Top Three
Inflation:
The Consumer Price Index was up 8.3%, more than the 8.1% forecast, and near the highest level in more than 40 years.
More worrisome: "Removing volatile food and energy prices, so-called core CPI still rose 6.2%, against expectations for a 6% gain, clouding hopes that inflation had peaked in March."
"Shelter costs, which comprise about one-third of the CPI, rose at their fastest pace since 1991."
"Inflation, which had climbed by 8.5% in the year through March, is beginning to moderate on an annual basis partly because gas prices cooled last month and partly because of a statistical quirk. Increases are now being measured against high price readings from last spring, when inflation started to take off, instead of depressed 2020 levels. The higher base makes annual increases look less severe."
"Inflation-adjusted earnings continued to decline for workers, falling 2.6% over the past year due to the surging cost of living."
“Some Federal Reserve officials have begun to acknowledge that they were too slow to respond to rapid inflation last year, a delay that is forcing them to constrain the economy more abruptly now — and one that could hold lessons for the policy path ahead,” the New York Times reports.
Related: Tooth Fairy sets new record high for value of a lost tooth. "The Tooth Fairy's average cash gift reached $5.36 per tooth, a record high in the 24-year history of the poll."
Moderna:
Said they made all necessary submissions required by the FDA for emergency use authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents and children.
"The company is seeking approval for the use of its vaccines in three distinct age groups - adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, children aged six to 11 and those between six years and six months."
"The submissions for all three groups were made on May 9."
Study on Effectiveness in Children 6-11:
"Estimated vaccine efficacy was 88.0% against Covid-19 occurring 14 days or more after the first injection, at a time when B.1.617.2 (delta) was the dominant circulating variant."
"The effectiveness of the mRNA-1273 vaccine in the trial shown during the delta variant outbreak in the United States and preliminary results that show neutralization of the delta variant suggest that the vaccine can provide a protective benefit in children against variants, findings that are consistent with those of other studies. However, the trial was conducted before the surge of the omicron variant, and assessment of the benefit of the vaccine against this variant is ongoing in the trial."
As Students Struggled to Learn, Teachers Reported Few Strategies as Particularly Helpful to Mitigate Learning Loss: New GAO report.
60% of virtual learning teachers said their students had more difficulty understanding lessons.
61% of all teachers had more students who experienced emotional distress.
85% of in-person teachers said live instruction – either fully or partially in-person – helped students.
Fewer than 40% of teachers thought asynchronous learning helped a majority of their students.
83% of all teachers reported that social and emotional issues contributed to their students having made less progress.
Federal
FCC: Chairwoman Rosenworcel circulates draft ruling to make Wi-Fi on school buses eligible for E-Rate funding.
IES: Released Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: FY 20.
NTIA: Released data from the 2021 NTIA Internet Use Survey show "that historically less-connected communities used the Internet and connected devices in greater numbers than they did two years ago. Despite that progress, the substantial disparities that NTIA has tracked for decades continued to be evident, highlighting the urgent need to work toward digital equity in the United States." More via the NTIA Data Explorer tool.
Midterms: Via Punchbowl's K Street Canvas:
"A majority of K Street leaders believe Republicans will take back the House and Senate. 98% of respondents said Republicans would take back the House. 96% of Democrats believe the GOP will take control of the House and 100% of Republican respondents agreed."
"The Senate. Things look a little better for Senate Democrats here. 53% believe Republicans will take control of the Senate. Only 34% of Democratic respondents believe a GOP takeover will happen. 70% of Republicans said their party will take back the Senate."
Covid-19 Research
Mix-and-Match mRNA Vaccines May Offer More Omicron Protection: Study.
Routine Saliva Testing for SARS-CoV-2 in Children: Study.
"SalivaDirect received Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration in August 2020, demonstrating increased sensitivity to SARS-CoV-2 than nasopharyngeal screening, as well as a lower incidence of false-positive and invalid data."
"This easy, effective, and non-invasive testing procedure is a viable replacement for techniques that need costly additives and cooling processes, making it appropriate for large-scale testing."
"At-home saliva collection in young children is a less invasive option than nasal/nasopharyngeal swabs, especially when accompanied by written instructions for parents/guardians. The completion of the collection by parents/guardians and their children reduces the requirement for interaction with healthcare workers, lowering the danger of nosocomial infection and eliminating a primary cause of testing bottlenecks. It also eliminates the requirement for supplies like nasal swabs and personal protective equipment."
Kids' Odds of Spreading COVID-19 in Households Rising With New Variants: Study
Pediatric COVID-19 only accounted for a minority of household transmission.
Lower household COVID-19 transmissibility was shown in children than adults.
Increased household transmissibility was observed in children with new variants.
Children seemed as susceptible as adults in households with new variants.
"Although children were demonstrated not to be dominant in the household transmission, their transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 appeared on the rise as new variants emerge. Given the potentially serious complications of pediatric COVID-19, vaccination research and implementation in children remain a must."
State
California:
The Los Angeles Board of Education unanimously approved a delay of a student vaccine mandate for COVID-19 that had been scheduled to take effect next fall, under a recommendation from Supt. Alberto Carvalho.
The California Department of Technology (CDT) released its draft map and design recommendations for the proposed statewide broadband middle mile network. The map outlines nearly 9,000 miles of infrastructure intended to serve as a backbone for last-mile connection projects to underserved and unserved communities throughout the state.
