The Morning Meeting with Al Tompkins is a daily Poynter briefing of story ideas worth considering and other timely context for journalists, written by senior faculty Al Tompkins. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.
In one San Francisco Bay community, indoor mask orders are back because COVID-19 cases are soaring. But the CDC has not said much about masking orders or even recommendations, despite the fact that close to 300 counties — 14% of the U.S. population — now live in the CDC’s “high” infection category. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, “It’s something that we are actively looking into at CDC. In the meantime, what I do want to say is, one need not wait for CDC action in order to put a mask on.”
The Wall Street Journal said:
Santa Clara on Thursday moved up to what the CDC deems a high COVID-19 community level, based on case and hospitalization data, which means the agency says people should wear masks in indoor, public settings. So did Los Angeles County, the nation’s largest.
You can see in the CDC’s latest map that the high COVID outbreaks stretch coast to coast.
(CDC)
CBS news reported:
According to the agency’s weekly update, 13.7% of Americans live in communities now rated at “high” COVID-19 Community Levels, up from 4.9% of the population last week. An additional 38.1% of Americans are in “medium” areas and 48.2% are in “low” areas.
More than 10 counties of more than a million residents are now at this “high” tier:
- Los Angeles County, California (10,039,107 residents)
- Maricopa County, Arizona (4,485,414)
- Kings County, New York (2,559,903)
- Queens County, New York (2,253,858)
- San Bernardino County, California (2,180,085)
- Santa Clara County, California (1,927,852)
- New York County, New York (1,628,706)
- Suffolk County, New York (1,476,601)
- Bronx County, New York (1,418,207)
- Nassau County, New York (1,356,924)
- Pima County, Arizona (1,047,279)
New York Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett and Education Commissioner Betty Rosa issued a letter saying schools should consider encouraging students and teachers to wear masks once again. The letter said:
The number of laboratory-confirmed flu cases has nearly tripled over the past three weeks and flu hospitalizations have more than doubled. In addition, COVID-19 continues to pose a significant threat, particularly for unvaccinated or under-vaccinated New Yorkers, as the virus remains one of the leading causes of death in the United States. In response, we are urging a community-wide approach, inclusive of schools, to again take precautions this holiday season and winter that can prevent the spread of respiratory viruses and protect young children, older individuals, and those with underlying health conditions.
The latest COVID-19 outbreak is especially troubling because one of the variants circulating evades the best immunotherapy drugs so well that FDA stopped approving the antibody treatment for patients.
And it appears Americans have slowed getting booster shots even further. CDC figures show the average pace of new COVID boosters administered has now dropped 66% from its mid-October peak.
Read more:
ABC News: Hospitals near capacity with flu, RSV, COVID
San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area county movies into high tier
France24: Cases grow fast after China eases COVID restrictions
Palm Beach Post: COVID and fly spread fast across Florida
Kansas City Star: Hospitals in Kansas and Missouri near capacity
Hospitals around the U.S. are near capacity
Nearly 30,000 people currently in U.S. hospitals have tested positive for COVID-19, which means that since Thanksgiving, the positive rate for COVID-19 has risen 30%.
Four strains of the COVID-19 virus are spreading in the U.S. this week and the chart is nearly straight up.
(CDC)
“The situation in the hospitals is grim,” said David Scrase, secretary of the New Mexico Health and Human Services Department. “The death toll from this very serious virus continues to go up and really, hopefully, will create a sense of urgency in individuals and families to think about getting access to vaccines and also to treatments, should you test positive for coronavirus.”
A little more than 13 percent of Americans over the age of 5 have gotten their updated booster vaccine since it was released in September — including about a third of seniors, the group most susceptible to hospitalization, according to the CDC. Case counts in nursing homes are also up more than 30 percent since Thanksgiving.
COVID leads to a big increase in home births
It makes some sense that when hospitals are filled with COVID-19 cases, home births would increase. And they have. While home births are still less than 2% of all births, the CDC says:
The percentage of U.S. home births rose from 1.26% (45,646) in 2020 to 1.41% (51,642) in 2021, an increase of 12% and the highest level since at least 1990. Increases ranging from 10% to 21% were seen for the three largest race and Hispanic-origin groups. The percentage of home births for all women increased between 2020 and 2021 for most months, peaking in January 2021 at 1.51%
(CDC)
These CDC maps show where the biggest increases occurred:
(CDC)
Cities experimenting with free bus rides
The Washington, D.C., City Council just approved free bus rides, and if the Mayor agrees (which is still uncertain) the District will join a small and growing number of cities that are offering zero-fare rides. Axios compiled a story about the movement that is not yet a trend but will be interesting to monitor.
