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Greetings!
We return after a week off brought about by our need to complete “Operating Nursing Homes; Is the Worst Behind Us, or Not?” for the April issue of the ABI Journal and a variety of other work deadlines, community, and family projects. And then there is the Ukrainian tragedy that has for many of us taken time and emotions away from our daily tasks. (A quick news pod recommendation are The Monocle Daily and The Monocle Briefing, which has been added to CNN and MSNBC for our morning briefing).
As explanation to new readers (welcome, attorneys practicing in the health care and/or insolvency sector) and a reminder to returning readers, our initial issue on June 4, 2020 assumed that “now more than ever, you are inundated with health-care news and noise.” We promised that Revitalize would move the news you need off your desks, nightstands, or devices to the top of your list and that we would be “your friendly curator—to sift the essential from the confusing and sometimes painful barrage of plague and practice headlines.”
Twenty-one months and 11O issues later we continue to “provide a succinct roundup of the best writing that can move you to reach out of your home office to a colleague or client and/or push your team to engage in something that must be done.” Recently, we pivoted away from the barrage of Covid Data to offer more long-term analysis of Covid's impact on our communities, workplaces, and policies or practices (that we could have done better and must learn from now).
- The national outlook continues to improve rapidly, with new cases, hospitalizations and deaths all continuing to fall.
- Daily case reports have fallen more than 90 percent from their January peak. Case numbers are as low as they have been since November, before the Omicron variant took hold.
- About 60,000 people with the coronavirus are hospitalized nationally, down from about 160,000 in January. The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units has fallen more than 40 percent in the last two weeks.
- For the first time in more than a month, the country is averaging fewer than 2,000 newly reported deaths a day. Despite the steep decline, thousands of Covid-19 deaths continued to be announced each week.
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Almost every state is seeing significant declines in cases and hospitalizations. New case reports are down at least 70 percent in the last two weeks in 12 states, including California, Indiana, Nevada and Wyoming.
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Most states that still had mask mandates have moved to lift or significantly scale back those requirements.
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An AP-NORC poll reports that "Pandemic fears are fading along with omicron." We then turn to an interview with leading epidemiologists Dr. Monica Gandhi, who supports the public’s optimism and offers us an explanation of how and when a pandemic becomes endemic.
Vaccines work, need another booster? The New York Times says yes to the former and no to the latter in "Got a Covid booster? You probably won’t need another for a long time." The Times reports “A flurry of new studies suggest that several parts of the immune system can mount a sustained, potent response to any coronavirus variant.” We ask you to dig deeper into how vaccines work in "How long does protective immunity against Covid-19 last after infection or vaccination? Two immunologists explain." A new to us source, The Conversation tells us that “Researchers are working to develop vaccines that provide long-term immune protection from Covid-19;” we encourage you to look at the embedded in this story YouTube clip, “How your immune system works,” and subscribe to this great collaborative among scientists and scholars.
From The New York Times, we have "The CDC isn’t publishing large portions of the Covid Data It Collects." In this often-cited and discussed article The New York Times reports: “The agency has withheld critical data on boosters, hospitalizations and, until recently, wastewater analyses.”
This look at CDC leads us and hopefully you to take a deep dive into the “kids in and out of school masking issue.” This trio of articles starts at Tablet, where hematologist-oncologist, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco Dr. Vinay Prasad argues in "The cult of masked schoolchildren" that “History will not look kindly on our evidence-free decision to make kids suffer most.” Our second article is from The Atlantic’s Emily Oster who argues that “Kids-last Covid policy makes no sense” in "Kids-last Covid policy makes no sense." CalMatters’ "California mask mandate for schools ends March 12" is the final movement in our trio of articles. Reporter Joe Hong reports that “All students and staff, regardless of vaccination status, will no longer be required to wear a mask indoors at schools and child care facilities starting March 12.”
Prior to watching the State of The Union, our publishers and the Long Term Care reporting desk knew thanks to our friend Amy Stulick at Skilled Nursing News that we would hear "White House unveils major nursing home reform package, targets private equity ownership." The White House issued "Fact sheet: Protecting seniors and people with disabilities by improving safety and quality of care in the nation’s nursing home," is linked for your review.
We, with some humor and a lot of empathy, create our Angry-and-abused workers section. We steal the name from our first of three closing stories: The USA Today linked poll and article, "Angry and abused, health care workers still overwhelmingly love careers." We then offer The New York Times Sunday Magazine's "Nurses have finally learned what they’re worth." That story is the foundation for "Somebody’s got to save us while we’re saving everybody else," which is available to listen or read in The New York Times the Daily podcast that closes the issue.
Welcoming many new readers with many thanks to our returning readers, from our less virtual and now more real office in Culver City, this is Revitalize for March 3, 2022:
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Revitalize: The week in health-care news you need
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The Daily.
The Briefing Podcast.
Pandemic fears are fading along with Omicron.
Interview with Dr. Monica Gandhi.
Got a Covid booster? You probably won’t need another for a long time. A flurry of new studies suggest that several parts of the immune system can mount a sustained, potent response to any coronavirus variant.
Researchers are working to develop vaccines that provide long-term immune protection from COVID-19. How long does protective immunity against COVID-19 last after infection or vaccination? Two immunologists explain
The CDC isn’t publishing large portions of the Covid data it collects. The agency has withheld critical data on boosters, hospitalizations and, until recently, wastewater analyses.
The cult of masked schoolchildren. History will not look kindly on our evidence-free decision to make kids suffer most.
Kids-Last Covid policy makes no sense. Kids should face fewer restrictions than their parents, not more.
California mask mandate for schools ends March 12. All students and staff, regardless of vaccination status, will no longer be required to wear a mask indoors at schools and child care facilities starting March 12. Gov. Gavin Newsom and California state health officials issued the order on Monday, nearly a month after they lifted the mandate for vaccinated people gathering in restaurants and other indoor spaces.
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White House unveils major nursing home reform package, targets private equity ownership. The Biden administration rolled out a comprehensive set of intended nursing home reforms on Monday. The White House zeroed in on setting minimum staffing requirements and took aim at private equity ownership of nursing homes, among several other priorities and provisions in its plan.
There will be 10 main initiatives to achieve the program's goals:
1. Establishing a minimum nursing home staffing requirement
2. Strengthening the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing Program
3. Reinforcing safeguards against unnecessary medications and treatments
4. Reducing resident room crowding
5. Adequately funding inspection activities
6. Beefing up scrutiny of poor-performing facilities
7. Expanding financial penalties and other enforcement sanctions
8. Increasing accountability for chain owners and substandard facilities
9. Providing technical assistance to nursing homes to aid in improvements
10. Improving transparency so that potential residents and their loved ones can make informed decisions about care
Fact Sheet: Protecting Seniors and People with Disabilities by Improving Safety and Quality of Care in the Nation’s Nursing Homes
Angry and abused, health care workers still overwhelmingly love careers, poll shows Like flight attendants on planes, health care workers say they face abuse from angry patients and their families as a wearying pandemic continues.
‘Nurses have finally learned what they’re worth.’ As the coronavirus spread, demand for nurses came from every corner. Some jobs for travelers paid more than $10,000 a week. Will the boom last?
‘Somebody’s got to save us while we’re saving everybody else.’ Burned out and exasperated, many nurses are quitting the profession, leaving the U.S. health system with a critical shortage.
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Jerry Seelig, CEO
Fax: 310-841-2842
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