We ensure quality care through
Interim Management, Skilled Monitoring, and Reinvention
|
|
Greetings!
Since our last issue one week ago, the U.S. continues to experience decreases in new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. The New York Times offered this summary in its March 17 “State of the Virus:”
- “Case numbers across the country are dropping steadily as the pace of vaccination continues to increase.
-
More than 20 percent of people have received at least one dose of a vaccine. States continue to expand their lists of people eligible to get a shot.
-
Much of the country continues to do quite well. Kansas is averaging about 260 cases a day, down from more than 2,000 a day in January. Oregon is adding around 320 cases each day, compared to more than 1,500 at its December peak.
-
No large city is faring worse right now than New York City, where around 3,500 cases are being reported each day. The Miami area is also struggling.
-
New Jersey and New York continue to lead the country in recent cases per capita, with other Northeastern states also near the top of the list.
-
Some states that saw large declines earlier in the winter have been backsliding. Reports of new cases have increased 50 percent over the last two weeks in Michigan, though they remain well below the levels seen in December and January.”
With all this digesting of data, and the vast differences in new cases and deaths (between the U.S., UK, and Canada versus virtually all of Europe), we believe you need a podcast with transcript option that has a great journalist and one of our best public health doctors, Dr. Ashish Jha who is a physician, leading health policy researcher, and dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “The Ezra Klein Show” features Jha and “guides us through these next months, to help us see what he’s seeing.” As a teaser we quote Ezra, “This isn’t over. But in America, things are going to feel very, very different in 45 days, for reasons he explains. And then comes another question, one we discuss here: How do we make sure the global end to this crisis comes soon after?”
How about a place that is in the next phase? Israel. The New York Times' The Daily podcast offers great reporting in “Life after the vaccine in Israel” where “Half the country has been inoculated, ushering in a kind of normalcy that is largely defined by the people it excludes.” Worth a listen or read in transcript for a look at the joys and challenges of what we believe is coming next in the U.S.
We link next to the CDC and a short comprehensive report on the U.S. vaccination effort and how safe it has been. The CDC states “over 109 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from Dec. 14, 2020, through March 15, 2021” with “a review of available clinical information including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths.”
Your curators call the next section “how data works and does not opera in two acts.” The first act is a look at Seattle (and other northwest cities) in “Seattle’s virus success shows what could have been: The Seattle area once had more coronavirus deaths than anywhere else in the United States. A year later, the region’s deaths per capita are lower than any other large metropolitan area.
Read about a truly great success story and why comparing Florida or Texas to complex populations and lifestyles in California or New York does not work. The Atlantic takes a look at Covid-19 data and states. “After spending a year building one of the only U.S. pandemic-data sources, we have come to see the government’s initial failure here as the fault on which the entire catastrophe pivots. The government has made progress since May; it is finally able to track pandemic data. Yet some underlying failures remain unfixed. The same calamity could happen again.”
We close with the top story in the long-term care world and beyond, which is the Sunday The New York Times’ front page "Maggots, rape and yet five stars: How U.S. ratings of nursing homes mislead the public." For those of us in the long term and many other components of health and social welfare service, we knew that “Nursing homes have manipulated the influential star system in ways that have masked deep problems — and left them unprepared for Covid-19.” A must read.
As rivers are dyed green, we are listening to Irish tunes on the third day of indoor dining in Culver City, very much wishing to be in Dublin or its sister City, the most Irish Chicago, and sending you reporting from all over the world on a day that we all are Irish; this is Revitalize for March 18, 2021.
|
|
Revitalize: The week in health-care news you need
|
|
 |
How America’s Covid-19 nightmare ends: Why Dr. Ashish Jha thinks life could return to normal very soon. Cases fell, and kept falling, even in places beset by new variants. The U.S. vaccination effort accelerated. The addition of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, plus the planned ramping up of Pfizer and Moderna doses, means there’s going to be vastly more vaccine.
Life after the vaccine in Israel: Half the country has been inoculated, ushering in a kind of normalcy that is largely defined by those excluded.
Over 109 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the U.S. from Dec. 14, 2020, through March 15, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 1,913 reports of death (0.0018%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. A review of available clinical information including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths. CDC and FDA will continue to investigate reports of adverse events, including deaths.
Seattle’s virus success shows what could have been. The Seattle area once had more coronavirus deaths than anywhere else in the United States. A year later, the region’s deaths per capita are lower than any other.
|
|
|
|
Seattle’s virus success shows what could have been. The Seattle area once had more coronavirus deaths than anywhere else in the United States. A year later, the region’s deaths per capita are lower than any other.
After spending a year building one of the only U.S. pandemic-data sources, we see the government’s initial failure here as the fault on which the entire catastrophe pivots. The government has made progress since May; it is finally able to track pandemic data. Yet some failures remain unfixed. The same calamity could happen again. Data might seem like a technical obsession, an oddly nerdy scapegoat on which to hang the deaths of half a million Americans. But data are how our leaders apprehend reality.
Maggots, rape and yet five stars: How U.S. ratings of nursing homes mislead the public. Nursing homes have manipulated the influential star system in ways that have masked deep problems — and left them unprepared for Covid-19.
|
|
|
|
Jerry Seelig, CEO
Fax: 310-841-2842
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
