COVID-19 Policy Update #201
COVID-19 Policy Update
WEDNESDAY 2/17
I can't believe this marks the 200th COVID update. I wish it was like Oprah and I could say, "You get a vaccine! You get a vaccine!" Instead, you'll have to settle for a picture of Teddy in the snow.
TOP THREE
CDC Researcher Reacts to the Guidance: I missed this, but Dr. Tracy Høeg who was part of the CDC research study on schools in Wisconsin, had this Tweet last Friday: "Re the CDC press briefing on school reopening. No, a tiered system for reopening is not based in science. We had up to 40% test positivity rate in our WI study and minimal disease spread in school; none to teachers. <6ft distancing. The new guidelines fail to protect our youth."
CNN Town Hall: "President Biden sought to clarify what his administration means by promising to open schools in the first 100 days of his presidency, insisting that "the goal will be five days a week."
Couple of clips:
"I think that we should be vaccinating teachers. We should move them up in the hierarchy."
Biden explains to a 2nd grader why she shouldn't be overly worried about the coronavirus
EdWeek: "Biden also repudiated comments from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki last week that schools holding in-person classes one day a week would count toward the Biden administration’s goal of having most K-8 schools open by April 30 (a goal that data indicate might have already been met under that standard). Calling her comments “a mistake in the communication” that did not accurately reflect his administration’s position, Biden stressed that his goal is for those schools to open five days a week after 100 days and said he thinks schools will get “close to that."
Children and COVID-19: State-Level Data Report: Updated data from AAP:
3,033,370 total child COVID-19 cases reported, and children represented 13.0% of all cases
Over two weeks, 1/28/21-2/11/21, there was an 8% increase in the cumulated number of child COVID-19 cases
Children were 1.2%-2.9% of total reported hospitalization
Children were 0.00%-0.25% of all COVID-19 deaths
FEDERAL
Vice President Harris: Interviewed on Today Show said teachers should be a priority for vaccinations and stressed reopening K-8 schools five days a week as soon as possible.
CNN's John Berman pressed VP Harris Chief Spokesperson Symone Sanders on teacher vaccinations (clip).
Washington Post covering the back and forth today. “Neither the president nor the vice president believe it is a requirement,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. She added: “It’s not a requirement to reopen schools, but we believe that teachers should be prioritized.”
Side Note: Two issues that surfaced during the Today Show interview.
First, the Vice President stressed that the CDC community thresholds were just "recommendations" which some have interrupted as the Administration giving some more flexibility to states/schools.
Second, NBC kept showing the map below/left of community risk during the interview. It comes from the CDC (data here) but uses different criteria than what the CDC outlined Friday in the school guidance. That map looks like the one on the right below. I mention this as it shows how confusing this is for school leaders and parents who have their own state thresholds/color codes and then two different ones from the CDC.
The White House announced it will expand COVID-19 testing for schools and underserved populations. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in partnership with the Department of Defense (DOD), will make a $650 million investment to expand testing opportunities for K-8 schools and underserved congregate settings, such as homeless shelters
COVID Relief Package:
The House will vote on COVID relief package next week
White House Fact Sheet: Biden Administration to Take Steps to Bolster Registered Apprenticeships
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Children's Immune Systems: A new study from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne found children are protected from severe COVID-19 because their innate immune system attacks the virus differently than adults.
Researchers analyzed blood samples from 48 children and 70 adults across 28 households infected with, or exposed to, the coronavirus.
Dr Neeland: "So what it showed to us was that in children, these first responder innate immune cells were migrating to sites of infection which were clearing the virus before it really had a chance to take hold, and this was not observed in adults."
COVID-19 Cases Are Dropping Fast. Why? The Atlantic's Derek Thompson says it's because of social distancing, seasonality, seroprevalence, and shots
The Coronavirus Might be Here to Stay: A Nature survey of more than 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologists found that nearly 90% “think that the coronavirus will become endemic — meaning that it will continue to circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come.”
