• COVID-19 rising in the U.K: Should we be worried?

    How worried should we be about this COVID spiral report?

    While the recent rise in cases is “noteworthy” and “something to keep an eye on”, one person that doesn’t care much is Mark Woolhouse, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, doesn’t appear overly concerned.

    He said he’s not convinced that the data that he saw the Edinburgh is the epi-centre of a new wave or anything like that anything is dramatic as that, he told the press.

    “Cases are higher in some parts of the country more than others, and that’s a piece of information people may use to make their own decisions about how they assess the risk to themselves and those around them.

    “But this is a continuing process, and this is what living with COVID is going to look like.

    “There are going to be periods, as numbers of cases are increasing, hospitalizations are going up, and we’re all going to get a little bit more worried, and that’s what it’s going to be like for the foreseeable future.”

    “One thing we can all do – if we want to, although we have to pay for it now – is to get ourselves tested. That’s something I personally would do before going to see an elderly or vulnerable relative.”

    And that’s a good thing for everyone living in or outside the U.K.

  • SURVIVAYO: A COVID-19 survivor Story

    A discharged COVID-19 survivor who tested positive for coronavirus has recounted her experience
    inside the isolation center in Lagos State after she was given a clean bill of health on March 30.
    The lady, Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi, Executive Director, StandtoEndRape, who wrote of her
    experience on her twitter handle, @AyodejiOsowobi, said she contracted the disease during a post-
    Commonwealth event in the United Kingdom.


    Displaying various photographs of what she went through in the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba,
    Osowobi said, for now, she had conquered coronavirus. She encouraged all Nigerians to live a
    healthy lifestyle.


    Osowobi said days after her return from the Commonwealth event was tough as she fell ill after
    which she was tested positive for COVID-19. According to her, she lost her appetite, and was stooling
    and vomiting.


    She said: “Life finds ways of throwing lemon at me. I have struggled with coming forward, but I want
    to inspire hope. I returned to Nigeria from the UK post-Commonwealth event (I totally enjoyed) and
    fell ill. As a responsible person, I self-isolated. Days after, I tested positive for Covid-19. The next
    days were tough. No appetite. Nausea, vomit, and stooling were unbearable. I’m a blood type A and
    COVID19 dealt with me.


    “I thought I was going to die and contemplated a succession plan for StandtoEndRape. I was on
    drugs daily. Sometimes, I had taken eight tablets in the morning, 13 tablets in the afternoon, 10 at
    night. My system threw everything out! Water, food, soap, and all disgusted me. But I had to look at
    the wall and force myself to stay hydrated. I fought to live! I fought!!”


    The coronavirus survivor encouraged the younger generation to desist from smoking and live a
    healthy lifestyle. “To every young person out there, please give your lungs a chance to beat this. Can
    I encourage you to stop smoking and live a healthy life at this time? A healthy lung is key!”


    She added that there was a need for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control to improve the country’s
    testing capacity. “NCDCgov and State Governments need to improve their testing capacity. Test
    mild/asymptomatic cases too. Sending strength to everyone who is fighting to beat COVID19.


    “Some stigmatized me based on an article on national dailies with subtle messages like ‘why did she
    come back to Nigeria?’ I am faced with tears of joy. Nigeria is my home. Coronavirus is not a death
    sentence. People can survive and I HAVE!

    “I continued the medication and asked to be in a separate ward. Sadly, I remained in the same ward
    as all other rooms were full. My ward had people who were positive. What if I get re-infected? For
    them, I was a beacon of hope and they needed me gone to register the progress.


    “‘…You will stay a few more days. You know we take nose, mouth and sputum samples.’ ‘Am I still
    positive?’ I asked with flushed face. ‘No, you are negative,’ the doctor replied. The doctor apologized
    for the delay. I was anxious to go home but remained calm. I wanted to be free from this pain. I was
    unsure of what was going on. Why haven’t I been discharged? Should I be in the same ward? Could I
    get re-infected? I was worried but remained calm.


