Covid-19 Policy Update #643
Thursday 3/23
Top Three
White House Disbanding Its Covid-19 Team in May: Via the Washington Post.
"The White House will shut down its covid response team after the public health emergency ends in May, with some staffers already departing and national coordinator Ashish Jha likely to leave the administration once his team is disbanded, according to multiple current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal operations."
"Several covid response officials have departed in recent weeks without the White House filling their slots, including Mary Wall, who served as the team’s chief of staff, and Subhan Cheema, who helped lead Covid communications before moving to the White House’s science and technology office."
"The team’s diminished presence has manifested in diminished proximity to the president: Jha’s office was moved out of the West Wing this year to the neighboring Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to three people familiar with the matter."
ED Approves Extensions for ESSER, GEER Spending: Seven states and the District of Columbia got the OK from the U.S. Department of Education to take additional time to spend down money from the first round of federal COVID-19 relief funds, said James Lane, senior advisor in the Office of the Secretary, in an email to K-12 Dive.
DC, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin requested and received approval to extend districts’ ESSER I spending timeline now have until March 30, 2024, or 14 months beyond Jan. 28, 2023, to draw down those funds. Collectively, these states asked to delay $6.6 million — or about 0.05% — from the total $13.2 billion allocated.
"Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island are now allowed to push back their GEER CARES Act spending deadline now have the same deadlines as the extensions for ESSER I allocations. GEER allocations under CARES totaled nearly $3 billion, and the five states requested collectively to delay spending for $5.7 million, or 0.19%.”
Examining the Latest Multi-Year Evidence on the Scale and Effects of Opportunity Zones Investment: Important report from EIG.
Total OZ equity investment was at least $48 billion by the end of 2020. This capital was raised from roughly 21,000 individual and 4,000 corporate OZ investors and deployed into 7,800 Qualified Opportunity Funds.
OZ investment reached approximately 3,800 communities from mid-2018 through 2020, representing nearly half (48%) of the total number of designated OZ communities nationwide. For comparison, it took 18 years for New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) investments to reach an equivalent number of communities.
OZ investment is going to communities that are substantially more economically distressed than the rest of the country. Ranked from lowest to highest levels of need, they average in the 87th percentile for poverty, 81st for median household income, and 80th for unemployment.
OZ designation caused a “large and immediate” increase in new commercial and residential development activity such that the likelihood of investment in a given month jumped by over 20 percent in designated tracts across 47 studied cities.
Rather than crowding out local activity, OZ designations carried positive economic spillovers into neighboring communities and boosted development at a city-wide scale.
Federal
Congress TikTok Hearing:
Punchbowl News: “Here’s a bipartisan assessment of today’s TikTok hearing at the House Energy and Commerce Committee: It was a disaster for the popular video-sharing app and its CEO, Shou Zi Chew. And the hearing has put TikTok in more peril on Capitol Hill.”
WSJ: "The hearing Thursday, peppered with withering attacks on TikTok from both Democrats and Republicans, ran more than five hours and underscored growing concern about Beijing’s potential influence over the app. U.S.-China relations are already frayed over trade, Taiwan, technology and geopolitical rivalries."
CNBC: "Chew found little reprieve during the questioning from either side of the aisle on Thursday. Lawmakers grilled him on the app’s potential to harm kids through its addictive features and potentially dangerous posts, as well as whether data from U.S. users could end up in the hands of the Chinese government through its China-based owner, ByteDance."
NYT: Biden’s Options on TikTok Narrow After Beijing Pushes Back
Covid Research
Do We Need a Spring COVID-19 Booster?: Asks Katelyn Jetelina and Jeremy Faust.
"If you’re immunocompromised and/or an older adult with a comorbidity (and it’s been 6 months since an infection or last booster), a spring booster may be a good idea to stay ahead of the virus."
"Will it be official U.S. policy? We don’t know. There are rumors of FDA conversations happening behind closed doors. Hopefully, we will have an answer soon. But, as you can tell, it’s not a straightforward call."
Long COVID Comes Into the Light: Via Slate.
"One study of patients in an Israeli health network looked at the incidence of 70 commonly reported long COVID symptoms in 150,000 patients. The researchers found that patients who’d been infected were more likely than people in a control group to suffer for extended periods from certain symptoms, in particular loss of taste and smell, concentration and memory problems, difficulty breathing, weakness, hair loss, palpitations, and chest pain."
"But the difference between the infected and controls largely disappeared by the end of the first year, and to the extent that they remained, they affected a relatively small number of patients."
