Top Three
140 Million Americans Have Had The Coronavirus: Via the Washington Post. “The estimates, compiled by the CDC, show that about 43% of the country has been infected.”
"Infection rates are much higher for children and younger adults, the study found. It estimated that 58% of children up to age 11 have antibodies from natural infection, along with the same share of children age 12 to 17."
Did CDC Lower Speech Standard for Children Because of Masking?: No according to multiple fact checks:
Newsweek "The revision of language development guidelines by the CDC has indeed happened, but it is unrelated to COVID mask mandates."
Politifact: "There is no indication that the milestones were updated to cover up negative impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had on children."
Deeper dive via Emily Oster.
State of the Union: Text and video will be here. Fact Sheets below.
Background on President Biden’s Remarks on the Economy During His First State of The Union Address, 2/28
Lowering Prices and Leveling the Playing Field in Ocean Shipping, 2/28
Federal
Commerce: EDA received 509 applications for the Good Jobs Challenge. List of applications.
COVID-19 Research
Understanding Risk: Via Katelyn Jetelina
"First, we need to recognize that risk calibration is about more than just numbers. Objective numbers cannot be separated from subjective experience when assessing risk."
"For example, it’s no coincidence that more Black and Hispanic people think schools should continue to require masks compared to Whites. Black or Hispanic parents are also more worried about their child getting seriously sick from COVID-19 than White parents (see Figure below). While risk of COVID-19 is biologically the same, what perpetuates that disease is not. Risk calibration is influenced by inequities. For example, Black and Hispanic people were/are more likely to die from COVID-19 due to a myriad of social reasons."
"The risk of a 0-4 year old dying from a COVID-19 infection (227 MM) is about the same as the risk of a mom dying from childbirth in the U.S. (210 MM)."
For a vaccinated 18-49 year old, the risk of dying from an Omicron infection (90/48 MM) is less than the annual risk of dying on the road (100 MM)."
"For a boosted 50-64 year old, the risk of dying from an Omicron infection (516 MM) is about the same risk as driving for 5 years in the U.S. (500 MM)."
"For an unvaccinated 65+ year old, the risk of dying from an Omicron infection (28,978 MM) is about as risky as 1.5 years of heroin use (29,550 MM)."
"For a boosted 65+ year old, the risk of dying after an infection (6,023 MM) is about as risky as a baby’s first year of life (6,600 MM). Or, it’s a little more risky than one year of active service in Afghanistan in 2011 (5,000 MM)."
"Risk calibration is incredibly complicated and hard to do. I find myself lost in this all the time. But, sticking to two themes helps: When transmission is low, relax. When transmission is high, take precautions. ... Vaccines do a superb job of keeping us out of the hospital."
Does Science Support Lifting School Mask Mandates?: Good piece via The Scientist.
The Limits of "Following The Science": Via Axios, "Two years into the pandemic, the idea of "following the science" has oversimplified what's actually a complex array of factors that policymakers must weigh in formulating a response."
"The CDC's decision to loosen masking guidance is the latest example of a pandemic policy rooted in science, but that is ultimately a judgment call."
"President Biden took office vowing to "follow the science." But science is much less of a road map than it is information that should be used to choose the best route."
"Similarly, there is no scientific marker for when someone needs to wear a mask. This allows health experts and scientists to be able to disagree on what policy should be while still claiming that they are following the science."
Covid-19 Booster Shots Are Slowing as Omicron Surge Fades: Via WSJ, "The seven-day average for booster shots administered daily was about 149,000 on Feb. 19, down from a little more than a million in early December."
State
Arizona: "ASU Prep director a trailblazer in education innovation."
Illinois: “Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will not mount a bid to become mayor of Chicago in 2023, he said, ending months of speculation he helped stoke as he became increasingly critical of the incumbent,” The Hill reports.
Michigan: Detroit public schools won't reconsider mask mandate until at least mid-March.
"We currently agree with the Detroit Health Department that due to the city’s lower vaccination rates our mask removal date will be later than other districts."
New York:
Retention rates for New York City public schools rose a bit during the pandemic. Report and NYT article.
NYT Editorial Board: "But with full vaccination rates in the city at 78 percent and the latest surge clearly passed, this is the right time to lift the requirement for masks in schools. It’s a lot to ask young children to wear masks for several hours a day, especially when so many adults seem to struggle with it."
North Carolina: Study will chart how many months of learning students lost in the pandemic.
Resources
Emergency Broadband Benefit: A new mapping tool from LISC and Heartland Forward identifies where households were eligible for the EBB in 2021 but didn’t sign up.
Announcing the Future Fund: "A philanthropic fund making grants and investments to ambitious projects in order to improve humanity’s long-term prospects. We plan to distribute at least $100M this year, and potentially a lot more, depending on how many outstanding opportunities we find. In principle, we’d be able to deploy up to $1B this year." Among the many potential projects are:
Innovative educational experiments: "We’re interested in bold experiments with new educational institutions, including new summer courses, schools, or colleges especially targeted at the most talented youths. We think there are a lot of ways existing institutions could be better: exceptionally able students could skip high school, one-on-one tutoring could be offered more readily, teacher compensation could be increased in order to recruit the very best teachers, and educational curricula could be redesigned to pay more attention to the most important problems and most useful tools for reasoning."
A new university or institute: “We’d be excited to fund new academic institutes, or a wholly new university. We’d also be excited about trying to attract the most exceptional talent with new incentive strategies, for example by paying salaries competitive with tech and finance jobs."
It's March! I feel like it snuck up on us like this tiger cub.