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COVID-19
Newsletter
Volume 8 | May 13th, 2020
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Dear Colleague,
The COVID-19 pandemic is declining in some areas but is surging in others. We continue to see the particularly devastating impact of the virus on low income, chronically under resourced communities around the world.
In the midst of this global crisis, we also see opportunities. This is a chance to reform systems; strengthen public health; address gaps in the global health security agenda; advance universal health coverage so that no one is left behind; and invest in the environmental programs and interventions needed to address the environmental threats we are facing before it is too late.
This is also a crisis for academia. The pandemic is putting extraordinary strains on this sector. At CUGH we are creating two task forces. One will look at how academia in global health programs can pivot to ensure that education and research programs can continue in a robust and equitable manner. The other will identify ways to address the financial threats to academia and global health programs. We will use solutions coming out of these task forces in our advocacy efforts.
Below you will see the links to access some of the COVID-19 webinars we have held and our upcoming ones. Please share them widely. They are rich in valuable information others can benefit from.
Thank you in advance for sharing this newsletter widely.
We hope you and yours stay safe under these difficult circumstances.
Best wishes,
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Keith Martin MD
Executive Director
CUGH
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This newsletter is divided into the following sections:
- Advocacy efforts
- Recent pandemic updates
- Resources for educators
- Resources for researchers
- Resources for health practitioners
- Member requests
- Other resources
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Join us for our upcoming webinar that showcases how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected low income communities in the US and what can be done to address these chronic socioeconomic disparities.
COVID-19 has shone a bright light on deep disparities in the United States. African-Americans, First Nations and other minority groups have sustained far higher rates of mortality and morbidity due to this pandemic. This reflects a chronic lack of access to opportunities, programs and services that create structural barriers to good health and social-economic advancement. This webinar will highlight these deep challenges and present policy solutions on how to address them.
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In a letter from CUGH's leadership to US Congress, CUGH denounced President Trump's decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization
and called on all congresspersons to work to reinstate these funds. Cutting funding to the WHO will eviscerate its capacity to address the current pandemic and the many other public health challenges the world faces.
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We are now at the moment to join forces across nations, sectors, scientific disciplines and civil society to stop the high-risk wildlife trade that is a major risk factor for a pandemic. Sign on to this letter to support these efforts.
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Friday, May 15, 2020 2:00 PM ET
Across America, incarcerated people are being hit hard by COVID-19. Lawmakers are facing pressure from criminal justice and civil rights organizations to provide better health care for incarcerated people and even release non-violent offenders, the elderly, and people in pre-trial detention.
On May 15, the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative at Brookings will host a webinar to discuss this endemic within the pandemic. An expert panel will provide a broad overview of the scope of the impact of COVID-19 on prisons, offer firsthand accounts of how disease outbreaks affect incarcerated people, and propose policy solutions for keeping incarcerated people, correctional staff, and their families safe and healthy during this time.
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Now as we face the unprecedented COVID-19 global crisis, DefeatDD is asking for one's advocacy on behalf of these children now battling its cascading effects: disrupted immunizations and supply chains, overwhelmed health systems, and worsening economies. These ripple effects threaten to unravel progress.
Basic tools like vaccines and hygiene remain inaccessible to low-resource settings where diarrhea is a killer. And these are the same tools that can carry families through COVID-19 and beyond.
Let’s turn COVID-19 into the catalyst for swift and successful actions against the systemic failures that trap communities in a cycle of poor health and poverty. Use these resources to raise your voice!
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The COVID-19 pandemic will inflict cataclysmic suffering throughout the world, with sweeping implications for human rights in global health. As human rights analysis has begun to assess the wide-ranging infringements of human rights amidst this unprecedented pandemic response, it will also be necessary to consider the implications of this response for the realization of the human right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (right to health). The right to health has evolved under international law to provide a foundation for public health prevention, healthcare services, social distancing measures, and global health solidarity in the COVID-19 response.
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COVID-19 is sweeping the world, and the burden on healthcare facilities is growing.
Stories
have begun to emerge from higher-resource countries, mainly in the US and Europe, about poor experiences for women giving birth in these circumstances. Some have been denied companions such as husbands or partners during childbirth, or have had their baby taken away from them afterwards. Some may have been neglected or not given information. As the pandemic reaches into more low-resource settings, including African countries, it is likely that more women will face similar experiences.
