COVID-19 Policy Update #194
COVID-19 Policy Update
FRIDAY 2/5
TOP THREE
AFT on Vaccinations: Weingarten says vaccinations aren't "precondition" for school reopening, but need to be a priority. Some additional quotes"
“The easiest route to reopen schools is to get everybody vaccinated and have both shots in the arm, and the [two week] immunization period.”
"All the risk is on the educators, in terms of going back to school buildings,” she said. "The science is one thing, but the moment — psychologically — you [return to in-person classrooms], you’re always wondering if you’re the case, if you’re the one in 100."
ED: Announced a national survey to gather data on school reopenings. They plan to survey 3,500 schools that enroll fourth-graders and 3,500 schools that enroll eighth-graders. Survey elements will assess:
The share of the schools that are open with full-time in-person instruction, open with online and in-person instruction, or fully remote.
Enrollment by instructional mode by race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, English learner status, and disability status.
Attendance rates by instructional mode by race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, English learner status, disability status, and housing status.
Frequency of in-person learning for students.
Average number of hours of synchronous instruction for students in remote instruction mode. And,
Student groups prioritized by schools for in-person instruction by selected school characteristics.
Fewer Children Are Attending School, Remotely and In Person: Via WSJ.
"Districts showed a 2.3% decline in average daily attendance nationally from September to November of last year, compared with the same period in 2019, according to data from PowerSchool."
"Attendance fell in 75% of the districts as the year wore on, dropping by 1.5% on average each month, data show."
FEDERAL
COVID Package:
The Senate passed the budget resolution early Friday morning 51-50 on a party line vote which allows the package to advance through reconciliation.
Brownstein has a good tracker of all the amendments, notes on discussion and final votes considered over the 15 hour "vote-a-rama."
Democrats are aiming to approve final legislation ahead of a March 14 deadline, when current enhanced Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation is set to expire.
CDC: CDC director says guidance on reopening schools to be released in the coming week
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Johnson & Johnson Vaccine: Submitted their EUA application to the FDA.
Anticipating COVID-19 Vaccination Challenges through Flu Vaccination Patterns: Paper from the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC)
Impacts of COVID-19 and Daily Emotional Health in Adolescent Girls: Results from a daily diary study among adolescent girls at risk for anxiety and depression.
Girls reported spending time in activities that they typically did not have time for including artistic pursuits, spending time with the family, helping out with cooking and chores, exercising most days, and sleeping nearly 9 hours a night.
Adolescents reported spending less than two hours per day engaged in schoolwork
Problems with online schooling, such as technological issues and difficulty learning in the online format, as well as problems finding sufficiently private space, predicted a same day negative effect and depressive symptoms, with online learning problems also contributing to anxious symptoms.
How to Double the Number of Moderna and Pfizer Factories: Alex Tabarrok suggests:
"Theory and data both suggest that a much smaller dose–perhaps as low as 1/4 the current dose—of both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are as effective as a larger dose."
"The value of experiments, or let’s call them pilot studies, right now is immense. We can do pilot studies on half dosing for Moderna and Pfizer vaccines much faster and cheaper than we can build twice as many factories."
What Scientists Know About Variants and COVID-19 Vaccines: The good and the (potentially) bad via Stat.
STATE
Arizona: A digital billboard on Interstate 10 claims Tempe Union High School District is 'failing' kids and calls for in-person learning.
California:
Los Angeles Superintendent Austin Beutner and Board of Education members responded to City Councilman Joe Buscaino's plans to have the city sue schools to reopen, calling the move a political stunt that will not reopen schools.
Families leave Palo Alto for schools, states and countries where classrooms are open.
Illinois:
CPS, Mayor Lori Lightfoot send 'last, best, final offer' to CTU.
The Mayor released a video arguing that the CTU "wants to prioritize teachers over every other resident in this city."
Minnesota: The 74 with Inside the Fight to Reopen Minneapolis Classrooms.
Pennsylvania:
Philadelphia students reflect on 11 months online.
Story on how Philly classrooms will be ventilated.
Philly teachers union president tells members not to go to school Monday, setting up a showdown
How Pittsburgh Catholic schools stayed opened: The maintenance staff sanitizes the surfaces around the clock, while the students remain in one classroom all day long, only taking off their masks to eat lunch.
Virginia:
The Governor ordered all public schools to have in-person learning options by March 15
Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe and Kirk Cox debut plans on education and combating learning loss.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Jobs Report: Just 49,000 jobs added in January but unemployment fell to 6.3%
Only 6,900 of the jobs were in the private sector.
All told, there are still 9.9 million fewer jobs than this time last year.
Those permanently laid off climbed by 133,000 to 3.5 million
Heather Long parses out how many jobs have returned so far for different groups:
Asian women: 51% Black women: 54% White men: 55% Hispanic women: 60% Hispanic men: 63% Asian men: 63% White women: 65% Black men: 68%
College Students Eligible for SNAP: Write up from The Century Foundation and accompanied Twitter thread.
How Fast Is The Economy Recovering?: Some good visualizations from FiveThirtyEight
Invest in Career-Readiness Training for College Students: Paper from Braven's Aimée Eubanks Davis
LEARNING PODS
Refugee Pods: Community coalition offers in-person tutoring for refugee children.
Tutoring: "I am in foster care. I started a tutoring organization to help young people like me."
RESOURCES
”Inside the $130 Billion Biden Schools Proposal: Via The 74.
Digital Divide: Great piece from Erin Richards: "A year into the pandemic, thousands of students still can't get reliable WiFi for school. The digital divide remains worse than ever."
Coursera: Reuters interview with Coursera's CEO Jeff Maggioncalda
Vaccinate The Teachers: To reopen schools, argues CNN's Jonathan Reiner
20 Million Tutoring Sessions: Achieved by Tutor.com. 2 million of which occurred in 2020.
More Pandas: In the snow.