Critical Releases in Homeland Security: May 20, 2020

From the Abstract: "We study how the differential timing of local lockdowns due to COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] causally affects households' spending and macroeconomic expectations at the local level using several waves of a customized survey with more than 10,000 respondents. About 50% of survey participants report income and wealth losses due to the corona virus, with the average losses being $5,293 and $33,482 respectively. Aggregate consumer spending dropped by 31 log percentage points with the largest drops in travel and clothing. We find that households living in counties that went into lockdown earlier expect the unemployment rate over the next twelve months to be 13 percentage points higher and continue to expect higher unemployment at horizons of three to five years. They also expect lower future inflation, report higher uncertainty, expect lower mortgage rates for up to 10 years, and have moved out of foreign stocks into liquid forms of savings. The imposition of lockdowns can account for much of the decline in employment in recent months as well as declines in consumer spending. While lockdowns have pronounced effects on local economic conditions and households' expectations, they have little impact on approval ratings of Congress, the Fed, or the Treasury but lead to declines in the approval of the President."

From the Document: "In this report, we briefly summarize key findings of a selection of published pediatric COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] literature, and we provide recommendations for areas where Filling in the Blanks: National Research Needs to Guide Decisions about Reopening Schools in the US 6 additional study and expedited research are needed. Recognizing that many countries are opening schools now, we summarize the approaches and plans of several countries in their efforts to resume in-classroom education, as it will be important to observe whether and how these measures ultimately affect disease transmission. This report focuses primarily on research needed to improve the evidence base relating to children, teachers, and other staff in daycare and in schools serving pre-K through 12th grade. This report does not include a focus on boarding schools, colleges, or universities because the congregate living arrangements common to these settings present different challenges. Those settings are outside the scope of this report and deserve their own strategies and lines of research."

From the Introduction: "Case investigation is the identification and investigation of patients with confirmed and probable diagnoses of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019], and contact tracing is the subsequent identification, monitoring, and support of their contacts who have been exposed to, and possibly infected with, the virus. Prompt identification, voluntary quarantine (hereby referred to as 'self-quarantine' in this document unless otherwise noted), and monitoring of these COVID-19 contacts can effectively break the chain of disease transmission and prevent further spread of the virus in a community. While case investigation and contact tracing for COVID-19 may be new, health departments and frontline public health professionals who perform these activities have experience conducting these activities for tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections, HIV, and other infectious diseases."

From the Executive Summary: "The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] (COVID) pandemic has led to unprecedented action and innovation in the US healthcare system; at the same time, it has presented extraordinary challenges and risks. Through dramatic augmentation of surge capacity, deferral of other services, and implementation of crisis standards of care, hospitals in many locations have been able to absorb the blow of the first peak of COVID cases and continue to provide lifesaving care to both COVID patients and others with life-threatening emergencies. But many communities are just beginning to experience the full force of the pandemic, and in every location, the healthcare response to COVID has come at a very dear price. Healthcare facilities have sustained huge financial losses, and healthcare workers' health and well-being have been put at high risk. New standard operating procedures and work processes have been improvised, and many old lessons have had to be relearned."

From the Executive Summary: "On April 27, the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] changed its guidance to support broader use of testing not only for therapeutic purposes, but also for disease control. In the most recent guidance, released May 3, first priority goes to hospitalized patients, first responders with symptoms, and residents in congregate living contexts with symptoms. But there is now also a second priority category that includes asymptomatic individuals from groups experiencing disparate impacts of the disease and 'persons without symptoms who are prioritized by health departments or clinicians, for any reason, including but not limited to: public health monitoring, sentinel surveillance, or 'screening of other asymptomatic individuals according to state and local plans' (bold in original, italics added). The last phrase supports broad testing of contacts of COVID [coronavirus disease]-positive individuals and of essential workers, even when they have mild symptoms or none at all. This Supplement to our Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience offers guidance to help state and local governments develop TTSI (testing, tracing, and supported isolation) programs in support of such testing for purposes of disease control and suppression."