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This website from Johns Hopkins University is an outstanding resource to help advance the understanding of the virus, inform the public, and brief policymakers in order to guide a response, improve care, and save lives. It includes access to an interactive COVID-19 map.
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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 Center provides tailored guidance to keep people safe. The site also contains a number of resources on the virus, including cases, data, and surveillance.
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Since early March, governors have followed public health experts’ recommendations and issued stay-at-home executive orders to encourage social distancing to minimize coronavirus exposure and protect residents’ health and safety.
This chart describes each governor’s stay-at-home order, penalties for noncompliance, and the dates when governors plan to reopen their economies and resume non-essential, medical, surgical, and dental procedures. It does not include local restrictions imposed by counties or municipalities.
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Updates on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on higher education published throughout the day.
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Listen to a
discussion on whether, and how, to grade students during this very unique time of COVID-19 with expert panelists: Denise Pope, Ph.D., Stanford Lecturer and Co-Founder of Challenge Success, Joe Feldman, Ed.M., Founder of Crescendo Education Group, Stacy Caldwell, M.A., M.B.A., Executive Director or Mastery Transcript Consortium, and Randall Booker, Superintendent of Piedmont Unified School District.
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As the spread of the novel coronavirus has changed how educators around the world are supporting student learning, how can we center what’s important and not just what’s urgent? How can we design lessons for remote and online learning environments in which students engage in content, connect and collaborate, and learn new skills in an equitable way? Stanford CSET faculty director Janet Carlson and CSET professional development associate Christine Bywater answer questions during this virtual “office hours” session over Zoom and offer an overview of principles to guide viewers in choosing effective instructional practices and meaningful curriculum resources. A Q&A session follows with ways educators can plan for the reality of today and design a more equitable future for students.
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Residents and residency program directors have concerns about their training during the COVID-19 pandemic. With physical distancing guidelines in place and patient surges in certain areas overwhelming trainees and faculty members, didactic learning has been changed or put on hold.
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RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHERS
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COVID-19 has raised a plethora of ethical issues – from prevention and containment, to cure and management. Join leading experts to discuss these issues in a Bioethics Interest Group (BIG) webinar series focused on COVID-19 ethical considerations. Hosted by the Office of Research Excellence and moderated by Adnan Hyder, Senior Associate Dean for Research, these webinars will host ethics experts from George Washington University, the United States, and abroad to discuss key ethical dilemmas and principles precipitated by the pandemic. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions brought about during this unprecedented crisis.
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UCSF has launched a study to fight COVID-19 in 5 minutes a day!
Through this study, one will:
▸ Identify symptoms
▸ Help prevent infection
▸ Track the impact
Text COVID to 41-411 and UCSF will reply with a link to download the UCSF Eureka Research app. Use Study Key COVID19. Or, tap this link on your smartphone:
https://eureka.app.link/covid19
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When collecting COVID-19 data and modeling epidemic curves, we need to take more into account—in Africa and elsewhere. Learn more about data best practices in this article.
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The key objective is to celebrate, source, and supply innovations across
12 COVID-19 categories
(i.e. response areas). The growing list of
750+ featured innovations
includes those that are ready to deploy, plus innovations that could be adapted for COVID-19 responses, or inspire new, much-needed solutions. A smaller list is identified as
COVID-19 Recognized Innovations
for their response efforts so others can more easily find and use them. It is also actively
sourcing new innovations
designed in response to COVID-19.
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RESOURCES FOR HEALTH PRACTITIONERS
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This is the official World Health Organization mobile learning app for health workers seeking COVID-19 information. Brought to you by the WHO Academy, it focuses on providing them with critical, evidence-based information and tools to improve their skills and capabilities related to the pandemic.
Health workers need accurate, extensive, reliable, and timely information on COVID-19 to save lives and stay safe. This app delivers an efficient way to access WHO’s COVID-19 knowledge resources all in one place. It offers up-to-the-minute guidance, training, and virtual workshops to support health workers in caring for patients infected by COVID-19 – as well as how they can protect themselves as they do their critical work.
With content in six languages – Arabic Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish – the app is a convenient tool for accessing WHO’s rapidly expanding and evolving training materials and guidance, along with opportunities to participate in virtual classrooms and other live training.
It is available in the
Apple App Store
and the
Google Play Store
.
