Link: https://vaccinefinder.org/
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Date accessed: 6 March 2021
Tag: CDC
Why reopening US schools is so complicated
Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/05/1020304/reopening-us-schools-complicated/
Excerpt:
The US can look to Europe for how this played out: European countries tried in-person learning last fall but began closing schools as B.1.1.7 swept through the continent. By December, countries including the Netherlands and Germany had shut down their schools in the face of rising case numbers. The CDC says it may need to update school reopening guidelines in light of new information about variants.
This task is made more difficult because tracking the spread of variants in the US is tough right now. Compared with other countries, it has very few labs doing this work, and while more funding will help, Friedrich says there will still be a gap.
Author(s): Mia Sato
Publication Date: 5 March 2021
Publication Site: MIT Technology Review
Covid-19 Isn’t the Only Thing Shortening American Lives
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Excerpt:
The 2020 life expectancy numbers also underscore longer-term health challenges that were already alarming. For two to three decades, life expectancy has been improving much more rapidly for higher earners than for lower earners, and 2020 has probably made these gaps worse. The one bright spot in the differential trends before the pandemic had been a narrowing of racial differences. These new estimates show a dramatic reversal of that hopeful pattern. From the early 1990s to 2016, the racial gap in life expectancy for males at birth shrunk from more than 8 years to about 4.5. During the first half of 2020, it widened to more than 7 years.
…..
On the contrary, 2020 mortality data indicate that death rates from non-Covid causes rose, despite the economic recession. More Americans than expected died from diabetes, high blood pressure and pneumonia. Some of these deaths may have been misreported, and actually caused by Covid. But a large number may also reflect the challenges in providing non-Covid health care during the past year, as people have avoided hospitals, and government mandates have restricted discretionary medical procedures. The pandemic will provide hard lessons on which types of medical care truly improve health, and which ones can be safely skipped or delayed.
Author(s): Peter R. Orszag
Publication Date: 23 February 2021
Publication Site: Bloomberg
Eviction Moratorium Deemed Unconstitutional by Federal Judge in Texas
Excerpt:
Judge J. Campbell Barker of the Eastern District of Texas, sided with plaintiffs who challenged the CDC’s eviction moratorium on Constitutional grounds. We’ve embedded the opinion for Terkel v. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the end of this post. Even though some will be inclined to dismiss the ruling as politically-motivated (Barker was a Trump nominee), recall that it was the Trump Administration that first launched the eviction freeze. It initially ran through December 31, and covered tenants who gave their landlord a declaration attesting that the made less than $100,000 a year, had suffered a large hit to their income, were seeking assistance and would pay as much rent as they could. The Biden Administration planned to extend the moratorium to the end of March.
Bear in mind that the eviction halt dumped the cost of keeping coronavirus-whacked workers housed on landlords, rather than having the government provide income or rental subsidies.
Before we turn to the reasoning of the ruling, keep in mind that Judge Barker did not issue an injunction against the CDC’s moratorium, since the CDC apparently made noises at trial that they’d withdraw the moratorium if they lost. However, Barker told the plaintiffs they could come back and seek an injunction if the CDC didn’t play nice. There is no indication yet as to whether the Administration will appeal.
Author(s): Yves Smith
Publication Date: 26 February 2021
Publication Site: naked capitalism
CDC estimated a one-year decline in life expectancy in 2020. Not so — try five days
Excerpt:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made headlines last week when it announced that Covid-19 had reduced the average life expectancy of Americans in 2020 by a full year. The news seemed to starkly illustrate the devastation wrought by our nation’s worst public health crisis in 100 years.
But there was a problem. The pandemic’s appalling toll could not have reduced life span by nearly that much. My own estimate is that when Covid-19’s ravages in 2020 are averaged across the country’s entire population, we each lost about five days of life.
The CDC’s mistake? It calculated life expectancy using an assumption that is assuredly wrong, which yielded a statistic that was certain to be misunderstood. That’s exactly the type of misstep the agency can’t afford to make. Not now, not after former President Trump’s relentless attacks on its credibility. Not after his advisers were caught altering and editing the agency’s monthly reports to downplay the pandemic.
