Covid-19 Policy Update #623

Monday 1/9

John Bailey

Jan 09, 2023

Top Three

We Need to Prepare Now for the School Closures That Are Coming: Tim Daly

"Due to enrollment shifts and falling birth rates, many districts nationwide are experiencing a surge in empty seats. For a few years, federal funding tied to pandemic recovery may allow districts to delay difficult consolidation decisions. However, there will come a time when the expense of staffing, maintaining, and operating an outsized number of schools becomes untenable—and closures will be the only option."
"The numbers tell the same story in city after city: Just 60 percent of the available placements in Indianapolis are occupied. After shrinking by several hundred thousand students since 2000, Los Angeles expects to lose another 28 percent of its enrollment over the next eight years. Shifts in Boston have left the district with the equivalent of 16.5 unused school buildings. Chicago, which famously closed fifty schools in 2013 under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, subsequently self-imposed a five-year moratorium on closures. Then, in 2021, a new state law prohibited closures and consolidations until 2025. Meanwhile, enrollment has plummeted. In fact, Chicago has 80,000 fewer students than it did in 2013. This school year, district data show over forty schools with fewer than 200 students."
"My advice to cities grappling with falling enrollment is to begin planning now. Engage in robust processes to take community input on which schools will close and when. But do not drag your feet hoping for a miracle that saves you from the scourge of closures altogether. That miracle is not coming."

Study Notes Racial Disparities in Kids' COVID Vaccine Uptake: CIDRAP on a new CDC MMWR:

By Aug 31, 2022, 33.2% of all children aged 5 to 11 years, 59.0% of those aged 12 to 15, and 68.6% of 16- to 17-year-olds had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. Uptake was highest among Asian children (range, 63.4% of 5- to 11-year-olds to 91.8% of those 16 to 17 years), followed by Hispanic youth (34.5% to 77.3%).
Coverage among Black and White children aged 12 to 17 were similar, but uptake among Black youth aged 5 to 11 was 4.0 to 33.6 percentage points lower.
The highest coverage was seen among children aged 12 to 17 years, those whose mothers had a college degree and had received at least one vaccine dose, and those whose household earned at least $75,000 a year and usually wore a mask in public in the previous week.
When considering only data collected from Jul 1 to Sep 30, 2022, 47.2% of all youth had received at least one dose, 43.3% completed the primary series, and monovalent booster uptake was 14.7%. Asian children had the highest booster uptake (22.4%), and Black children had the lowest (9.3%). White parents reported the most vaccine hesitancy (40.3%), while Black and Hispanic parents reported the least.

Congress: Kevin McCarthy won the speakership in the early hours of Saturday morning on the 15th vote.

There were some heated words exchanged, but thanks to lip reading we have a general sense of what was discussed.
Several of the concessions made by McCarthy have education implications. The draft rules package which could be voted on today includes:
- Establishing a select subcommittee to investigate the "weaponization of the federal government." We've already seen letters sent to the White House requesting "information and documents concerning the Biden Administration’s misuse of federal criminal and counterterrorism resources to target concerned parents at school board meetings." Expect more of this, also likely extending into CRT and gender issues.
- Agreement for the House to take up a 10-year budget that caps spending at 2022 levels. The assumed cuts would amount to over $130 billion, or 8%, from levels in the recently enacted omnibus. Regardless of the exact amounts, it signals a new era of austerity for federal funding. We'll see this come up in the upcoming debt ceiling battle as well.
- A Covid investigation, that among other issues, includes "The societal impact of decisions to close schools, how the decisions were made and whether there is evidence of widespread learning loss or other negative effects as a result of these decisions."
Also remember that on September 22, McCarthy released the “Commitment to America” plan which also includes a pledge to advance a Parents’ Bill of Rights.

