COVID-19 watch
Tracking Hardship - October 22, 2021
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The Americans-are-falling-behind edition. Rents are late and evictions are looming. Two-thirds of parents say their kids have fallen behind in school. One in five households say someone in the home has been unable to get medical care for a serious condition. These are but a few of the findings from a new poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
On the COVID-19 front, about half as many new cases are being reported each day as at the start of September. New infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are falling significantly in most parts of the country – with an emphasis on most. Hawaii, which experienced its worst surge of the pandemic during the summer, now is reporting the fewest infections per capita of any state. It is followed by Florida and Louisiana – both hotspots just a few months ago. But cases in the Mountain West are surging – Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming lead the country in recent cases per capita.
And we are not comforted by what we see outside our borders. In Britain, a country that throughout much of the pandemic has served as kind of a COVID-19 bellwether, new infections are surging. Some experts think this is because Britain rolled out its vaccination program earlier than most – now, in some cases 10 months later, the protection offered by those shots is waning. In Russia, a vaccine-hesitant nation where only just over a third of eligible adults have gotten their shots, infection rates are so high that nonessential workers are being ordered to shelter at home.
Meanwhile, members of Congress and the White House are reported to be in the final negotiations over what will be included in the Build Back Better plan. Many priorities of human needs advocates are in the plan, although some are reduced in scope to fit into a smaller package – but we have to push hard to make sure they are not stripped out of the final version. For example, we must fight for paid family and medical leave and the expanded Child Tax Credit. We must push hard for home and community-based care for the aging and people with disabilities. We must demand that the federal government be allowed to negotiate lower Medicare drug prices.
There’s much more – those are but a few important examples of what we must fight for. You can join the fight. Write your senators and your House member here.
You can share these numbers on Facebook and Twitter.
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75,498 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the U.S. on Thursday, Oct. 21, along with 1,509 deaths, and 56,759 hospitalizations. That’s a 24 percent decrease in cases, a 15 percent decrease in deaths, and a 19 percent decrease in hospitalizations over the previous 14 days. Tweet this.
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More than one-third of families with young children are facing serious problems finding child care when adults need to work. That’s according to a new study conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Tweet this.
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The percentage of households reporting serious financial trouble the past few months. That includes more than 50 percent of Latinx, Black, and Native American households, but only 29 percent of White households. Tweet this.
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The number of women who left the workforce in September 2021. Although the drop was not as precipitous as September 2020, when 865,000 women left the workforce, it still shows how women have been disproportionately harmed during the pandemic. The drop is due to a number of factors – many jobs that employ women such as service, retail, hospitality, and caregiving have disappeared compared to levels two years ago. In addition, for many women domestic responsibilities have increased, while support structures such as child care centers and nursing homes are far less available. Tweet this.
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Women lost 26,000 jobs in September, while men gained 220,000 jobs. Women have now lost 2.9 million jobs since the pandemic began. Tweet this.
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