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COVID-19 Pandemic: Two Waves of Technological Responses in the European Union
From the Introduction: "This paper discusses the use of technology as a response to the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic among the European Union Member States considering years-long European effort to increase privacy protection. This paper identifies two waves of technological solutions: first, the use of anonymized location data shared by telecommunications companies (hereinafter: telecoms) to monitor crowd movements; second, the emergence of contact tracing apps to speed up the procedure of identifying infected individuals. Both waves of technological solutions are discussed in terms of privacy, transparency, and effectiveness."
Hague Centre for Strategic Studies
Klonowska, Klaudia
2020-04
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COVID-19: Lessons Learned from Interior and Treasury's Administration of Cares Act Funds Could Improve Federal Emergency Relief to Tribes, Report to Congressional Committees
From the Highlights: "GAO [United States Government Accountability Office] has previously found that COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] disproportionately harmed the public health and economies of tribal nations in the U.S. In March 2020, the CARES Act [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act] appropriated over $9 billion for federal programs for tribes and their members--this amount included $8 billion for Treasury's CRF [Community Reinvestment Fund] Tribal Set-Aside and $453 million for Interior's OIP [Operation of Indian Programs] (CARES Act funds). The CARES Act includes a provision for GAO to report on its ongoing monitoring and oversight efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report is part of that body of work. It examines (1) approaches Interior and Treasury took to distribute CARES Act funds to tribes and steps necessary for tribes to access and use these funds, and (2) challenges the agencies and selected tribes faced and lessons learned that could improve future federal emergency relief to tribes."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-10
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Pursuant to the President's Memorandum on Restoring the Department of Justice's Access-To-Justice Function
From the Document: "In response to your May 18 Memorandum, the Justice Department has engaged in an extensive 120-day stakeholder review. Our review surfaced significant gaps in equal access to justice and revealed inequities that have become exacerbated as a consequence of the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic. The Justice Department is committed to meeting today's difficult moment. As this report explains in more detail, based upon our coordination with the Office of Management and Budget and our extensive conversations with a wide-ranging group of stakeholders, the Justice Department will immediately launch a phased strategic plan to restore and expand our access-to-justice function."
United States. Department of Justice. Office of the Attorney General
2021-09-15
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Delayed Epidemic Peak Caused by Infection and Recovery Rate Fluctuations
From the Abstract: "Forecasting epidemic scenarios has been critical to many decision-makers in imposing various public health interventions. Despite progresses in determining the magnitude and timing of epidemics, epidemic peak time predictions for H1N1 and COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] were inaccurate, with the peaks delayed with respect to predictions. Here, we show that infection and recovery rate fluctuations play a critical role in peak timing. Using a susceptible-infected-recovered model with daily fluctuations on control parameters, we show that infection counts follow a lognormal distribution at the beginning of an epidemic wave, similar to price distributions for financial assets. The epidemic peak time of the stochastic solution exhibits an inverse Gaussian probability distribution, fitting the spread of the epidemic peak times observed across Italian regions. We also show that, for a given basic reproduction number R0, the deterministic model anticipates the peak with respect to the most probable and average peak time of the stochastic model. The epidemic peak time distribution allows one for a robust estimation of the epidemic evolution. Considering these results, we believe that the parameters' dynamical fluctuations are paramount to accurately predict the epidemic peak time and should be introduced in epidemiological models."
American Institute of Physics
Arutkin, Maxence; Faranda, Davide; Alberti, Tommaso . . .
