Top Three
COVID Supplemental: White House Fact Sheet "Consequences of Lack of Funding for Efforts to Combat COVID-19 if Congress Does Not Act." Several highlights below. More via Stat.
"The federal government does not have adequate resources to purchase enough booster vaccine doses for all Americans, if additional doses are needed."
"The federal government has no more funding for additional monoclonals, including a planned order for March 25."
"The federal government has been planning to move forward with a purchase of preventative treatments for the immunocompromised as soon as March 31 that would begin delivery in September, once the treatments are manufactured. However, absent additional funding the federal government will now be forced to scale back that purchase of treatments for our most vulnerable. Because these treatments take more than 6 months to manufacture, the United States will likely not have enough of these treatments by the end of the year."
Hospitalization of Infants and Children Aged 0–4: CDC MMWR. Hospitalizations during the Omicron wave for children less than age 5 were 5-fold higher than with Delta or any other time in the US pandemic.
Masks:
Burbio update: "10% of the Top 500 districts went mask optional this week alone and over two thirds are now mask optional. "
NYT: How Californians Feel About the End of School Mask Mandates
School districts across L.A. County go mask optional; L.A. Unified is an exception.
Many Bay Area students still masked as state mandate lifts.
Federal
Congress: “It’s the Capitol’s election-year surprise: The 50-50 Senate is actually working,” Politico reports.
“After high-profile partisan failures on President Joe Biden’s signature domestic policy bill and on weakening the filibuster for voting reform, the chamber’s racked up a series of bipartisan accomplishments lately — some of which had eluded Congress for years.”
“Senators passed an anti-lynching law after literally 200 failed attempts, gave sexual misconduct claims firmer legal footing and approved sweeping postal reform. That’s on top of $14 billion for Ukraine as well as a long-awaited reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act as part of a massive spending bill, not to mention last year’s huge bipartisan infrastructure bill.”
KBJ Confirmation Hearings: The Senate Judiciary Committee announced the hearing schedule for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Monday, March 21: The hearing will start at 11 a.m. Committee members have 10 minutes each, the people introducing her will have five minutes each and Jackson will have 10 minutes to speak.
Tuesday, March 22: The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. Committee members will have 30 minutes each to question Jackson.
Wednesday, March 23: Committee members will get an additional 20 minutes to question Jackson. This will begin at 9 a.m. The committee will also meet privately to discuss Jackson’s FBI background check.
Second Gentleman: Doug Emhoff tests positive for Covid.
OMB: The Senate confirmed Shalanda Young to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, 61-36,
CTC: "Child Tax Credit expansion creates refund roller coaster"
"People who received the monthly Child Tax Credit checks lawmakers created last year may be surprised to see those payments are now reducing or even eliminating their tax refunds."
"Some divorced people could be upset to learn they weren’t actually eligible for checks they received and now have to pay the money back."
"At the same time, some will see fatter refunds, particularly the several million who opted out of the monthly payments."
COVID-19 Research
BA.2: The sub-variant of Omicron was estimated to be 23.1% of the coronavirus variants circulating in the US.
As Virus Data Grows, the J&J Vaccine Holds Its Own: Via the NYT:
"Roughly 17 million Americans received the J&J Covid vaccine, only to be told later that it was the least protective of the options available in the United States."
"But new data suggest that the vaccine is now preventing infections, hospitalizations and deaths at least as well as the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines."
"The reasons aren’t clear, and not all experts are convinced that the vaccine has vindicated itself. But the accumulating data nonetheless offer considerable reassurance to recipients of the vaccine and, if confirmed, have broad implications for its deployment in parts of the world."
State
Illinois:
CPS mask mandate lifted despite continued pushback from Chicago Teachers Union.
Parents split on the end of the mask mandate in Chicago Public Schools.
Michigan:
Michigan health department drops 'close contacts' from COVID school guidance.
"The CDC considers a "close contact" someone who was less than six feet away from an infected person for 15 minutes."
"The five pages of guidance for schools issued by the state health department on Friday don't mention "close contacts," a significant change."
Schools turn to dogs to help ease Michigan’s student mental health crisis
Ohio: RemotEDx: A closer look at how Ohio spent some of its federal Covid relief dollars.
"One such effort was RemotEDx, a statewide initiative aimed at helping schools “enhance, expand, and more effectively scale high-quality remote, hybrid, and blended education models.”
"The Connectivity Champions have directly engaged with schools and families across all eighty-eight Ohio counties, and have provided more than 600 connectivity or technology related services."
"The Support Squad is made up of staff from each of Ohio’s fifty-one ESCs who were selected by ESC superintendents in December 2020. Collectively, they support schools by identifying and compiling technology, content, instructional, and vendor information that supports remote, hybrid, and blended learning."
"The Exchange is a “one-stop shop” for Ohioans—both educators and families alike—to explore the resources, services, and tools available through RemotEDx. The website, which is powered by INFOhio, highlights high-quality remote education platforms, standards-aligned instructional materials and curricula, and professional development resources."
Puerto Rico: “Puerto Rico’s government formally exited bankruptcy Tuesday, completing the largest public debt restructuring in U.S. history after announcing nearly seven years ago that it was unable to pay its more than $70 billion debt,” the AP reports.
Texas: Denton ISD hopes to grow size of virtual academy.
International
UK:
"Sajid Javid said the UK remained in a “very good position” but rising infection rates were to be “expected”. To reduce the risk of serious infection, he urged adults eligible for a booster vaccine to have one, given that one in five had not yet received it."
"Ministers have been accused of “turning off the headlights at the first sign of dawn” after scrapping nationwide Covid surveillance programmes, with scientists saying it will almost certainly end up costing more money in the long run."
"Last week, scientists announced that the React study – which randomly tests about 150,000 people across England each month to see how many are infected with coronavirus – will be scrapped at the end of March, and no further data will be collected beyond that point."
Economic Recovery
Ten States Hit Record-Low Unemployment Rates: Via The Hill:
"A new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows Nebraska and Utah sported the lowest unemployment rates in the nation in January, at just 2.2 percent each. In Indiana, the unemployment rate stands at 2.4 percent; in Kansas, it is at 2.6 percent."
"Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma and West Virginia all set new records for the lowest unemployment rates since the BLS started keeping state-by-state track in 1976."
Skills Not Degrees: "Maryland is officially dropping the four-year college degree requirement from many state jobs, Gov. Larry Hogan announced today."
Resources
Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science and MEGOGO: Launch an online kindergarten project.
Increases in Children Diagnosed with Mental Health Conditions from 2016 to 2020: New HHS study(press release) in JAMA Pediatrics found that between 2016 and 2020, the number of children ages 3-17 years diagnosed with anxiety grew by 29% and those with depression by 27%.
Schools and Educators Are Uniquely Positioned to Support Students’ Mental Health. Here Are 7 Things They Can Do: John MacPhee in The 74.
Look Up: SxSW attendees looking up in the Austin sky saw a drone show complete with a QR code linking to a promotional website for the new Halo series.
"The display was 300 feet tall (roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty) and 600 feet wide (almost two football fields). And, yes, the QR code was scannable, linking to a trailer for the series"
Tug of War: I think the dog won.