    “On the third day, doctors said, “well, we worked with the info we had of you testing negative, but
    one result came back positive. Days after, the doctors shared the good news that I tested negative. I
    shared this news with family and friends! My blood sample was taken, and I also tried to donate my
    plasmapheresis to help others. I hoped to be discharged.


    “I waited to be discharged, but for two days, nothing happened. This is another phase of my life and
    I have won! I celebrate my resilience and strength. Call me SURVIVAYO. I encourage people to get
    tested and stop the stigma. Practice social distancing and stop the spread,” she said.

  • COVID Facts and Myths: What You Should Know


    What should I do in the case of a COVID outbreak?

    Get the facts from reliable sources to help you accurately determine your risks so that you can take
    reasonable precautions. Seek guidance from WHO, your healthcare provider, your national public
    health authority or your employer for accurate information on COVID-19 and whether COVID-19 is
    circulating where you live. It is important to be informed of the situation and take appropriate
    measures to protect yourself and your family.

    Which organs are most affected by COVID-19?

    COVID‐19 can affect the upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose, and throat) and the lower respiratory
    tract (windpipe and lungs).

    Is coronavirus a bacteria or virus?

    The new coronavirus is a respiratory virus which spreads primarily through droplets generated when
    an infected person coughs or sneezes, or through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose. To
    protect yourself, clean your hands frequently with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with
    soap and water.

    Can COVID-19 spread through food?

    It is highly unlikely that people can contract COVID-19 from food or food packaging. COVID-19 is a
    respiratory illness and the primary transmission route is through person-to- person contact and

    through direct contact with respiratory droplets generated when an infected person coughs or
    sneezes.

    There is no evidence to date of viruses that cause respiratory illnesses being transmitted via food or
    food packaging. Coronaviruses cannot multiply in food; they need an animal or human host to
    multiply.

    Is headache a symptom of the coronavirus disease?

    The virus can cause a range of symptoms, from ranging from mild illness to pneumonia. Symptoms
    of the disease are fever, cough, sore throat, and headaches.

    Can the coronavirus disease spread through sewage?

    There is no evidence that the COVID-19 virus has been transmitted via sewerage systems with or
    without wastewater treatment.

    Can the coronavirus spread via faeces?

    There is some evidence that COVID-19 infection may lead to intestinal infection and be present in
    faeces. However, to date only one study has cultured the COVID-19 virus from a single stool
    specimen. There have been no reports of faecal−oral transmission of the COVID-19 virus to date.

    Is the coronavirus disease more severe than the flu?

    COVID-19 causes more severe disease than seasonal influenza. While many people globally have
    built up immunity to seasonal flu strains, COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity.
    That means more people are susceptible to infection, and some will suffer severe disease.
    Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally
    kills far fewer than 1% of those infected

    Is there a cure for COVID-19?

    There is no specific cure yet for COVID-19 at the time this magazine is being prepared for
    publication. However, there are many ongoing clinical trials to test various potential antivirals.

    Current management of cases aims to relieve the symptoms while the body’s immune system fights
    the illness.

    Will I get more severe symptoms of COVID-19 if I drink alcohol?

    Consuming alcohol will not destroy the virus, and its consumption is likely to increase the health
    risks if a person becomes infected with the virus.

    Alcohol (at a concentration of at least 60% by volume) works as a disinfectant on your skin, but it has
    no such effect within your system when ingested.

  • Why has Africa suffered fewer COVID-19 deaths than predicted?

    Africa has accounted for a relatively small number of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Richard Wamai, a Northeastern associate professor of cultures, societies, and global studies, wanted to know why the official numbers differed so widely with projections from the early days of the pandemic that Africa would be especially vulnerable to the disease.

    “The predictions of mass COVID casualties were based on a misunderstanding of the continent,” says Wamai, who has co-authored a new paper that details why the gloomy predictions have largely gone unrealized. “There are lessons we can learn about how the continent has handled the pandemic, or how the pandemic has manifested in the continent.”