2021-10-26
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Divided We Stand? Towards Post-Corona Leadership
From the Introduction: "The Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] virus presents the world with a global challenge - i.e. a challenge that can only be tackled by the combined effort of nations worldwide - that is much [more] tangible and more acute than other global challenges, such as climate change or nuclear-proliferation. Multilateral cooperation is required to best deal with the Corona crisis and its aftermath, encompassing public health governance as well as economic and human development issues in general, both in the immediate and longer-term sense. This is especially pertinent as experts warn pandemics are here to stay. Covid-19 may turn into a seasonal disease, and the next virus outbreak in the SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome]-Swine Flu-MERS [Middle East Respiratory Syndrome]-Ebola-Bird Flu-Covid-19 sequence might be just around the corner. Structural, world-wide collaborative measures are needed to better monitor, prevent, counter and/or mitigate potential future outbreaks. [...] [I]n the face of the current pandemic and its aftermath, a tension between the need for international cooperation and the deteriorating conditions for doing so is evident. How will [t]his tension play out during the next global crisis? In this article, we address this question by looking at what the 'cultural differences between nations' and 'the different leadership styles' from the current world leaders may imply for 'the need to collaborate' to manage global crises."
Hague Centre for Strategic Studies; DISCvision
Doffer, André; Reitsma, Douwe; Reitsma, Jetse . . .
2020-07-03?
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What Do Middle-Income Countries Want from the IMF as They Look to Recover from the Pandemic?
From the Document: "After more than a year of grappling with the economic effects of the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic, many middle-income countries (MICs) will continue to experience health and economic dislocation for some time to come. While much of the global financial community's attention has focused on supporting low-income countries (LICs), the majority of the world's poor are in MICs, and economic recovery in these countries will be critical to an equitable and sustainable global future. [...] To understand the current reticence among MICs to access IMF [International Monetary Fund] support, CGD [Center for Global Development] held a closed-door meeting with current and former MIC officials from across the globe (central bank governors, deputy governors, and ministers of finance) earlier this year. With a view towards past experiences, we found four plausible explanations for the low uptake of IMF financial support during the pandemic. We identify these and give our take on how to deal with them below."
Center for Global Development
Plant, Mark W.; Rojas-Suárez, Liliana
2021-11
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COVID-19: State Carried Out Historic Repatriation Effort but Should Strengthen Its Preparedness for Future Crises, Report to Congressional Addressees
From the Highlights: "State [Department of State] provides repatriation assistance to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents abroad during crises such as the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic. State's Office of Crisis Management and Strategy and Bureau of Consular Affairs were primarily responsible for State's COVID-19 repatriation effort. The CARES [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security] Act includes a provision for GAO [Government Accountability Office] to report on its ongoing COVID-19 monitoring and oversight efforts. In addition, GAO was asked to examine State's COVID-19 repatriation effort. This report examines, among other things, (1) the results of State's repatriation effort, including lessons State reported learning from challenges it faced; (2) the consistency of selected aspects of State's repatriation effort with its policies and procedures; and (3) State's oversight of its overseas posts' crisis preparedness."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-11
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Security Implications of the Pandemic: COVID-19 and European Security
From the Document: "Pandemics and epidemics generate widespread sickness and mortality and leave enormous humanitarian suffering and economic damage in their wake. Their health and financial impacts are well documented. The costs of the SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] epidemic in 2003, the H1N1 [swine] flu pandemic in 2009, and the Ebola pandemic in 2014-2016 amounted to over US$40, US $45, and US$55 billion respectively. To date, the current COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has infected over 45 million people worldwide and resulted in almost 1.2 million fatalities, with economic consequences that are already staggering. Much less is known about the security implications of pandemics. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a review of historical pandemics and identified various direct and indirect security implications[.]"
Hague Centre for Strategic Studies; Netherlands Atlantic Association
Remmits, Femke; Sweijs, Tim
2020-12?
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Protecting the Right to Vote During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Sixteenth Congress, Second Session, June 3, 2020
This is the June 3, 2020 hearing on "Protecting the Right to Vote During the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] Pandemic," held before the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. From the opening statement of Steve Cohen: "The issue that we are here to discuss, protecting the right to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic, is intrinsically tied to the protests occurring across this Nation. Police violence against Black Americans and suppressing the right to vote are two sides of the same coin. The coin of systemic racism has plagued our country since before its founding in 1619 where African Americans were first brought to this country as slaves. Think about it, 1619. That was 250 years before we became a Nation, we had slavery." Statements, letters, and materials submitted for the record include those of the following: Jocelyn Benson, Stacey Y. Abrams, J. Christian Adams, Myrna Perez, Tom Fitton, Dale Ho, Barbara Arnwine, and Michelle Bishop.
