Going to school ‘does not increase risk of young children catching coronavirus’

Children going to primary school or preschool are at no greater risk of picking up Covid-19 than those staying at home, according to the first results of a national surveillance programme.

Public Health England (PHE) said they had detected only three positive cases — two staff and one pupil — out of more than 12,000 people tested in English primary and preschools in June and early July.

All three had only mild or no symptoms and when their households, class bubbles and wider schools were tested, the researchers did not find any additional cases.

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Sweden has the last laugh

Lockdown-free Sweden's coronavirus case rate is now lower than Nordic neighbours Denmark and Norway with just 12 new infections per million people over the past week

In comparison, Norway saw 14 new infections per million people, and Denmark saw 18, meaning Sweden had an average case rate over seven days lower than its neighbours for the first time since March.

'Sweden has gone from being one of the countries with the most infection in Europe, to one of those with the least infection in Europe,' the country's state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said at a press conference earlier this week.

Meanwhile, 'many other countries have seen a rather dramatic increase,' he added. 

At the height of the pandemic, Sweden's infection rate dwarfed that of its neighbours, who did implement a lockdown.

At its peak on June 19, Sweden was seeing 108 new infections per million people, compared to Denmark and Norway's eight and three respectively.

The number of deaths in Sweden is now averaging at two to three per day, compared to a peak of over a hundred per-day it suffered in mid-April.

To add to positive signs in Sweden, a test last week of 2,500 randomly selected people found not one had coronavirus.

In comparison, in a similar test, 0.9 per cent were found to have the virus at the end of April and 0.3 per cent at the end of May.

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New Zealand records first Covid-19 death in over three months

New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 death in more than three months on Friday when a man in his 50s succumbed to the virus.

Health officials said the man was part of a second-wave cluster of infections that emerged in Auckland last month, ending a spell of 102 days free of community transmission in the South Pacific nation.

The death at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital on Friday afternoon takes New Zealand's death toll from the virus to 23, with the most recent previous fatality on May 24.

The man was reportedly the youngest to die from Covid-19 in New Zealand.

Health authorities did not say whether he had a pre-existing medical condition.

The Auckland cluster emerged in a family of four and has since grown to 152, including three new cases recorded on Friday.

While Aucklanders were allowed out of their homes this week, the government limited non-school social gatherings in the city of 1.5 million to 10 people and made masks compulsory on public transport nationwide.

Authorities said earlier on Friday, before the latest death was announced, that the restriction would remain in place until at least September 16.

The source of the Auckland cluster remains unknown but genome testing indicates it is not linked to the virus strain that New Zealand experienced earlier this year, which was largely eliminated in a seven-week lockdown that began in late March.

New Zealand, with its low death rate of 23 in a population of five million, has been hailed as one of the countries most successful in handling the virus.

Its response to the latest outbreak has included a blitz of around 600,000 tests in recent weeks, accompanied by extensive contact tracing and the pre-emptive quarantine of close contacts linked to confirmed cases.

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Latest Data Proves COVID-19 Doesn’t Justify Postal Bailout

A stream of apocalyptic predictions and strained conspiracy theories have turned the once-sleepy world of U.S. Postal Service operations into front-page news.

Lawmakers focused on the topic are being confronted with an approaching deadline. By the end of 2021, the Postal Service is on pace to run out of funds needed to continue current operations.

Several proposed and potential pieces of legislation would provide a bailout worth tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to the Postal Service, supposedly justified by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet there’s a big problem with this line of thinking: The pandemic has had a minimal effect on the Postal Service’s bottom line.

As a result, a COVID-19 bailout would be the equivalent of giving someone a blood transfusion while ignoring gaping wounds.

The financial status of the Postal Service burst into view in March, when leadership of the House Oversight and Reform Committee warned that bankruptcy was imminent due to COVID-19. Congress included a $10 billion loan to the Postal Service in the CARES Act based on these fears.

Just a few weeks later, it became apparent that warnings of an immediate collapse were unwarranted. While revenue from letter mail was down, demand for package deliveries increased strongly enough to compensate, meaning that the organization is not going belly-up in 2020.

This trend was confirmed in the latest quarterly report detailing the Postal Service’s performance from April through June. At first glance, the numbers appear grim: In just three months, the organization suffered a $2.21 billion loss.

However, placing that number in context tells a different story. The Postal Service lost $2.26 billion during the same period of 2019, and $4.52 billion for the first three months of 2020.

If COVID-19 were the reason for the Postal Service’s difficulties, we would expect the losses to be worse during the first months of the economic lockdown, not better.

The Postal Service has lost money every year since 2007, even during periods of strong economic growth. There are two big reasons for this troubling trend.

First, as communication increasingly moves online, the number of letters has plunged from its peak in 2001. That means less revenue to maintain postal facilities and pay employees.

Second, Congress has handcuffed the Postal Service when it comes to controlling costs. The largest expense, employees, can be reduced only through layoffs, rather than through lowering the generous compensation of $97,588 per worker.

Many potential operational changes, such as switching from six deliveries per week to five, also are barred by law.

Even when the Postal Service does have the ability to cut costs, it can result in a swift backlash from Capitol Hill. That was evident in recent weeks as lawmakers chastised Postmaster General Louis DeJoy regarding the removal of sorting machines, which was set in motion before he arrived and has been taking place for years.

Rather than drafting legislation to reform the Postal Service and make it financially sustainable, both chambers of Congress seem intent on the shortsighted approach of a taxpayer-funded bailout.

