• Transmission Dynamics of COVID-19 Outbreaks Associated with Child Care Facilities — Salt Lake City, Utah, April–July 2020

• Prevalence of Underlying Medical Conditions Among Selected Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers — Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 31 States, 2017–2018
• Delay or Avoidance of Medical Care Because of COVID-19–Related Concerns — United States, June 2020
• Community and Close Contact Exposures Associated with COVID-19 Among Symptomatic Adults ≥18 Years in 11 Outpatient Health Care Facilities — United States, July 2020

HUD AWARDS NEARLY $2 BILLION IN CARES ACT RELIEF FUNDS, FOCUSING ON COMMUNITIES WITH HIGHER RISK OF EVICTION

WASHINGTON - United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson today announced the allocation of the remaining $1.988 billion in CARES Act funding for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. The allocation focuses funds towards places with households facing higher risk of eviction. To date, HUD has provided nearly $5 billion in CDBG funding nationwide to help communities combat the coronavirus and alleviate economic hardship.

• Communities with high rates of individuals in industries with high job loss in states with high unemployment;
• Communities with high rates of businesses in industries with high job loss in states with high unemployment; and
• Concentrations of those most at risk for transmission and risk of eviction, with higher amounts for states with high rates of coronavirus.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Output down 11.2 percent, hours worked down 13.6 percent from 2019

From the second quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2020, nonfarm business output decreased 11.2 percent and hours worked decreased 13.6 percent, resulting in a 2.8-percent increase in productivity.

These data are from the Labor Productivity and Costs program. To learn more, see Productivity and Costs — Second Quarter 2020, Revised. Also see Charts related to the latest "Productivity and Costs" news release. Labor productivity, or output per hour, is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of hours worked by all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers. BLS calculates unit labor costs as the ratio of hourly compensation to labor productivity.

Number of unemployed people per job opening drops to 2.5 in July 2020

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020

On the last business day of July 2020, there were 6.6 million job openings and 16.3 million unemployed people during July 2020. This yielded a ratio of unemployed people to job openings of 2.5 for July, down from 3.0 in June.

From March 2018 to February 2020, the ratio of unemployed people per job opening had been below 1.0. The number of unemployed people per job opening reached 1.2 in March 2020 and has steadily decreased since April 2020, when it reached 4.6.

These data are from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and are seasonally adjusted. Job openings data for the most recent month are preliminary. To learn more, see "Job Openings and Labor Turnover — July 2020." Also see more charts made showing job openings, hires, and separations data.

Texas expands and improves measures of COVID-19 positivity rate 

The Texas Department of State Health Services today will begin reporting two additional measures of the COVID-19 positivity rate, the percentage of tests that are positive in a given period. The update is the result of DSHS’s work to enhance the state’s COVID-19 data in partnership with the Governor’s Strike Force.

While DSHS will continue to post the data in the form Texans are used to, DSHS will primarily rely on the positivity rate calculated according to when people were tested, the specimen collection date, which provides the most accurate view of the pandemic’s effect over time. Because all test results received will be counted by when the test occurred, the rate for previous days will change as that information becomes more complete, and it will not be skewed by delays in reporting test results to the state.

“These enhancements are part of our continuous effort to improve the information we present,” said Dr. John Hellerstedt, DSHS commissioner. “As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, so must the data we share. Our information must provide the clearest possible picture of what is happening now and what has occurred in the past. The trends in this and other data shape our understanding of what to expect in the future.”

As an additional point of reference, DSHS will also post a rate based on when lab results were reported to the state. Both new methods will use positive and total molecular test results reported in NEDSS, the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System, and be calculated as a seven-day average. They will also exclude duplicate or other erroneous lab results. Recent upgrades to NEDSS now allow DSHS to clean up the testing data more quickly to be used in the positivity calculations.

The state’s legacy positivity rate used the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases over seven days divided by the number of new molecular test results over the same seven days. That method served as a reliable proxy for the overall COVID-19 trend for most of the pandemic. However, an influx of older test results in August caused new cases and new test results to get out of sync, leading to large swings in the positivity rate and the need to reevaluate methods to calculate it.

The positivity rate by specimen collection date shows a peak in late June and July as Texas saw a dramatic increase in the number of COVID-19 cases reported in the state. The other methods mirror the same overall trend until diverging when the older test results began to be reported in August. DSHS will post all three methods for a time to allow for a continued comparison.

Each day, more than 600 clinical laboratories and other testing providers, 600 hospitals, 57 local health entities and the eight DSHS public health regions submit data about COVID-19 to DSHS where it is quickly analyzed and reported to the public to the provide the most up-to-date information possible. DSHS will continue to work with the Strike Force on further improvements.