Month: January 2021

Joe Biden’s Covid-19 Vaccine Plan: How He Intends to Speed Up Distribution

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-covid-19-vaccine-plan-how-he-intends-to-speed-up-distribution-11610794800?st=b86yaopaxch9dgx&twopenpaywall

Excerpt:

President will add community vaccination sites, deploy mobile units and enlist pharmacies to achieve his pledge that 100 million doses will be administered in U.S. during his first 100 days in office

President Joe Biden has promised a more forceful U.S. government response to the coronavirus pandemic, and on his second day in office released a national strategy and signed 10 executive orders and other directives as part of the plan.

Authors: Betsy McKay and Sabrina Siddiqui

Publication Date: 21 January 2021

Publication Site: WSJ

Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Index of COVID-19 Surveillance and Ad-hoc Data Files

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/covid-19-mortality-data-files.htm

Description: List of publicly available mortality data sets for the U.S. from the CDC, related to excess mortality starting in 2020 as well as COVID-specific mortality. A few data sets are updated on weekdays, but others are updated weekly on Wednesdays (usually). A few ad hoc data sets from specific dates are at the end.

Publication Frequency: Weekly for most data sets

Publication Site: CDC

Visualizations of COVID-19 Case and Death Counts

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2020/visualizations-of-covid-19/

Sublinks: [Tableau dashboards]

https://tableau.soa.org/t/soa-public/views/COVID_Countries/1MapColors?:origin=card_share_link&:embed=y&:isGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y

https://tableau.soa.org/t/soa-public/views/COVID_US_States/1Map?:origin=card_share_link&:embed=y&:isGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y

https://tableau.soa.org/t/soa-public/views/COVID_US_Counties/1MapRates?:origin=card_share_link&:embed=y&:isGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y

Publication Site: SOA

Oregon Hospitals Didn’t Have Shortages. So Why Were Disabled People Denied Care?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/21/946292119/oregon-hospitals-didnt-have-shortages-so-why-were-disabled-people-denied-care

Excerpt:

The changes in Oregon echoed the evolution of guidelines in other states. State and national disability groups had brought complaints to the Office for Civil Rights at the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws in health care.

….

There was one lingering question in all of these cases: Why was care rationed to people with disabilities at a time when Oregon’s hospitals were not overcrowded, when there were no shortages of treatment?

Author: Joseph Shapiro

Publication Date: 21 December 2020

Publication Site: NPR

Partly hidden by isolation, many of the nation’s schoolchildren struggle with mental health

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/student-mental-health-pandemic/2021/01/21/3d377bea-3f30-11eb-8db8-395dedaaa036_story.html

Excerpt:

Mental health problems account for a growing proportion of children’s visits to hospital emergency rooms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From March, when the pandemic was declared, to October, the figure was up 31 percent for those 12 to 17 years old and 24 percent for children ages 5 to 11 compared with the same period in 2019.

Authors: Donna St. George and Valerie Strauss

Publication Date: 21 January 2021

Publication Site: Washington Post

New Mexico PERA executive director taking new position

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.pionline.com/pension-funds/new-mexico-pera-executive-director-taking-new-position

Excerpt:

Wayne Propst, executive director of the $16.5 billion New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association, Santa Fe, will be leaving on Feb. 12 to join the staff of New Mexico state Sen. George K. Munoz, Mr. Propst said in an email.

Author: Arleen Jacobius

Publication Date: 22 January 2021

Publication Site: Pensions & Investment

Don’t believe the pension poppycock … it’s a divide-and-conquer strategy

Mary Pat Campbell
Don’t believe the pension poppycock … it’s a divide-and-conquer strategy.

Description: Author Ivonne Rovira argues that House Bill 258 filed by Kentucky state rep Ed Massey to create a new pension tier for teachers in the Kentucky TRS gives lower benefits and is a divide-and-conquer political strategy. Rovira is the research director for the statewide organization Save Our Schools Kentucky.

Author: Ivonne Rovira

Publication Date: 23 January 2021

Publication Site: ForwardKY

Editorial: Vote-conscious aldermen embrace a fiscally unsustainable pension idea

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-vote-conscious-aldermen-embrace-a-fiscally-unsustainable-pension-idea/article_f4050760-f8bc-575d-9995-cb0fa5112f1c.html

Description: Editorial saying that St. Louis, Missouri aldermen are considering merging locally-controlled pension plan for firefighters with state-controlled plan, which will make pension costs skyrocket again.

Excerpt:

A major problem in controlling costs was that the pension was under state control. Firefighters were historically very successful at lobbying state lawmakers for generous benefits, regardless of how much it cost city taxpayers. The city passed pension reform legislation in 2012 creating a new, locally controlled pension system for newly hired firefighters. Existing and retired firefighters stayed in the old system. By 2020, costs dropped back down to $12.4 million, less than half of their 2013 peak.

Publication Date: 23 January 2021

Publication Site: St. Louis Post-Dispatch