Vaccine Distribution: Engadget with a story on how the White House is exploring ways of working with tech firms to help with vaccine distribution.
How Is The COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign Going In Your State? Fascinating NPR interactive including a "vaccination efficiency" measure.
Who Has Died from COVID-19 in the US? Vox interactive
STATE
California:
The California Teachers Association launched an ad campaign highlighting the ongoing threat of COVID-19 and its variants, and the importance of vaccines and multilayered safety measures as politicians and school districts ready to open additional schools for in-person instruction and accommodate more students on already-open campuses. The television ads, titled “Safety First,” warn of schools reopening and then having to shut back down if multiple layers of protection aren’t in place.
In the last five days, the county coronavirus case rate fell to 20 positive cases per 100,000 people. That's still in the most restrictive "purple" tier, but it meets the state's recently revised guidelines for in-person instruction."
"Suddenly, as more infectious and fatal variants are spreading, the state claims it's safe to reopen. Educators cannot support a broad physical reopening of schools until school staff required to work in person have access to vaccinations, L.A. County is out of the purple tier and reaches much lower community transmission rate, and all schools have strict multi-layered mitigation strategies in place — such as COVID testing, physical distancing, use of masks, hand hygiene, and isolation/quarantine procedures," UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a statement Tuesday.
The teacher's union is pushing back against calls to reopen until teachers are eligible for vaccines and COVID-19 cases drop even lower.
Minnesota: Gov. Walz says all schools should offer at least some in-person learning by March 8.
New York: NYC schools barred from requiring COVID testing consent forms from students
Oregon:
Portland Public Schools hopes to reopen in April but more than 40% of its 94 school buildings are 90 years old—and many have questions surrounding their ventilation.
Via NYT: Oregon Is Vaccinating Teachers. It Might Not Be Enough to Reopen Schools.
Virginia: Some students returned to the classroom in Fairfax County but they're taught by a teacher who is teaching from home. The district hired more than classroom 800 monitors and trained them to assist students who are in person but still learning online. News segment / Tweet.
INTERNATIONAL
UK: The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) looked at the social contacts when schools were either open or closed, taking into account the different types of restrictions.
“Our results suggest that reopening all schools could increase R from an assumed baseline of 0.8 to between 1.0 and 1.5, or to between 0.9 and 1.2 reopening primary or secondary schools alone.”
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
San Fran Federal Reserve "COVID School Closures May Slightly Stunt U.S. Economic Growth: Study here. Reuters here.
"Its authors drew on a study published last year estimating that school closures could result in fewer children earning a bachelor’s degree, and as much as a 1 percentage point increase in the share of children not finishing high school."
"With college-educated workers far out-earning those with less education, the projected decline in overall educational attainment could trim annual U.S. output by an average of a quarter of a percentage point over the next 70 years, the paper found."
"The hit to GDP would peak in 2045, at just shy of $150 billion in that single year, the researchers estimated."
"The closures may also contribute to income inequality because lower-income families likely have fewer resources to make up for lost learning than higher-income households, they wrote."
Millions of Jobs Probably Aren’t Coming Back: Heather Long's most recent piece:
"Some economists predict that there could be more automation now, because the pandemic forced companies to look for ways to minimize the number of employees in a workspace and the vast scale of the layoffs in the economy gives executives a unique opportunity to bring in robots."
"An early sign of the high demand right now for more upskilling and retraining is on display in Michigan. The state used some of its stimulus money last year to create a “Futures for Frontliners” program to give free tuition to grocery store clerks, health aides and other front-line workers so they can earn a certificate or an associate degree. More than 100,000 people applied. The program also comes with career advice."
"Meanwhile, the $1.9 trillion relief bill stimulus package that President Biden proposed and House Democrats have been working on does not include any funding specifically for retraining."
The Search for Stability: A Review of Worker Transitions: AEI report.
"Compared to the rest of the developed world, the US has underinvested in active labor market programs. The US is also unique in its focus on workers who have lost jobs due to trade, rather than other sources of job loss."