    Not only has Africa utilized unrecognized strengths to help fend off COVID-19, says Wamai, but it also offers clues that can be applied against future pandemics. Africa represents 12.5 percent of the global population, but it accounted for just 4 percent of the 3.4 million deaths that had been reported around the world as of May 18.

    Predictions that Africa would suffer catastrophically were based on beliefs that the continent would be vulnerable to poverty, unsanitary living conditions, and weak healthcare systems. Instead, says Wamai, national and local governments already had healthcare systems in place to deal with HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and other epidemics. By April 2020, a large majority of African countries had enacted at least five “stringent” public health and social measures in response to the pandemic, according to The Lancet.

    “The continent has a long history of experience with infectious diseases,” Wamai says in an interview from his native Kenya. “We didn’t have to scramble to organize hospitals that have cases. We had a community health volunteer system in place.”

    Neil Maniar stands on the pedestrian bridge at Northeastern.
    Neil Maniar, professor of the practice and director of the Master of Public Health program at Northeastern. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

    In Kenya, notes Wamai, he has undergone screening at the airport and has received official alerts on his phone about COVID-19—government measures that he has not experienced in the U.S.

    “We don’t have to have large economic resources to handle pandemics,” he says. “We still have very large and strong health programs on the continent, largely because of all of these historic experiences with infectious diseases.”

    Wamai acknowledges that cases have been undercounted in Africa, where fewer tests for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, have been conducted than on any continent other than Antarctica. There is a need for more hospitals in Africa, he says.

    But local systems for reporting deaths in Africa make it difficult to hide COVID-19 casualties,Wamai adds. And some of the excess deaths of the past year can be attributed not to the disease, but to lockdown measures that cut off access to medical care for other illnesses, as well as other necessities.

    Wamai notes other factors in Africa’s favor, including a preponderance of countries where people spend more time outside than on other continents. Africa also features the youngest population among global regions, with a median age of 19.7 years that is roughly half as young as that of the United States (38.5) and the United Kingdom (40.5), which have been hit hard by the pandemic. And people in Africa suffer a relatively low burden of noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and cancer, which increase the risk of dying from COVID-19.

    Wamai also cites research showing that exposure of people in Africa to the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccination, which is administered against tuberculosis, could make them less vulnerable to COVID-19.

    Wamai’s investigation of African outcomes shows the importance of learning from the pandemic, says Neil Maniar, professor of the practice and director of the Master of Public Health program at Northeastern. Maniar says that Wamai’s study raises all kinds of relevant questions, such as: How effective have lockdowns been in mitigating the spread of COVID-19—and have the lockdowns themselves accentuated income inequalities that contributed to the toll of the pandemic?

    “As we prepare for future pandemics, and we know that there will be future pandemics, this is really a call to action for everyone to think about what we need to do in terms of having a coordinated global surveillance system,” Maniar says. “This pandemic has revealed the consequences of having an underfunded, under-resourced public health infrastructure—and that goes for everywhere in the world. Because it’s hard to play catch-up when you’re in the midst of a public health crisis. The time to invest is before you ever get into a crisis.”

  • Covid 19: Global cases top 20 million as Russia registers vaccine

    The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide topped 20 million, more than half of them from the United States, India and Brazil, as Russia on Tuesday became the first country to register a vaccine against the virus.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the registration at a government meeting and added that one of his two adult daughters had already been inoculated. “She’s feeling well and has high number of antibodies,” he said.

    Russia has reported more than 890,000 cases, the fourth-most in the world, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally that also showed total confirmed cases globally surpassing 20 million.

    It took six months or so to get to 10 million cases after the virus first appeared in central China late last year. It took just over six weeks for that number to double.

    More

  • Russia says it has world’s first COVID-19 virus – CNN

    Moscow (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the approval of a coronavirus vaccine for use on Tuesday, claiming it as a “world first,” amid continued concern and unanswered questions over its safety and effectiveness.

