News & Updates
Hawaii Appleseed's Gavin Thornton Discusses $100 Million CARES Act Housing Support for Hawaii's Families
Gavin Thornton, Executive Director of the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, discusses recent legislation passed that will provide $100 million of CARES Act funds to folks in need of rental and mortgage support, and why this assistance is necessary to shield the state from even greater costs in the future.
(Updated) Modeling Suggests Substantial Increases In The Financial Vulnerability Of Hawaii's Families
Although the specifics of COVID-19’s economic effects on Hawaii remain unclear, our modeling suggest impacts on households of all income levels. Based on preliminary results, we estimate that nearly 134,000—approximately 30 percent—of all Hawaii households stand to bear a significant loss of income (defined as a loss in household income greater than 25 percent) due to the effects of the pandemic on the local economy.
Anonymized Testing Outcomes Database (ATOB) Could Increase Precision of Reopening Policies in Hawaii
An anonymized testing outcomes database (ATOB) that provides daily aggregated counts of asymptomatic as well as symptomatic cases could save Hawaii an additional $300 million in economic costs over non-ATOB reopening strategies.
Finding the Trade-Off Sweet Spot: Relatively Modest Health System Investments Could Reduce Hawaii’s Economic Losses by Billions
We used our Hawaii Population Model to explore the interplay between the medical resources needed to combat COVID-19 and their associated economic impacts, given current conditions over the next two months. We ran scenarios of every possible combination of health system parameters, with their associated economic costs, iterating and reiterating the model until every combination of infection mitigation strategies had been tested.
Contact Tracing versus Contact Tracking
Among the many new terms that have crept into our daily language, contact tracing has become one of the most frequently heard in connection with COVID-19. Contact tracing is a traditional public health strategy that has been used to fight the spread of everything from the common flu to the AIDS virus. We often hear public health officials talk about the need to employ contract tracing to not only get the current pandemic under control but to keep the virus from flaring up once we start to reopen cities and states.