Federal

Biden Administration Launches Pilot Program for COVID-19 Telehealth Care: The NIH announced the launch of a pilot program that will allow people to receive free testing, consultation and treatment for COVID-19 from their homes. (Reuters)

"Telehealth services provider eMed will implement the Home Test to Treat program. Their services are provided under a contract award by NIBIB contractor, VentureWell.”
“eMed will host the user-friendly Home Test to Treat website, where participants can sign up for the program, report symptoms, receive telehealth and antiviral treatment delivery, and coordinate telehealth enabled test kits."

Congress Has Not Stepped Up to Fight Covid-19 — Or The Next Pandemic: Washington Post Editorial Board:

"Mr. Biden’s proposals never got any traction in the last Congress. The public sense that life is returning to normal — a mood that Mr. Biden encouraged — certainly played a role. This leaves the nation stuck in a cycle of panic and neglect. The government’s purchase of hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines and treatments, and free distribution, is now over; others, mostly health insurers, will have to pay for the next shot, if one is even developed."
"Neither the outgoing Congress nor Mr. Biden rose to the occasion to create a national bipartisan commission on the pandemic similar to the 9/11 commission. After the death of 1 million Americans, such an investigation would have highlighted lessons learned from the chaotic pandemic response, shown the way forward on future threats and helped unravel the mystery of the virus’s origins. As it now stands, separate probes are planned in Congress’s more partisan and divisive atmosphere."

Covid Research

AstraZeneca’s Preventative COVID Treatment Likely Not Effective Against XBB.1.5: In a statement, the FDA said it “does not anticipate that Evusheld will neutralize XBB.1.5.”

XBB.1.5

In CDC tracking of infections as of Jan 4, the 7-day average for new daily cases is 67,243, up 16.2% compared to the previous 7-day average. Over the same period, the 7-day average for new hospital admission rose 16.1%, and deaths increased 8.3%. Likewise, test positivity is increasing and is at 16%.
CDC revises their estimates: " Last week, the CDC in its Nowcast variant proportion estimated that XBB.1.5 made up 41% of sequenced samples. In a new estimate today, it scaled that back to 18%. In its weekly data report, it said that last week's numbers were based on Nowcast estimates, a method it uses to predict variant proportions before more precise weighted estimates are available."

State

Alabama: These 38 schools were recognized for improving student achievement: How they did it

Michigan: Ann Arbor Public Schools will be implementing anew district-wide mask mandate in the weeks following winter break as a preemptive measure to prevent the spread of illness, according to a letter from the superintendent.

New Jersey: "Has become the first state in the country to require public schools to teach media literacy to K-12 students as a way to combat misinformation, under a bill signed Wednesday by Gov. Phil Murphy."

New York: 41% of NYC students were chronically absent last school year.

Philadelphia: 2 elementary schools tagged with anti-mask graffiti as students return to school.

Washington: Seattle Public Schools is suing social media companies including TikTok and Meta, saying the tech giants' "misconduct has been a substantial factor in causing a youth mental health crisis." (Lawsuit / Axios / Reuters)

International

China: China is in talks with Pfizer to secure a license that will allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of the U.S. firm's COVID-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid in China, three sources told Reuters.

Economic Recovery

Jobs Report: Employers are still hiring at a rapid pace — 223,000 in December — but slowing from early last year's unsustainable numbers. Wage growth was below expectations, with average hourly earnings up 4.6% from a year ago, below the 5% estimate.

Resources

A DARPA for K–12? Omnibus Bill Includes Substantial New Funds for Education R&D: Via The 74.

Few School Districts Return to Masking: Via Axios.

School Counselors: Chalkbeat: "The ratio of students to counselors in the nation’s public schools has reached its lowest point in at least 36 years... The dual trends left schools with an average of 408 students for every counselor last school year, according to the American School Counselor Association’s analysis of federal data. That’s lower than the 424 to 1 ratio pre-pandemic, but still significantly higher than the 250 to 1 recommended by the counselors group."

Americans Largely Pessimistic About U.S. Prospects in 2023: Gallup: