Top Three
Covid-19 Vaccines Carry Low Risk of Heart Conditions: The WSJ reports:
"The risk of developing inflammatory heart conditions after Covid-19 vaccination is relatively low, two large studies found, especially when compared with the heart-related risks from Covid-19 disease itself and from vaccines against other diseases."
"One study, an analysis of 22 previous studies, found that the risk of the conditions including myocarditis in people who received a Covid-19 vaccine wasn’t significantly different from that for non-Covid-19 vaccines such as those against flu, polio and measles. And the heart risk associated with Covid-19 shots was lower than the risk after smallpox vaccination."
"Another analysis published April 1 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the risk of cardiac complications including myocarditis, an inflammation of heart muscle, was higher in people after Covid-19 infections than after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine."
Related: SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Associated Cardiovascular Manifestations and Complications in Children and Young Adults: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.
California Enrollment Drop: K-12 enrollment fell by an additional 110,300 students, pushing total public school enrollment below 6 million for the first time since 1999-2000.
Equitable Pandemic Learning Pods: New reports from CRPE:
COVID-19 Research
A User’s Guide to U.S. Vaccine Breakthrough Rates: Via Rockefeller.
State
Illinois: What Chicago schools got right about parent outreach amid the pandemic
Maryland: Nothing to do with COVID or education, but another Evergreen ship is stuck. This time in the Chesapeake Bay.
"Owned by Taiwan-based shipping company Evergreen Marine Corp, the vessel departed Baltimore at 10:33 p.m on March 13, and steered outside the Craighill Channel and became lodged on the bottom just off the shores of Pasadena, according to information from the Board of Public Works meeting."
"This is a very large ship and it’s very stuck,” Myers said. “The ship is 42 feet deep and it’s in 24 feet of water. So, that means about 20 feet of it is buried in the mud.”
"If this story sounds familiar, it’s because Ever Forward is a sister ship of Ever Given, the container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal in Egypt in March 2021."
"A new effort aimed at removing 500 shipping containers from a stranded cargo ship in the Chesapeake Bay begins Saturday."
Pennsylvania: Philadelphia to provide $15 million for Summer School programs for all students, the city is also extending summer programming.
International
China:
More videos (here and here) showing more anger and frustration.
The U.S. State Department orders nonemergency workers and their families to leave Shanghai.
Hong Kong: Schools to reopen with daily Covid testing.
Ukraine: 64% of Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the 6 weeks since Russia invaded.
"4.8 million of Ukraine's 7.5 million children are displaced, Manuel Fontaine — UNICEF's emergency programs director, who just returned from Ukraine — told the U.N. Security Council in New York."
Economic Recovery
Inflation: Consumer prices rose 8.5% in the year through March, reaching the fastest inflation rate since 1981.
Heather Long breaks down some of the trends:
Groceries +10% --> biggest spike since 1981
Meat/poultry/fish +13.8% -> biggest since 1979
New cars 12.6% -> biggest ever
Electricity +11.1% -> biggest since '06
Home furnishing 10.8% -> biggest ever
Rent 5.1% -> largest since 1991
Resources
Leaning In: The New Power of Parents in Public Education: FutureEd report and legislative tracker.
Colleges Are Trying to Re-enroll Adult Learners Who Dropped Out. Here’s How It’s Going: Via The Chronicle.
Where Are All the Kids? 4 Things to Know About the Current Absenteeism Crisis: Via EdWeek.
Screening for Anxiety Should Begin at Age 8: According to new recommendations by the government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).
Hysterical: This cockatoo mimicking a child's laughter.