"In January, the New York State Insurance Fund, which administers disability claims, released a report analyzing long COVID claims made between Jan. 1, 2020, and March 31, 2022. It found that while there were several hundred successful claims after the initial wave in March and April of 2020, the number subsequently fell to fewer than 10 per month, and spiked into the double digits only after the alpha and omicron waves. “The percentage of people meeting the report’s definition of long COVID in the overall COVID claimant population is declining,” said Gaurav Vasisht, the NYSIF’s CEO and executive director."
State
Connecticut: "Governor Ned Lamont and Education Commissioner Charlene M. Russell Tucker today announced that the Connecticut State Department of Education is preparing to launch the Connecticut High-Dosage Tutoring Program – a new statewide program for students in grades 6 to 9 that will provide intensive tutoring in mathematics to accelerate learning and address learning loss resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic."
Illinois: Chicago Public Schools leaders warned of looming budget deficits Wednesday, but still promised to increase funds for pandemic recovery, migrant students, and other needs in the coming school year’s budget.
"Over the past year, district officials have repeatedly cautioned about leaner budgets ahead. By 2024, the district will spend down its $2.8 billion in federal COVID relief, which has given it a financial cushion. It could lose some revenue with sharp declines in enrollment. At the same time, it faces a squeeze from rising inflation, a possible recession, and increasing pension and debt service costs."
Michigan: How transportation problems fuel absenteeism in Detroit.
"Many Detroit parents go to extraordinary lengths to get their kids to class, driving long distances in some cases, spending for gasoline, and building their work schedules around dropoff and pickup times. But that may not be an option at all for families dealing with poverty or inflexible work schedules, or who don’t have a car."
"For them, the options are limited. They can bike or walk, which may mean taking a dangerous route to school past abandoned homes or crossing major streets."
"Or they can take the city bus, one of the nation’s least reliable and comprehensive big-city public transit systems, and hope it arrives on time."
"At Southeastern High School, dozens of students walk a quarter mile to the bus stop, where many wait in a liquor store parking lot. Miss the bus, and students have to wait 30 minutes for the next one."
Minnesota: "A trove of files purportedly stolen from Minneapolis Public Schools has turned up on the internet days after a cyber gang announced the school system had missed its deadline to pay a $1 million ransom demand."
Economic Recovery
Pricey Child Care Is Keeping Many Parents Out of the Workforce: Via the WSJ.
Roughly 380,000 workers aged 25 to 54 left jobs since pandemic began, study finds.
"Bank-account data shows 7% fewer customers were making child-care payments at the end of last year compared with the beginning of 2020. The decline comes despite a roughly 2% increase in the number of jobs in the U.S. since February 2020, Labor Department data shows."
Resources
Awash in Federal Money, State Lawmakers Tackle Worsening Youth Mental Health: Via The 74.
"This month, for example, New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams announced a broad mental health agenda that includes a youth suicide prevention program."
"In February, North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper declared that the state would spend $7.7 million to provide suicide prevention training for university and community college personnel, create a mental health hotline for students and develop resiliency training for faculty, staff and students."
"In January, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy unveiled a $14 million mental health grant program that targets K-12 schools with the greatest need."
"And Rhode Island Democratic Gov. Daniel McKee introduced a $7.2 million program to train K-12 school employees to detect mental illness and suicide risk, respond to it and connect students and families to community social services."
"Last year, Illinois, Iowa and Maryland launched programs to provide mental health training for school personnel."
"And Arizona, California and South Carolina raised Medicaid reimbursement rates to incentivize behavioral health providers to provide services in schools, according to a February report from the Kaiser Family Foundation."
Related: Gov. Newsom proposes bond measure, sweeping mental health reform in California.
"The Democratic governor’s proposal, unveiled Sunday in San Diego, would raise at least $3 billion through a bond measure to fund the construction of new mental health campuses, residential settings and permanent supportive housing. Newsom wants to redirect another $1 billion in funds annually from an existing income tax on top earners to operate the facilities, his office said."
Tutoring Isn’t Reaching Most Students. Here’s How To Vastly Expand It:Via Chalkbeat.
How States Can Accelerate the Use of Career Pathways Programs to Help Young People Access Meaningful Careers: Bellwether has released a series of case studies from Texas, Ohio, and Colorado, along with pragmatic recommendations on how policymakers can expand postsecondary pathways.
Summer Learning Programs: Results for America released a new toolkit to assist in setting up summer learning programs, including several case studies.
Bill Gates on AI: "The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other."
USDR: U.S. Digital Response Names Hillary Hartley as Chief Executive Officer
Happy National Puppy Day: This puppy doesn't want to get out of the pool.
The Look-a-Like Cam: Is even better with the reactions from the control room- wait for the end.