Iowa: Launches mental health and suicide prevention campaign for children.
Massachusetts: Virtual schools approved for another year.
"The Single District Virtual School program was overseen by the local school committee for school districts in Attleboro, Brockton, Chelsea, Peabody, Pittsfield, Springfield and Westfield for families that needed a virtual option due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This model was separate from the two additional certified virtual schools in the state."
"There have always been reasons why students might learn better outside of a traditional classroom, and bullying has always been one people think of, but there are a variety of medical reasons that are now being discussed as well. It is very important that all of these reasons are brought to the forefront.”
Minnesota: Minneapolis public schools crafting virtual learning plan in case of summer heat waves.
New Hampshire: "The Yes, Every Student (YES!) scholarship program is designed to help families and residents whose education was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by awarding $1,000 tutoring scholarships to students, which includes public, non-public, home education, and Education Freedom Account students."
New York: NYC to launch two full-time virtual schools, reports Chalkbeat.
"City officials told local lawmakers that launching the “full-time” virtual schools will be part of the solution to high rates of chronic absenteeism and re-engaging students in the wake of pandemic disruption."
“I believe that virtual learning is here to stay whether or not we have a pandemic,” schools Chancellor David Banks said. He added that students should be “exposed to the best teaching, the best experiences all over the world.”
Ohio: New state school chief is Steve Dackin.
Tennessee:
After an extensive battle, an appeals court ruled that mask mandates for K-12 are legal despite a state law trying to prohibit their usage.
Nearly 3 in 10 Memphis-Shelby County Schools students were chronically absent from school this year — a jump of almost 10 percentage points over pre-pandemic years.
International
China:
“Shanghai’s lockdown has kept tens of millions of residents trapped indoors for a month and a half. Thousands of others in China’s wealthiest city have found themselves in the opposite predicament: living in the street,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
"Though six weeks of hard lockdown has helped bring Shanghai’s daily infection count down—on Tuesday, municipal health authorities reported a seventh consecutive day of cases below 5,000—authorities in recent days have tightened restrictions, signaling that the lockdown could continue for longer."
China risks a “tsunami” of coronavirus cases resulting in 1.6 million deaths if the regime in Beijing changes its policy to live with the virus rather than crush it, according to a new study by Fudan University researchers.
Economic Recovery
Overdose Deaths Continue Rising: Via the NYT:
“Deaths from drug overdoses continued rising to record-breaking levels in 2021, nearing 108,000."
“The increase of nearly 15% followed a much steeper rise of almost 30% in 2020, an unrelenting crisis that has consumed federal and state drug policy officials. The number of drug overdose deaths has increased every year but 2018 since the 1970s.”
The Pandemic Has Been Punishing for Working Mothers. But Mostly, They’ve Kept Working.: Via NYT
"In fact, one group of mothers — college graduates with babies and toddlers — became significantly more likely to work for pay than they were before the pandemic."
"As of March, slightly more mothers of school-aged children are working than they were in the March before the pandemic."
“The real story of women during the pandemic is that they remained in the labor force,” Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist and leading scholar of women and work, wrote in one of the new analyses. “They stayed on their jobs, as much as they could, and persevered.”
"Still, they were stretched thin — and many still are. Child care, after-school care and summer camps are not back at capacity; people are still getting Covid; and for some mothers, the reopening of schools gave them a chance to pause and realize how overwhelmed they were."
"The share of mothers living with children 5 to 17 who are actively working was 1.7 percent higher in March than in March 2019, found the second analysis, by Misty L. Heggeness, a principal economist at the Census Bureau. The exception is mothers living with children under 5. The share at work is down 4.2 percent, most likely because of acute child care shortages this year."
"Black women without college degrees were hit hardest. They were overrepresented in service and caregiving jobs, and also more likely to get Covid or care for someone who did."
Resources
As Absenteeism Skyrockets, Schools Get Creative About Luring Back Lost Students: Via The 74.
"Chronic absenteeism has hit 40% in the nation’s two largest districts, New York City and Los Angeles, and is reaching dangerously high numbers in many districts in between."
"In the Metro Nashville Public Schools — with a 30% chronic absenteeism rate this year — Carol Lampkin, the district’s director of attendance services, said students are less likely to come to school if their teachers are absent, a problem that has intensified with staff members out because of COVID."
"The issue has fueled creative approaches to reminding parents of the importance of keeping their children in school. Staff members recently gathered at a local Baptist church as part of their newest strategy — offering information on COVID vaccines, housing and transportation assistance in hopes of pinpointing the reasons children miss school. Families whose children have at least half a dozen absences were more likely to get an invitation or a knock on the door, urging them to attend the event."
Putin Prepared for ‘Prolonged Conflict’: Off our normal set of topics, but important given what the headwinds it creates for other policy issues in the months ahead:
“It’s been 75 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, and as the battle becomes a grinding war of attrition, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be preparing for ‘a prolonged conflict,’ a top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday."
Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told lawmakers Tuesday. U.S. spy agencies, she said, see a lengthy war of attrition that is unlikely to be settled by the current fighting in eastern Ukraine, and little chance of a near-term negotiated solution.
BillG: Tested positive for Covid. Wishing him a speedy recovery.
Never Give Up: This has to be the comeback of the century. She lost her shoe coming out of the starting blocks and then wait for it...