United States. Government Publishing Office
2021
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2020 Filing Season and IRS COVID-19 Recovery, Hearing Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, One Hundred Sixteenth Congress, Second Session, June 30, 2020
This is the June 30, 2020 hearing on "2020 Filing Season and IRS [Internal Revenue Service] COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] Recovery," held before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. From the opening statement of Chuck Grassley: "The 2020 filing season got off to its typical start at the end of January. However, since then this filing season has been anything but typical. As a result of the national health emergency stemming from the ongoing pandemic, almost all regular tax filing and tax payment deadlines have been extended. This includes the individual and corporate income tax filing and payment deadlines, which were pushed back from the normal April 15th to July 15th, and there are some rumors they might be extended again. I do not know--I have heard that at least once." Statements, letters, and materials submitted for the record include those of the following: Charles P. Rettig.
United States. Government Publishing Office
2021
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Inter-Korean Solidarity Around COVID-19, Under the Northeast Asian Public Health Initiative (NEAPHI), as a Contribution to Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR+)
From the Introduction: "In this essay, Shin Young-jeon assesses the potential for the Northeast Asian Public Health Initiative (NEAPHI) to contribute to Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR+) given the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] situation in the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] and the operational status, limitations, and future challenges that NEAPHI must address."
Nautilus Institute
Yeong-jeon, Shin
2021-11-02
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Children: The Hidden Pandemic 2021
From the Document: "Children: The Hidden Pandemic 2021 presents statistical data from 192 countries on children experiencing COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019]-associated orphanhood and death of grandparent caregivers, a description of the trends in these data, a real-time COVID-19 Calculator for Death of Parents and Caregivers, and strategies and principles for integrating care for children bereaved by the virus into every nation's COVID-19 response planning. This report includes data from March 1, 2020 through April 30, 2021, and provides the most extensive estimates yet on the current and projected number of children experiencing orphanhood and death of caregivers. The report is a collaboration between the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Imperial College London, the World Health Organization, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, University of Oxford, Harvard University, University College London, and University of Cape Town. The report demonstrates that protecting children from the dire, potentially irreversible threats of this health emergency demands both immediate and sustained action at all levels."
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.); United States. Agency for International Development; World Bank Group . . .
Hillis, Susan; Unwin, Juliette; Cluver, Lucie . . .
2021
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Silenced and Misinformed: Freedom of Expression in Danger During COVID-19
From the Executive Summary: "The right to freedom of expression has been attacked globally in the context of the Covid-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic and thus increased the dangers posed by the public health crisis. The right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, is a human right which enables everyone to enjoy a range of other human rights, including the right to health. Freedom of expression is vitally important during complex public health crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, because a free flow of accurate, evidence-based and timely information increases awareness about health risks and how to prevent and deal with them. Open debate and scrutiny can ensure higher levels of trust in public health measures and help challenge misinformation and allow the necessary exchange of information to find effective ways of tackling the crisis. Freedom of expression is key to holding governments accountable for their policy responses to the health crisis. Indeed, the ability of everyone to engage in a debate about possible solutions and contribute to the response is a crucial element in overcoming the crisis itself. Winning the battle against the virus includes not just government-led actions, but also bottom-up approaches which can only come about if freedom of expression and access to information are enabled. As the World Health Organization puts it, to be able to successfully fight back Covid-19, states should 'inform, empower and listen to communities'. However, in the current Covid-19 context, governments have curtailed freedom of expression instead of encouraging it."
Amnesty International
2021-10
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Updated Assessment on COVID-19 Origins
From the Document: "After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, though, the IC [Intelligence Community] remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019]. All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident. [1] Four IC elements and the National Intelligence Council assess with low confidence that the initial SARS-CoV-2 [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2] infection was most likely caused by natural exposure to an animal infected with it or a close progenitor virus--a virus that probably would be more than 99 percent similar to SARS-CoV-2. These analysts give weight to China's officials' lack of foreknowledge, the numerous vectors for natural exposure, and other factors. [2] One IC element assesses with moderate confidence that the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident, probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. These analysts give weight to the inherently risky nature of work on coronaviruses. [3] Analysts at three IC elements remain unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional information, with some analysts favoring natural origin, others a laboratory origin, and some seeing the hypotheses as equally likely. [4] Variations in analytic views largely stem from differences in how agencies weigh intelligence reporting and scientific publications and intelligence and scientific gaps. The IC judges they will be unable to provide a more definitive explanation for the origin of COVID-19 unless new information allows them to determine the specific pathway for initial natural contact with an animal or to determine that a laboratory in Wuhan was handling SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor virus before COVID-19 emerged."
United States. Office of the Director of National Intelligence; National Intelligence Council (U.S.)
2021-10-29?
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Three New Estimates of India's All-Cause Excess Mortality During the COVID-19 Pandemic
From the Document: "India's official Covid [coronavirus disease] death count as of end-June 2021 is 400,000. The reality is, of course, catastrophically worse. A sense that the official estimates are under-counting deaths is suggested by simple cross-country comparisons. The end-June official death count implies deaths per capita of 0.3 for India, whereas the comparable numbers for large countries in Europe and the Americas are substantially greater (well in excess of 3 for Mexico and Peru and around 2 in Brazil, Italy, US, and UK) even though infection rates are lower. India is one of the few major economies that does not have estimates of excess deaths during the Covid pandemic, reflected for example, in its absence from global databases such as the Human Mortality Database [hyperlink] or the World Mortality Database [hyperlink] (Karlinsky and Kobak 2021) which underlie reporting by OurWorldinData.org and the Financial Times. The only all-India numbers we have are model-based estimates of all-cause excess mortality (for example, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and The Economist) and some data-based estimates for the first wave (Banaji, 2021a). A prominent set of estimates were published by the New York Times but they were based on hypothetical infection and infection fatality rates that were not linked to India data per se. But this picture is fast changing. And we are now, for the first time, getting data-based estimates of excess deaths at an all-India level."
Center for Global Development
Anand, Abhishek; Sandefur, Justin; Subramanian, Arvind
2021-07
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Driving Digital Acceleration: The 2021 State CIO Survey
From the Executive Summary: "2021 was a year that continued to be dominated by the response to the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic. In this twelfth annual state chief information officer (CIO) survey, we received the perspective of 49 state and territory CIOs on the short- and long-term impact of the pandemic for state CIO organizations. We also received updates from CIOs on many of the traditional topics covered by the survey, including digital transformation, adoption of cloud, emerging technologies and legacy modernization. A major theme of this year's survey is whether the accelerated pace of state technology and digital services transformation over the past eighteen months will persist beyond the pandemic."
National Association of State Chief Information Officers; Grant Thornton; Computing Technology Industry Association
2021-10
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Assessing Underlying State Conditions and Ramp-Up Challenges for the COVID-19 Response
From the Article: "An unprecedented pandemic has exploded within the U.S. COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] has now reached all 50 states and is disrupting life in large urban areas including Seattle, the Bay Area, and New York City. The rapid spread of a virus with an undefined risk of death has forced state and local governments and health systems to act urgently to mitigate the spread and respond to an increasing number of infected Americans. The speed of transmission threatens to strain health system capacity and presents a clear and present risk to health care workers. Mounting hospitalizations and intensive care needs appear to involve adults of all ages."
Commonwealth Fund
Baumgartner, Jesse C.; Radley, David C.; Collins, Sarah R. . . .
2020-03-25
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US Emergency Food Aid Programs: In the Current COVID-19 Global Environment, Commonsense Reforms Are Overdue
From the Key Points: "[1] The United States international emergency food aid program has done a tremendous amount of good for people in dire need of help since it was first launched nearly 70 years ago in 1954. [2] However, mandates that forces the program to buy almost all US food aid at home and ship at least half of it on US-registered vessels are exceptionally costly in budgetary and humanitarian terms and are damaging to national security by limiting the exercise of soft power. [3] At the same time, the domestic policy rationales used to justify those mandates in 1954 have effectively disappeared over the past 30 or so years. [and 4] The rest of the world's emergency food aid donors have shed the shackles of procurement and shipping mandates. As commercial shipping freight rates and food prices continue to soar, severely constricting US Agency for International Development's ability to use the fixed budget allocated for the international food aid program, it is time for the US to follow suit."
