News Briefs: East, local and national news

East

The girls golf team has won the state championship for the second year in a row.

After winning regionals on Oct. 13, many members of the team were confident in their chances of repeating the previous year’s victory, including senior varsity golfer Hanna Robinett.

“I believe that we have one of the best teams in the state,” said Robinett. “This year we have really good team chemistry, so I am confident in us winning state this year.”

The state championship was held at Hesston Golf Course, KS on Oct. 19 and 20. East placed first with a score of 631 in the 6A competition — beating the second place team, Overland Park-Blue Valley West by 62 strokes.

At the state championship tournament, junior Tess Roman placed second overall, senior Hanna Robinett placed fourth overall, senior Hope Robinett placed fifth overall, senior Quincy Hepler placed 12th overall and Megan Stopperan placed 23rd overall. 

This state championship will be the eighth win in the history of the East girls golf team. 

Local

Governor Mike Parson of Missouri announced on Oct. 15 at the Truman Medical Center that Missouri will expand its testing capabilities. 

This technology — developed by Washington State University in St. Louis — will increase Missouri’s daily tests from around 125,000 to 131,000. The nasal test result’s turnaround time ranges from under an hour to a couple days. The turnaround time for saliva tests will be around three hours. 

This method of testing was approved by the FDA in August. According to recent data from the FDA, saliva testing seems to have the same level of accuracy as a nasal test. 

Saliva tests also allow more safety for the person administering the test. Nasal tests can cause people to cough or sneeze, putting the administer at risk. With saliva tests, the patient can do the test themselves, while the person giving the test can stand back and give instructions. 

Though the saliva tests are less invasive compared to the nasal tests, some people are more confident in the latter, including senior Ashley Osborn. Osborn received a COVID-19 test before a surgery and tested positive while showing no symptoms.

“Personally, since I do think that nasal testing is more accurate, I would get the nasal testing more often,” said Osborn

Earlier last month in a town hall with the Shawnee Mission School District, Johnson County Health Director Sanmi Areola Ph.D. said the county has a plan to buy thousands of tests to be used exclusively in area schools.

Governor Parson said this is a crucial step for sending students back to school in Missouri.

“We’ll be providing tests; I think we’ll be in every school system in the next two weeks,” Parson said at a press conference. “Every school system in the state of Missouri will be able to do tests internally. The testing is critical.” 

Saliva testing in the Kansas City area will be available in four to six weeks.

National

Johnson and Johnson’s 60,000-patient clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine has been put on pause after a participant in the trial contracted an “unexplained illness.” 

“We must respect this participant’s privacy,” the company said in a statement. “We’re also learning more about this participant’s illness, and it’s important to have all the facts before we share additional information.” 

The company made it clear that illnesses, accidents and poor medical outcomes are all common in clinical trials. The company also made a point to distinguish between a study pause and a clinical hold, which is a regulatory action that can last much longer. Currently, the vaccine study is not under a clinical hold. 

Shortly after Johnson and Johnson announced they’ll be pausing their vaccine study, Eli Lilly — an American pharmaceutical company — paused their vaccine study on another product called ACTIV-3. This is the same compound that President Donald Trump received during his treatment for COVID-19.

Johnson and Johnson said it’s still unclear if the sick patient received a dose of the vaccine or a placebo. 

The patient in Johnson and Johnson’s study was also the fourth participant in the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program to move to phase three of the vaccine trials.