COVID-19 Policy Update #230
COVID-19 Policy Update
FRIDAY 4/9
TOP THREE
Pfizer and BioNTech: Requests expanded EUA for the use of its vaccine with adolescents 12 to 15 years of age.
Michigan: Gov. Whitmer urges a 2-week suspension of in-person high school classes, all youth sports and indoor restaurant dining due to a surge of cases and hospitalizations across the state.
The Pandemic's Terrible Toll on Kids: Long piece via WSJ
"Harvard University researchers who have been following 224 children ages 7 to 15 found that about two-thirds of them had clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and depression, and the same number had behavioral problems such as hyperactivity and inattention, between November 2020 and January 2021. That is a huge jump from the 30% with anxiety and depression symptoms and the 20% with behavioral problems before the pandemic."
"The biggest driver of child well-being during Covid is how parents are functioning, according to a survey of nearly 500 parents with children ages 8 to 17, conducted by Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio."
"In the fall of 2020, math performance among third- to eighth-graders was 5 to 10 percentile points lower than it was in the fall of 2019, according to a report by the Brookings Institution. An analysis by McKinsey & Co. estimates that Covid-related learning losses among kindergarten to 12th-grade students will reduce their lifetime earnings by between $61,000 and $82,000. And those numbers assumed that students would largely be learning in person by January 2021."
"Such brain changes, if “not attended to, are going to lead to emotional, cognitive, academic issues later in life,” says Victor G. Carrion, director of the Early Life Stress and Resilience Program at Stanford University."
"A fourth of parents of children attending school remotely said their kids’ mental or emotional health worsened, compared with 16% whose kids were attending in person only, according to a CDC survey of more than 1,200 parents with children ages 5 to 12, conducted in October and November 2020."
"Emerging research is identifying strategies that may help children be more resilient in the face of the pandemic. The study in progress at Harvard of children and teens has found that those who had structured routines, got more exercise and had less screen time had fewer behavior problems and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression."
FEDERAL
Budget: The Administration released their budget proposal.
41% increase proposed for ED.
$36.5 billion for Title I grants, a $20 billion increase compared to FY 2021.
$15.5 billion in Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grants to states, a $2.6 billion increase.
$1 billion to Increase Counselors, Nurses and Mental Health Professionals in K-12 Schools.
$100 million for a new grant program to help communities develop and implement strategies that would build more diverse student bodies.
$7.4 billion for the Child Care Development Block Grant program, an increase of $1.5 billion over FY 2021.
$11.9 billion for Head Start, a $1.2 billion increase over FY 2021.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Children and COVID-19: AAP State-Level Data Report
3,469,500 total child COVID-19 cases reported
Children were 1.3%-3.1% of total reported hospitalizations, and between 0.1%-2.0% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization
Children were 0.00%-0.19% of all COVID-19 deaths
IHME: Weekly briefing
Model projects 619,000 cumulative deaths on August 1, 2021. This represents 64,000 additional deaths from April 5 to August 1
Vaccine Plateau: An analysis by Surgo Ventures concluded that "the supply-demand shift for the vaccine will happen earlier than expected — as early as the end of April — and before the nation reaches the 70-90% threshold for achieving herd immunity." More at Axios.
Children and Transmission: New study out of Canada:
175 children and 130 adults in Manitoba infected with SARS-CoV-2
Of the total samples used to investigate viral loads, 97 were collected from children aged 10 or younger, 78 were from those between the ages of 11 and 17 and 130 were from adults.
Results showed that compared with adults, children were less likely to grow virus in culture and had lower viral concentrations, suggesting they are not the main drivers of transmission.
Children, COVID, Hospitalization: New study: Although just over 10% of children and teens infected with the coronavirus require hospitalization, up to one-third of those hospitalized require treatment in the ICU.
"Our results suggest that existing chronic conditions and male sex are independently associated with severe COVID-19."
"Consistent with previous reports, non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic or Latino children with COVID-19 were overrepresented compared with all pediatric patients."
"We found no statistically significant association between severe disease and race/ethnicity among hospitalized patients when controlling for covariates."
STATE
California: The Los Angeles Unified School District has been hit with another lawsuit over its school reopening plan, a week after another group of parents sued the district and local teachers union over similar issues.
North Carolina: Schools should regularly conduct COVID-19 screenings of staff and students with parental consent, state Department of Health and Human Services officials told the State Board of Education on Thursday.
Pennsylvania: Completes teacher vaccination effort
Texas: HISD looks to add at least 15 academic days to 2021-22 school calendar
Virginia: In reversal, Alexandria schools will adopt three feet of distance inside classrooms
INTERNATIONAL
Canada: CMAJ article "Should Canada’s approach to COVID-19 and kids change with new variants?"
According to epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, “Our state of Minnesota has a very large and rapidly growing outbreak right now of B.1.1.7 that [was] initially focused in youth sports, transmitted widely in kids in a number of different areas, [and is] now spilling over into parents, grandparents and so forth. It’s a totally different virus in the sense of what it’s doing epidemiologically.”
“For example, part of the driver in the younger age groups in the U.K was… transmission within households,” said Poliquin. Given that B.1.1.7 and other variants are much more transmissible in general, a person’s age may not matter as much as being “in a household with a family member that has a variant."
"Speaking before recent school closures in Ontario, Jüni said schools could still be relatively safe with classroom bubbles, masking, and better ventilation. “If we let it slip outside of school, and classes start to mix with birthday parties or [in] schoolyards where kids are not masked properly, then it gets really problematic,” he said. “We should assume now — [although] we don’t know for sure — that children are as likely to play a role in this pandemic as adults, irrespective of age.”
Switzerland: Students in hot water after faking positive COVID tests in order to get out of school.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Half of Small Businesses Unlikely to Hire Back Workers: Per Facebook's Global State of Small Business Report. More at Axios.
America is Failing Its Workforce: OpEd from Jeb Bush
RESOURCES
SchoolHouse: Raises $8.1 million to take microschools nationwide
Learning Hubs: A Shovel-Ready Strategy for Spending Federal Dollars: By Robin Lake and Dan Weisberg
We Need a SpaceX for Assessment: Via Mark Schneider (Institute of Education Sciences) and Kumar Garg (Schmidt Futures)
"First, we should strive to set ambitious goals for where assessment innovation can go. Let’s ask the field: What would you need to take a large-scale assessment and reduce its cost by half while increasing its quality?"
"Second, government agencies and research funders should invest in advanced computational methods in operational assessments — not just relegate them to one-off “special studies.”
"Third, fostering talent is critical. New testing designs will require new test researchers, developers, statisticians and AI experts who think outside the box. Efforts are already underway to support new talent, and the Duolingo English Test recently launched a fellowship program to support young researchers in the assessment field."
"But, most importantly, we must recognize that the status quo is broken. We need new thinking, new methods and new talent."
The Learning 2025: AASA's National Commission on Student-Centered, Equity-Focused Education: Released their report today
Just a Puppy and a Butterfly: For your weekend.