    “A vaccine against coronavirus has been registered for the first time in the world this morning,” Putin said on state TV. “I know that it works quite effectively, it forms a stable immunity.”
    “I hope our foreign colleagues’ work will move as well, and a lot of products will appear on an international market that could be used.”
    The vaccine — developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute — has been named Sputnik-V. The name is a reference to the surprise 1957 launch of the world’s first satellite by the Soviet Union.
    The treatment is yet to go through crucial Phase 3 trials where it would be administered to thousands of people.
    Putin added that one of his daughters had already taken it; he said she had a slightly higher temperature after each dose, but that: “Now she feels well.”
    Exclusive: Russia says foreign inquiries about its potential fast-track Covid-19 vaccine are pouring in. But questions abound

    The claim of victory by Putin in the global push to make an effective vaccine against Covid-19 comes amid suggestions that Russia has cut essential corners in its development.
    Critics say the country’s push for a vaccine is partly due to political pressure from the Kremlin, which is keen to portray Russia as a global scientific force.
    Russia has released no scientific data on its testing and CNN is unable to verify the vaccine’s claimed safety or effectiveness.
    Despite this, Russian officials have told CNN that at least 20 countries and some US companies have expressed interest in the vaccine.
    Russia is just one of many countries rushing to produce a vaccine for Covid-19, which has now infected more than 20 million people, killing more than 730,000 around the world.
    In June, the Chinese government approved the use of an experimental coronavirus vaccine for the country’s military. The vaccine, known as Ad5-nCoV, was jointly-developed by the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology — part of the Chinese government’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences — and vaccine company CanSino Biologics.
    Earlier this month, the Kremlin denied allegations Russian spies hacked into American, Canadian and British research labs to steal vaccine development secrets.
  • COVID-19 infections hit new low as NCDC confirms 288 new cases – News

    For the second consecutive day, the number of COVID-19 infections in the country hit a new low as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed 288 new cases.

    The agency confirmed the new cases in 14 states and the federal capital territory (FCT) on Monday night.

    The new figure of positive samples is the lowest in over two months.

    The number of recoveries recorded a significant increase over the past 48 hours, with 355 people discharged on Monday, compared to 221 recoveries for Sunday – a total of 20,663 people have been confirmed negative for the virus by the NCDC.

    While Taraba state has not recorded any fatality, with eight new deaths, a total of 896 people have died of COVID-19 complications in 35 states and the FCT.

    https://www.thecable.ng/covid-19-infections-hit-record-low-as-ncdc-confirms-288-new-cases/amp

  • Smoking and COVID-19

    I’ve found it impossible to keep up with all the research on smoking and COVID-19 recently. The tireless @phil_w888 has now catalogued over 700 studies of COVID-19 patients that have data on smoking prevalence.

    In the last week, the largest observational study yet conducted found that smokers (in Mexico) were 23 per cent less likely to test positive for COVID-19. This is in line with the results of an ongoing meta-analysis by some researchers who would clearly prefer the hypothesis to be disproved but who nevertheless have found a 26 per cent reduction in infection risk for current smokers.

    study published in the Lancet a couple of weeks ago looked at the factors associated with COVID-19 caseloads at the national level. It found that countries with higher rates of smoking tended to have lower rates of Covid infection.

    And a newly published prospective study of nearly 20,000 Covid cases tells a familiar story. Your chances of ending up in intensive care with the virus are increased if you are male, non-white, from a low income area, obese … or a nonsmoker.

    Note the telltale dose-response relationship. The heaviest smokers are an incredible 88 per cent less likely to end up in ICU with COVID-19.

    The same rules apply to your chances of testing positive for COVID-19. Indeed, it seems increasingly clear that smokers are less likely to end up in intensive care with COVID-19 because they are less likely to catch it in the first place.

    Factors such as obesity, deprivation and being BAME are now universally acknowledged as risks for COVID-19. The UK government, in particular, has gone to town on the obesity finding.

