The University of Alabama at Birmingham has awarded its second round of grants, totaling $402,000, for urgent COVID-19 research. The 10 new pilot projects began Aug. 1 and will last six months. They were selected for their high probability of having an impact on the COVID-19 crisis within weeks or months. Read more.
Alabama researchers recently have been acknowledged for their work showing that gains made while children are in Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program continue into the students’ elementary years. Their peer-reviewed article on the topic was published in the July edition of the International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy. It was written by researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, ThinkData and the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education. The paper counters some recent studies of long-term impacts that have shown that advantages from pre-K learning diminish of “fadeout” over time. But the Alabama researchers found no statistical evidence of fadeout through the 7th grade. Read more. BirminghamWatch took a deeper look at the pre-K program. You can read it here: First Class in More Than Name Only: Why Alabama’s Preschool Program Is Best in the Country on National Standards
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday announced that up to $50 million in federal grants will be allocated to the state’s nursing homes to help respond to COVID-19. That’s welcome news for the state’s long-term care centers, as researchers recently found that one fourth of such facilities have less than a week’s worth of the kind of masks needed to protect workers from contracting coronavirus. Read more.
Every sector in Alabama’s economy is shrinking this year because of the pandemic. That’s according to Samuel Addy, senior research economist and associate dean for economic development outreach at the University of Alabama. During a press conference Thursday, Addy joined Democrat Sen. Doug Jones to talk about Alabama’s economy, which they both agreed is in ‘survival mode.’ “All the help coming from D.C., the bills that the senator and others are working on, are not stimulus bills. They are actions and investments for survival,” Addy said. “We know that we are in a worse situation than a few months ago. We need to invest for survival because if we don’t survive, nothing matters.” Read more.
As the beginning of schools’ fall term creeps nearer, school officials are nailing down their plans for educating students during the coronavirus pandemic. Those plans vary across the Birmingham area, and some school leaders emphasize that they still could change, depending on the severity of the outbreak. All schools will offer a virtual learning option. Some schools are only doing virtual learning for the first nine weeks, while other schools also have an option to attend school in person. Start dates also vary widely, from Fairfield’s Aug. 10 opening to Jefferson County’s Sept. 1 opening. See the current plans for Birmingham-area schools to open in the fall term. More stories on local school openings: Birmingham Schools Announce Online-Only Learning for First 9 Weeks Jefferson County Schools to Go Virtual-Only for First Nine Weeks; Some Student Athletes and Staff Have Tested Positive for COVID
For more than 96,000 students with special needs across Alabama, the loss of in-person services could mean a decline in learning, communication or functional skills. It also takes a toll on family members. Read more.
A decrease in the number of new positive COVID-19 test results per day is spurring tentative hope that the pandemic is starting to take a turn for the better in Alabama. The 7-day and 14-day averages in new cases have trended downward over the period ending Aug. 5, and for the first time in a month, the raw number of new cases has fallen below 1,000 for two straight days. In BirminghamWatch’s weekly analysis of data reported by the Alabama Department of Public Health, the 7-day moving average is 1,457.71 per day. That’s a decrease of 136 cases from the week before and almost 393 fewer than the high on July 19. Read more.
Donald Trump has presided over multiple crises in America, but don’t forget that Joe Biden has said some stupid things during campaign speeches. I have just engaged in a prevalent failing of the mainstream political press: false equivalency, which means to give a similar volume of attention to two dissimilar and unequal sets of facts in order to appear fair and balanced. You might recall “But her emails…” from the presidential campaign coverage of 2016. As we head toward an obviously monumental presidential election on Nov. 3, nonpartisan political reporters are doing their best to avoid their highly consequential mistakes of 2016 and some previous election cycles. With such a stark contrast between the two presumptive nominees – uh oh, I may have just engaged in the also common press failing of tempered euphemism – the stakes couldn’t be higher for the performance of the press over the next three months. Read more.
The interim chair of UAB’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology debunked a number of COVID pregnancy myths. Read more.
The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to approve economic incentives for a new student housing development near the UAB campus, and Jefferson County commissioners indicated they would do the same Thursday. The seven-story development, which is expected to house up to 400 residents, will be built atop a brownfield site bordered by 13th and 14th Streets South and Fourth and Fifth Avenues South. Read more.
