COVID-19 Policy Update #145
COVID-19 Policy Update
MONDAY 11/9
Quite the weekend. Tonight's update pairs well with:
A bottle of Veuve Clicquot for Biden-Harris supporters
A Painkiller for Trump-Pence supporters
A Moscato for Kanye West supporters
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE IN TRANSITION
2020 Election and Federal Education Policy: An excellent memo from our partners at PennHill covering PreK, K12, and higher ed, key legislative committees, and other issues. Well worth reading the 50 pages.
Cabinet: Biden could announce his cabinet before Thanksgiving.
The chatter on who is under consideration for different roles from Plurus Strategies, Politico, and Brownstein.
Linda Darling Hammond, who is heading up the education transition, has removed herself from consideration.
Complicating the picture - the Senate. The potential of a Republican Senate might lead the Biden-Harris team to nominate more moderates. Or maybe they put forward more progressive candidates as a way of energizing Democrats leading into the Jan. Senate runoff races.
Transition Website: Build Back Better. Highlights four issues: COVID, Economic Recovery, Racial Equity, and Climate Change.
Biden-Harris Transition Announces COVID-19 Advisory Board: Will be led by former FDA Commissioner David Kessler, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Marcella Nunez-Smith, an associate professor of internal medicine, public health and management at Yale. Announcement and list of advisors.
Mask Mandate: The Transition's COVID plan acknowledges the federal government can't mandate mask wearing, but says the incoming Administration will call on:
Every American to wear a mask when they are around people outside their household.
Every Governor to make that mandatory in their state.
Local authorities to also make it mandatory to buttress their state orders.
TOP THREE
Pfizer and BioNTech Vaccine:
An early analysis of the results showed that individuals who received two injections of the vaccine three weeks apart experienced more than 90% fewer cases of symptomatic COVID-19 than those who received a placebo.
The 90% efficacy rate is much higher than the 50% threshold set by the FDA. The European Medicine Agency indicated they might even be willing to accept effectiveness below 50%.
"The results are really quite good, I mean extraordinary,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Also interesting - Pfizer did not accept government money for research and development, in order to better "liberate our scientists" and to "keep Pfizer out of politics." More here via an Axios transcript and NYT.
Immigrants, they get the job done. "Turkish immigrants' children behind Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine." More here.
Teacher Risk: The UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures reveal that teachers are no more likely to catch COVID-19 than those working in other frontline professions.
Homeschooling: EdWeek explores "Home Schooling Is Way Up With COVID-19. Will It Last?"
One parent said, "It kind of feels like the school board picked something that isn’t really workable and isn’t functioning, but the failure ends up being on the children.”
"In North Carolina, more than 10,000 new families filed notices of their intent to homeschool, compared to just over 3,500 during last year."
Wisconsin normally sees 14,800 homeschooling forms. This year it was 23,000.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Surging Cases in the US:
23 states set coronavirus records last week.
1 in 441 Americans — have tested positive for the virus just in the last week.
19 states reported record-high COVID-19 hospitalizations over the weekend.
As of Monday, 43 states reported at least 10% more new Covid-19 cases compared to last week, according to JHU.
On Friday, former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden tweeted, "We are waking up to truth: we need to shut down. We can do this sensibly. Keep schools, childcare, universities, shopping, barber shops, other areas open - ONLY with rigorous safety measures & modification. Reduce travel, risky indoor gatherings. Great example from Ireland."
Vaccine Hesitancy: A survey taken in October by the NJ Department of Health showed "significant concerns" about receiving the vaccination, as 66% of doctors and 47% of nurses said they would "definitely or probably" take a vaccine.
STATE
DC: Washington Post's Editorial Board: "D.C. needs to figure out how to get students back in the classroom."
Georgia: Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent, Dr. Lisa Herring, tested positive for COVID.
Louisiana: Gov. Bel Edwards signed a bill that requires school districts to create new discipline policies to apply to virtual learning by Dec. 31 and expands students' and families' rights to appeal school suspensions. The legislation was introduced after a 9-year-old Jefferson Parish student was suspended when the teacher saw a BB gun in his bedroom during online instruction prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Illinois: As the second quarter began today, Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union had yet to agree on a plan for reopening schools, and the union has asked for an independent mediator to get involved.
Massachusetts:
Governor announces new measures to get students back in school.
Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education released data tracking 20 metrics of school reopening plans. Among their findings:
Only half of the state's’ 40 largest districts describe how much teacher-led instruction time they expect students to receive during the pandemic.
A third of the districts haven’t addressed whether they plan to test students.
Two-thirds haven’t publicly communicated any plan to address chronic absenteeism.
Pennsylvania: Story on how Bucks County private schools - including several catholic schools - brought students back into the classroom. "Overall, we're good," Franzzo said. "With mandatory masks and desks set up six feet apart, we've been successful with five-day in-person instruction."
Utah:
Governor issues statewide mask mandate.
Utah teachers union demands that the Governor move junior high and high schools online.
INTERNATIONAL
Hungary: Closed secondary schools due to a surge of cases.
Ghana: Is using Edmodo Enterprise Learning Management System to facilitate distance learning.
Kenya: Spotty Internet service frustrates students as learning goes online.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Online Schooling Has Forced Moms to Quit Work: Good piece from Heather Long. There are 2.2 million fewer women working or looking for work now than in January, vs. 1.5 million fewer men. “Priority number one should be kids back into school,” said Kathryn Anne Edwards, a labor economist at the Rand Corp. who has been studying women’s careers. “The younger the kid, the more of a priority it is because they are less likely to be able to do school on their own.”
Uber Pivots: With the pandemic hurting its rideshare business, Uber has turned its attention to grocery and food delivery, and recently made two acquisitions that could result in facilitating $1 billion in grocery sales per year.
The Polls Were Wrong: "This week America witnessed a forecasting failure of almost unprecedented magnitude. October's unemployment rate came in at 6.9%, after dozens of the best-paid and most experienced economic forecasters in the world had predicted the number would come in at 7.7%."
Unbundling Harvard: How The Traditional University Is Being Disrupted: CBInsights brief on the companies disrupting higher education.
LEARNING PODS
Free Tutoring Now Available for Federal Employees's Children: Federal Employee Education and Assistance Fund partnered with Tutor.com to offer free tutoring for families earning less than $100,000.
RESOURCES
Kid Inventors Offer Solutions to COVID Problems: Creative ideas including:
Harshiya, 11, from Nachiketa Tapovan designed ahat and dress that pops up to two meters wide to maintain social distance
A watch that students can wear to school that beeps when someone comes within five meters by Meghana Meda
EdTech: Via Hakeema - Chinese edtech firm VIPThink, which offers online mathematics and science education, has raised $180 million in a Series C round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
Are We Losing a Generation of Children to Remote Learning?: Long piece by the NYT's Ginia Bellafante.
Learning Loss: Deep dive piece - Low-income students of color at edge of widening opportunity gap.
Conceding With Grace:
George H. W. Bush, "The people have spoken. We respect the majesty of the democratic system."
John McCain, "I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited."