Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Florida Health Department Reports First 2022 Dengue Case
CIDRAP: First Local Dengue Case In Florida Prompts Health Alert
The Florida Department of Health this week announced a mosquito-borne illness advisory after the first local dengue illness of 2022 was identified in a Miami-Dade County resident. Officials urged people to take preventive steps, such as draining standing water from items such as buckets and flowerpots and wearing protective clothing and mosquito repellent. They also issued a reminder about symptoms, which can be asymptomatic or mild, but can also include fever, headache, eye pain, and musculoskeletal pain. (7/20)
AP: Nurse Gets Year In Prison For Replacing Fentanyl With Saline
A nurse who previously worked at a Florida hospital has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for stealing fentanyl and replacing the powerful pain medication with saline. Monique Elizabeth Carter, 36, of Middleburg, was sentenced Tuesday in Jacksonville federal court, according to court records. She pleaded guilty in April to tampering with a consumer product. (7/20)
The Colorado Sun: Will A Half-Million Coloradans Lose Medicaid After The Pandemic?
Colorado has added nearly 500,000 people to its Medicaid rolls since early 2020, an increase of 32%. The latest extension of the federal order — which says that states can cut no one off the Medicaid rolls during the global crisis, whether they are eligible or not — is set to expire Oct. 13. (Brown, 7/20)
AP: Oregon Urges Return To Mask Wearing As Hospitals Feel Strain
Oregon health officials are urging people in 21 counties with high COVID-19 cases — including the three Portland-area counties — to return to mask wearing because the hospital system is again under extreme strain. (7/21)
Minnesota Public Radio: State Government’s Vax-Or-Test Rule Quietly Expires
Unvaccinated Minnesota state government employees are no longer required to take weekly COVID-19 tests to keep reporting for duty, a quiet shift that hasn’t fully settled disputes around workplace vaccination policies. (Bakst, 7/20)
Stat: Crash Course Seeks To Boost Ranks Of Native American Doctors
She’d just used a defibrillator to resuscitate a man whose heart had stopped, and now, in the next room, a baby’s head was crowning, the mother emitting a stream of loud, harrowing moans. (McFarling, 7/21)
New Hampshire Public Radio: N.H. Housing Advocate: Renters Have The Right To Install AC
There are three windows in Emily Negron’s Manchester apartment, and she keeps them all open — hoping the wind will help bring down the temperature. Still, the place feels humid and hot. (Lozada, 7/20)
AP: State-Licensed Medical Marijuana Store Opens Next Week
Patients enrolled in South Dakota’s medical marijuana program will have their first opportunity to buy cannabis from a state-licensed facility next week. It has been a year and a-half since state voters overwhelmingly approved medical marijuana. The co-owner of one dispensary, United Rd. in Hartford, says the business has secured the first initial inventory available to state-run stores and the showroom is ready for customers. (7/20)
KQED: Closure Of Oakland's Largest Homeless Encampment Put On Hold — For Now
Residents at Oakland’s largest encampment of unhoused people got a reprieve Tuesday after a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order, blocking a state agency from evicting them. Caltrans had planned on Wednesday to remove many of the estimated 200 people who live at the sprawling Wood Street encampment, which stretches from north of 34th Street to 18th Street underneath the I-880 freeway, between Wood Street and the BNSF and Union Pacific railroad tracks in West Oakland. (Baldassari, 7/19)
