🖥️ SDA webinar on ADA requests related to Covid 💊 Paxlovid exists but privileged few are prescribed 💔 Workers at nursing homes are still dying of covid 🕯️
Today’s American right-wing is more extreme than Nixon when it comes to protecting fossil fuel interests over public health or social good.
Contents:
- Events, Actions, & Campaigns
- Pandemic field notes & “Living with the virus”
- In the News (virus & adjacent media, science, news, and op-eds)
- This is NOT Fine section (gaslighting & other outrages)
- He(a)rd Scuttlebutt (the pandemic grapevine)
Webinar on requesting ADA accommodations related to COVID
Tuesday Jun 27, 2023 12:30 - 2:00 pm (PST)
By Senior and Disability Action (SDA): We're holding this webinar on requesting ADA accommodations related to COVID in order to support as many people as possible in making requests and getting them approved. Join us! https://bit.ly/ADAInHealthcare
USA Letter Campaign: to the U.S. Senate, Medicare should track Healthcare Acquired Covid and require masks to prevent it
By People’s CDC: Please join us in sending a clear message to your Senator that you demand them to call on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to require protections and universal masking in healthcare settings, continued reporting of healthcare acquired COVID infections, and to count COVID as one of several other conditions in reducing payments to hospital for healthcare services.
The elevator guidelines at some hospitals are more humane and scientific than in some hospital wards.
🗞️ In the news
🇦🇺 The Conversation: Who’s taking COVID antivirals like Paxlovid? Hint: it helps if you’re rich. Published: June 21, 2023, by Nicole Allard Their analysis showed people living in the most disadvantaged postcodes were 15% less likely to receive oral antivirals compared with those in the most advantaged postcodes. Those in the most disadvantaged postcodes were supplied with the antivirals on average a day later (three days versus two days) than those in the most advantaged postcodes. There are some limitations to our analysis. Not everyone who tests for COVID reports their positive result. And we suspect there may be more under-reporting of infections in disadvantaged areas. Nevertheless, our findings about the influence of disadvantage on antiviral supply are not surprising. In the United States, there have been similar results.
🏥 Mercury News - Opinion: California health care providers’ retreat from COVID masking is shameful. In what universe is it ethically appropriate for physicians and hospitals to infect their own patients with COVID? By Dr. Noha Aboelata. May 5, 2023 Organized medicine’s retreat from masking is shameful. It is not data driven, and there is no experiential evidence to support the decision to de-mask. That is why hospital-issued statements fail to cite science for their policy changes. Instead, faceless committees issue platitudes about being in a “new phase” and reference available treatments. But they paper over the very problem they are creating: In what universe is it ethically appropriate for health care institutions to infect their own patients with SARS-CoV-2 when masking so effectively reduces its spread?
🇺🇸 KQED - Patients Are Waiting Days for Care in Some California ERs. by Lesley McClurg Jun 16 2023 Long wait times inside emergency departments are not new. And neither are staff shortages, but both have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Hospitals are flooded by patients who have delayed care in recent years, and there aren’t enough nurses to meet the demand. Burnout hit an all-time high during COVID, which inspired many health care workers to retire early. “The system was broken before the pandemic,” Fenton said. “It’s in shards now.” Even Hernandez can’t get into a clinic to see a specialist for himself — he needs to see a gastroenterologist for some preventive care. He called his health plan recently; the next available appointment is four months out. California will have the largest physician shortages of any state in coming years, according to a 2020 study that found the state’s doctor shortage is expected to top 32,000 physician jobs over the next decade. “It’s hard,” said Hernandez, of the California Medical Association. “It will get nothing but worse.” The problem starts with medical school. The number of students in training is not rising fast enough to fill empty slots.
🇺🇸 Government Executive - With Feds Working 'Wherever Their Hearts Desire,' Agencies Should Sell Off More Buildings, Lawmakers Say. Officials contend bureaucratic tussling is preventing agencies from making billions in federal property sales. JUNE 8, 2023 By ERIC KATZ Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the committee’s ranking member, said agencies’ square footage needs have been reduced thanks to telework policies that allow “employees to work wherever their hearts desire,” though the Biden administration is currently calling on employees to report to their offices more frequently.
🇺🇸 Government Executive - Draft spending bill cuts telework and bans transgender care for feds, but preserves 5.2% pay raise plan. A House subcommittee's fiscal 2024 spending bill does nothing to override the president’s planned average pay increase for federal workers next year, but it is riddled with policy riders. By ERICH WAGNER, JUNE 22, 2023 Among the many policy riders in the legislation are provisions directing federal agencies to roll back their telework policies to pre-pandemic levels within 30 days of the bill’s enactment, much like the House-passed SHOW UP Act, and placing new limits on how federal employees can use some of their non-salary benefits. The bill includes the Hyde Amendment, a long-running policy rider preventing federal funding from going toward abortion services, including via the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. And it introduces a new provision that would bar FEHBP from covering gender affirming care, such as surgery, hormone therapy or puberty blockers, for transgender federal workers or their family members.
🇺🇸 Mississippi Free Press: Mississippi Must Grant Religious Exemptions For Childhood Vaccines, Federal Judge Rules. By Ashton Pittman by Ashton Pittman, April 20, 2023 Mississippi’s compulsory childhood immunization requirements include a vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; for polio; for hepatitis B; for measles, mumps and rubella; and for chickenpox. The State does not mandate COVID-19 vaccines. Mississippi has the highest childhood vaccination rate in the nation, a fact that MSDH has attributed to strict vaccine laws. While other states with more permissive vaccine laws have reported measles outbreaks in recent years, Mississippi has not reported a case originating in the state in decades.
