Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
NYC's Top Police Official Defends Social Distancing Enforcement Of Minorities; Isolated Alaska Salmon Fishing Towns Brace For Arrival Of Work Crews
The New York Times: NYPD Commissioner Denies Racial Bias In Coronavirus Social Distancing Policing
New York City’s top police official on Wednesday forcefully defended how his officers have enforced social distancing rules after videos of recent arrests and enforcement data fueled complaints that the police were unfairly targeting black and Latino residents. Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea pushed back against assertions from some elected officials and community groups who said the arrest data and videos illustrated a racist double standard for social distancing by the police that was reminiscent of the “stop and frisk” policy. (Southall, 5/13)
The New York Times: Thousands Are Headed To Alaska’s Fishing Towns. So Is The Coronavirus.
The people of Cordova, Alaska, had weathered the coronavirus pandemic with no cases and the comfort of isolation — a coastal town unreachable by road in a state with some of the fewest infections per capita in the country. But that seclusion has come to an abrupt end. Over the past two weeks, fishing boat crews from Seattle and elsewhere have started arriving by the hundreds, positioning for the start of Alaska’s summer seafood rush. (Baker, 5/14)
Politico: California $1B Mask Order Faces New Doubt After Federal Regulators Call Product 'Not Acceptable'
Federal regulators said Wednesday they rejected certification earlier this month of the N95 masks that California had ordered from a Chinese firm in a massive $990 million purchase, a starker characterization of what transpired than Gov. Gavin Newsom gave last week. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health did not detail its reasons for denying the company BYD, saying an on-site assessment of the company’s N95-model respirators deemed the equipment “not acceptable” on May 4. BYD can tweak its design and again seek approval under an expedited review process, federal regulators said. (White and Murphy, 5/13)
The Hill: Washington, DC, Struggles To Stamp Out COVID-19
District of Columbia residents learned Wednesday they will be staying home for at least another three weeks, highlighting the difficulty of stamping out the coronavirus in the nation's capital and raising questions about congressional activity on Capitol Hill. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced at a press conference that the stay-at-home order previously slated to lift on Friday would be extended until June 8, saying not all of the metrics needed for reopening have been met. (Sullivan, 5/13)
Kaiser Health News: Reversing History, Indian Health Service Seeks Traditional Healers
Cheryl Morales started the medicinal garden at the Aaniiih Nakoda College demonstration farm with only four plants: yarrow, echinacea, plantain and licorice root. After 10 years, the campus garden within the Fort Belknap reservation in northern Montana now holds more than 60 species that take up almost 30,000 square feet. Morales adds new plants annually. This year, she is testing Oregon grape root and breadroot. (Akridge, 5/14)
Stateline: Under Social Distancing, Rural Regions Push For More Broadband
In 1936, roughly 90% of America’s urban areas had access to electricity, while roughly the same proportion of rural America was still in the dark. The Rural Electrification Act, signed that year as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, turned on the lights in isolated rural areas. As the coronavirus pandemic lays bare America’s digital divide, some advocates argue that now is the time to make a big, bold investment in the country’s broadband infrastructure. (Simpson, 5/14)
Bangor Daily News : Vaccinations Drop Off For Low-Income Kids In Maine As Patients Delay Doctor Visits
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccines for Children Program, a federally funded program that provides free vaccinations for children whose families would otherwise be unable to access them, distributed 28 percent fewer vaccines in March and 45 percent fewer in the month of April compared with last year’s distributions, said CDC Director Nirav Shah. (Andrews, 5/13)
San Francisco Chronicle: ‘An Honor And A Privilege’: UCSF Doctor Reflects On Month In NY At The Heart Of The Coronavirus Pandemic
The hospital ward where Dr. Maya Kotas worked for the last month at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center isn’t supposed to be an intensive care unit. The rooms, with two beds separated by a thin privacy curtain, aren’t supposed to house people fighting for their lives. The ventilators forcing oxygen into their weakened lungs aren’t supposed to be used for weeks on end, and the nurses tending those ventilators aren’t supposed to be giving critical care. Even Kotas herself wasn’t supposed to be there. The UCSF clinical instructor in pulmonary and critical care medicine should have been home in San Francisco doing research. But the novel coronavirus has rearranged lives and hospitals and entire cities, and last month, it brought Kotas to the heart of the pandemic in the United States. (Feldberg, 5/14)
Boston Globe: UMass Medical Student Who Survived Coronavirus Now Takes Care Of People Who Have It
Less than a year after completing a rotation at UMass Memorial Medical Center, Michelle Shabo, 28, found herself in March back in one of the same rooms where she had had taken care of patients. This time, she was the patient, battling a harrowing case of the coronavirus. Two months and one near-death experience later, Shabo dons a mask and gloves during overnight shifts at the field hospital in the Worcester DCU Center, working directly with coronavirus patients — people in a precarious position she knows all too well. (Berg, 5/13)
Detroit Free Press: Teen Girls, Staff At Michigan Treatment Facility Have Coronavirus
The novel coronavirus has made its way to a mid-Michigan residential treatment center for teens; 25 girls there have tested positive. Only three of the girls at the Wolverine Human Services' site in Vassar had symptoms of COVID-19 — one had a slight headache, one had a slight sore throat, one lost her sense of taste and smell, according to Paul Whitney, vice president of residential programs for Wolverine. (Kovanis, 5/13)
Boston Globe: Mass. Death Rate Seems To Be Climbing, But It’s Not The Full Picture
As the number of COVID-19 patients in Massachusetts hospitals slowly ticks down, another grim metric — somewhat under the radar — has steadily been going up. That’s the case fatality rate, the percentage of deaths among known COVID-19 patients. It stands at about 6.6 percent, up from 1.6 percent on April 1. This increase may seem alarming, but it does not mean the disease is getting deadlier. Here are three contextual things to know about this number. (Arsenault, 5/13)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia Gov's Order Excludes Abortion Providers From Protection
Gov. Brian Kemp used his emergency powers to extend an executive order that limits legal liability for Georgia’s hospitals and medical workers during the coronavirus pandemic, while also including a provision that specifically excludes abortion providers from the protections. The order signed Tuesday renews authority first granted in April that designates hospitals and frontline medical staffers as “auxiliary emergency management workers” and provides them additional legal protection from personal injury lawsuits during the pandemic. (Bluestein, 5/13)
State House News Service: Nurses Ask Baker For New Advisory Group, Protections
The Massachusetts Nurses Association is asking Gov. Charlie Baker to establish an advisory group of front-line clinical staff with experience in caring for COVID-19 patients to help ensure safety as hospitals look to resume some version of their normal operations. The union, in its May 11 letter to Baker, also called for passage of legislation that would create an "occupational presumption" for health care workers who contract COVID-19, saying several such bills have been filed in the state Legislature. (Lannan, 5/13)
Boston Globe: Harvard Medical School Says Incoming Students Will Learn Online; UMass Medical School Will Hold Classes On Campus
Students entering Harvard Medical School this fall will learn remotely to help avoid spreading the novel coronavirus, while returning students will likely have access to at least some on-site research and clinical facilities, administrators announced Wednesday. The state’s only public medical school, the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, said it expects to hold classes on campus for the fall but remote learning will likely be necessary to limit class sizes, an administrator said. (Fox, 5/13)