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Barrett, Christopher B. (Christopher Brendan); Smith, Vincent H.
2021-11
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Ecology and Economics for Pandemic Prevention: Investments to Prevent Tropical Deforestation and to Limit Wildlife Trade Will Protect Against Future Zoonosis Outbreaks
From the Document: "For a century, two new viruses per year have spilled from their natural hosts into humans. The MERS [Middle East Respiratory Syndrome], SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome], and 2009 H1N1 epidemics, and the HIV and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemics, testify to their damage. Zoonotic viruses infect people directly most often when they handle live primates, bats, and other wildlife (or their meat) or indirectly from farm animals such as chickens and pigs. The risks are higher than ever as increasingly intimate associations between humans and wildlife disease reservoirs accelerate the potential for viruses to spread glob-ally. Here, we assess the cost of monitoring and preventing disease spillover driven by the unprecedented loss and fragmentation of tropical forests and by the burgeoning wildlife trade. Currently, we invest relatively little toward preventing deforestation and regulating wildlife trade, despite well-researched plans that demonstrate a high return on their investment in limiting zoo-noses and conferring many other benefits. As public funding in response to COVID-19 continues to rise, our analysis suggests that the associated costs of these preventive efforts would be substantially less than the economic and mortality costs of responding to these pathogens once they have emerged."
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Dobson, Andrew P.; Pimm, Stuart L. (Stuart Leonard); Hannah, Lee Jay . . .
2020-07-24
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Health and Health Care Experiences of Hispanic Adults
From the Introduction: "The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has taken a stark disproportionate toll on people of color, including the Hispanic population. These disparate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed and exacerbated longstanding underlying disparities in health and health care facing Hispanic people. Prior to the pandemic, these disparities had already been compounded by immigration policies implemented during the Trump administration that increased fears among immigrant families and made some more reluctant to access programs and services, including health coverage and health care. Although the Biden administration has since reversed many of these policies, they likely continue to have lingering effects. This report provides insights into the health care experiences of Hispanic adults amid the current environment and examines how they vary by key factors, including insurance and immigration status. A prior report examined the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 for Hispanic adults and their attitudes, experiences with, and barriers to getting COVID-19 vaccinations."
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
Artiga, Samantha; Hamel, Liz; Kearney, Audrey . . .
2021-07-14
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IMF's Growth Forecasts for Poor Countries Don't Match Its COVID Narrative
From the Abstract: "The International Monetary Fund's forecasts of GDP [gross domestic product] growth in 2020 suggest a substantially muted impact of the COVID [coronavirus disease 2019] crisis--about 3 percentage points smaller--for developing countries compared to advanced economies. Simple cross-country regressions show this discrepancy cannot be explained by external vulnerabilities to trade disruptions, financial crises, or commodity price shocks, which mostly suggest a more severe crisis in the developing world. It also cannot be explained by the domestic shock, because--while current case totals are greater in advanced economies--the policy responses of social distancing and lockdowns which will directly constrain economic activity have been similar across both groups of countries, and fiscal policy responses have been significantly weaker in developing countries. We hope that the relative optimism will not induce complacency and elicit a less-than-forceful response by countries themselves nor legitimize an ungenerous, conditionality-addled response on the part of the international community in the face of an unprecedented calamity."
Center for Global Development
Sandefur, Justin; Subramanian, Arvind
2020-05
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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Impact in Africa [Updated August 4, 2021]
From the Document: "Sub-Saharan Africa has confirmed fewer COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] cases and deaths per capita than other regions, but many countries have faced a deadlier third wave of cases since mid-2021. As of July 2021, southern African countries had the highest per-capita caseloads (and had also administered the most tests). Public health experts have expressed acute concerns about the regional surge in both cases and deaths, which they attribute to the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant and public fatigue with infection control restrictions. Most governments in Africa have struggled to secure vaccines. Total cumulative confirmed cases and deaths remain concentrated in a handful of countries, led by South Africa. Studies suggest that case data may be underreported in many countries, and experts warn that asymptomatic transmission may have hidden the scope of the spread while allowing for potential virus mutation."
Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service
Arieff, Alexis; Blanchard, Lauren Ploch; Cook, Nicolas . . .
2021-08-04
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Animal Origin of SARS-CoV-2
From the Document: "Although first detected in December 2019, COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] was inferred to be present in Hubei province, China, for about a month before. Where did this new human disease come from? To understand the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to go back to 2002. At that time a novel respiratory coronavirus appeared in Foshan, Guangdong province, China, and spread to 29 countries. Altogether ∼8000 people were infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) before public health measures controlled its spread in 2003. The zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV was subsequently linked to live animals available at markets. Further sporadic spill-over events of SARS-CoV from animals took place in Guangzhou, Guangdong, and some researchers working with cultured virus were infected in laboratory accidents, but ultimately SARS-CoV was removed from the human population. Trading of susceptible host animals is an important common theme in the emergence of SARS and COVID-19."
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Lytras, Spyros; Xia, Wei; Hughes, Joseph, 1977- . . .
2021-08-17
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Presidential COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force: Final Report and Recommendations
From the Letter from the Chair: "President Biden charged this Task Force with recommending actions to mitigate health inequities caused or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and to prevent such inequities in the future. [...] This report presents a case for change, proposed actions for the Biden-Harris administration to prioritize, and outcomes to set the vision for what the country can achieve. And, of course, this report holds the specific recommendations the Task Force has generated throughout many months--recommendations intended to disrupt the predictability of who is harmed first, and harmed worst in times of national crisis."
Presidential COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force
2021-10
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Presidential COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force: Proposed Implementation Plan and Accountability Framework
From the Introduction: "As part of the administration's response to the devastating COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic, President Joseph R. Biden issued Executive Order 13995, which established the Presidential COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force (The 'Task Force'). Following guidance from this executive order, the Task Force convened to recommend actions against long-standing and emerging health inequities exacerbated by the pandemic. [...1] 'Section One' of this document is a proposed implementation plan. It includes overarching implementation guidance and the 55 prioritized recommendations with action steps. [2] 'Section Two' of this document is a proposed accountability framework. It includes an evaluation framework with a logic model approach. It suggests establishing and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). This report references various populations and settings of interest as communities of color and other underserved populations, considering where people live, work, and learn."
Presidential COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force
2021-10
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Collateral Damage from COVID
From the Introduction: "We are flooded with data and stories on infections, hospitalizations, and deaths attributed to COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019]. At nearly 650,000 U.S. deaths as of the beginning of September 2021, those numbers are very large, and the immediate day-to-day impact of the pandemic has tended to dominate the news. But there is also a great deal of underreported collateral damage, costing many lives while shattering hopes and dreams, especially among the working poor. [...] This collateral damage--unintended consequences--of our personal and policy responses to the virus is immense. Excess deaths from causes other than COVID have been sharply higher than normal during the pandemic. These consequences can be extreme, such as violence and deaths of despair, but many other all-too-human costs--divorces, alcoholism, drug abuse, and derailed careers--have yet to be measured. It will be some time before all the costs can be tallied, but we can start to see and quantify many of them, and also highlight others that need to be investigated. Understanding the full scope of the damage will help close gaps between conventional wisdom and reality. Ideally, it should also inform our future personal and policy responses to pandemics and other emergencies. We owe it to ourselves to dispassionately study policy choices that were made, so that we can respond faster and better in the future. It will be invaluable if we can also recognize that scientific method does not mean seeking out evidence that supports one's personal opinion, but involves actively seeking to test our hypotheses, and openly exploring alternative perspectives."
