Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Lessons on How To Prepare For The Surge That Is Coming; Put Protections In Place For Hard-Working Americans
The Washington Post: As States Reopen, Here’s How You Protect Yourself From The Coming Surge
The federal government’s social distancing guidelines ended last week. As states lift their shelter-in-place orders and reopen parts of their economies, I am deeply worried that the next phase of the coronavirus pandemic will bring much more suffering and many more preventable deaths. What should concerned policymakers and residents do? Two things: First, prepare for a massive surge. (Leana S. Wen, 5/5)
The Detroit News: American Workers Need Protection
The coronavirus pandemic continues to affect hardworking Americans’ everyday life. Despite a plateauing of new cases, the toll this scourge is enacting on the public is immense. That’s why the Teamsters are pushing even harder now to protect our way of life. Congress is returning to the nation’s capital, and we need lawmakers to get down to business so they can help both workers and those who worked hard all their lives. That means taking additional steps to make workplaces safer; protecting the hard-earned pensions of workers and retirees; and ensuring state and local governments have the funds they need to pay their employees so they can keep serving their constituents. (James Hoffa, 5/5)
Philadelphia Inquirer: Meat Crisis Undoes Lesson Of Classic 1906 Novel
I read something that seemed particularly apt, given the ongoing global pandemic and the horrific impact it’s been having on America’s meatpacking industry, where thousands – many of them immigrants – have fallen ill to COVID-19 and at least 20 have died:. “Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers.” To be clear, I read that sometime in the mid-1970s, when I was a high school student. And the classic work of literature it comes from – Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle – was published way back in 1906, a bygone era of runaway capitalism creating vast contrasts of wealth and poverty, where a poor, largely immigrant labor force desperate to feed its families was often exploited. (Sounds familiar.) (Will Bunch, 5/5)
The Hill: Paid Sick Days And Paid Leave Are Health And Economic Recovery Requirements
Recent stories of grocery, retail, fast food, warehouse, healthcare and meatpacking workers compelled to work despite having coronavirus symptoms shock the conscience... Despite concerns from workers and consumers, and with only weak plans to reduce health risks, President Trump and many governors are pushing to reopen the economy. Congressional Republicans now want immunity for employers who reopen — without providing any additional worker or consumer protections. That’s absurd and dangerous. (Vicki Shabo and Steven Findlay, 5/5)
The Washington Post: The Covid-19 Pandemic Has Shocked The Mental-Health System Out Of Complacency
A year ago, I met a 20-something man in the far corner of a Tennessee hospital’s emergency department. He had come in that morning seeking help for intrusive suicidal thoughts and panic attacks. He was stuck in a freezing, too-bright room, appearing cowed by his hospital-issue, paper-thin scrubs, and his sense of urgency had given way to sullen indifference. He waited all day before a credentialed mental-health crisis worker arrived to assess his needs. All he wanted by then was to get out of there, and he left without so much as a referral for therapy. The scene was maddening. But after more than a decade of reporting on the mental-health beat, I knew it was not unusual. The system is cautious, often for good reasons. But that conservative approach often means throwing up hurdles that keep vulnerable people from getting the care they need. (Jason Cherkis, 5/5)
Stat: As A Nurse, My Hospital's Leaders Frighten Me More Than Covid-19
I’ve been a nurse for almost 10 years, working mainly on a hospital’s cardiac floor. One day I was assigned to a makeshift intensive care unit that had previously been an observation unit for highly stable patients waiting for test results. Many of the patients in this new Covid-19 unit were intubated, with ventilators breathing for them. (Jaclyn O'Halloran, 5/6)
St. Louis Post Dispatch: Is Your Daughter, Husband, Grandparent Worth Sacrificing For A Hasty Reopening?
Nationwide coronavirus deaths are now forecast to reach roughly double their current daily number, and new cases could reach 200,000 daily within the next month, according to a government draft report. The reason for these radically higher numbers is singular: the bid by President Donald Trump and governors of 27 states to reopen the economy, even if it means thousands more people will die. There’s no question that Gov. Mike Parson and other state leaders feel immense political pressure to get people back to work. (5/5)
Detroit Free Press: They Run Shelters For Domestic Violence Victims. Here's What Scares Them Now.
What scares Barbara Niess-May is how quiet things have been. Niess-May is the executive director of SafeHouse Center, an Ann Arbor-based shelter and support center for survivors of domestic violence. "We have people in our shelter, we have people calling us, but not at the same volume, and not at the same length of time," she said. When survivors call, she says, they say, "'I just can't get away.' "This is what keeps me awake at night." It has been the same across the state since the COVID-19 pandemic began. At SafeHouse, Niess-May says, shelter occupancy is down about 30%. At the Women's Resource Center in Traverse City, it's down about 33%. (Nancy Kaffer, 5/4)
Des Moines Register: COVID-19 In Iowa: Don't Raise Costs For Nursing Home Residents
Iowa’s retirement communities and nursing homes are under attack from COVID-19. Over half of the state’s coronavirus cases have come from within their walls. Sadly, rather than equip these senior care facilities with more tools to combat this pandemic and protect their high-risk residents, bureaucrats within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, are instead trying to tax them into oblivion. (Thad Nearmyer, 5/5)
