Health Workers Experiencing Moral Trauma From War Against Covid

CIDRAP: COVID-19 Health Workers Suffer Combat-Type Moral Trauma
A Duke University study shows that, amid COVID-19, US healthcare workers (HCWs) had similar rates of potential moral injury (PMI)—a type of trauma-induced wound to the psyche—as military combat veterans. The study, published yesterday in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, surveyed 2,099 HCWs in 2020 and 2021 and 618 military veterans deployed to a combat zone after the Sep 11, 2001, US terrorist attacks about PMIs they may have experienced. (Van Beusekom, 4/6)

NPR: People Are Developing Trauma-Like Symptoms As The Pandemic Wears On
In February 2020, Jullie Hoggan picked up the phone to receive lifesaving news. She had been on the list for a kidney transplant and, to her relief, there was now finally a donor. But that reassurance was quickly overshadowed by the looming threat of the novel coronavirus. "I remember standing at my sink and thinking, what about this virus? Like, is this going to be a problem?" she said. It was a question that would completely restructure the next two years of her life. While the surgery was successful and Hoggan is now vaccinated and boosted, she is still severely immunocompromised and has to take significant safety measures. (Lonsdorf, 4/7)

In updates on the spread of covid —

Axios: COVID Cases Rise Again In Half The States
Half of the states are seeing COVID case numbers rise again while nationwide totals continue to fall. The Omicron subvariant known as BA.2 is the dominant strain circulating around the U.S., accounting for almost three out of every four cases. As in-person gatherings have begun again, COVID has sickened a number of Washington A-listers, reminding everyone — yet again — we're not out of the woods with this pandemic. Overall, cases dropped 5% across the U.S. to an average of about 28,700 cases from an average of more than 30,000 cases two weeks ago. (Reed and Beheraj, 4/7)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Mask Mandates Likely To Return For Philadelphia Indoor Spaces As COVID Cases Rise
Philadelphia is poised to reinstate its indoor mask mandate next week as COVID-19 cases climb again. An Inquirer analysis showed the most current COVID case counts and the percent increase of cases both meet the city’s benchmarks that would trigger the return of the mask mandate for public indoor spaces. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health agreed with the analysis. “What we see and know is cases are rising,” said James Garrow, a spokesperson for the department. “People should start taking precautions now.” (Gans Sobey, Duchneskie and Laughlin, 4/6)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Clark County Sees An Uptick In COVID-19 Cases
For the second week in a row, Clark County experienced a slight uptick in new daily COVID-19 cases, marking the first increases since January, according to weekly data released Wednesday. However, authorities said they don’t view the uptick as significant and that overall metrics suggest there won’t be a surge in cases anytime soon. “From everything we’re seeing, I don’t expect a surge,” said Andrew Gorzalski, molecular supervisor in the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory in Reno. This vantage point includes positive COVID-19 test results as well as wastewater analysis, the latter an early-warning system for disease trends. (Dylan and Hynes, 4/6)

Bay Area News Group: California Reaches New Low For COVID Patients In ICU
California intensive care units are now treating fewer COVID patients than at any point since the state started tracking that number in March 2020. As of Monday, hospitals around the Golden State reported 231 patients in their ICUs were confirmed or suspected to have COVID, according to data from the California Department of Public Health. The previous low for hospitalized COVID patients in an ICU was 250, set on June 6, 2021, at the zenith of the summer 2021 COVID slump. The number of critically ill COVID patients requiring intensive care was consistently below 500 from early April through mid-July of 2021, but jumped to more than 2,000 during last fall’s delta surge and peaked at more than 2,500 in late January during omicron. (Blair Rowan, 4/6)

In other covid news —

AP: Several COVID Deaths In WA Happened Before 1st Was Announced 
The Washington state Department of Health has confirmed at least four other Washingtonians died from COVID complications before or on Feb. 28, 2020 — the date the first known death in Washington and the U.S. was announced. In a recent review of the state’s earliest COVID-19 deaths, three people who died before the initial announcement were from long-term care facility Life Care Center of Kirkland, the site of the first known U.S. coronavirus outbreak, The Seattle Times reported. (4/6)

KHN: A Shortfall Of ECMO Treatment Cost Lives During The Delta Surge 
Speaking from his hospital bed at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, James Perkinson’s voice was raspy. In February, he’d just been taken off ECMO, the last-ditch life support treatment in which a machine outside the body does the work of the heart and lungs. Full recovery is expected to take a year or more for Perkinson. “If it wasn’t for the ECMO and the doctors that were put in place at the right time with the right knowledge, I would not be here,” he said, with his wife, Kacie, by his side. (Farmer, 4/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Health Officials Return Thousands Of Life-Saving COVID Drugs, Plead With Public To Use Them
San Francisco has returned thousands of doses of life-saving COVID-19 drugs to the state because the people who could have used them didn’t know the treatment was available, public health officials said Wednesday. Now city officials are sounding an urgent alert to let people know about the antiviral drugs, which must be taken within five days after the onset of COVID symptoms. Although physicians typically write prescriptions, many patients never let their doctors know they’ve tested positive for COVID, or tell them when it’s already too late to benefit from the pills. (Asimov, 4/6)

AP: KS Sen. Mark Steffen Sends Letters To Physicians On COVID-19 
A Kansas physician-legislator who has acknowledged that he is under investigation by the state medical board after supporting the deworming drug ivermectin is instructing doctors on COVID-19 treatment in a letter. The Wichita Eagle reports that Kansas Sen. Mark Steffen sent a letter on official Senate stationery to health care providers telling them that the way COVID-19 patients are treated has changed and that they will be shielded from Board of Healing Arts “interference.” (4/6)