COVID-19 Policy Update #158
COVID-19 Policy Update
TUESDAY 12/1
TOP THREE
Direct Cash Benefit: Marguerite Roza proposes $3,000 per disengaged child:
"As months go by, the problem is compounding for students on this lower leg of the K. Imagine a second grader who hasn’t done any reading since March, or an algebra student trying to join a class on quadratic equations after missing the lessons on linear equations."
"New federal aid would likely deliver some money directly to districts to backfill budgets, but addressing students on this lower leg of the K—I’ll call them “disengaged” students—requires a dedicated sum that is structured differently."
"That targeted aid should come in the form of a flexible sum: I propose $3000 per disengaged student. Assuming 10% of students are on this lower leg, the total would be roughly $15 billion (about equal to the annual Title I program)."
Economic Relief: A bipartisan group of Senators released a $908 billion Senate COVID-19 relief proposal. Think of this as a "development" not a deal. But it could help jumpstart the stalled negotiations, although McConnell is cool to the proposal. The breakdown includes:
State, Local, and Tribal Governments $160 billion
Additional Unemployment Insurance (UI) $180 billion
Support for small businesses including Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), EIDL, restaurants, stages, and deductibility $288 billion
CDFI/MDI Community Lender Support $12 billion
Transportation (Airlines, Airports, Buses, Transit and Amtrak) $45 billion
Vaccine Development and Distribution & Testing and Tracing $16 billion
Healthcare Provider Relief Fund $35 billion
Education $82 billion
Student Loans $4 billion
Housing Assistance (Rental) $25 billion
Nutrition/Agriculture $26 billion
U.S. Postal Service $10 billion
Child Care $10 billion
Broadband $10 billion
Opioid Treatment $5 billion
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices: Met today to discuss the prioritization of vaccines. They voted to recommend that the first COVID-19 vaccines should go to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, including nursing homes and assisted living. Teachers and educators are in the second tiered grouping. The recommendations from the independent advisory committee now go to CDC director Redfield for final approval.
Allocation of initial supplies of COVID-19 vaccine: Phase 1a
Clinical considerations for populations included in Phase 1a
FEDERAL
FCC: Chairman Pai announced he would step down as Chairman on January 20, as is customary during a change of administrations. Education groups are hoping for what they consider to be a more "education friendly" FCC chair. The Biden Admin will have the chance to nominate the next chair which could include current Democratic FCC Commissioners Rosenworcel or Starks. Rosenworcel has been particularly vocal in closing the homework gap by using existing FCC authority to interpret a broader definition of "school" to include homes.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
GAO "Urgent Actions Needed to Better Ensure an Effective Federal Response": GAO reported on survey results from 47 states:
One-third to one-half of states said they'd already experienced shortages in either reagents (the medical devices used to process COVID-19 tests), testing instruments or rapid tests in the last 30 days.
"Most states reported no shortages of swabs or transport media, but one-third to one-half of the 47 states reported shortages in the other three types of testing supplies: reagents (21 states), testing instruments (16 states), and rapid point-of-care tests (24 states),
"About one-third of states that responded stated that they were “greatly” or “completely” concerned about having sufficient vaccine-related supplies to administer COVID-19 vaccines. An additional 21 states indicated that they were moderately concerned."
Words That Work: The Beaumont Foundation had Frank Luntz conduct a poll to identify the language that political and health leaders can use to reach all audiences and build trust in public health measures. Some highlights:
Political and health leaders need to focus on the benefits of success, not just the consequences of failure.
Americans most trust scientists and public health officials to deliver factual information -- more than President Trump, President-elect Biden, governors, mayors, and members of Congress. Trust in the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci remains high.
Public health and the economy cannot be separated. Leaders need to emphasize that doing the right thing now means a faster economic recovery.
Vaccine hesitancy is real. Among all respondents, 10% said “I would never take the vaccine for COVID-19” – compared with 6% of Democrats, 13% of Republicans, and 19% of African Americans. Only 4% of African Americans said they would take the vaccine “without hesitation,” compared with 16% of the national total, 15% of Democrats, and 16% of Republicans.
