How to Make Summer Plans When Everything’s Uncertain

Camp? Summer School? Family Visits?

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story February 17, 2021 How to Make Summer Plans When Everything's Uncertain By Jessica Grose Eleni Kalorkoti Summer planning has long been a vexing and expensive puzzle for many parents, who use a mishmash of camp, family help and cobbled together vacation days to cover child care when kids are out of school. Now, for a second year, we have virus concerns to pile atop that heap of issues, and yet the calendar continues to flip forward and children still need to be occupied between June and September. Let's start with a bit of good news from infectious disease specialists. "I think things are not as dire this summer. We have a lot to be optimistic about," said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. The United States will finally have an adequate supply of vaccines by the summer, Dr. Hotez said, and we can go into the school break knowing that a good chunk of adults will be protected — though children will not start getting vaccinated until late summer, at the earliest. (Vaccine trials for children under 6 are just beginning now.) The big wild card is the new variants of the virus. "States are starting to open up, so we could see a resurgence," with these new strains, "and if that were to happen, that really changes things," said Dr. Sean O'Leary, an executive member of the American Academy of Pediatrics's Committee on Infectious Diseases. Knowing that information, how do you make choices for your family this summer? Here are some tips. When weighing a choice, always think about the alternative. Whether you're considering sending your child to camp, summer school or to spend time with newly vaccinated family members — think about what the alternative is, said Emily Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University and the creator of the Covid-19 School Response Dashboard. For school, the alternative is remote school. If the summer option you're weighing is camp, what would your child be doing otherwise? What are the benefits and drawbacks of those choices for your family? Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Especially this year, it's important to weigh social and emotional development as a factor alongside virus risks if your kids are in elementary school and have been remote since March 2020. "Another summer of remote school, even if it lets your kid move forward in math, may have less value than a summer of digging in the dirt," Oster said. Check out health guidelines from trustworthy sources. Dr. O'Leary recommended consulting the American Academy of Pediatrics's suggestions for camps. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has a list of guidelines for camps and youth programs. Both of these lists can help you assess camps or other in-person activities for your kids, and can give you a set of questions to ask about safety procedures. Here are some to get you started: How big are the groups of children? Do they mix with children outside their group? What happens if there is a case of Covid-19 at camp? Will there be masking, and in what circumstances? Sleep-away camp is risky, but it's still an option. Even last summer, some sleep-away camps stayed open. Dr. O'Leary said the C.D.C. studied Covid in camp settings in Maine and Georgia in 2020, with very different outcomes. Four overnight camps in Maine had no infections, during 6 to 8 weeks of camp, with the following safety measures in place: pre-arrival quarantine; pre- and post-arrival testing and symptom screening; keeping kids in small pods and not mixing with children outside those groups; use of face coverings; physical distancing; and maximal outdoor programming. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT At a camp in Georgia, where campers did not wear masks — and there were a variety of indoor and outdoor activities, which included group singing and cheering in close proximity — there was a major Covid-19 outbreak. Results from testing done between the first day of camp and 14 days after camp ended were available for about 60 percent of campers and counselors; among these tests, 76 percent were positive. If you're considering sending a child to overnight camp, make sure their protocol is like Maine's, not Georgia's. "Beware the Ides of March," Dr. Hotez said. Both he and Dr. O'Leary emphasized that we are not out of the woods yet in terms of virus transmission. The drop we're currently seeing in infections and deaths in the United States — a 41 percent decline in cases, 22 percent decline in deaths and 29 percent decline in hospitalizations in the past two weeks — may surge back up because of the new virus strains. If we want to plan the best summer for our families, we need to stay vigilant for the near term while more adults are getting vaccinated. "We have a lot to look forward to, but it's going to be a terrible spring," Dr. Hotez said. P.S. Follow us on Instagram @NYTParenting. If this was forwarded to you, sign up for the NYT Parenting newsletter here. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Tiny Victories Parenting can be a grind. Let's celebrate the tiny victories. My 4-year-old is obsessed with being first downstairs, first in line, first everywhere. When he's stalling at bedtime, I start to go upstairs and tell him I'm going to be first; he drops what he's doing and sprints up to bed. — Karin Levenstein, Austin If you want a chance to get your Tiny Victory published, find us on Instagram @NYTparenting and use the hashtag #tinyvictories; email us; or enter your Tiny Victory at the bottom of this page. Include your full name and location. Tiny Victories may be edited for clarity and style. Your name, location and comments may be published, but your contact information will not. By submitting to us, you agree that you have read, understand and accept the Reader Submission Terms in relation to all of the content and other information you send to us. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for NYT Parenting from The New York Times. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. 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Pandemic economics: Stay weird

