COVID-19 Policy Update #277
COVID-19 Policy Update
WEDNESDAY 6/16
TOP THREE
Knowing What Schools Did in the Pandemic is Crucial. So Is Preserving That Data: Via EdWeek:
"So even as schools look forward to recovery, Brown University economics Professor Emily Oster is looking back, leading a project to capture all of the data states collected about school operations in 2020-21 and to present it in a consistent format that can inform researchers and policy makers well into the future."
"Oster’s “pipe dream” for her current project, set to launch in August: a data collection that would show how any school in the country was operating— in-person, remotely, or a hybrid of the two models— on any given week in the 2020-21 school year."
"The U.S. Department of Education recently announced plans for a new “pulse” survey during the 2021-22 school year that will ask a sample of 1,200 schools questions related to recovery and operations."
I Taught Online School This Year. It Was a Disgrace: Via NYT
CDC Foundation: Intentions and Views Around COVID-19 Vaccination Among K12 Populations
20% of parents are vaccine hesitant and 19% are undecided about COVID-19 vaccination.
Almost 50% of parents reported that they would be more comfortable with their child attending in-person school once teachers and staff are vaccinated.
Among parents of school-age children, the following characteristics were independently associated with being vaccine hesitant: nonHispanic Black or African American, under the age of 40, household income < $50k.
Parents unwilling to have their child tested regularly for COVID-19 at school for in-person learning had 8 times greater odds of being vaccine hesitant than those in favor or testing.
FEDERAL
Infrastructure: Democrats push back on Bipartisan Infrastructure deal
NTIA: Department of Commerce’s NTIA Releases Final Rule for $268 Million Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Regeneron Antibody Study: A monoclonal antibody treatment from Regeneron helped save the lives of hospitalized patients who hadn't mounted their own immune response against Covid-19, according to new data.
"In the nearly 10,000-person trial, the percentage of Covid-19 deaths in the group that received the antibody cocktail went from 30% to 24%. Regeneron's therapy, which is known as REGN-COV, is currently authorized for outpatient use, but the company plans to ask the FDA to expand the emergency use authorization to hospitalized patients."
State of the Shots: Datavis from Axios using CDC data:
STATE
Arizona: Hundreds of Tucson kids will remain remote for the upcoming school year.
New York: How a pandemic school year changed 6 New York families — and how it didn't. Some great before/after photos.
Wyoming: Powell's virtual school to take students from all grade levels
“I don’t think any virtual program will ever substitute a face-to-face experience,” Sleep said. However, “what we’re finding ... with our virtual students is either they will come to us or they’ll do it on their own,” he said.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Accelerating Readiness for Scale: The Studio @ Blue Meridian is investing in additional organizations poised to support an equitable recovery.
CodePath
Merit America
MLT
Per Scholas
Grameen America
Benefits Data Trust
Beyond 12
Zearn
Covid Doom Predictions That Never Happened: Good piece from Noah Smith
Suicides fell
Savings and net worth rose even as consumption bounced back
People are paying their rents and mortgages
State budgets are healthy
Business formation increased
…But universities really are in trouble
Burnt-out America: Important story at Axios:
More than 4 in 10 workers say they're considering leaving their jobs, according to a study by Microsoft, while Pew has found that 66% of unemployed Americans have seriously considered changing their occupation.
A record high of 4 million people (2.7% rate) quit their jobs in April, with the largest in retail (106,000) and professional business services (94,000).
"61% of leaders say they are “thriving” right now — 23 percentage points higher than those without decision-making authority."
RESOURCES
What We Learned Doing Fast Grants: Some good reflections here and here.
"The original vision was simple: an application form that would take scientists less than 30 minutes to complete and that would deliver funding decisions within 48 hours, with money following a few days later."
32% said that Fast Grants accelerated their work by “a few months”
64% of respondents told us that the work in question wouldn’t have happened without receiving a Fast Grant.
57% of respondents told us that they spend more than one quarter of their time on grant applications.
78% said that they would change their research program “a lot” if their existing funding could be spent in an unconstrained fashion.
Return To Learn: This is the final week of data updates. Data will remain live on the site indefinitely.
There are 33 states where every district has returned to some form of in-person learning.
The top 10 states for most fully in-person instruction are Iowa, Florida, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Connecticut, Missouri, Alabama, and Texas.
Districts in counties where people are hesitant to take the vaccine are more likely to be fully in person. As of June 7, 65 percent of districts with self-reported high vaccine hesitancy are fully in person, compared to 44 percent of districts with low vaccine hesitancy.
Nat offers up some thanks: "As we tie off our active tracking this week, we are tremendously grateful to the R2L team that built this project and supported it at a rapid pace while working remotely. Many thanks to Chris Marsicano and his entire team at the College Crisis Initiative. We extend special thanks to student leaders Andrew Gardner and Sam Owusu. Nathan Cantelmo, Dale Wahl, and Alexander Audet provided outstanding assistance designing and building the machine learning to make this data collection possible. We'd like to thank Jessica Schurz for managing the project from start to finish and Matthew Rice for continued web development support. Thank you also to the entire AEI staff who assisted in the publication and promotion of this project. Finally, we are indebted to the tireless efforts of over 75 research assistants, interns, and C2i members who provided research assistance in gathering and processing data."
Connecting the Heartland to Bridge the Digital Divide: Blog post from Heartland Forward
"We’re running a comprehensive, multi-faceted public awareness campaign that will utilize both targeted paid and earned media to reach people in all corners of Illinois, Ohio, Arkansas and Tennessee who need help accessing internet service."
"We’re working with a wide range of partners — from state agencies to community organizations — to help us reach and connect with eligible families, including providing information to be distributed at schools, libraries, healthcare facilities, employment service centers and more."
Enrollment: Via the AP: After enrollment dips, public schools hope for fall rebound.
EdTech:
Platinum Equity to acquire McGraw Hill from Apollo Funds for $4.5 billion
Lingokids, an early learning platform, raised $40 million in Series C funding from GP Bullhound, HV Capital and Ravensburger.
Your Doom-Scrolling Cleanse: Just bearly funny.