Author(s): Peter B. Bach
Publication Date: 25 February 2021
Publication Site: Stat News
2020 Excess Deaths in the US general population by Age and Sex
Link: https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2021/excess-deaths-gen-population/
Report link: https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/files/resources/research-report/2021/excess-deaths-gen-population.pdf
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Excerpt:
Excluding the first two and a half months of 2020 before COVID-19 deaths were prevalent, the total U.S. mortality A/E ratio ranged between 119% and 121%, with about 84% of the excess deaths identified as due to COVID-19. Considering the full year of 2020, the A/E ranged between 114% and 116%.
Deaths for people under age 15 were lower than expected, but all older ages showed excess mortality. The following table considers the A/E ratios for the period after the emergence of COVID-19 and uses a fiveyear trend on death rates by ages and sex to set the expected deaths.
Author(s): Rick Leavitt, ASA, MAAA
Publication Date: February 2021
Publication Site: Society of Actuaries
Every State’s COVID Numbers in Context, February 2021
Link: https://polimath.substack.com/p/every-states-covid-numbers-in-context-7e1
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Excerpt:
Comparing the northeast to the mountain states is a near-perfect microcosm of why I tend to think that this pandemic is largely running out on its own schedule with interventions making only a limited impact. We can see the northeast surging shortly after the mountain states and we can see that they are trailing behind on the case reductions.
Even so, we see the same pattern. Cases and deaths are past their peak and are sliding downward. Out hope is that cases can dip below the caution line within the next month or so (though I’m far past making any predictions on this).
Author(s): PoliMath
Publication Date: 23 February 2021
Publication Site: Marginally Compelling at Substack
Mortality with Meep: Digging into CDC report on mortality in the first half of 2020
Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-digging-into
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Excerpt:
It is better to provide death rates by age ranges for year-to-year comparisons.
When you calculate a period life expectancy, you’re incorporating the mortality rates for all the ages above the current age, and it doesn’t really capture how specific age ranges were affected. I can use these life expectancies to make estimates about the death rates, but I’m not going to – I’m trying to keep the calculations simple so that other people can follow my spreadsheets and check what I’m doing.
With age-adjusted death rates, you can capture overall mortality levels, but again, you don’t know which age ranges were affected the most.
I believe period life expectancy is used for these types of reports because people are more comfortable thinking about number of years to live, or age at death, than they are thinking about rates.
Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell
Publication Date: 22 February 2021
Publication Site: STUMP
U.S. life expectancy fell by a year in the first half of 2020, CDC report finds
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Excerpt:
Looking further at racial disparities in the data, the gap in life expectancy between non-Hispanic white and Black people widened from 4.1 years in 2019 to six years in the first half of 2020 — the largest gap since 1998.
“The disparities between those populations have been declining consistently, since we began estimating life expectancy, which goes back to 1900,” she said.
The gap between Hispanic and white non-Hispanic individuals narrowed, however, from three years in 2019 to 1.9 in 2020.
Author(s): Rebecca Sohn
Publication Date: 18 February 2021
Publication Site: Stat News
US life expectancy dropped a full year in first half of 2020, according to CDC
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/health/life-expectancy-fell-pandemic/index.html
Excerpt:
“A year of life expectancy lost doesn’t really give you a true sense of how serious this has been. Millions of life years were actually lost,” Eileen Crimmins, a professor at the University of Southern California who has researched changes in mortality, told CNN. “Covid is on track to cause more deaths than cancer or heart disease, and that’s important.”Most deaths due to Covid-19 have been among older adults, which would have a small effect on overall life expectancy.
But Theresa Andrasfay, a researcher at the University of Southern California who has published work on the potential impact of Covid-19 on life expectancy, notes that while deaths among younger adults may be less common, the numbers are still substantial.
Author(s): Deidre McPhillips
Publication Date: 18 February 2021
Publication Site: CNN
CDC report on life expectancy January-June 2020
Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell
Publication Date: 20 February 2021
Publication Site: YouTube
Provisional Life Expectancy Estimates for January through June, 2020
Link: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR10-508.pdf
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Excerpt:
In the first half of 2020, life expectancy at birth for the total U.S. population was 77.8 years, declining by 1.0 year from 78.8 in 2019 (6). Life expectancy at birth for males was 75.1 years in the first half of 2020, representing a decline of 1.2 years from 76.3 years in 2019. For females, life expectancy declined to 80.5 years, decreasing 0.9 year from 81.4 years in 2019 (Figure 1).
Author(s): Elizabeth Arias, Ph.D., Betzaida Tejada-Vera, M.S., and Farida Ahmad, M.P.H.
Publication Date: February 2021
Publication Site: CDC