All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Florida hospitals stretched to capacity by acute coronavirus outbreak | US news | The Guardian

In reaction to this surge, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) announced it would send 1,500 nurses to Florida. Jackson Memorial in Miami was one of the hospitals that received them, as did some facilities in Tampa.

Meanwhile, the Covid-19 outbreak has also crept into the state’s many nursing homes. In the course of one month, infections among nursing home residents have tripled to nearly 5,000 residents, according to state data.

“When you’re dealing with nursing homes and assisted living facilities, you’re dealing with a lot of vulnerable people,” said Dr Joseph Ouslander, a professor of integrated medicine at Florida Atlantic University and a past president of the American Geriatrics Society. “It’s a tinderbox – one person can set the place on fire and kill a lot of people.”

 

Source: Florida hospitals stretched to capacity by acute coronavirus outbreak | US news | The Guardian

FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus – The New York Times

Nursing home employees across the country have been dismayed by what they’ve found when they’ve opened boxes of protective medical gear sent by the federal government, part of a $134 million effort to provide facilities a 14-day supply of equipment considered critical for shielding their vulnerable residents from the coronavirus.

The shipments have included loose gloves of unknown provenance stuffed into unmarked Ziploc bags, surgical masks crafted from underwear fabric and plastic isolation gowns without openings for hands that require users to punch their fists through the closed sleeves. Adhesive tape must be used to secure them.

Health regulators in California have advised nursing homes not to use the gowns, saying they present an infection-control risk, especially when doffing contaminated gowns that must be torn off.

Some nursing homes have received masks with brittle elastic bands that snap when stretched. None of the shipments have included functional N95 respirators, the virus-filtering face masks that are the single most important bulwark against infection.

“People hate to complain about personal protective equipment they’re getting for free but many of these items are just useless,” said Brendan Williams, president of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, which has been a fielding a flurry of calls about the defective gear from nursing homes it represents. “It’s mystifying that the government would think this is acceptable.”

DNA Study from 23andMe Traces Violent History of American Slavery – The New York Times

More than one and a half centuries after the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended, a new study shows how the brutal treatment of enslaved people has shaped the DNA of their descendants.

The report, which included more than 50,000 people, 30,000 of them with African ancestry, agrees with the historical record about where people were taken from in Africa, and where they were enslaved in the Americas. But it also found some surprises.

For example, the DNA of participants from the United States showed a significant amount of Nigerian ancestry — far more than expected based on the historical records of ships carrying enslaved people directly to the United States from Nigeria.

All the US Retail Chains Requiring Masks: Full List – The New York Times – (Economic health depends on healthy people!)

Large retail chains have started requiring customers to wear masks inside all of their stores, as coronavirus cases surge across the country and politicians and public health experts clamor for widespread use of face coverings to stem the spread of the disease.

After Walmart, America’s largest retailer, announced on July 15 that it would mandate in-store mask-wearing, a flurry of other companies, including Kroger, Target and Walgreens, followed suit. This means that customers will be required to wear face masks in stores even in places without local mask ordinances. The National Retail Federation has encouraged companies to set nationwide mask policies to protect employees and shoppers.

Philadelphia school reopening plan put on hold after outcry amid coronavirus fears

If the Philadelphia School District reopens classrooms to most children two days a week in September, it will do so over the objections of many of its principals, teachers, parents, and students.

In no uncertain terms Thursday night, more than 100 members of the public blasted the plan developed by Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., saying it would neither keep children and staff safe nor offer a robust educational experience.

 

Source: Philadelphia school reopening plan put on hold after outcry amid coronavirus fears

Texas hospital turns away coronavirus patients likely to die | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“For all of those patients that most certainly do not have any hope of improving, they are going to be better taken care of within their own family in the love of their own home rather than thousands of miles away dying alone in a hospital room,” he said.

As the situation has gone from promising at beginning of the pandemic to desperate, the county judge will soon issue a stay-at-home order.

“Unfortunately, Starr County Memorial Hospital has limited resources and our doctors are going to have to decide who receives treatment, and who is sent home to die by their loved ones,” Vera said in a Wednesday news release. “This is what we did not want our community to experience.”

 

Source: Texas hospital turns away coronavirus patients likely to die | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

School re-opening is a top issue in 2020 election – Los Angeles Times

“It’s one of the most fundamental issues right now. Particularly for parents, this is the issue,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster. “Trump can talk about defunding the police or Confederate statues, but I can tell you the No. 1 concern on the minds of parents is whether or not their kids can safely go back to school, and if not how are they going to get through the school year.”

While Trump has staked a mostly hard-line stance, many parents, school administrators and health officials see a more complicated calculus. Research shows children, especially younger ones, largely do not get seriously ill from COVID-19, but their role in spreading the virus to adults such as teachers and other school employees, or family members back home, appears to vary by age. Other countries that have successfully opened schools did so when outbreaks of the virus were largely controlled, while the United States continues to see surging spread.

Trump’s threat to withhold money rankled Tiffany Jones, a hospice nurse from Indianapolis. Juggling her administrative work from home and helping her son with his kindergarten classes was nearly impossible in the spring, but Jones, a 44-year-old cancer survivor, said she feared she could contract the virus from him if he went to school. She worried the school’s meal program, which continued to provide food for her son, could be at risk under Trump’s plan.

“I don’t agree with him cutting funding if schools don’t open,” said Jones, a member of ParentsTogether, a national advocacy group. “I don’t agree with that at all.”

Trump’s blunt position has fallen flat with voters, according to multiple polls. An Associated Press survey on Monday found the public disapproved of Trump’s handling of education issues by a 2-to-1 margin. Another poll by Quinnipiac University found that among Republicans, where the president usually commands near unanimous backing, just two-thirds of respondents approved his actions. His numbers cratered outside his party, especially among women: only 20% of independents and 3% of Democratic women backed the president.

 

Source: School re-opening is a top issue in 2020 election – Los Angeles Times