Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
2-Month-Old Baby In Michigan Dies From COVID
Detroit Free Press: 2-Month-Old Baby Becomes Michigan's Youngest COVID-19 Victim
A 2-month-old from Michigan died this week of COVID-19 and is believed to be the state's youngest victim of the virus. "Children are not spared from this disease," said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive and chief deputy for health at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, at a news conference Wednesday. "My condolences go out to their parents and family." Additional details, such as the baby's gender, hometown, whether the infant was treated at a hospital or had other health conditions that may have contributed to the death, were not disclosed. (Shamus, 9/16)
Houston Chronicle: Double Lung Transplant, One Of The Nation’s First, Saves Houston-Area COVID Patient
When Memorial Hermann Hospital in The Woodlands allowed some of Francisco Medellin’s family to visit him from a window outside the intensive care unit last month, they all feared it might be the last time they’d see him. Medellin, 69, contracted COVID-19 in June and despite interventions with the logical treatments, the disease ravaged his lungs, leaving him unable to breathe on his own. After a month of no progress, doctors told the family that there was little hope of him recovering. (Ackerman, 9/16)
CNN: Some Pediatricians Refuse To Treat Kids If Parents Reject Vaccines, Study Finds
If you choose not to have your child vaccinated, your pediatrician may refuse to treat your family. More than half of pediatricians' offices in the United States included in a new study published in the medical journal JAMA reported having a dismissal policy for families who refuse to vaccinate their children. Some physicians say this house policy is a way to encourage parents to vaccinate their children, while many also use it as a safeguard against unvaccinated kids who might endanger their other patients. (LaMotte and Thomas, 9/15)
In mental health news —
San Francisco Chronicle: Pandemic Perk: Bay Area Companies Increase Mental Health Help For Remote Workers
For those lucky enough to keep their jobs during the pandemic, more than half a year of working from home has tested the nerves of many. An unsettled workforce is placing new focus on the need for companies to provide expanded mental health resources to employees. According to a recent report, more than 40% of adults in the U.S. are dealing with depression, anxiety and even substance abuse linked to the coronavirus pandemic. A recent survey by Johns Hopkins University found the percentage of adults in the U.S. who reported symptoms of psychological distress jumped threefold from 2018 to April of this year. (DeFeliciantonio, 9/16)
Boston Globe: Struggles With Mental Health Could Get Worse As Winter Looms
Six months of turmoil and uncertainty have left two out of five Americans with feelings of depression or anxiety, according to a recent CDC study. In Massachusetts, the worst of the pandemic may be behind us for now, but the trauma caused by the virus, social unrest, and economic recession still lingers. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts reported that use of mental health services was up 14 percent from January to July of this year compared to the same period of 2019. A recently published study by a group of researchers from Boston, Providence, and New York City found that symptoms of depression were more than three times as prevalent during the pandemic than before, with an outsized toll exacted on lower-income populations. (Krueger, 9/16)
In school news —
CNN: Parents Send Student To School While Knowingly Infected With Coronavirus, Mayor Says
Almost 30 teenagers have to quarantine after parents sent their child to a Massachusetts school despite knowing they were positive with Covid-19, according to Attleboro Public Schools and the town's mayor. A Covid-19 positive student attended class on Monday, but the school wasn't notified of their diagnosis until the next day, Attleboro High School superintendent David Sawyer said in a letter sent out to families Tuesday night. Twenty-eight students who had close contact with the infected person have been notified and asked to quarantine for 14 days, Sawyer said. (Romine and Holcombe, 9/17)
Kaiser Health News: Students’ Mass Migration Back To College Gets A Failing Grade
Who thought it would be a good idea to move thousands of teenagers and young adults across the country to college campuses, where, unencumbered by parental supervision, many college kids did what college kids do? Actually, Nigel Goldenfeld and Sergei Maslov, two University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign physics researchers, thought they had it figured out. They created a predictive model for the campus, which showed that with a robust, twice-a-week testing program for students, faculty and staff who are regularly on campus, a mask mandate and an app for contact tracing, COVID-19 cases could be kept below 500 people for the whole semester. They even accounted for close interactions among college students. (Knight, 9/17)
The Wall Street Journal: Factory Workers Stay Home To Watch Their Children
Many factory workers are staying home to watch children who aren’t at day care or school because of the coronavirus pandemic, in another challenge to U.S. manufacturers working to rev up assembly lines. Orders and output for many manufacturers are recovering as factories reopen and consumers buy electronics for remote working and supplies to fix up their homes. But some factories say the challenge of keeping workers on the line is threatening the recovery. U.S. industrial production rose for the fourth consecutive month in August, the Federal Reserve said on Tuesday, but the increase was much slower than earlier in the summer. (Hufford, 9/16)
Also —
Fox News: Coronavirus 'Sexual Distancing,' Decrease In STD Testing Sees Drop In Reported Cases During Pandemic
During the coronavirus pandemic, sexually transmitted disease cases dropped due to individuals "sexually distancing" and decreased testing and reporting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said during the STD Prevention Conference this week. The CDC said in a roundtable discussion Monday that it estimated that tens of thousands of cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea and thousands of syphilis cases have gone undetected due to the lack of testing. (McGorry, 9/16)
CIDRAP: The Winning Ways Of Shareable COVID Public Health Tweets
Twitter users were most likely to retweet public health agency tweets that contained practical information on the medical effects of COVID-19, how to mitigate those effects, and the status of the pandemic, according to a study published today in PLOS One. Led by researchers at the State University of New York in Albany and the University of California at Irvine, the study involved analyzing 149,335 tweets from 690 Twitter accounts of public health, emergency management, and elected officials across the United States from Feb 1 to Apr 30. (Van Beusekom, 9/16)
The New York Times: I Got A Trial Covid-19 Vaccine. Do I Still Have To Wear A Mask?
My wife and I are participating in a clinical trial for a Covid-19 vaccine. We had no antibodies before we received the vaccine, but we now have a lot of them, according to two independent tests. Presumably we are like millions of others who have recovered from Covid-19 and have these antibodies, and so are immune for some time. At what point can I feel comfortable, ethically, not wearing a mask, being with others who haven’t had Covid, eating at a restaurant, going to a bar, traveling to locations with restrictions on “hot spot” visitors and the like? (Anthony Appiah, 9/15)
CIDRAP: Fears Of A 'Perfect Storm' As Flu Season Nears
Ask an infectious diseases expert about the upcoming flu season, and how it may affect, or be affected, by COVID-19, and the word you're likely to hear is "uncertain." For starters, flu is always unpredictable, they'll say. Flu activity and severity largely depend on the strains of virus circulating, and how well the vaccine strains, which are selected in advance of each flu season, match up with the circulating strains. (Dall, 9/16)
