Top Three
Covid-19 Is Still Killing Hundreds of Americans Daily: Via the WSJ.
"While the virus has become less risky for many thanks in part to immunity from vaccines and prior infections, it is still killing hundreds each day. Most are older people, and many have underlying health conditions and compromised immune systems, doctors said."
"The U.S. has recently averaged about 320 new Covid-19 deaths each day, and the average was above 400 before the Labor Day holiday weekend, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. The rate is far below pandemic peaks, including levels above 2,500 a day during the Omicron wave early this year. But the country hasn’t matched lows closer to 200 a day reached during a lull last year."
"Roughly 85% of people who died from Covid-19 through mid-August this summer were 65 or older, a Wall Street Journal analysis of death-certificate data show. The rate is similar to 2020 peaks, before vaccines were available. Deaths trended younger for much of last year."
"Covid-19 is on pace to be the third-leading cause of death for the third straight year, said Dr. Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics."
LAUSD Unfinished Learning: "L.A. Unified test scores released Friday showed the harsh reality of the pandemic’s effects on learning across all grade levels, with about 72% of students not meeting state standards in math and about 58% not meeting standards in English."
"About 81% of 11th-graders did not meet grade-level standards in math. About 83% of Black students, 78% of Latino students and 77% of economically disadvantaged students did not meet the math standards."
"Girls saw some of the biggest declines in performance — nearly 73% were not meeting math standards in 2022, compared with 67% before the pandemic."
"Teachers’ Union Head Randi Weingarten Wants to Keep Schools Open — and American Democracy Alive": Via Yahoo News.
"Weingarten disputes the charge of being pro-closure. “It’s complete bulls—t,” she says, blaming then-President Trump for blustering about reopening schools without actually doing anything to reopen them."
“It’s completely false. And it’s the kind of propaganda and demonization that they like to do,” Weingarten says, pointing out that the AFT first released reopening guidelines in April 2020, when the vast majority of schools across the country remained closed. Those guidelines, however, included stipulations like six feet of space between students, making them utterly unrealistic for most school districts."
“We did the best we could,” Weingarten argues. Again, an unsatisfying answer."
"Detractors say much of the fear was stoked by the unions themselves. And while “the science” did change, it was apparent within weeks of the pandemic’s landfall in the United States that children rarely experienced serious or fatal bouts of COVID-19. By early summer, schools had reopened in parts of East Asia and Europe without serious incident."
Federal
FCC: SpaceX challenged the FCC's decision to deny the space company's satellite internet unit $885.5 million in Rural Digital Opportunity Fund broadband subsidies, calling the move "flawed" and "grossly unfair," in a regulatory filing.
Covid-19 Research
COVID Vaccine May Cut Long-term Symptoms Up to 80%: CIDRAP reports, "COVID-19 patients who had received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine reported 8 of the 10 most common long-COVID symptoms 50% to 80% less often than their unvaccinated counterparts, finds an ongoing Israeli study published in the Nature journal Vaccines."
CDC Awards $9 Million for Development of Long COVID Surveillance System: Indiana University and the Regenstrief Institute have partnered to develop one of the first population-based surveillance systems for long COVID.
Which States Have the Lowest COVID-19 Vaccination Rates?: Via ABC News.
"Wyoming is the state with the lowest share of residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19 at 51.9%, as of Sept. 7, CDC data shows."
"Among the other nine states with the lowest vaccination rates, six -- Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee -- fall in the South, and the remaining three -- Idaho, Indiana and North Dakota -- fall in the Midwest or West."
"Only one of the bottom 10 vaccination states, Georgia, is among the 10 states with the highest death rates at 1 per 100,000 as of Sept. 8."
Young and Middle-aged People, Barely Sick With Covid-19, Are Dying of Strokes: Via The Washington Post.
"Reports of strokes in the young and middle-aged — not just at Mount Sinai, but also in many other hospitals in communities hit hard by the novel coronavirus — are the latest twist in our evolving understanding of the disease it causes. The numbers of those affected are small but nonetheless remarkable because they challenge how doctors understand the virus."
"Now for the first time, three large U.S. medical centers are preparing to publish data on the stroke phenomenon. There are only a few dozen cases per location, but they provide new insights into what the virus does to our bodies."
"Many doctors expressed worry that as the New York City Fire Department was picking up four times as many people who died at home as normal during the peak of infection that some of the dead had suffered sudden strokes. The truth may never be known because few autopsies were conducted."
"Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, which operates 14 medical centers in Philadelphia, and NYU Langone Health in New York City, found that 12 of their patients treated for large blood blockages in their brains during a three-week period had the virus. Forty percent were under 50, and they had few or no risk factors. Their paper is under review by a medical journal, said Pascal Jabbour, a neurosurgeon at Thomas Jefferson."
"In a letter to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine next week, the Mount Sinai team details five case studies of young patients who had strokes at home from March 23 to April 7. They make for difficult reading: The victims’ ages are 33, 37, 39, 44 and 49, and they were all home when they began to experience sudden symptoms, including slurred speech, confusion, drooping on one side of the face and a dead feeling in one arm."
State
California: Via The 74: "Four Things Carvalho Learned From Following Chronically Absent Students"
New Jersey: Newark Public Schools drop mask requirement starting Sept. 12.
Washington: "Students in Seattle on Monday will miss a fourth day of school as teachers strike over pay and classroom support."
Economic Recovery
Covid-19 Illnesses Are Keeping at Least 500,000 Workers Out of U.S. Labor Force: The WSJ reports on a new NBER study.
"The economists found that people who experienced weeklong absences due to their own health problems were about 7 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force one year later than similar workers who didn’t miss work for health reasons."
"That translated to a 0.2 percentage-point reduction in the labor-force participation rate, or the share of adults holding or seeking jobs. The rate was 62.4% in August, down 1 percentage point from February 2020."
Expanded Safety Net Drives Sharp Drop in Child Poverty: Via the NYT.
"A comprehensive new analysis shows that child poverty has fallen 59 percent since 1993, with need receding on nearly every front. Child poverty has fallen in every state, and it has fallen by about the same degree among children who are white, Black, Hispanic and Asian, living with one parent or two, and in native or immigrant households. Deep poverty, a form of especially severe deprivation, has fallen nearly as much."
Intel Announces $18 million Distributed to Colleges for Chips Programs: Via The Hill.
Declining Gas Prices: Gas prices continue to tumble throughout the US: "A gallon of regular averages $3.72 nationwide, per AAA — more than 25% lower than the $5.02 peak in June."
Resources
KIPP Foundation Names Shavar Jeffries As Next CEO: Congrats Shavar!
YouTube Launches an Ad-Free Video Player for Education: YouTube / The Verge.
"To improve the YouTube experience in educational environments, we're launching YouTube Player for Education — a new YouTube embedded player that shows content on commonly used education apps without distractions like ads, external links or recommendations. To start, we are partnering with established edtech companies in the U.S. including EDpuzzle, Purdue University and Purdue Global. YouTube Player for Education will also improve upon the existing YouTube embedded player in Google Classroom for an even better YouTube experience."
"To help learners apply what they’ve learned, we’re introducing Quizzes — a new way for creators to help viewers test their knowledge. For example, a math creator who recently posted a series on algebra can create a Quiz on the Community tab to ask their viewers a question related to a concept taught in their latest video. Quizzes will roll out in beta over the coming months, with all creators who have the Community tab gaining access to Quizzes next year."
988: New 988 mental health crisis line sees jump in calls and texts during first month.
"The number of calls answered went up from 141,400 to 216,000 – a more than 50% increase, according to HHS officials. And texts answered went up by a whopping 1000% – from 3,400 in August, 2021, to 39,900 in August of this year. The number of chats on the Lifeline's website that were answered saw a 195% increase."
"HHS officials say that in August of 2021, the average response time for calls, chats and texts was 2 minutes and 30 seconds, which Miller says is a long time to wait for someone in crisis. But, this August, that response time dropped down to 42 seconds – a significant improvement, he adds."
2022 State EdTech Trends Report: Via SETDA and Whiteboard Advisors.
Only 55% of states reporting that they have a dedicated office for educational technology.
Only 48% of respondents agree that their State Educational Agency (SEA) have explicit conversations about the role of technology in supporting state priorities, while only 41% say that the people working on edtech at the state level are regularly included in broader planning and strategic conversations around technology.
A Shifting Landscape: How Innovative Schools Are Moving Forward: Via NewSchools.
Financial Innovations During COVID Show Schools Can Be Nimble When They Have To: Marguerite Roza and Katherine Silberstein in The 74
Nimble midyear adjustments to spending in response to changing conditions.
Redesigned compensation.
Financial flexibility extended to schools.
Engagement with the public on spending choices.
The ARPA Project and Expenditure Reporter: Via USDR.
Football Is Back!!!
And New York Police Department Officer Brianna Fernandez began singing and, within seconds, stopped as the crowd at Metlife Stadium in New Jersey began to sing together.
The other football: FC Magdeburg went 5 games without scoring and the fans decided to help them find the target.