Higher COVID-19 Vaccination And Narrower Disparities In US Cities With Paid Sick Leave Compared To Those Without.

Paid sick leave provides workers with paid time off to receive COVID-19 vaccines and to recover from potential vaccine adverse effects. We hypothesized that US cities with paid sick leave would have higher COVID-19 vaccination coverage and narrower coverage disparities than those without such policies. Using county-level vaccination data and paid sick leave data from thirty-seven large US cities in 2021, we estimated the association between city-level paid sick leave policies and vaccination coverage in the working-age population and repeated the analysis using coverage in the population ages sixty-five and older as a negative control. We also examined associations by neighborhood social vulnerability. Cities with a paid sick leave policy had 17 percent higher vaccination coverage than cities without such a policy. We found stronger associations between paid sick leave and vaccination in the most socially vulnerable neighborhoods compared with the least socially vulnerable ones, and no association in the population ages sixty-five and older. Paid sick leave policies are associated with higher COVID-19 vaccination coverage and narrower coverage disparities. Increasing access to these policies may help increase vaccination and reduce inequities in coverage.

The Impact of Keeping Indoor Dining Closed on COVID-19 Rates Among Large US Cities: A Quasi-Experimental Design.

BACKGROUND: Indoor dining is one of the potential drivers of COVID-19 transmission. We used the heterogeneity among state government preemption of city indoor dining closures to estimate the impact of keeping indoor dining closed on COVID-19 incidence. METHODS: We obtained case rates and city or state reopening dates from March to October 2020 in 11 US cities. We categorized cities as treatment cities that were allowed by the state to reopen but kept indoor dining closed or comparison cities that would have kept indoor dining closed but that were preempted by their state and had to reopen indoor dining. We modeled associations using a difference-in-difference approach and an event study specification. We ran negative binomial regression models, with city-day as the unit of analysis, city population as an offset, and controlling for time-varying nonpharmaceutical interventions, as well as city and time fixed effects in sensitivity analysis and the event study specification. RESULTS: Keeping indoor dining closed was associated with a 55% (IRR = 0.45; 95% confidence intervals = 0.21, 0.99) decline in the new COVID-19 case rate over 6 weeks compared with cities that reopened indoor dining, and these results were consistent after testing alternative modeling strategies. CONCLUSIONS: Keeping indoor dining closed may be directly or indirectly associated with reductions in COVID-19 spread. Evidence of the relationship between indoor dining and COVID-19 case rates can inform policies to restrict indoor dining as a tailored strategy to reduce COVID-19 incidence. See video abstract at, http://links.lww.com/EDE/B902.

Indoor Dining and In-Person Learning: A Comparison of 30 US Cities.

With limited US federal leadership on closing and re-opening strategies to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, cities and states were left to enact their own policies. This article examines two key sets of policies-in-person learning in public elementary schools and indoor dining-across 30 of the largest US cities in the summer, fall, and winter of 2020. We review indoor dining and in-person elementary education policy decisions between 1 May 2020 and 14 December 2020 across 30 US cities. We review the public health evidence, political power, and jurisdictional challenges that cities faced, and the policy implications of these factors. Overwhelmingly, indoor dining re-opened in cities while in-person elementary schools were kept closed; indoor dining re-opened in all cities in fall 2020, while only 40% of public elementary schools re-opened for in-person instruction. Looking ahead to fully bringing students back for in-person learning, and considering future potential community outbreaks, this retrospective analysis can help inform city and state governments on policy decisions around indoor dining and reopening/closing schools for in-person learning.