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Interim Management, Skilled Monitoring, and Reinvention
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Greetings!
We are back after our planned weeklong wedding festival break and lead with a great podcast from In the Bubble. Andy Slavitts and guest Harvard epidemiologist Bill Hanage offer us a comprehensive review and update as to “whether our vaccines and immune systems have a fighting chance, if infections are more severe than other Omicron offshoots, and what we need to do to safely get through the summer and fall. Will those who have managed to avoid the virus for years finally succumb to this wave?” Please link to: “BA.5 and our disappearing immunity (with Bill Hanage)."
- Following a long period in which new reports of cases were relatively consistent, the number of cases announced in the U.S. each day is again on the rise.
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The daily case average grew to more than 129,000 on Tuesday, and cases are rising in more than 40 states. Since cases have always been an undercount, it is likely that the true number of cases is far higher — particularly since test positivity rates are also increasing sharply nationwide.
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These increases come as the BA.5 variant, believed to be the most transmissable variant yet of the coronavirus, is emerging as the country's dominant virus strain.
- Hospitalizations are also rising in the U.S. That pattern is similar to hospitalization surges seen earlier this summer in countries where BA.5 first began to circulate. More than 37,000 people are in American hospitals with the coronavirus on an average day, an increase of 17 percent since the start of the month.
- Reporting on deaths tied to the coronavirus is volatile at the moment, partly because of gaps in reporting over recent holidays. About 400 deaths are being reported each day nationwide, down from more than 2,600 a day at the height of the Omicron surge.
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StatNews offers us an update on long Covid in the linked “Estimates of long Covid are startlingly high. Here’s how to understand them.”
The great Atlantic reporter Katherine Wu returns with “New Covid vaccines will be ready this fall. America won’t be.” Wu reports that “Respiratory-virus season starts soon, and our autumn vaccine strategy is shaky at best.”
Staying at The Atlantic we find the great reporter Ron Brownstein who offers a must read article on the politics of climate change in “Mother Nature dissents – from Texas to California, voters are enduring rude wake-up calls about the future of our country.”
Axios offers us a must read report on “Health reform may be making gender wage gaps worse for female docs;” please take a look.
Over the past two years, we have offered in these pages and our legal journal articles reporting on the growing use of home health as an alternative to skilled nursing home admissions. Our friends at Skilled Nursing News recently posted “Home health agencies surpassed skilled nursing facilities as the most sought after post-acute care setting” This superb review of the data reports that “SNF care went from most common to second-most used among Medicare beneficiaries, crossing paths with home health in February 2020 as the pandemic ramped up. By March 2020, the number of hospital discharges referred to SNFs dropped to 16.6 percent.”
Before we close, Jerry wants to thank all who wrote and texted kind words of support and continued healing after reading his reporting on his patient odyssey. Back in the Culver City offices, with reporting from all over the world, this is Revitalize for July 21, 2022.
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Revitalize: The week in health-care news you need
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BA.5 and our disappearing immunity (with Bill Hanage). Reinfections across the country are being driven by an explosion in cases of BA.5, the latest variant of COVID-19. Andy asks Harvard epidemiologist Bill Hanage whether our vaccines and immune systems have a fighting chance, if infections are more severe than other Omicron offshoots, and what we need to do to safely get through the summer and fall. Will those who have managed to avoid the virus for years finally succumb to this wave? Find out.
Estimates of long Covid are startlingly high. Here’s how to understand them.
New Covid vaccines will be ready this fall. America won’t be. Respiratory-virus season starts soon, and our autumn vaccine strategy is shaky at best.
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Mother nature dissents. From Texas to California, voters are enduring rude wake-up calls about the future of our country.
Health reform may be making gender wage gaps worse for female docs.
Home health agencies surpassed skilled nursing facilities as the most sought after post-acute care setting – SNF care went from most common to second-most used among Medicare beneficiaries, crossing paths with home health in February 2020 as the pandemic ramped up. By March 2020, the number of hospital discharges referred to SNFs dropped to 16.6 percent.
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Jerry Seelig, CEO
Fax: 310-841-2842
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