Overall, 23% of respondents know someone close to them who has died from COVID-19 -- 30% of Democrats and only 18% of Republicans. Even higher is the number of African Americans (34%) who know someone who has died.
The poll highlights the need to change our pandemic lexicon in order to help bridge key differences and rally Americans across the country and across the political spectrum to adopt life-saving public health precautions. For example:
Forty-nine percent of Americans consider a “pandemic” more “significant, serious, and scary” than "COVID-19" (39%) or "the coronavirus (13%).
Respondents had a much more positive reaction to "a stay-at-home order" than a "lockdown" or "aggressive restrictions."
Saying that policies to combat the pandemic are "fact-based" is more effective than saying they're based on “science,” “data,” or “medicine.”
Americans have a more positive reaction when rules and regulations to address COVID-19 are called "protocols" rather than "mandates," "directives," "controls," or "orders."
Toward a Short History of Operation Warp Speed: Great thread from Eric Topol: "This will go down in history as one of science and medical research's greatest achievements. Perhaps the most impressive. I put together a preliminary timeline of some key milestones to show how several years of work were compressed into months."
INTERNATIONAL
EU: NYT story on how schools are being kept open, including in areas of high community positivity rates.
"Five weeks into a second nationwide lockdown, France, like much of Europe, has proved that it is possible to bring the rate of known infections down, even with schools open."
“Obviously, the decline has been slower because schools are open, but we had to find a middle ground,” said Yazdan Yazdanpanah, an infectious disease specialist and a member of France’s Scientific Council, which advises the government on the pandemic. But, he added, the slower drop in infections has been offset by positive effects on education, mental health and the economy."
"Three months into France’s school year, schools have not become a major driver of infections, according to health experts. And the number of students who tested positive in the seven days that ended on Thursday dropped 44 percent from the week before, according to figures released by the Education Ministry. The latest figure translates to 0.06 percent of the 12 million schoolchildren in France. On Friday, out of 61,500 schools nationwide, only 19 primary schools, three middle schools and three high schools were closed because of outbreaks."
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Building A Lifelong Learning System: A Roadmap for Cities: New report from the Aspen Institute's Future of Work.
RESOURCES
A Blueprint to Safely Reopen Schools: From AFT's Randi Weingarten:
Systems from New York City to the Netherlands have shown that, with the necessary protocols to prevent transmission, students can safely return to learning in person.
"We must get the coronavirus under control. This will take a national mask mandate, a federal system for both testing and contact tracing, targeted regional closures of schools and restaurants, making sure our exhausted health care workers have everything they need, and a robust coronavirus vaccination program once it is proven as sound and effective."
" Schools must be the hubs of community services to address nutrition insecurity and other hardships which confront families. This includes expanding internet connectivity, offering nutrition programs, and providing more guidance counselors, mental health services, and nurses for students and staff."
"We must use assessments to support learning. The assessments based on projects and performance make more sense now than ever to let students show what they know and guide teachers with instruction. From logistics to severely limited utility of the data, standard testing, and certainly such use in accountability, makes little sense for next semester.
Equity Gaps: The Economist says "Covid-19 has widened the gap between rich and poor in America."
"The sooner parents are able to return to work and children to in-person schooling, the less unequal the fallout. The sorts of insulating policies that the federal government might pass to cushion the blow—such as a national tutoring corps for those unable to afford such help, or wider access to laptops—are unlikely to become reality because of the usual partisan antipathy."
Investments:
Novakid’s ESL app for children raises $4.25 million Series A led by PortfoLio and LearnStart investors
Mursion which uses immersive virtual reality training for emotional intelligence in the workplace, announced it has closed a $20 million Series B financing, led by Leeds Illuminate.
Why School Districts Are Bringing Back Younger Children First: Via NYT: “The data is becoming more compelling that there is very limited transmission in day care and grade schools,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a member of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s coronavirus task force."
Learning Loss: New NWEA report of an "analysis of fall assessment data from nearly 4.4 million students in grades 3-8 suggests continued gains in reading, highlights unfinished learning in math, and raises equity concerns based on a good number of students from underserved communities “missing” from the data." More on this at EdNext.
You Made It To December: This has been a confusing year. Almost as confusing as this baby seeing her dad’s twin brother for the first time.