"The policy tool kit in the US has largely been designed for more cyclical ebbs and flows in the economy rather than more dramatic shifts; most programs were designed for an earlier era."
Expanded SNAP Benefits: May help more than 3 million food-insecure college students.
RESOURCES
What’s at Stake in the Fight Over Reopening Schools: Via The New Yorker
What the CDC Guidelines Don’t Say About Classroom Ventilation and COVID-19 Spread: Via EdWeek
Reopening Schools Hinges Upon Trust That Must Be Built From the Ground Up: Good piece from Paul Hill and Ashley Jochim
Harnessing Tensions: A Both/And Approach to School Recovery and Reinvention: Via Transcend
Five Data Things States Should Think About Right Now, Revisited: Via DQC
Updating their report cards this year
Calculating growth in 2021
Turning on parent data portals to give families the information they need
Protecting students’ privacy
Setting themselves up to evaluate what worked and what didn’t
U.S. Schools Can and Should Open Faster: Bloomberg Editorial
"This lack of clarity and ambition is a grave disservice to the country’s children, particularly those from subpar schools, where the educational divide had already left them vulnerable."
"To put it bluntly, a school that’s giving in-person instruction once a week isn’t open. Distance learning doesn’t work, and the resulting educational deficit is going to inflict terrible and possibly irreparable damage on the poorest and most disadvantaged children."
The COVID Pandemic Has Given Us a Road Map to Transform Education for the Better: OpEd from Sal Khan and Brian Hooks:
"When education isn’t tailored to the student, we miss a critical opportunity to help children discover, develop and apply their gifts, which is, after all, the purpose of education. In public and private schools alike, students with wildly different talents and learning habits are being pushed into the same standardized, one-size-fits-all-model."
"Individualized education doesn’t have to cost a fortune or unduly burden teachers."
"Education can happen anywhere, anytime."
"Finally, the pandemic has made clear that education is not just for kids."
"Now is the time to build a better education system, one that empowers and uplifts every student at every stage of life. Achieving this goal requires the collaboration of educators, parents, philanthropists, businesses and policymakers alike who will focus on helping students receive a quality, individualized education no matter the setting. The pandemic has not only shown what we need to do in American education. It has illuminated how to do it."
Bay Area Children Are Suffering From Shuttered Schools: Via San Francisco Chronicle.
"During a recent shift at Kaiser Richmond, three children between the ages of 10 and 13 arrived at the emergency room with cuts on their wrists"
“It is a horrible cry for help,” Noble said. “Three middle-schoolers in one shift, screaming from the rooftops, is unusual.”
"Local, state and national health officials have increasingly called on education officials to reopen classrooms as soon as possible because it’s not just about learning, experts say — it’s also about in-person socializing with peers and teachers, child care, food security, physical safety, mental health resources, exercise and play."
"While many districts have opened in the purple tier, the most restrictive in the state, some labor unions want to wait until the yellow tier, the least restrictive. The Oakland teachers union, for example, proposed reopening only when case rates are “near zero,” a demand that far exceeds all local, state and federal health requirements."
School Reopening Pits Parents Against Teachers: “Is There a Word Beyond ‘Frustrating": Good piece from the WSJ
Quinnipiac Poll: Results:
Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Biden administration is handling the reopening of schools?
42% Approve; 38% Do Not Approve; 20% Don't know
In general, do you think the pace of reopening of schools in your community is happening too quickly, not quickly enough, or at about the right pace?
18% too quickly
27% not quickly enough
47% about the right pace
Morning Consult Poll: On school reopenings. (Crosstabs)
55% of voters said states should wait to reopen schools until teachers have received the vaccine, while 34% said schools should be reopened as soon as possible, even if not every teacher has been vaccinated.
55% of GOP voters said schools should be reopened even if all teachers aren’t inoculated, while 74% of Democrats said schools should wait.
48% of all voters approve of President Biden’s handling of education issues, but the share who disapprove has increased 4 points over two weeks, to 32%.
Dog Sledding: A dog takes itself sledding.