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The main goal of the study is to understand the practices and experiences of frontline healthcare workers during the current COVID-19 pandemic globally. Reseachers hope to use the collected information to inform current response efforts and advocate for future policy decision-making.
Taking part in this research is completely voluntary. If you choose to take part in this study, you will be asked to complete an online survey. The survey will take approximately 15 minutes of your time.
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This study provides data on the feasibility and impact of video-enabled telemedicine use among patients and providers, as well as its impact on urgent and non-urgent health care delivery from one large health system (NYU Langone Health) at the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.
The COVID-19 pandemic has driven rapid expansion of telemedicine use for urgent care and non-urgent care visits beyond baseline periods. This reflects an important change in telemedicine that other institutions facing the COVID-19 pandemic should anticipate.
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The purpose of the Omaha System Guidelines App is to provide evidence-based practice (EBP) guidelines/standardized care plans in coded format for use by healthcare practitioners and consumers. These Omaha System/SNOMED CT guidelines were developed using crowd-sourcing techniques by numerous stakeholders including scholars, clinical experts, and Omaha System experts.
In alignment with World Health Organization definition of guidelines, the Omaha System Guidelines App provides recommendations that tell the intended end-user what to do in specific situations to achieve the best health outcomes. Guidelines offer a choice among different interventions or measures having an anticipated positive impact on health and implications for the use of resources (WHO, 2014).
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The COVID-19 pandemic — and our response to this disease — has underscored deep, persistent societal inequities. The Emergency Preparedness, Ethics and Equity Series explores how we can continue to foster inclusive excellence and health equity during the most turbulent of times. Speakers explore ways to consistently apply culturally relevant, ethical and equitable decision-making so that the most vulnerable among us are not left further disenfranchised post-COVID-19. See previous webinars and stay tuned to future webinars
here
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This infographic highlights what states need to consider when providing pregnancy-related services to Medicaid enrollees through telehealth during the pandemic. Links to more tools and resources are listed below the infographic.
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The Stanford University webinar address strategies that healthcare professionals may utilize to manage their anxiety related to caring for patients with COVID-19 infection.
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The coronavirus outbreak has generated an immediate need for telehealth services to prevent further infections in the delivery of health care. Before the global pandemic, federal and state regulations around reimbursement and licensure requirements limited the use of telehealth. Private insurance programs and Medicaid have historically excluded telehealth from their coverage, and state parity laws have made it difficult to promote the adoption of telehealth platforms. Meanwhile, telehealth initiatives utilizing artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are providing new strategies for managing costs, creating more consistent medical access, and improving communication between patients and doctors. Whether through remote clinical health management or real-time patient monitoring, telehealth will increasingly become a necessity in health care, especially in assessing treatment options prior to any hospital visits.
The Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings and the John Locke Foundation hosted a webinar to discuss the findings of a forthcoming paper on the topic, as well as the state of regulations and how telehealth services can be supported in the future. Speakers explored obstacles in the provision of telehealth services and how these might change, given the necessity of remote health platforms and services to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
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This episode features Riley Wagner, MPH, who is a Global Program Management Fellow for CDC’s Center for Global Health Headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Riley was the first of currently 24 Fellows to be assigned to CDC’s Emergency Operations Center in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Riley discusses her experience on the EOC and elaborates on her work with the Cruise Ship Task Force.
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Explore how nursing can respond to the challenges posed by low resources and high societal uncertainty in the wake of COVID-19.
The course covers the following learning outcomes:
- Identify key characteristics of COVID-19 and their effect on vulnerable populations
- Evaluate approaches to strengthening health systems
- Reflect on the impact of public health crises in your context
- Describe the characteristics of effective healthcare interventions
- Discuss the applications of data analytics in decision-making
- Apply ethical frameworks to clinical practice in complex situations
- Reflect on the role of leadership in responding to public health crises
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You are invited to participate in a brief anonymous survey that will ask you about your experiences of online communication with friends and your wellbeing prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are no right or wrong answers to any of the questions. Your responses are important for scientists to learn about connecting online with friends.
If you have any questions about this study, you may contact Dr. Jaana Juvonen, Professor, Department of Psychology, UCLA,
Juvonen@psych.ucla.edu.
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Columbia University hosted a webinar to discuss mechanisms in reducing transmission for COVID-19.
