Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Systemic Inequalities Throttling Native Americans, Children In Poverty, Meat Plant Workers
The New York Times: The Coronavirus Is Just One Challenge The Navajo Nation Is Facing
Today the Navajo Nation is one of the worst hot spots in the country for Covid-19.Hundreds of miles of roads are unpaved, so it can take up to three hours to get a sick person to help. It’s difficult to self-isolate because families live in one-room homes called hogans. Up to 40 percent of Navajo households don’t have running water, making it hard to wash hands. Cellphone service and Wi-Fi are limited, so it’s difficult to keep in touch and to get information about the epidemic. It took six weeks after Congress allocated $8 billion for coronavirus relief for the Navajo Nation, along with 573 other recognized Native American tribes, to see any of the money. And so far, 102 people on my reservation have died. (Wahleah Johns, 5/13)
The Washington Post: Today’s Children Are The Pandemic Generation. For Millions, The Future Is Now Grim.
While we are understandably consumed with the daily, seemingly unstoppable firehose of news about the most dangerous pandemic in a century, little attention has been paid to the long-term impact of this crisis on the world's most vulnerable children. It’s impossible to overstate what this crisis will mean for the pandemic generation. This prolonged, unpredictable and highly contagious disease is upending their education, family lives, social relationships, resiliency and opportunities to pull themselves out of multigenerational cycles of poverty. The result might be a chasmic gap between relatively affluent children and those in poverty deeper than at any other time in modern history. (Irwin Redlener and Karen B. Redlener, 4/12)
Boston Globe: Mid-Coronavirus Pandemic, A Return To Normal Is A Failure
We have failed to address abuse in this country. We have failed to address the gun culture. We have failed to address systemic inequalities. And we failed even before the coronavirus pandemic swept our planet. (Rania Batrice, 5/12)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Virus’ Effect On Ga. Economy Hurting Latino Workers
In various professional fields and across many industries — construction, poultry processing, agriculture and manufacturing — the Latino workforce has been critical in making Georgia an economic powerhouse. Hispanics’ strong work ethic and high workforce participation rates have contributed to Georgia’s standing as the number-one state for business. Now, as businesses large and small hurt in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic, Latino families are also on the front lines of the collapsing economy. And while millions of Americans are getting relief, many immigrants who have called Georgia home for a generation are missing out. The COVID-19-infused economic crisis threatens to upend years of economic progress and cripple the very workforce that has helped Georgia thrive. (Anibal Torres, 5/12)
Stat: As A Black Man, I Think Twice About Wearing A Face Mask In Public
The Covid-19 pandemic is putting me in a difficult position as a physician and as a Black man. The order to wear a face mask in public has made it worse... With the emergence of Covid-19, I’ve spent time weighing the pros and cons of wearing a face mask on evening walks to pick up takeout food or to go to the grocery store. I often opted not to wear one so I wouldn’t be perceived as appearing “suspicious.” My decision-making went as far as limiting how often I went out after dark, knowing that some people will see a masked Black man as a threat. (Gabriel Felix, 5/13)
WBUR: Why America Can’t Stop COVID
This conception of liberty, of course, doesn’t extend to African-American men who are gunned down while jogging. Nor to the hundreds of laborers — most of them people of color — that Trump has ordered back to work in virus-ridden meat-packing plants. As COVID continues to ravage minority populations, the GOP’s inaction has come to look like something closer to eugenics by default. If the disease were killing whites disproportionately, you can be sure the federal response would be far more vigorous. (Steve Almond, 5/13)
The New York Times: Nobody Is Protected From President Trump
I’ve heard of Muslim women in America being taunted for wearing hijabs, I’ve heard of Jewish men being mocked for wearing yarmulkes and now I’ve heard it all: A friend of mine was cursed by a passing stranger the other day for wearing a protective mask. There is, of course, a rather nasty virus going around, and one way to lessen the chance of its spread, especially from you to someone else, is to cover your nose and mouth. Call it civic responsibility. Call it science. ...On Monday the White House belatedly introduced a policy of mask-wearing in the West Wing — but it exempted President Trump. See what I mean about mask as metaphor? Trump demands protection from everybody around him, but nobody is protected from Trump. Story of America. (Frank Bruni, 5/12)
CNN: Trump's Refusal To Wear A Mask Is The Most Revealing Thing
"One of the curses of American society is the simple act of shaking hands," wrote the longtime germaphobe, now President Donald Trump, in his 1997 book, "The Art of the Comeback." Entering politics, he had to get used to this form of contact, but still avoided it whenever possible. This makes his refusal to wear protective gear in public, and his enthusiastic shaking of hands for the cameras once the coronavirus hit America, in defiance of experts' counsels to avoid the practice, all the more curious. (Ruth Ben-Ghiat, 5/12)
The New York Times: San Francisco Beat Coronavirus, But It's Breaking My Heart
One sun-drenched afternoon last month, I took a long solo bike ride through the San Francisco Bay Area. I rode from my home to Mountain View, near the once-desolate stretch of marsh that Google has leased from NASA to build a monumental new campus. It looks like a collection of lunar bases made out of origami. Construction has been paused under lockdown, and on the fetid plains surrounding the million-square-foot project, birds sang and wildflowers painted the horizon, and the trails that run beside the site were packed to socially distant capacity with masked families on foot and wheel. (Farhad Manjoo, 5/13)
CNN: Don't Let Governors Fool You About Reopening
Many governors are opening up their states as part of the White House effort to reopen the country. But as a pandemic expert who has been warning about diseases like Covid-19 for nearly 15 years, my message to Americans is simple: save yourselves, your families and your communities by staying at home and ignoring your governor's "ludicrous" policies. (Yaneer Bar-Yam, 5/12)
Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Providers Risking Their Lives Deserve Hazard Pay
While the CARES Act signed into law in late March provided valuable support to small businesses and providers who faced furloughs and layoffs because of the crisis, the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists calls on Congress to go further by incentivizing and properly compensating the front-line healthcare workers who continue to put their lives on the line. To that end, the AANA strongly supports fair and equitable hazard pay that is available to all healthcare providers retroactive to the beginning of the crisis. (Randall D. Moore, 5/12)
