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After months of hype, the world finally has human trial data from a front-running vaccine collaboration between the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc. Spoiler alert, it’s good news. The data, published in The Lancet Monday, showed that the vaccine produced an encouraging immune response. Just as crucially, perhaps, no significant safety issues emerged. Investors took these developments as a cue to bid up AstraZeneca shares as they did with Moderna Inc.’s stock last week on its positive vaccine news. And there are indeed elements of the Oxford-Astra shot’s profile that may make it especially promising. But it's important to remember that this early stage in the process, every piece of vaccine data is still just part of a thesis that needs confirmation. (Max Nisen, 7/20)

Wanting to get kids back to school and being able to do so safely are not the same thing. We have learned in the coronavirus pandemic that most of the big outbreaks occur when large numbers of people gather indoors for an extended period of time — as they do in schools. Still, it is possible to get kids back to school safely — and we must do everything we can to make it so. This was also the conclusion of two recent reports, one from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and the other from the American Association of Pediatrics. (Ashish K. Jha, 7/20)

My children were born here and attended public schools in central Phoenix from kindergarten through high school. In that time our family came to know a number of great teachers, coaches, counselors, administrators and others, witnessing first-hand the limited resources they dealt with and the sacrifices they were willing to make. These are experiences that President Donald Trump and his children and grandchildren cannot identify with. Under normal circumstances, that’s perfectly okay. If you have the money, enrolling your children in any hoity-toity private school or academy is no one’s business but yours.But these are NOT normal circumstances. (EJ Montini, 7/20)

Pretty much everyone hopes schools can reopen this fall. We know that children need to be educated and that some at-risk children need attention they get only at school. We also have a desperate desire to get “back to normal.” The daily and annual predictability of school schedules provide order and routine. We all want that right about now. But the novel coronavirus doesn’t care what we want.And school superintendents should not care what politicians want.In making plans for the upcoming school year, Iowa education leaders must focus on facts, including local data about viral spread and advice from public health experts. (7/17)

Few Americans disagree with the sentiment that kids need to be back in the classroom, but President Donald Trump and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson can’t seem to grasp that the mechanics are far more complicated than simply putting students behind desks. If handled badly — and the administration’s track record makes that a virtual certainty — an even worse explosion of coronavirus cases looms on the horizon. (7/20)

It’s good news that the death rate from Covid-19 has trended dramatically downward since April, even as the number of new cases is surging. But it’s far from the whole story. Unlike common colds caused by other coronaviruses, Covid-19 is more than a transient, self-limited respiratory infection. There have been numerous reports of nonrespiratory manifestations, including loss of smell or taste, confusion and cognitive impairments, fainting, sudden muscle weakness or paralysis, seizures, ischemic strokes, kidney damage, abnormal blood-coagulation tests, transmission to an unborn child via the placenta, and a severe (though rare) pediatric inflammatory syndrome. Recovery is sometimes incomplete, with some patients experiencing long-term adverse effects that resemble a condition variously known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome. As the name suggests, CFS is group of symptoms that seem to define an illness, even if we don’t know how they’re related or what causes them. (Henry I Miller, 7/20)

Some survivors of acute bouts of Covid-19 experience a range of persistent medical issues — some lasting for weeks, or even months — that include profound exhaustion, trouble thinking or remembering, muscle pain, headaches, and more. One survivor described it as feeling like she was “hit by a truck.” Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious diseases expert, acknowledged this month that the symptoms in many of these unrecovered patients are “highly suggestive” of myalgic encephalomyelitis, the disabling illness also commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS. “This is something we really need to seriously look at,” said Fauci. (David Tuller and Steven Lubet, 7/21)

Like almost all department stores, Macy’s was in financial trouble even before the coronavirus hit. The pandemic didn’t help matters: Revenue fell 45 percent in the first quarter of 2020. Late in June, Macy’s laid off 3,900 corporate employees. Tragic, but unavoidable, right? Except two weeks later, the store’s board of directors granted the C-suite management team more than $9 million in stock. When covid-19 first hit this country, many observers suggested there could be a bright side for our epic societal breakdown. We would likely emerge, they said, with a firmer government safety net and a smaller divide between rich and poor. Those making this argument sometimes pointed out that in western Europe, the Black Death led to gains for workers. What they either left out or ignored is that in eastern Europe, nobles took advantage of the chaos to consolidate power. And so far, economic and social chaos is allowing the wealthy in the United States to increase their holdings and power. (Helaine Olen, 7/20)

First, there was very good news on the vaccine front Monday... But there's still a very long way to go until we're all getting one. That's why the US Surgeon General got on Fox News and begged Americans to wear face masks in public. "I'm pleading with your viewers. I'm begging you," Jerome Adams said during the appearance before the conservative audience on "Fox & Friends." "Please understand that we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say, 'Wear a face covering.'" (Zachary B. Wolf, 7/21)