    The smoking finding, by contrast, continues to be ignored, although the evidence for a protective effect is about as a strong as the evidence for obesity being a risk factor.

    And yet the association with smoking is not even mentioned in the abstract of the latest study (above), nor is it mentioned in the abstract of the Lancet study. The authors of the latter describe it as an ‘unexpected finding’ which ‘requires further investigation’. The authors of the other study describe it as a ‘counterintuitive finding’ , although they do acknowledge that it is ‘consistent with very low rates of smoking seen in patients presenting with COVID-19 in Wuhan and similar data from the USA and with the findings of a more limited analysis of patients with COVID-19 in France.

    They also propose several possible causal mechanisms:

    This may reflect a general immunomodulatory effect, a mechanism that is thought to explain the lower incidence of sarcoidosis, extrinsic allergic alveolitis and ulcerative colitis in current smokers. Alternatively, smoking may cause increased ACE2 mRNA expression in human lung much as ACE inhibitors or ARBs are believed to, suggesting a possible common protective mechanism for severe COVID-19 disease. Additional possible mechanisms include a direct protective effect of nicotinic receptor stimulation or an association of smoking with another protective factor. This finding arose when including smoking status as a confounder and should be interpreted cautiously. Further studies are required to verify the apparent protective association, determine whether it is independent of other risk factors, and investigate potential mechanisms.

    The ‘public health’ lobby has done a good job of ignoring these findings so far, but how long can it continue? With the world economy crippled by lockdowns and social distancing – not to mention the human cost of the virus – is it ethical for them to overlook a possible solution? That solution may not involve smoking per se. It is likely to merely involve harmless nicotine.

    These findings get stronger by the day and are extremely interesting, and yet I do not see much interest in them from the people who are supposed to be protecting our health. It could be a fatal oversight.

  • How women in academia are feeling the brunt of COVID-19

    The disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on the productivity of women could see many leave academia.
    Shutterstock

    Keymanthri Moodley, Stellenbosch University and Amanda Gouws, Stellenbosch University

    The COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent public health response of lockdown has brought into sharp relief the constraints faced by women across the board.

    We have been keeping a keen eye on the impact it’s having on women in academia – our field of work and research. What we’re observing, and what’s being backed up by research, is that women are facing additional constraints as a result of COVID-19.

    These range from the added burdens and responsibilities of working from home, through to the fact that fewer women scientists are being quoted as experts on COVID-19, all the way to far fewer women being part of the cohort producing new knowledge on the pandemic.

    None of these constraints are new. Earlier research confirms that women academics carry large teaching burdens, with relatively little time for research and publication compared to their male colleagues, many of whom do not carry equivalent domestic responsibilities.

    Increased pressure on women academics caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is magnifying this fractured landscape of gender parity in academia. The impact is being felt in terms of productivity. This is manifesting itself in terms of public exposure, knowledge generation and who is being called on to provide advice.

    Academic output

    An article in the World University Rankings points to the bias towards men experts in media coverage of COVID-19. Written by a group of women scientists, the article points out that women are advising policymakers on the outbreak, designing clinical trials, coordinating field studies and leading data collection and analysis. But, when it comes to media coverage, there is a bias towards men. While epidemiology and medicine are women dominated fields, men get quoted far more often than women about the pandemic.




    Read more:
    Africa’s research ecosystem needs a culture of mentoring


    A June 2020 article in the correspondence section of a leading medical journal, The Lancet, makes the same point. It points out that women have made up just 24% of COVID-19 experts quoted in the media and 24.3% of national task forces analysed.

    Women’s outputs are being affected in other ways too. A recent article in Science News shows that fewer women were first authors on articles related to COVID-19. This was especially so in the first months of the pandemic. They compared 1,893 articles published in March and April 2020 with those from 2019 in the same journals, and found that first authorship for women declined by 23%.

    This they attribute to the increased demands of family life during the pandemic.

    The Guardian newspaper also reported a decrease in women’s academic outputs, with the journal Comparative Politics reporting that submissions by men went up by 50% in April.

