Seattle touts 99% compliance with employee vaccine mandate hours before deadline | The Seattle Times

Just hours before the deadline, the city of Seattle reported Monday morning that 99% of its employees are in compliance with the mayor’s vaccine mandate.

By 11:59 p.m. Monday, all Seattle city employees have to be vaccinated against COVID-19, per an August order by Mayor Jenny Durkan. As of Monday morning, 94% of the city’s 11,000 employees had been vaccinated and an additional 5% have filed paperwork to be exempted from the order. The remaining 150, or about 1%, had not yet complied.

At a news conference Monday, Durkan said she was “so proud” of the compliance numbers, and made a last minute plea to those who hadn’t filed paperwork.

Source: Seattle touts 99% compliance with employee vaccine mandate hours before deadline | The Seattle Times

Texas Physician Found Guilty for Unlawfully Prescribing Over 1.3 Million Doses of Opioids | OPA | Department of Justice

A federal jury convicted a Houston-area physician for unlawfully prescribing more than 1.3 million doses of opioids.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Parvez Qureshi, 56, of Houston, Texas, a medical doctor, conspired to and did unlawfully prescribe controlled substances from 2014 through February 2016 for patients at Spring Shadows Medical Clinic of Houston (Spring Shadows), a clinic owned by Rubeena Ayesha, an advanced practice nurse practitioner. Ayesha, 52, of Houston, previously pleaded guilty to participating in the scheme and is awaiting sentencing before U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt of the Southern District of Texas.

Trial evidence showed that Qureshi issued unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances to over 90 people on the clinic’s busiest days. So-called “runners” brought numerous people to pose as patients at Spring Shadows and paid for their visits. Spring Shadows charged approximately $250-$500 for each patient visit and required payment in cash.

The evidence also showed that Qureshi pre-signed prescriptions for controlled substances and issued prescriptions for patients who were not evaluated by a physician. Throughout the scheme, Qureshi wrote prescriptions for over 1.3 million dosage units of hydrocodone, and over 40,000 dosage units of oxycodone, both Schedule II controlled substances. Ayesha wrote prescriptions for over one million dosage units of carisoprodol, commonly known as Soma, a Schedule IV controlled substance, usually for patients who had also been prescribed oxycodone or hydrocodone by Qureshi. The combination of oxycodone/hydrocodone and carisoprodol is a dangerous drug cocktail with no known medical benefit. The clinic made over $4 million from prescriptions issued in the scheme, over $1.5 million of which went to Qureshi.

Source: Texas Physician Found Guilty for Unlawfully Prescribing Over 1.3 Million Doses of Opioids | OPA | Department of Justice

Amazonian ecosystems and peoples on the brink – it is time for a new vision (commentary)

Evidence now provides a clear warning: deforestation, degradation, and climate change are together pushing the Amazon rapidly towards a point beyond which it may not be able to recover. In the last years, political instability in the region, simultaneously affecting different countries, correlates with increasing deforestation rates in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. Around 17% of the Pan-Amazon has been deforested, with an additional 17% considered as degraded. Connections between land and rivers mean that degradation also threatens freshwater species and ecosystems. Recent research results indicated that in parts of the Amazon, the forest switches from sink to a source of carbon due to climate change, deforestation, and forest degradation. Amazonian forests are susceptible to drought and fires, while floodplain systems are vulnerable to changes in flooding regimes. Land-use changes reinforce climate change, reducing forest resilience with risks for human health, food, and water security over vast regions of South America, including its southeastern part and the Andes, and the La Plata Basin in the Southern part of the continent whose precipitation depends significantly on the Amazon.

Source: Amazonian ecosystems and peoples on the brink – it is time for a new vision (commentary)

Australian official responds to Ted Cruz’s COVID-19 remarks | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Roberts’s deleted tweet said “the fact that Colin Powell died from a breakthrough COVID infection raises new concerns about how effective vaccines are long-term.”

It was met with an immediate backlash online, where plenty of those responding noted that Powell’s age and specific health history put him at a higher risk for COVID-19.

In a series of follow-up tweets, Roberts explained he’d deleted the tweet because it had been interpreted as being “anti-vax.”

Roberts said he had encouraged people to get vaccines and that he also though booster shots could be important

Source: Australian official responds to Ted Cruz’s COVID-19 remarks | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Fox News anchor deletes tweet suggesting Powell’s death ‘raises new concerns’ about vaccine efficacy | TheHill (Me: empathy, none. Dedication to facts, none. Insensitivity – first place!)

