu-

dents to apply the information

they had learned about social dis-

tancing, hand-washing and mask-

wearing, which she and Silla em-

phasized repeatedly.

With some of the older kids, the

questions sometimes veered into

more challenging territory.

During a session with sixth-,

seventh- and eighth-graders at St.

Jerome Regional, one student

asked why people had to wear

masks after “20 years of research”

showing that they don’t stop the

transmission of viruses.

The co-leaders of that session,

Chanel Lee and Barath Biyyala,

said that research shows masks do

reduce virus transmission, espe-

cially if everyone in a close-contact

situation wears them and they’re

fitted properly to people’s faces.

But among children of all age

groups, no matter h ow they

thought about the coronavirus

and the vaccines, there was one

question that united them: They

want to know when the pandemic

will be over.

— Baltimore Sun

MARYLAND

Educators equip students with public health knowledge

KIM HAIRSTON/BALTIMORE SUN

Kayden Curtis asks pulmonary specialist Panagis Galiatsatos a question about the coronavirus at the

Baltimore Design School. Galiatsatos visits students and trains others to lead educational sessions.

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