Reason Foundation
Arnott, Robert D.; Kalesnik, Vitali; Wu, Lillian
2021-10
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State Cross-Agency Collaboration During the COVID-19 Pandemic Response
From the Introduction and Background: "The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has offered major challenges and opportunities for state policymakers. Due to strained resources and rapidly changing circumstances, states have had to adapt quickly as they plan, coordinate, and manage services for residents. Several states established strong inter-agency partnerships to collectively facilitate cross-sector solutions in the immediate crisis. Public health, social service and other public sectors engaged in new ways with the health sector to address the range of health and social challenges and to strengthen the safety net. Some of this engagement leveraged cross-sector strategies already proliferating across the country to advance whole person health (including in rural communities) and spurred efforts to address long-standing health inequities, especially in communities of color. This brief highlights Illinois, Indiana, and Rhode Island's cross-agency strategies during COVID-19, and it draws out themes, lessons, and best practices for states to consider during recovery and when preparing for future public health emergencies."
National Academy for State Health Policy (U.S.)
Higgins, Elinor; Cooper, Rebecca
2021-10
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Current Responses to Housing Insecurity: A Focus on Vulnerable Residential Renters and Landlords
From the Document: "On July 31, 2021, the federal eviction moratorium that kept an estimated 30 million people in their homes at the height of the pandemic officially expired. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a subsequent order on August 3, 2021 to temporarily halt evictions in counties where COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] is spreading rapidly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled later that month that the CDC exceeded its statutory authority by imposing the nationwide eviction moratorium, effectively ending it. The ruling means that eviction proceedings can resume where state or local moratoriums are not currently in place. [...] Although certain state and local governments extended their eviction moratoriums, housing experts still expect a wave of evictions this year, prompting an immediate need to alleviate the pressures on renters and landlords. In response, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed), in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (Philadelphia Fed), the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP), convened a roundtable of housing practitioners, policymakers, and funders to identify solutions. This roundtable discussion is part of the New York Fed's broader body of work seeking to enable economic mobility for low- and moderate-income households, especially those facing poverty or structural disparities related to race or ethnicity. Below are key takeaways that we heard from experts on the experiences of renters and landlords."
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Body, Dyvonne; Landau, Rebecca; Reyes, Edison . . .
2021-09-23?
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Pandemic, Social Unrest, and Crime in U.S. Cities (September 2021 Update)
From the Introduction: "This report updates our previous studies of crime changes during the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic, extending the data through the first three quarters (January-September) of 2021. The results are generally consistent with those of our earlier work and our conclusions have not changed: as the pandemic subsides, long lasting reductions in violence and crime will require cities to adopt evidence-based crime-control strategies and long-needed reforms to policing. [...] For this report, we assessed weekly changes over time in the following ten crimes: homicide, aggravated assault, gun assault, domestic violence, robbery, residential burglary, nonresidential burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and drug offenses, with a special emphasis on homicides. The crime data were obtained from online portals of city police departments that provided weekly data for the period between January 2018 and September 2021. Offense counts were converted to weekly crime rates per 100,000 city residents for analysis. The crime data are subject to revision, and offense classifications varied somewhat across the cities. Not all of the cities reported data for each of the crimes or for each week. The total number of cities reporting crimes ranged from 24 for robbery and motor vehicle theft to 13 for gun assault and domestic violence. Homicide data were available for 22 cities."
Council on Criminal Justice
Rosenfeld, Richard; Lopez, Ernesto
2021-09
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COVID-19 and World Peace: An Overture to a New Era or Business as Usual?
From the Introduction: "The outbreak of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019], which began at the end 2019 in China and led to more than two million infected by April 2020, is now recognized as an inflection point to longstanding international tensions, political relations, and even the conduct of war. Secretary-General of the UN António Guterres called for a 'global ceasefire'; a cessation of hostilities to free people, money and capabilities to fight COVID-19. Additional issues, such as climate change, economic cooperation, and social interaction during this crisis at this moment, are now recognized as being at a watershed moment. This snapshot investigates how the call by Secretary-General Guterres was answered, and how far and in what capacity the results of this response will impact upon the future."
Hague Centre for Strategic Studies
Bolder, Patrick
2020-04-21?