When conventional wisdom really, really doesn't work.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story February 16, 2021 People wait in line at the St. Clements Food Pantry in Manhattan in December of last year.Carlo Allegri/Reuters By Paul Krugman Opinion Columnist Back when the 2008 financial crisis struck, some of us tried to explain — with, I'm sorry to say, only limited success — that conventional notions of sound policy needed to be set aside. "When depression economics prevails," I wrote, "the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly." It was time to set aside the usual concerns about rolling the printing presses and running big budget deficits. But it proved very hard to sustain the mind-set needed to deal with the crisis. For a few months after the fall of Lehman Brothers, policymakers seemed open to Keynesian policies to limit the depth of the slump, although even then they were too cautious; but all too quickly they reverted to inappropriate notions of soundness, obsessing about debt despite very low interest rates and mass unemployment. Many influential people now seem to concede that the obsession with debts and the premature turn to austerity after 2009 were big mistakes. But now we're in a new crisis. And the economics of this crisis are, if anything, even weirder than those of 2009, in ways that even knowledgeable people often don't seem to grasp. What happened last time was the emergence of a huge "output gap" — an economic shortfall from what we could and should have been producing, caused by inadequate spending. What we needed to close that gap was "stimulus" — measures to boost expenditure, by both the government and the private sector. And policy should have aimed at providing enough stimulus to close the gap. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Many economists are still working with that framework. And when they compare the proposed spending in President Biden's American Rescue Plan with conventional estimates of the output gap, what they see is overkill: much more spending than the economic situation seems to require. But that's the wrong diagnosis. True, G.D.P. is lower than we would have expected given trend economic growth, but we aren't experiencing a conventional output gap. Instead, we're facing something more like a natural disaster: The economy is depressed because the coronavirus is temporarily keeping us from doing many of the things we would normally be doing. In this situation, the purpose of government spending isn't to provide stimulus, it is to provide disaster relief, money that helps those hurt hard by the pandemic make it through until widespread vaccination makes it possible to resume our usual lives. And this has one perverse implication that even very good economists are, I can report from personal interactions, having a hard time grasping. Namely, it's OK if a lot of pandemic spending is pretty poor stimulus. In fact, it might even be a good thing. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Here's the story: I've argued that relief spending can be usefully grouped into three categories. There's direct spending to fight the pandemic — shots in arms and related. There's income support for hard-hit groups, notably enhanced unemployment benefits. And finally there's more diffuse support, mainly those $1400 checks and aid to state and local governments. The problem with the more diffuse support is that it isn't well targeted. Some people badly need those checks, because for whatever reason they aren't getting enough support from other measures, but many don't. Some state and local governments are in desperate straits because of the pandemic, but others have seen revenue hold up pretty well. So a lot of the outlays will go to players who don't especially need the money. This could be a problem if we were worried about debt, but with interest rates so low, we aren't. It could also, however, be a problem if people and governments getting money they don't badly need spent a lot of it, creating inflationary pressure. The good news, then, is that a lot of those diffuse outlays won't be spent! Financially secure households will probably save their $1400, or if they spend it much of it will probably go to imported goods, which doesn't create inflation here at home. State and local governments that are in decent financial shape will probably add much of their aid to their rainy day funds rather than boost spending, which again reduces inflation pressure. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT In the jargon of economics, a large part of the relief package is likely to have low multiplier effects. This is normally a bad thing, but right now it's actually a good thing: it means that we can aid those in need without worrying too much about the side effects. The point is that weird times call for weird economic thinking. This is no time to be conventional. Quick Hits Larry Summers and yours truly debate pandemic relief. The last round of pandemic checks were mostly saved. State and local budgets in the pandemic. Why we aren't worried about debt. Feedback If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to friends. They can sign up here. If you want to share your thoughts on an item in this week's newsletter or on the newsletter in general, please email me at krugman-newsletter@nytimes.com. Facing the Music Remember live music?YouTube As vaccinations gather pace, I'm looking forward to CONCERTS! This was the last one I attended before life closed in. IN THE TIMES Biden and the Fed Leave 1970s Inflation Fears Behind Administration and Fed officials argue that workers not getting enough stimulus help is a larger concern than potential spikes in consumer prices. By Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek Inflation Isn't Lurking Around the Corner. This Isn't the 1970s. Democrats need to shelve the memory of stagflation. By Binyamin Appelbaum I Actually Like Teaching on Zoom There may be less human warmth. But there can be more human connection. By Viet Thanh Nguyen Biden Administration Moves to End Work Requirements in Medicaid It is a reversal of the Trump administration's policy of allowing states to tether work to health insurance. By Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz Read the full Opinion report here. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for Paul Krugman from The New York Times. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018