COVID-19 Policy Update #159
COVID-19 Policy Update
WEDNESDAY 12/2
TOP THREE
Schools Stay Open in Europe: "Europe’s schools still open, still relatively safe, through covid-19 second wave"
"Most of Europe kept schools open even during a worst-on-the-planet second wave of infections this fall. And still, schools appear to be relatively safe environments, public health officials say. As long as they adhered to a now-established set of precautions — mask-wearing, hand-washing, ventilation — schools are thought to have played only a limited role in accelerating coronavirus transmission in Europe."
“It is still difficult for me to understand why schools are closed in the United States,” said Otto Helve, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare who has studied coronavirus transmission in schools. “Schools are not driving the epidemic.”
"France, which spiked worse than Spain last month, also saw relatively low numbers in schools. The week of France’s peak last month, 0.1 percent of students and 0.2 percent of school personnel tested positive for the coronavirus. Across the country, 142 of 528,400 classrooms quarantined, about 0.03 percent, while 21 of 61,500 schools went into fuller quarantine, according to data from the education ministry."
Economic Relief Package:
Speaker Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Schumer urged Senate McConnell to use a $908 billion bipartisan stimulus plan as the basis for relief talks, endorsing a smaller relief bill than they previously have.
Senator McConnell is also sharing a proposal without specific dollar amounts but mirrors much of the $500 billion proposal previously floated. More from Reuters.
Our partners at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck have a summary of the proposals.
Building Vaccine Confidence: Former President Obama said he will take a coronavirus vaccine once one is available and would be willing to film it, if that would build confidence about vaccine safety.
FEDERAL
Warp Speed: Operation Warp Speed chief advisor Moncef Slaoui said in an interview with The Washington Post that "There is a social responsibility here for everybody to really think hard before deciding not to take the vaccine."
CDC: Announced it may shorten its quarantine guidance. The current recommended period to stay home if exposed to the virus is 14 days. The revised guidance is 10 days without a test or 7 days with a negative test.
White House Coronavirus Task Force:
Warns states: "We are in a very dangerous place"
The next few months of the Covid-19 pandemic will be among “the most difficult in the public health history of this nation,” said CDC Director Redfield
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Vaccine: The UK officially authorised Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
School Reopenings/Closure: A study by the University Hospital in Dresden analyzed blood samples from almost 1,500 children and 500 teachers from 13 schools in May and June with follow-up visits in September and October.
The time period allowed researchers to analyze antibody levels during the first wave, during the reopening of schools, and after the summer.
The low level of antibodies led researchers to conclude, “Schools do not play a crucial role in driving the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in a low prevalence setting. Transmission in families occurs very infrequently, and the number of unreported cases is low in this age group. These observations do not support school closures as a strategy fighting the pandemic in a low prevalence setting.”
WHO's On The Slopes: Skiing may not spread coronavirus but slopes still risky according to the WHO.
Moderna on Warp Speed: The company said the effort improved quality, but not speed of its COVID-19 vaccine development:
"It took 322 days from the day Moderna produced the first dose of mRNA-1273 for the company to announce Monday that in a Phase III trial its vaccine had prevented 94.1% of symptomatic and 100% of severe cases of COVID-19."
"Warp Speed’s contributions were especially important for designing and implementing the 30,000-person COVE trial that was enriched for individuals with risk factors for severe COVID-19 and succeeded in enrolling a mix of participants that closely matches the racial, gender and ethnic composition of the U.S."
STATE
Ohio: The COVID-19 Analytics and Targeted Surveillance System (CATS) takes information from the state and combines it with specific district information, like nurse visits and student and staff absences. CATS can serve as an early warning system for case clusters, said Ayaz Hyder, the Ohio State University public health professor.
Pennsylvania: Nearly all the state's public schools signed and published attestations to COVID-19 mitigation strategies to allow for in-person learning.
Texas: Houston ISD data from its beginning-of-year test shows elementary students scoring better than previous years.
INTERNATIONAL
Spain: Wagging tails: therapy dog cheers Spanish special-needs kids during COVID.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Salesforce/Slack: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff called the $28 billion move to acquire Slack "a bet that pandemic-driven changes to work aren't a temporary blip." The permanent shift will be to remote work, with Slack supplanting email as a favored means of business communication.
The Queen’s Gambit Driven Recovery: NPR reports chess set sales have risen since the launch of the Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit.”
Goliath Games sells six different kinds of chess sets: “Our October sales for chess were up 178% over the same period last year. But something else unexpected happened at the end of the month. Now, she says, “our chess sales are up 1,048%.”
eBay registered a 215% increase in chess set and accessory sales.
TechStars: I had the opportunity to serve as a mentor for a cohort of startups in the TechStars Workforce Accelerator (mentioned in our ). Below are some of the profiles (also here). Passing them along as I know some of you are exploring future of work/workforce development opportunities. Happy to make any intros:
TiLT technology helps effectively manage employee leaves of absence. Its innovative platform improves communication between employers and their employees while simplifying the related workload for HR, managers, and those on leave. It reduces risks to companies by ensuring the process is compliant with current legislation and helps remove the fear and bias associated with leaves. Deck. Jen Henderson jen@ourtilt.com
Honest Jobs is the nation's largest fair-chance employment platform. They currently help over 300 companies hire formerly incarnated job candidates by making "smart matches". Their technology helps ensure that they only send you candidates with criminal histories that do not directly conflict with the job duties. Additionally, they work with Probation and Parole Departments to secure a continuous and predictable labor supply of men and women coming home from incarceration. Great article on Harley Blakeman’s journey from prison to tech startup CEO Harley Blakeman <mark@honestjobs.co>
Mentor Spaces helps make workplaces more diverse and inclusive by facilitating virtual mentorship among employees and prospective candidates. The web and mobile platform allows corporate mentors to communicate with early career Black & Latinx candidates in career interest-based groups making it easier for companies to attract, hire, and retain diverse talent. Companies use Mentor Spaces to build a diverse talent pipeline, improve retention, and enhance corporate culture. Deck. Chris Motley <chris@mentorspaces.com>
Turing School: Built a track record of success, this new program (“Data Operations”) is specifically designed to empower Opportunity Youth 18-26 without a college degree to join and succeed in the tech workforce. Program tuition is $15k, stipend is $5k. Paid apprenticeship after graduation. Students pay back 15% of their income for 36 months (only if they get a job that pays more than $40k). Even after income share, net income is 70% more than high school grad. Deck. Jorge Téllez, Entrepreneur in Residence, <jorge@turing.io>
FutureFit AI supports governments in the virtual service delivery of reskilling and job placement for in-demand roles by providing job seekers with an AI-powered 'career GPS' to navigate people through career transitions. FutureFit AI uses data from over 350 million global talent profiles, live local labor market demand and projections, and proprietary algorithms to identify an individual's skills, recommend possible career paths in their local labor market, and create a personalized roadmap of learning programs, career support resources, and human coaching to drive successful job outcomes. Deck. Taylor Stockton <taylor.stockton@futurefit.ai>
Increment is a purpose driven company that digitizes the impact of currently offline industrial skills progression on production output for manufacturing workers. It came out of Jessica’s research over the past two years in South Bend, Indiana around how automation is impacting industrial and skilled trades wage workers and how that affects socioeconomic mobility and political polarization. They are working with two manufacturers in northwestern Indiana on software pilots. Jessica Lee <jessica@joinincrement.com>
Talk Hiring has conducted 5,000+ mock interviews with participants of career readiness programs. They offer tech-accessible, fully automated mock interviews across the most common industries, plus dashboards for staff to follow along. Success stories. Harris Osserman <harris@talkhiring.com>
LEARNING PODS
Revamping Employee Benefits: Via HR Executive:
"Caregiving resources: The need for childcare resources continues to grow as many caregiving facilities and schools are still at least partially closed. Applications to assist in finding caregivers, creating nanny-sharing and learning pods, and virtual learning platforms are invaluable resources for working parents."
RESOURCES
Down on Online Learning: The Washington Post's Helaine Olen writes "It’s time to admit it: Remote education is a failure."
Impact on Children: Via CNN "Now we have proof that kids are paying the price of Covid"
Rethinking Video Mandates In Online Classrooms: Privacy and Equity Considerations and Alternative Engagement Methods: Resource from FPF and NEA.
In These Reopened Schools, Students Exceed Expectations Following Safety Rules: Via EdSurge.
It's Wednesday: This Basement Gang TikTok compilation has you covered for the rest of the week.