    The Lancet article makes the same point.

    Recent data from the US, the UK and Germany suggest women spend more time on pandemic-era childcare and home schooling than men do. This is particularly difficult for single-parent households, most of which are headed by women.




    Read more:
    A personal journey sheds light on why there are so few black women in science


    Domestic constraints

    The article by women scientists in The Lancet makes it clear that none of the challenges are new.

    Challenges women in academia face are well documented in non-pandemic
    times. These challenges include male dominated institutional cultures, lack of female mentors, competing family responsibilities due to gendered domestic labour, and implicit and subconscious biases in recruitment, research allocation, outcome of peer review, and number of citations.

    But, they write, COVID-19 has led to unprecedented day care, school and workplace closures exacerbating challenges.

    For decades, women in academia and professional practice have striven to achieve work-life balance, juggling professional and domestic responsibilities.

    Institutional support for women in terms of maternity leave, childcare facilities, lactation rooms, flexible working hours and protected research time varies across institutions in South Africa. It is lacking in many.

    And now women are working from home, where they are also expected to take care of children and elderly parents, do home schooling, clean, cook and shop.

    Addressing the problem

    This disproportionate effect on productivity of women has the potential to bleed women from academia. This will have a negative impact on the diversity that is critical for excellence in academia and in civil society.

    None of this is factored in to promotion criteria or performance assessments, when women in academia compete directly with their male counterparts. Consequently, women are seriously underrepresented in academic leadership, perpetuating a patriarchal institutional culture in tertiary educational institutions.

    Some global funding agencies, among them the European and Developing Country Clinical Trial Partnerships and the National Institutes of Health, have recently started to consider constraints facing women scientists in grant applications. This effort needs to be seriously expanded.

    This could be done via revisions to existing policies and proactive development of new policies to create optimal gender balance in research. Funders also have a responsibility to explore how institutions that financially benefit enormously from research funding via indirect costs support women scientists in academia.




    Read more:
    Women scientists lag in academic publishing, and it matters


    Scientific journals are becoming sensitive to gender balance and diversity with respect to authorship. But the requirement for gender equity in terms of participants included in research studies and authorship must be tightened.

    Similarly, conference panels and keynote speaker selection are in dire need of appropriate representation of women, especially those from the global South, whose voices are underrepresented in international academic meetings and scientific conferences. Anything less than these efforts will perpetuate pre-COVID-19 levels of gender inequity and lack of diversity. Sadly, academia will be the poorer for it.The Conversation

    Keymanthri Moodley, Director, The Centre for Medical Ethics & Law, Stellenbosch University and Amanda Gouws, Professor of Political Science and SARChi Chair in Gender Politics, Stellenbosch University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • Millions of America’s working poor may lose out on key anti-poverty tax credit because of the pandemic

    Demand for food aid has soared during the pandemic.
    Joe Raedle/Getty Images

    Rebecca Hasdell, Stanford University; Alice Milivinti, Stanford University, and David Rehkopf, Stanford University

    The pandemic is driving American families to the edge, with tens of millions at risk of losing their homes and over 1 in 10 U.S. adults reporting their households didn’t have enough to eat in the previous week.

    While Congress debates extending unemployment benefits that expired on July 31 and other additional aid, there’s an important program that already exists that could help struggling Americans get through the crisis however long it lasts. Known as the earned income tax credit, or EITC, it provides aid primarily to the working poor. In a typical year, it lifts more than 8.5 million people out of poverty, while improving the health and well-being of parents and children.

    Since the credit depends on earned income, many families may be at risk of losing all or some of the benefit because so many were laid off as economies in many states shut down. Even as restaurants and other businesses reopen, it’s likely that many of those who lost their jobs will remain unemployed or underemployed for many months or longer.

    Our own research shows changes to the structure of the U.S. economy, with the sharp growth of low-wage and unstable jobs, is weakening the EITC’s effectiveness at fighting poverty.

