COVID-19 Policy Update #104
COVID-19 Policy Update
TUESDAY 9/15
TOP THREE
Phase 4:
Politico reports that Speaker Pelosi is facing growing calls from within her own ranks — including from some of her most vulnerable members — to take quick action on a coronavirus relief bill even if there’s no agreement with Republicans or the White House over the issue.
Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus – 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans - unveiled a $2 trillion coronavirus bill (summary).
Testing & Healthcare ($100 billion)
Direct Assistance to Individuals & Families ($316 billion)
Unemployment Assistance ($120 billion)
Small Business & Non-profit Support ($290 billion)
School & Child Care ($145 billion)
State & Local Aid ($500.3 billion)
Election Support ($400 billion)
Broadband, Agriculture, USPS, & Census ($52 billion)
Worker & Liability Protections
Automatic Boosters & Reducers
Not Enough Vaccine Until 2024: The chief executive of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer has warned that not enough COVID-19 vaccines will be available for everyone in the world to be inoculated until the end of 2024 at the earliest.
IHME: Last week's update and forecast. Interesting trend below with the proportion of population reporting that they always wear a mask (red = less, dark green = more)
STATE
Massachusetts: 'We Were Lied To': Boston College students criticize the institution's lack of transparency with recent infections.
New York: Cynthia Nixon doesn't like what she's seeing with school preparedness. Paging Dr. Robert Leeds.
Ohio: The Governor signed a bill providing legal liability protection for schools and businesses.
Rhode Island: Providence schools it met the reopening expectations of the state's Department of Health and Department of Education for students to safely return to in-person learning. They released copies of the walk through reports here. It surprised me that these were all handwritten - missed opportunity to digitally capture the data for analysis and tracking.
Texas: The teachers union says hundreds of members reported violations of COVID-19 safety standards at schools.
Washington: The Schultz Family Foundation announced the launch of the Washington COVID Response Corps. Next month, 100 AmeriCorps members between the ages of 17-25 will be recruited and deployed over the next year to assist community organizations focused on alleviating food insecurity in Washington State. Announcement .
INTERNATIONAL
UN: Estimates that at least 24 million children are projected to drop out of school due to COVID-19.
School Reopening Guidance: Released jointly by UNESCO, UNICEF and the WHO.
UK: Initial data suggests that 88% of students were back for the start of school.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
EIG Report Explores Barriers for Children in Opportunity Zones and Strategies for Improving Child Outcomes: With support from CZI, EIG looked at ways Opportunity Zone investment could help advance equity goals with children living in distressed communities. Great primer on OZs with examples and illustrations of the potential ways these funds could be leveraged.
More than 7.5 million children live in Opportunity Zones.
Of these children, 37% live in poverty, 40% live in single-parent homes, and 22% live in a home that does not have a computer with internet.
In nine out of 10 Opportunity Zones, upward mobility is impaired due to inadequate access to high-quality schools and childcare, safe places to live and play, and economic opportunity.
Opportunity Zones investments can be leveraged to expand space for learning and childcare, grow businesses dedicated to improving child outcomes, and build local workforce capacity.
A wide-range of public and private sector leaders - policymakers, funders, local businesses, and anchor institutions - can support strategies for improving the well-being and educational achievement of Opportunity Zones’ youngest residents.
Digital Tools For Small Businesses: New report based on surveying more than 7,000 small businesses and includes three primary findings: First, digital tools are critical for small business resilience. Second, digital tools provided momentum heading into the crisis and allowed companies to pivot quickly, providing momentum coming out of the crisis. And finally, there are still obstacles to the use of digital tools by small businesses that need to be addressed and overcome. They provide state-by-state reports as well.
Lessons From Finland's UBI Experiment: Summary of some recent findings: small increase in employment, large boost to well being, and better feedback loops. "Better feelings of health, happiness, cognitive abilities, and financial security seem to have instilled a sense of confidence that encouraged the recipients to branch out and to seek more expansive opportunities: unpaid work, training, or employment.
SF UBI Pilot: San Francisco is launching a program that aims to improve health outcomes for new Black and Pacific Islander mothers and their babies by providing no-strings-attached $1,000 in funding that can help eliminate the manifold stresses of financial insecurity.
Socioeconomic Vulnerability Increases the Risk of Dying from COVID-19: People who have severe housing problems—or who are unemployed, incarcerated, or impoverished—are more vulnerable to contracting the novel coronavirus than the general population.
LEARNING PODS
Kentucky: Here's how a learning pod is working in Lexington. “Every day we are trying to get better. I feel like it’s a learning process,” said Aaron Raymond, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of the Bluegrass at the Salvation Army. Tutors are generally students from the University of Kentucky and Asbury University.
Pennsylvania Reminds Parents That Learning Pods Must Have an Evacuation Plan: Article in Reason expressing concern over the overregulation of pods.
CoWorking to Pods: Venture X of Marlborough and Studio Ampersand Tutoring are partnering to provide a safe, clean space for students to receive educational support from qualified tutors.
Districts Embrace In-person Learning Pods for Marginalized Students: Indianapolis School District repurposed funds it would have used for in-person learning to get the learning hub sites off the ground before the start of the school year.
Jefferson County Public School: Their board is set to vote on opening learning hubs to help students with their studies. Evolve 502, would work with other nonprofits, churches and community centers to run small neighborhood instruction centers.
RESOURCES
The Trinity Challenge: New initiative that aims to use data and analytics to learn from the global response to COVID-19 in order to build greater resilience against future global health emergencies. Members include Facebook, McKinsey, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Imperial College London, IHME, Microsoft, Tencent, and Google.
Ed Tech Merger: Carnegie Learning acquired Scientific Learning, through an all cash merger transaction valued at approximately $15 million.
Learning Loss Poll: Via David Winston: While there is not a consensus as to how behind students will be at the end of this school year, only 12% believe they will not be behind at all. 1 in 2 voters (50%) believe they will be at least somewhat behind (29% somewhat behind, 21% significantly behind) while about a quarter (24%) believes they will only be “slightly behind.” By party, Republicans are the most pessimistic, with 26% saying students will be significantly behind, compared to independents (19% significantly behind) and Democrats (17% significantly behind).
Paul Rudd: Wants you to wear a mask. The irony of the video is that... he's not wearing a mask.