Search

We test whether European countries or US states who experienced their first death from COVID-19 at a later date have fewer deaths from COVID  60 and 100 days after the start of the pandemic in their borders. Our sample consists of 29 European countries associated with the European Union and 50 U.S. states and we control for a number of demographic, economic and health-policy related factors that are likely to influence mortality. We find that late starting countries or states registered fewer deaths from COVID-19. Countries/states’ differential reliance on partial or complete lockdown policies helps explain an areas' advantage of being a late starter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether native-immigrant differences in mathematics test scores can be accounted for by a lack of English proficiency. To identify the causal effect of English proficiency on test scores, I use the fact that language proficiency is closely linked to age at arrival, and that migrant children arrive at different ages from different countries. Using US data from the New Immigrant Survey, I find that English proficiency has no effect on mathematics tests and therefore they can be used to assess students’ ability net of language effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of fatal bacterial pneumonia in young children. Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines have not been promoted for use in young children because many constituent serotypes are not immunogenic in children < 2 years old. Conjugating pneumococcal polysaccharide epitopes to a protein carrier would likely increase vaccine immunogenicity in children. We reviewed published and unpublished pneumococcal serotype and serogroup data from 16 countries on 6 continents to determine geographic and temporal differences in serotype and serogroup distribution of sterile site pneumococcal isolates among children and to estimate coverage of proposed and potential pneumococcal conjugate vaccine formulas. The most common pneumococcal serotypes or groups from developed countries were, in descending order, 14, 6, 19, 18, 9, 23, 7, 4, 1 and 15. In developing countries the order was 6, 14, 8, 5, 1, 19, 9, 23, 18, 15 and 7. Development of customized heptavalent vaccine formulas, one for use in all developed countries and one for use in all developing countries, would not provide substantially better coverage against invasive pneumococcal disease than two currently proposed heptavalent formulas. An optimal nanovalent vaccine for global use would include serotypes 1, 5, 6B, 7F, 9V, 14, 18C, 19F and 23F. Geographic and temporal variation in pneumococcal serotypes demonstrates the need for a species-wide pneumococcal vaccine.