COVID-19 Policy Update #229
COVID-19 Policy Update
THURSDAY 4/8
TOP THREE
Study on Irish School Reopenings: A study examined COVID transmission during the first six weeks of the 2020-2021 academic year in schools in Ireland.
The overall rate of in-school transmission was low at 4.1%.
Schools accounted for 2.2% of all reported COVID cases in the region during the study period.
"The researchers conclude that having open schools did not contribute substantially to the overall burden of COVID"
WHO Europe: Released an assessment from the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Safe Schooling During the COVID-19 Pandemic
"Even with the wider spread of more infectious variants, there is no evidence that schools contribute in a major way to community transmission."
"School closures by themselves will not control the pandemic;"
"Measures such as physical distancing, masks, hand hygiene and ventilation, applied in an age-appropriate way, should allow schools to stay open even with increasing numbers of infected people in the community."
Does It Hurt Children to Measure Pandemic Learning Loss?: Asks the NYT
FEDERAL
CDC: CDC Director Rochelle Walensky expects all schools will be fully open for in-person learning in September.
"Mid-May maybe we'll be able to have a vaccine from Pfizer that we'll be able to do down to 12," she said, pending Food and Drug Administration authorization for that age group."
"She said she is hopeful that by summertime there will be two vaccines available for children 12 and up."
Treasury: Released the Made in America Tax Plan which outlines the tax policies the Administration proposes to use to pay for the Infrastructure package(s)
COVID-19 RESEARCH
B.1.1.7: The variant first identified in the U.K. is now the dominant strain of COVID in the U.S.
Rapid COVID Tests Used Twice Weekly Could Detect Most Contagious School-Aged Kids: New Study / Blog Post from USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.
"Children arriving at the testing site with their parents were given the opportunity to be tested for COVID – twice. Once with a rapid antigen test and once with the “gold standard” PCR test, to confirm the results of the rapid test. Overall, 774 children ages 5 to 17 years old took both tests."
"The study found that the rapid antigen tests have a very low false-positive rate, but a moderately high false-negative rate. In other words, the tests rarely identified someone as positive who was not; but did occasionally identify someone as negative who in fact had COVID."
"Rapid antigen testing can successfully identify most COVID infections in children with viral load levels likely to be infectious. Serial rapid testing may help compensate for limited sensitivity in early infection."
Vaccine Hesitancy:
Trustworthy and Trusted: Strategies to Improve Confidence in Covid-19 Vaccines: Lessons learned by NewYork-Presbyterian
In the Covid-19 vaccine push, no one is speaking Gen Z’s language
"Palau, the Instagram influencer, largely credits his own change of heart on the vaccine to his followers and fellow influencers — particularly people of color — on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Palau, who is Indigenous, was hesitant for months because of the long history of exploitation and medical experimentation on Native communities, he said, even though he lost several family members to Covid-19."
"Eventually he made his own TikTok videos urging other Native young people to get vaccinated. His video is part of a campaign dubbed “See Friends Again,” a small campaign stood up by Bigtent Creative, an advocacy organization focused on mobilizing young people on channels like TikTok and Snapchat. The campaign focuses on contracting with young people of color who are “micro influencers” to share vaccine positive messages on their social media accounts."
Vaccine Fairy: New non-profit that provides COVID-19 vaccine appointment assistance nationwide.
List of Universities Requiring Vaccines Grows and So Does Pushback: Via Axios. More over at Inside Higher Ed.
STATE
Illinois:
Via Patch "Is Pritzker Steering School COVID-19 Testing Contracts To U of I?"
Why pandemic drove so many challengers to run for school board
Virginia: Alexandria schools will not switch to three feet of distance inside classrooms
INTERNATIONAL
Hungary: Will open schools as planned on April 19
Switzerland: Will allow fifth- and sixth-grade students to not wear masks if their schools have participated in mass testing
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
EBT Cards Increased WIC Enrollment: A new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia finds EBT cards could increase participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.
Compared WIC participation from October 1, 2014, to November 30, 2019, in states that did and did not transition to WIC EBT.
In states that implemented EBT cards, WIC participation increased by 7.78% 3 years after implementation, relative to states that continued using paper vouchers.
Manufacturers Embrace Robots: Via NBC with implications for workforce issues:
"Orders for automated machines are up 30 percent at Eastman Machine Company. Rockwell Automation, a provider of industrial automation solutions, said growth is up 6 percent for the fiscal year and saw sharply increased orders in November and December."
“The most competitive industrial enterprise combines advanced tech with a workforce comfortable with interacting with that tech and is valued for uniquely human attributes like decision-making skills,” said Blake Moret, chairman and CEO of Rockwell Automation."
A City Wrestled Down an Addiction Crisis. Then Came COVID-19: Powerful long piece via the AP.
"The CDC estimates that more than 88,000 people died of drug overdoses in the 12 months ending in August 2020 — the latest figures available. That is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a year."
"Huntington was once a thriving town of almost 100,000 people. It sits at the corner of West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, and the railroad tracks through town used to rumble all day from trains packed with coal. Then the coal industry collapsed, and the city’s population dwindled in half. Nearly a third of those left behind live in poverty."
"The CDC estimates that across the country overdose deaths increased nearly 27% in the 12-month span ending in August 2020. In West Virginia, long the state hit hardest, fatal overdoses increased by more than 38%."
RESOURCES
5 Reasons Experts Think Kids Will Be in School Full Time This Fall: Via Vox:
Building Trust Among Parents and Teachers is Key to Reopening Schools: Via Sherman Dorn
Create a Corps of Coaches, Coordinators & Mentors to Support Teachers Would Ensure Long-Term Benefits: Via Jim Balfanz and Carole G. Basile
Broadband:
Broadband use surged 30% to 40% during the COVID-19 pandemic and even reached 60% in some areas. Full report here.
Some networks saw more than 300% increase in the amount of video conferencing traffic from February to October 2020.
AT&T’s data showed Wi-Fi calling nearly doubled during an average day. The data also showed that the number of minutes of audio and videoconferencing went up 500%
"But the access network, while critical, was only one part of the network where capacity was rapidly added. As the pandemic developed, traffic across the Comcast fiber backbone grew by a third in the first 6 weeks after lockdown, reaching thresholds by April 2020 that hadn’t been expected for a year. In response, between March and September 2020, over 500 improvements were made to the core network, adding over 146 Tbps in capacity and compressing a year of network growth into a seven-month period."
Via Axios: Biden broadband agenda takes aim at Big Telecom
Jim Doyle, president of Business Forward, out with an oped: Eliminating the 'homework gap' means more than ramping up digital access
State-by-state analysis of school connectivity relative to the FCC's speed goals.
Adding is Favored Over Subtracting in Problem Solving: Just a fascinating study on how people approach problem solving which has implications for both policy and practice.
"A series of problem-solving experiments reveal that people are more likely to consider solutions that add features than solutions that remove them, even when removing features is more efficient."
"Adams et al. demonstrated that the reason their participants offered so few subtractive solutions is not because they didn’t recognize the value of those solutions, but because they failed to consider them."
"It thus seems that people are prone to apply a ‘what can we add here?’ heuristic (a default strategy to simplify and speed up decision-making). This heuristic can be overcome by exerting extra cognitive effort to consider other, less-intuitive solutions."
"People might expect to receive less credit for subtractive solutions than for additive ones."
Math Teacher and Student Now Father and Son: Via Steve Hartman. Math teacher Finn Lanning in 2019, he was fostering his student Damien so the middle schooler could get a desperately needed kidney transplant. Hartman provides an update with a twist.