    Some lawmakers are trying to reform the EITC as part of the next coronavirus bailout to ensure it helps more Americans and make it more like a basic income guarantee. We believe doing so would not only ensure low-income Americans continue to have access to this vital tax credit during the pandemic, additional changes could also strengthen the program for years to come.

    The EITC success story

    The earned income tax credit, which supplements earnings for many low- and moderate-income workers, has helped buffer economic hardship for single parents and other recipients since it was created in 1975.

    Eligible taxpayers receive the credit after they file their taxes. And unlike a deduction, even those who didn’t pay any income tax can receive the credit, which they’ll get as part of their refund. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia also offer their own EITCs, typically based on the federal credit.

    In 2019, taxpayers received about US$63 billion in credits through the federal EITC, making it the government’s largest cash safety net program for working families with children. Recipients qualify for the credit based on how much money they earn and depending on their marital status and number of children. The benefit rises with each dollar earned until reaching a peak and then phasing out.

    For example, in 2019, a single person earning $13,545 a year received $392, while a typical family of four with an annual income of $22,261 received roughly $2,951 – which comes out to an extra $250 a month.

    Put another way, a family with one child receives an average credit of 34 cents for every dollar of earned income, which rises to 40 cents for two and 45 cents for three or more children.

    The tax credit has been tremendously successful. In 2018, the latest data available, the EITC lifted about 10.6 million people out of poverty and reduced its severity for another 17.5 million. And since its inception, it has reduced child poverty by 25%.

    But the benefits extend well beyond providing struggling families with more income. Research shows the credit has helped improve the mental and physical health of mothers, improves perinatal health of mothers and their children, improves child development, reduces incidents of low birth weight among infants and improves children’s cognitive function.

    It also enjoys strong bipartisan support because of its focus on encouraging and supporting working.

    But the EITC only helps individuals able to find work, which becomes a bigger challenge in a pandemic or severe recession.

    Our unpublished calculations from a national representative survey showed that about a fifth of the 25 million EITC beneficiaries in 2019 lost their jobs from March to April and over 16% remained unemployed in June, the latest data we have available. That means over 4 million working families could lose a large portion of their benefits in 2021, depending on a variety of factors.

    Reforming the EITC

    While these problems are most obvious in a recession, they’ve worsened over the past four decades as the labor market has changed.

    The share of workers doing low-skill, low-wage work has jumped from 42% in 1980 to about 54% in 2016. And an increasing number of these jobs are in the precarious gig economy that doesn’t provide stable incomes. That means workers are less likely to see a steady aid from the EITC because the maximum benefits are gained when working full time at minimum wage.

    The EITC’s also provides very little support to those without children. A nonpartisan think tank estimates that about 5.8 million adult workers without any children as dependents are taxed into poverty – or impoverished further – each year because their EITC is too small to offset their federal income and payroll taxes.

    House Democrats are pushing to reform the EITC in the next coronavirus relief bill. Specifically, they’d like to tweak the credit’s phase-in so that workers receive more benefits for fewer hours worked, allowing those who lost their jobs and remained unemployed for the remainder of 2020 to maintain benefits similar to last year. They also would lower the minimum age for receiving the credit to 18 from 25 for certain vulnerable groups like those experiencing homeless.

    We’d suggest also increasing the benefit for tax filers without children and lowering the minimum age for everyone so that the millions of young people graduating from high school and college into an economic recession can get additional support.

    These reforms would not only help now but could also deepen the impact of the EITC by creating an income floor for more people as the economy changes, essentially creating something very much like a basic income guarantee. A key difference, however, is that most universal basic income proposals don’t require recipients to work.

    While we cannot fully predict how interactions between job losses and the tax and benefit system will play out, this moment presents an opportunity to test reforms that would benefit low-income working families for years and decades to come.The Conversation

    Rebecca Hasdell, Postdoctoral fellow, Stanford University; Alice Milivinti, Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford University, and David Rehkopf, Associate Professor of Medicine, Stanford University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.