Roberts’s deleted tweet said “the fact that Colin Powell died from a breakthrough COVID infection raises new concerns about how effective vaccines are long-term.”

It was met with an immediate backlash online, where plenty of those responding noted that Powell’s age and specific health history put him at a higher risk for COVID-19.

In a series of follow-up tweets, Roberts explained he’d deleted the tweet because it had been interpreted as being “anti-vax.”

Roberts said he had encouraged people to get vaccines and that he also though booster shots could be important

Source: Fox News anchor deletes tweet suggesting Powell’s death ‘raises new concerns’ about vaccine efficacy | TheHill

Victor Hugo

Pensamentos.me/VEM comigo!

“Ninguém poderá impedir o pensamento de voltar a uma ideia, como não podemos impedir o mar de voltar sempre a praia. Para o marinheiro isso chama-se maré; para o culpado isso se chama remorso. Deus agita a alma como agita os oceanos. “

Victor Hugo, livro Os Miseráveis

https://citações.in

Marii Freire Pereira

https://pensamentos.me/ VEM comigo!

Imagem: pinterest/ DKESCORPIO

Santarém, Pa 18 de outubro de 2021

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Afghanistan to start polio vaccination drive next month | News | DW | 18.10.2021

First campaign in three years

The campaign will be the first in more than three years aimed at all children in Afghanistan, with a total of 9.9 million children under the age of five, and more than 3 million in remote and previously inaccessible areas.

“This decision will allow us to make a giant stride in the efforts to eradicate polio,” Hervé Ludovic De Lys, UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

“To eliminate polio completely, every child in every household across Afghanistan must be vaccinated, and with our partners, this is what we are setting out to do,” he said.

Afghanistan’s new rulers had also committed to “providing security and assuring the safety of all health workers across the country, which is an essential prerequisite for the implementation of polio vaccination campaigns,” the UN said.

Source: Afghanistan to start polio vaccination drive next month | News | DW | 18.10.2021

Hospital COVID patients may owe thousands as insurance waivers end | CIDRAP

Out-of-pocket costs $1,500 to $3,800

A team led by University of Michigan researchers analyzed data on 4,075 COVID-19 hospitalizations of Americans with private or Medicare Advantage insurance from March to September 2020. The study used the IQVIA PharMetrics Plus for Academics Database, which collects claims data from multiple US insurers.

Among all patients, 33.8% were privately insured, 46.5% required intensive care unit (ICU) stays, and the average length of stay was 7.3 days (9.2 for ICU patients).

The investigators found that the vast majority of COVID-19 patients weren’t billed for hospital services such as room and board, suggesting that their insurance companies footed the bill. But patients who were responsible for payment were out thousands of dollars.

That means that COVID-19 patients who have sought emergency or hospital care since that time could face out-of-pocket costs of roughly $3,800 (for those with private insurance), while those with Medicare Advantage plans could pay $1,500, the researchers said. Total out-of-pocket costs were higher than $4,000 for 2.5% of privately insured patients, compared with 0.2% of Medicare patients.

The out-of-pocket costs are just a small fraction of total hospital charges, however. The authors said that insurers cap hospitalization costs of COVID-19 patients with private insurance at, on average, $42,200, while the cap is $21,400 for those using Medicare.

Source: Hospital COVID patients may owe thousands as insurance waivers end | CIDRAP

Beyond tree planting: When to let forests restore themselves

  • Tree-planting schemes are common these days, and they’re touted as one of the best tools we have to combat climate change, species extinction, and other environmental crises.
  • But natural regeneration — allowing forests to reestablish themselves — is increasingly being recognized as a more cost-effective strategy for meeting ambitious forest restoration targets.
  • Natural regeneration can occur on its own, just by stepping back and letting trees grow. But sometimes it’s more effective to assist regeneration with measures such as putting up fences, removing weeds, and addressing the pressures that lead to logging and other disturbances.
  • Recent research focuses on identifying the conditions necessary for natural regeneration to occur.

In May, the U.K. Forestry Commission announced a grant program designed to encourage the creation of new English woodlands as a means of mitigating climate change, boosting biodiversity, and reducing flooding.

The program will make 15.9 million pounds ($21.7 million) available in its first year to “provide greater financial incentives for landowners and farmers to plant and manage trees,” according to a statement a Forestry Commission spokesperson provided to Mongabay. But tree planting isn’t the only woodland-creating activity the grant supports: For the first time ever, the British government will also pay landowners for allowing forests to naturally reestablish themselves.

Source: Beyond tree planting: When to let forests restore themselves

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