If Washington goes fare-free, Alexandria, Virginia, whose bus network DASH introduced free service last year, and Kansas City, Missouri, which began offering “Zero Fare” bus travel in 2020.
Kansas City’s experiment has been a big hit.
In a recent rider survey, nearly 90% “said they rode the buses more as a result of Zero Fare,” Next City reports.
“About 92% said it allowed them to shop for food more often; 88% said they could see their health care providers more easily or more often; 82% said it allowed them to get or keep a job.”
Extreme weather will affect nearly everyone in the Lower 48 this week
From blizzards to floods and tornadoes, nearly every part of America will experience extreme weather this week. A winter storm is moving across the upper states while the southern U.S. will face tornado threats again on Tuesday. As the system moves east, it will bring snow and rain along the way. And once again, some of the tornadoes could form after sundown, making them especially dangerous and difficult to spot.
Climate change puts 2030 Winter Olympics choice on hold
The 2030 Winter Olympics host has not been named yet because the International Olympics Committee is concerned that, due to climate change, some cities might not be cold enough. Salt Lake City, Sapporo, Japan, and Vancouver, British Columbia, are all possible choices. However, now the IOC may ask potential host cities to prove that potential snow competition cites have had average-low February temperatures below freezin over the past decade.
The story gems hidden in the Beige Book
Clark Merrefield is back with a report in the Shorenstein Center on Media’s Journalist’s Resources publication full of ideas gleaned from the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book. The Beige Book is a fantastic and underused resource that harvest insight from the 12 Federal Reserve Banks around the country. It is the kind of insight that gives you both a high-level look at economic trends and a ground-floor look at what some businesses are up to these days.
Clark sent Morning Meeting readers these examples:
Story idea: With restaurants facing “a fresh hit to profits from increases in credit card fees,” which were announced earlier in the year, how have local businesses in your coverage area responded? Have they passed those costs onto consumers or are they choosing to absorb the higher fees to avoid reduced sales? Have different types of restaurants — for example, casual versus high-end — responded differently?
Story idea: Applications rose for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP — the federal program that helps eligible households supplement their food budgets, “but staff shortages have impeded processing of these applications.” There are a lot of story ideas to unpack. How are worker shortages, which have plagued employers of all stripes this past year, trickling down to delay delivery of services vital for District 2 families with lower incomes?
Story idea: Use data on types of calls to 211 — a number anyone can call to connect with community services across the country — to understand pressing needs of individuals in your coverage area. In District 3, these calls were mostly about getting help for housing issues, according to the Beige Book. Of the 31% of calls related to housing assistance, 42% were about getting help paying rent, “as landlords continued raising rents.”
Story idea: Nonprofit housing developers reported the supply of lower-income housing will shrink due to higher overall materials and labor costs. A construction contact in Ohio relayed that there will be fewer housing units built over the coming months, not just because of higher costs, but because of “unpredictability of costs.”
Story idea: Over recent weeks in District 5, there was strong demand for high-end offices, “especially in suburban markets, as companies were paying to upgrade to nicer workplaces in order to persuade employees to return back to the office.” What specific office incentives are employers offering? Fancy coffee machines? Decorative water features? On-site childcare? Are these incentives enough to convince remote workers to take up their commutes again?
Story idea: In District 6, one labor shortage angle worth exploring is the lack of affordable childcare and public transportation, “particularly in rural areas.” These problems have “worsened since the pandemic” and are preventing people from job seeking.
Clark has a ton of other ideas. Go get ‘em here.
The Beige Book is called that because, you know, the cover of it is beige.
High school student involuntarily enrolled in JROTC classes
The New York Times reports the strange story of how thousands of high school students around the country found themselves enrolled in military training classes that they did not sign up for:
A review of JROTC enrollment data collected from more than 200 public records requests showed that dozens of schools have made the program mandatory or steered more than 75 percent of students in a single grade into the classes, including schools in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City and Mobile, Alabama. A vast majority of the schools with those high enrollment numbers were attended by a large proportion of nonwhite students and those from low-income households, The Times found.
One possible motivation for this is money.
Schools also have a financial incentive to push students into the program. The military subsidizes instructors’ salaries while requiring schools to maintain a certain level of enrollment in order to keep the program. In states that have allowed J.R.O.T.C. to be used as an alternative graduation credit, some schools appear to have saved money by using the course as an alternative to hiring more teachers in subjects such as physical education or wellness.
Is peace on Ethiopia’s horizon?
There is so much discouraging news that we should take the opportunity to be thankful for occasional hopeful developments. Ethiopia has endured a two-year war that may be coming to an end. Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan forces have a greed to end fighting, and so far, a ceasefire is holding. The fighting has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and left hundreds of thousands facing famine. The ceasefire has allowed the first relief shipments into the country that could save lives.