The House passed a $25 billion bailout that wrongly includes further restrictions on cost-cutting. A bipartisan Senate bill provides up to $25 billion to cover postal losses “resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic,” a definition that could potentially be used to cover any postal losses during the pandemic, regardless of the actual cause.

Senate leadership is considering whether to turn the $10 billion CARES Act loan into a grant. That would improve the Postal Service’s bottom line at the expense of adding to the national debt.

DeJoy has requested supplemental funds from Congress to cover additional expenses related to COVID-19, such as providing masks to employees and installing transparent dividers at retail locations. The amount needed to address those costs would not be $10 billion or $25 billion, but instead closer to $1 billion.

Another common justification for a bailout is the upcoming election, which is expected to feature record levels of mail-in voting. DeJoy has repeatedly explained that there’s no need for extra funding to cover mailed ballots.

Even if every vote this year were sent by mail within a few days, that would amount to about 5% of a typical week’s volume. Since mail-in ballots are sent over the course of months, and since letter-mail volume is down this year, the Postal Service will have no problem delivering ballots.

Tackling the Postal Service’s many problems will be no small task. However, this is precisely the sort of problem that we should expect our nation’s leaders to address in a responsible manner, rather than temporarily “fixing” it through pricey bailouts.

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Trump economy adds another 3.7 million jobs in August with 13.8 million total jobs recovered since April as rapid recovery continues

The U.S. economy added another 3.7 million jobs in the month of August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey of Americans reporting they have jobs, bringing the total up to 13.8 million jobs that have been recovered since labor markets bottomed in April, something almost nobody but President Donald Trump was predicting.

The news comes as COVID-19 cases continue to stabilize nationwide, including in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona where cases saw a brief uptick this summer.

At the worst of the coronavirus recession, as many as 25 million jobs were lost by April, and now more thanhalf of those jobs have been regained, as a V-shaped recovery has clearly formed.

In just four short months, almost 14 million jobs have come back in the Trump-Pence economy — thanks to President Trump’s leadership to stabilize the pandemic and get the U.S. economy safely reopened for business.

For perspective, in the Obama-Biden economy, it took almost five years to recover the 8 million jobs that were lost in the financial crisis and Great Recession.

The reason is President Trump had the considerable foresight to work with Congress to implement necessary economic supports, including payroll protection for 5.2 million small businesses that Trump credited with the recovery in his acceptance speech stating, “Thanks to our Paycheck Protection Program, we have saved or supported more than 50 million American jobs. That’s one of the reasons that we’re advancing so rapidly with our economy.”

In addition, unemployment benefits were expanded, critical industries such as airlines were supported and state and local governments were reinforced. Foreclosures and evictions were postponed, and banks were encouraged to grant homeowners forbearance on their mortgages. All this in a bid to encourage Americans to temporarily stay home while an adequate pandemic response including testing and ventilator production was put into place.

Also of note, on the establishment survey which asks employers how many people are on the payroll, businesses report 10.6 million jobs recovered since April. The difference between the two surveys is the establishment survey doesn’t count everyone like those self-employed. For that reason in February before the pandemic closures, the household survey reported 158.75 million Americans having jobs, while the establishment survey reported 152.46 million Americans working. Those differences are well-known, and it might mean the household survey is more relevant to the American people.

With more good news, an additional 765,000 Americans left unemployment the week of Aug. 22, according to the latest data from the Department of Labor. Because that is occurring later in the month, it may not fully factor into the monthly data until the September jobs report out the first week of October.

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IN BRIEF

Trump campaign bracing for legal battle over election, forming "coalition" of lawyers (Fox News)

Washington Post op-ed suggests Americans may need to prepare for war if Biden doesn't win in a landslide (The Daily Caller)

Protesters gather outside Nancy Antoinette's San Francisco home, hang blow-dryers and curlers in a tree (The Daily Caller)

Pelosi and Steven Mnuchin agree on plan to avoid government shutdown (Politico)

U.S. pulls $62 million in funding from the ChiCom-supporting World Health Organization (The Washington Free Beacon)

"A publicity stunt": Kenosha locals give lukewarm reception to Joe Biden (Washington Examiner)

Kenosha speech showed that the difference between Biden with a teleprompter and without a teleprompter is scary (The Federalist)

With the Supreme Court MIA on the subject, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit says "large"-capacity magazine bans are OK; last month, the 9th Circuit said the opposite (Reason)

NPR walks back pro-looting story (The Daily Wire)

CBS censors Andrew Cuomo threatening physical harm to Donald Trump (NewsBusters)

Federal task force kills Portland antifa murder suspect; man pulled gun on agents during arrest (AP)

Body camera footage shows Deon Kay was brandishing a gun when shot by DC police (The Post Millennial)

Cleveland police officer fatally shot; search underway for suspect (Fox News)

Colorado woman beats up child for carrying Trump sign (PJ Media)

Yet another white cultural appropriator: White George Washington University history professor admits she lied about being black (Fox News)

Discover blocks donations to site raising money for Kyle Rittenhouse defense (Fox Business)

In foreboding ruling, appeals court says transgender students may use restroom of choice (The Daily Signal)

Justice Department plans to file antitrust charges against Google in coming weeks (The New York Times)

Court rules NSA phone snooping illegal — after seven-year delay (Politico)

Seems legit: Hot temperatures in minority inner-city neighborhoods are caused by systemic racism, new study says (Campus Reform)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

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