🛳️ Insider.com - 177 sickened with norovirus on the Celebrity Summit. Gastrointestinal illness outbreaks on ships are on the rise this year. By Sarah Gray, Jun 5, 2023 Twenty-five crew members and 152 of the 2,144 passengers onboard the May 15 to May 25, 2023 voyage of the Celebrity Summit reported norovirus symptoms, according to a notice issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Norovirus, often called the stomach flu, can quickly spread via particles from vomit and poop, through contaminated surfaces, tainted food and water, and contact with people who have the virus. It is also notoriously difficult to contain.
🇺🇸 Forbes - What Influenced District Decisions To Extend Distance Learning During The Pandemic. New Research Has An Idea (And It’s Not The Teachers Union). By Peter Greene Apr 29, 2023 Weber and Baker found a direct correlation. The more adequate a district’s spending was, the more likely it was to have more days of face-to-face schooling; the less adequate, the more likely to have more days of distance learning. They are careful to point out that this correlation, like all the correlations shown for other factors, does not mean causation. But as we make efforts to look at the complex web of factors that were involved in choosing, or not, distance learning options, this factor deserves to be on the list.
🇺🇸 Boston 25 News - Officials: New COVID outbreak at Chelsea Veterans’ Home likely originated from recreational event. By Maria Papadopoulos, June 05, 2023 A recreational event held recently at the Veterans’ Home in Chelsea is believed to be the origin of a new COVID outbreak at the facility, state officials said Monday. A state Department of Public Health “rapid response team” arrived at the facility at 91 Crest Ave. on Friday to assist with staffing, officials said. As of Monday afternoon, 15 residents and 10 staff members have tested positive for coronavirus at the Veterans’ Home in Chelsea, Veterans’ Services Secretary Jon Santiago said in a statement.
🇺🇸 MCKNIGHT'S LONG-TERM CARE NEWS - Life Care Centers vindicated in early COVID wrongful death case. By Kimberly Marselas, MAY 23, 2023 The plaintiffs had argued that the facility should have updated isolation protocols as early as late February, weeks ahead of when federal regulators issued guidance on COVID infection prevention. “The jury rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that influenza protocols would have prevented COVID-19 from entering our facility and spreading as rapidly as it did,” the company told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News in a statement Monday.
🇺🇸 Star Advertiser - Hilo nursing home outbreak includes 93 COVID cases By Nina Wu May 22, 2023 The Hawaii Department of Health said it was notified in early April of the outbreak at Life Care Center of Hilo, and has been providing technical assistance to the facility. As of today, the facility has reported a total of 93 cases, including 76 residents and 17 staff. One resident who tested positive for COVID died after being transferred to the hospital, according to DOH. After implementing heightened infection prevention measures in consultation with DOH, the number of new cases has slowed.
This is NOT fine
Workers at nursing homes are still dying of covid in 2023.
Dying of a completely preventable disease while working with the people who should be getting the most “focused protection” in society, right? If covid was circulating so much less, and covid strains now were less serious, and if covid had become “seasonal” now, why are nursing home workers still dying in spring 2023? Why are they dying at all when it’s a completely preventable infectious disease? Some doctors think we don’t need PPE for covid anymore, and somebody ought to be telling them otherwise. We all need to tell them, and our representatives in government.
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Paxlovid Underuse
I keep hearing of stories about senior citizens testing positive for covid and being told by doctors that they can’t have Paxlovid. The reason the doctors in these stories give make no sense at all. Such as saying wrongly that covid isn’t that bad anymore - well that’s only because we have treatments like Paxlovid! Or in other cases the doctors say that it’s only for severe cases - but Paxlovid is specifically to prevent severity - you have to take it before it’s severe! Doctors need to be better informed and someone needs to mandate that. I keep writing The White House demanding that doctors be required to be better informed about “the tools” and to require that doctors have a good reason for NOT prescribing Paxlovid to elderly people with covid. And to do better to promote vaccine boosters, especially for seniors who are at least not being restricted from getting them.
⚠️ CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) - Trends in Laboratory-Confirmed SARS-CoV-2 Reinfections and Associated Hospitalizations and Deaths Among Adults Aged ≥18 Years — 18 U.S. Jurisdictions, September 2021–December 2022 - Weekly / June 23, 2023 Cases and severe outcomes associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection have increased across the United States since September 2021. CDC recommends staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations and receiving early antiviral treatment, if eligible, to reduce the risk for severe COVID-19–associated outcomes.
Today’s American right-wing is more extreme than Nixon, who created the EPA and passed the Clean Air Act after public pressure and the first Earth Day.
The Guardian - Rightwing war on ‘woke capitalism’ partly driven by fossil fuel interests and allies. Report shows connections of business and rightwing thinktanks to laws aimed at environmental, social and corporate governance. by Dharna Noor Thu 22 Jun 2023 The American right wing’s widening fight against what it calls “woke capitalism” is partly driven by fossil fuel interests or industry allies, according to a new report published on Thursday. Conservatives often use the term “woke capitalism” to refer to environmental, social and corporate governance – or ESG – criteria used to screen investments based on their environmental and social implications.
From Jane Mayer, Dark Money. The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, January 2016:
“In developing regulations the EPA was directed to weigh only one concern: public health. The costs to industry were explicitly deemed irrelevant.”
“the Clean Air Act’s standards are absolute, and not subject to cost benefit analysis”
Public health and human lives should not be subject to cost benefit analysis. This should be obvious to anyone on the side of the humans.
“It’s like the effectiveness of our vaccines are tied to the effectiveness of the nonpharmaceutical interventions many countries have willfully abandoned, letting COVID evolve largely unimpeded. And the damage extends far beyond immune reaction. Long COVID is proving hideous in all its manifestations.”
Rob Wallace, evolutionary epidemiologist, on People’s CDC Covid This Week, Apr 30, 2023