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This paper provides recommendations from the International Pediatric Association for children’s health and healthcare during COVID-19. The IPA highlights the health needs of children and outlines priorities for preserving newborn, child and adolescent health during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond, where social distancing and lockdowns threaten access to routine care and preventive services. Their primary focus is on maintaining systems of primary care for children; however, much of this paper is also applicable to specialty and subspecialty care.
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Stony Brook University’s
iCREATE
Lab has delivered 5,000 3D-printed face shields to caregivers on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus at Stony Brook Medicine.
The final delivery to Stony Brook University Hospital occurred on Friday, April 17, culminating
a project that started in early March
. Face shields have been delivered to Stony Brook University Hospital, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, the Long Island State Veterans Home and the coronavirus testing site and field ER at Stony Brook University’s South P Lot off Stony Brook Road.
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This was the first of a bi-weekly webinar series highlighting the work of global health clinicians and leaders during the pandemic crisis in an effort to keep staff and affiliates informed.
UCSF's Institute for Global Health Sciences' inaugural topic focused on a robust contact tracing program driven by the Institute for Global Health Sciences' Mike Reid, MD, Jess Celentano. MS and their team of volunteers in partnership with the San Francisco Department of Health.
Contact tracing, a core disease control measure employed by local and state health department personnel for decades, is a key strategy for preventing further spread of COVID-19. Immediate action is needed. Communities must scale up and train a large contact tracer workforce and work collaboratively across public and private agencies to stop the transmission of COVID-19.
Mike Reid, Karen White, Jess Celentano, Susie Welty, Michelle Moghadassi, Debbie Bain Brickley, and Lucia Abascal highlighted lessons learned from collaboration with SFDPH to stand up Contact Tracing as a critical component of San Francisco's response to COVID-19.
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"For the first time in the post-war history of epidemics, there is a reversal of which countries are most heavily affected by a disease pandemic."
Has COVID-19 subverted global health? Read this
The Art of Medicine
essay by Richard Cash & Vikram Patel.
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Thursday, May 14th, 10:00 am (ET)
This webinar will explore tackling the COVID-19 pandemic through both a 'Global Health' and 'Global Economy' approach. It will address the necessary steps to be undertaken in-line with each. One must register by Wednesday, May 13, 2020 at 5:00 PM.
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How is New York coping with the Pandemic? What steps are New Yorkers taking to combat the crisis, and what can we learn from the experiences this great metropolis has been through? OnDemand asks Clinical Professor of Global Health at NYU, Dr. Jo Ivey Boufford.
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Public knowledge and perception of COVID-19 can help shape the federal, state, and local governments’ response to the pandemic and indicate whether those strategies are effective.
RTI surveyed over 2,000 Americans in April 2020 to capture their awareness of COVID-19, their understanding of how the virus is transmitted, and their levels of support for potential community mitigation strategies. The survey was weighted to reflect the U.S. population.
In this four-part webinar series, RTI will share the outcomes from the RTI-funded survey and provide a detailed analysis of the implications from that data. Learn more about each webinar, see some of the previous webinars, and register now to attend the series here.
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COVIDIQ is working to get a better understanding of the virus in communities by individuals self-reporting.
Users provide information about their symptoms via SMS. The data collected on the platform helps public health officials predict emerging outbreaks and assist with triage planning. When users submit info about their symptoms, COVIDIQ will provide users updated COVID information for their zip code. COVIDIQ is a volunteer nonprofit. Your privacy is protected and you can opt out at any time.
You can see CovidIQ's founder speak
here
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Helping children understand new rules or changes in their lives can be a challenge, especially when you are experiencing disruption in your own routine due to COVID-19. This coloring book is one mechanism to help educate young children.
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COVID-19 poses a risk not only to the health of older adults who contract the disease but also to those without the health care resources and social structures that contribute to overall wellness
Sarah Szanton of Johns Hopkins University discusses how the pandemic is affecting older adults and what families and caregivers can do to support them.
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Thousands of creators from around the world generously submitted their work to help communicate important and unifying messages that can combat the spread of COVID-19 and unite the world during this pandemic. The creative work is free to share and available in multiple creative formats and languages.
We need to get this important and uplifting messaging out far and wide to reach as many people as possible as quickly as possible. The more people that are inspired by the work the quicker we can flatten the curve and unite the world with uplifting messages of solidarity and kindness.
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Consortium of Universities for Global Health
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