Editorial Staff

COVID-19 Roundup from Pioneer: The race for a vaccine; Unemployment Tracker; Reopening reactions; Grading BPS on remote learning; Holyoke Soldiers’ Home understaffing; & more!

/0 Comments/in , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

Pioneer staff share their top picks for COVID-19 stories highlighting useful resources, best practices, and questions we should be asking our public and private sector leaders. We hope you are staying safe, and we welcome your thoughts; you can always reach out to us via email:  pioneer@pioneerinstitute.org.

Our Top Picks for COVID-19 Pandemic News:

William Smith, Visiting Fellow in Life Sciences: The Federal government awarded a $354 million contract to a Richmond company who will be manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) for COVID-19 treatments, APIs that are now manufactured in China and India. An update on Moderna’s vaccine progress. Pfizer is chasing Moderna to secure a vaccine. And, more on the race for a vaccine.

Michael Walker, Senior Fellow in Government Data Transparency: Don’t forget to check out our interactive map of COVID cases in Massachusetts, updated every week with newly released city and town data!

What’s the latest on unemployment? Greg Sullivan, Research Director, crunched the most recent numbers.

Our Picks for Public & Private Sector Best Practices:

Rebekah Paxton, Research Analyst: Pioneer’s new COVID Unemployment Tracker provides an interactive look at how economic shutdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are affecting jobs and lives across the state of Massachusetts. Read media coverage of the tool here, here and here.

Joe Selvaggi, Host, “Hubwonk”: Yesterday, Pioneer researcher Rebekah Paxton and I interviewed Christopher Carlozzi of NFIB, and Jon Hurst of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, about their reaction to Massachusetts Governor Baker’s reopening plans.

Jamie Gass, Pioneer’s Education Policy Director, shares two videos from a recent Thomas More College Zoom event on homeschooling, parental rights, and school choices, which had over 1,000 viewers online. It featured noted Princeton University professor (and past Lovett C. Peters Lecture keynote speaker) Dr. Robert George. Jamie provided the closing remarks on Blaine Amendments and the U.S. Supreme Court’s Espinoza case. In addition, here’s a Boston Globe editorial: “How well is remote learning working in Boston schools? We don’t really know.”

Questions for Our Public & Private Sector Leaders:

Andrew Mikula, Peters Fellow: Pioneer’s new report shows that standards enforced at the federal and state levels are insufficient to address chronic staffing issues reported by staff and residents’ families at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, making that facility and other long-term care facilities particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the report, and media coverage here and here.

Poll Results: In the last COVID Roundup, we asked: When we re-open, are you going to be more or less likely to take the T than pre-COVID? Here are the results: 18% More Likely; 82% Less Likely

Get Our COVID-19 News, Tips & Resources!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Related Analysis

Easthampton High Scores A National Educational Victory During The COVID-19 Pandemic

0 Comments
/
This spring, Massachusetts’ Easthampton High School was crowned national champion in the “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” contest. The competition brings together about 1,200 students from across the country to answer civics questions based on America’s Founding Documents including the U.S. Constitution; The Federalist Papers; and U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Experts Find K-12 Online Education Can Be Appropriate for Most Special Needs Students

School closures due to COVID-19 have separated more than seven million K-12 special needs students from support they receive in the classroom, but online learning can be appropriate for most of those students if teachers and parents work as a team to provide each one with what he or she needs, according to a new report published by Pioneer Institute and ASU Prep Digital.

Pioneer Institute Looks Ahead to the Protection of Civil Liberties

Challenges to Americans’ civil liberties have increased in recent years.  History teaches us that during national emergencies governments are even more likely to overstep and violate constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. To address this concern, Pioneer Institute has created “Respect My Rights,” a web-based hotline to which citizens can submit complaints and descriptions of violations they have experienced.

COVID-19 Roundup from Pioneer: Antibodies & immunity; Talking about WHO; Telecommuting Survey Results; Mapping COVID – Update; & more!

0 Comments
/
Pioneer staff share their top picks for COVID-19 stories highlighting useful resources, best practices, and questions we should be asking our public and private sector leaders.

Even for the most remote part of Massachusetts (Franklin County), it’s far from business as usual

0 Comments
/
The Connecticut River valley is home to some of the most productive…

Hubwonk Ep. 8: Who is WHO? COVID-19, Massachusetts, and the unhealthy World Health Organization

0 Comments
/
Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi and Pioneer Healthcare Senior Fellow Josh Archambault are joined by Hoover Institution’s Dr. Lanhee Chen to discuss the role that the World Health Organization (WHO) plays, what dysfunction may have contributed to the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what steps can be taken to bring back transparency and trust.

Study: Safely Reopening Office Buildings Will Require Planning, Innovation

0 Comments
/
Safely bringing employees back into workplaces presents a significant challenge for employers located in office buildings, particularly when it comes to elevator operations and building entry and exit.  To address the challenge, managers must develop plans to control the flow of workers, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

Acclaimed Poet & Former NEA Chairman Dana Gioia on Poetry & Arts Education

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Dana Gioia, a poet, writer, and the former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, to talk about why the arts are so pivotal to the intellectual and civic development of America’s K-12 schoolchildren.

38.8 percent of the Massachusetts workforce and 28.3 percent of the U.S. workforce have filed unemployment claims over the past ten weeks.

0 Comments
/
Data released today by the U.S. Department of Labor shows that 38.8 percent of the Massachusetts workforce and 28.3 percent of the U.S. workforce have filed unemployment claims since the COVID-19 unemployment surge began ten weeks ago.

Once anchored by higher education, Hampshire County, MA finds itself out of work after a cancelled semester

0 Comments
/
The 38,000 college and university students at the Five College…

In Hampden County, COVID-19 exacerbates a stark employment divide between urban and rural areas

0 Comments
/
Hampden County, Massachusetts, home of Western New England’s…

Study: Officials Must Address Basic Questions to Improve Public School Computer Science Education

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic has further transitioned education towards electronic devices, computer science education in K-12 public schools around the country faces a number of daunting challenges, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.