Putting Off Health Care: 31% Of All Americans Delay Trips To Doctors; More Than 50% Of Seniors Cancel Appointments

Modern Healthcare: Nearly A Third Of Americans Have Put Off Healthcare During COVID-19
Around 1 in 3 Americans are delaying medical care as they cope with the financial losses and stress caused by COVID-19, new studies show. Thirty-one percent of more than 9,000 adults surveyed in late March and early April said they haven't had medical care in the past month, are unable to pay their rent, mortgage or utility bills, or don't have access to enough nutritious food, according to a new poll by the Urban Institute. In another survey released Tuesday, 29% of more than 2,200 adults surveyed said they had avoided medical care because they are concerned about contracting the virus, according to a Morning Consult-American College of Emergency Physicians poll conducted last week. (Kacik, 4/28)

NPR: Survey: Seniors Say They Put Off Some Medical Treatments During Social Isolation
More than half of older Americans, many with chronic conditions, put off medical treatment during the first month of social distancing. That's according to a nationwide survey funded by the SCAN Foundation and the John A. Hartford Foundation, both of which focus on improving care for older adults. (Jaffe, 4/28)

The New York Times: ‘Will You Help Save My Brother?’: The Scramble To Find Covid-19 Plasma Donors
The doctor was dying. Without a way to improve his breathing, Dr. Vladimir Laroche was not likely to survive Covid-19. An internist who spent almost four decades caring for the sick, Dr. Laroche contracted the disease last month while treating patients at a health center and drive-up testing site for the novel coronavirus. In a week’s time, he quickly spiraled. He went from noticing a stubborn sore throat to experiencing flulike symptoms that forced him to leave work early to fighting the virus in the intensive care unit of a Florida hospital. (Burch and Harmon, 4/29)

The Wall Street Journal: The Roads Are Quieter Due To Coronavirus, But There Are More Fatal Car Crashes
Fewer drivers are hitting the road during the pandemic, yet police in some places have made an unexpected discovery: an increase in deadly car crashes. Minnesota and Louisiana recorded more traffic fatalities during the coronavirus crisis than in the same periods of past years, even though there were far fewer drivers on the road because of stay-at-home orders. In states including Missouri, fatality rates increased even as total crash deaths declined, according to state officials. (Calvert, 4/29)

The Washington Post: Cities Fear Heat Waves Will Quickly Become Deadly.
The windowless corridor on a 20th floor in the Mott Haven Houses — a cluster of public-housing towers in the South Bronx — felt like a thoroughfare, even in the middle of a pandemic when residents are supposed to be avoiding one another. People and their dogs poured out of the elevator, joining others in an already crowded hallway. Many residents kept their apartment doors open, allowing for a slight breeze even though the air stank of urine in some places and bleach in others. (Yuan, Craig and Bailey, 4/28)

Stat: Patients, Drug Makers Grapple With Cancer Clinical Trials During Coronavirus
The coronavirus pandemic has thrown a wrench into plans for hundreds of clinical trials seeking therapies for diseases beyond Covid-19. But some investigators and sponsors are trying to push ahead, tailoring ways to keep patients enrolled while keeping them safe and to ensure the trial can still produce rigorous evidence of whether or not a drug works. (Joseph, 4/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Harlem Pastor Increases Focus On Church’s Mental Health As Covid-19 Takes Toll
The Rev. Michael Walrond Jr. spent the earliest days of the pandemic getting used to remote church services. Since then the outreach strategy has changed, giving has slipped and encouragement has become a theme in sermons. The crisis has taken a prolonged toll on the people who attend First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, where Mr. Walrond serves as senior pastor. This has him increasingly focused on addressing the long-term issues that will result from coping with anxiety and loss. (Johnson, 4/29)

ABC News: More Children Ingesting Hand Sanitizers Due To Manufacturing Lapses: FDA 
As the novel coronavirus epidemic continues, horrific stories have been reported of children becoming sick from drinking hand sanitizers. This week, the Food and Drug Administration warned that some of the 1,500 hand sanitizer manufacturers are skipping a vital step in production -- omitting the denatured alcohol that's needed to make the product bitter and less appealing to consume. (Taghipour, 4/28)

PBS NewsHour: ‘Truly The Last Safe Haven’: Libraries Serve Vulnerable Communities During The Pandemic 
Like so many other services, libraries around the country have had to quickly adapt to the shutdowns and distancing measures put in place as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but also to figure out how to reach the most vulnerable members of their communities under the new restrictions. In Carroll Country, people are using the new curbside book pickup, set up by Thornton’s staff in response to the virus. Community members can also still access critical digital services, like WiFi, in light of the economic downturn. (Vinopal, 4/28)

The New York Times: Pug In North Carolina Tests Positive For The Coronavirus, Researchers Say
A pug in North Carolina named Winston has tested positive for the coronavirus in what is apparently the first known case in which the virus was detected in a dog in the United States, researchers at Duke University said on Tuesday. The dog belongs to a Chapel Hill family participating in a research study at the university, in which researchers were trying to understand how humans respond to different types of infection. Three of the family members, Dr. Heather McLean, Dr. Samuel McLean and their son Ben McLean, were also infected by the virus. (Hauser and Gross, 4/28)

WBUR: Child Sexual Abuse Reports Are On The Rise Amid Lockdown Orders 
There has been a rise in the number of minors contacting the National Sexual Assault Hotline to report abuse. That's according to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, which runs the hotline. By the end of March, with much of the country under lockdown, there was a 22% increase in monthly calls from people younger than 18, and half of all incoming contacts were from minors. That's a first in RAINN's history, Camille Cooper, the organization's vice president of public policy, tells NPR. (Kamenetz, 4/28)

KQED: Isolated COVID-19 Deaths Have People Asking About Right-To-Die Medications 
Healthy callers are asking for advice about how to write into their advanced directives for medical care that they want to take life-ending medication if they became ill from the coronavirus to ensure a quick, peaceful death. Dembosky, 4/28)

Kaiser Health News: The Challenges Of Keeping Young Adults Safe During The Pandemic
Last month, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered most of the state’s residents to stay home, I found myself under virtual house arrest with an uncomfortably large number of Gen Zers. Somehow I had accumulated four of my children’s friends over the preceding months. I suppose some parents more hard-nosed than I would have sent them packing, but I didn’t have the heart — especially in the case of my daughter’s college roommate, who couldn’t get back to her family in Vietnam. (Wolfson, 4/29)

Boston Globe: Airline Catering Workers Getting Infected, Hospitalized At High Rate, Union Says
Airlines are carrying only a fraction of the passengers they did before the coronavirus pandemic struck, but thousands of airline catering workers are still on the job, preparing meals, packaging snack boxes, filling carts with drinks — and loading them on planes flying all over the world. This largely hidden workforce, made up primarily of immigrants and people of color, many of whom can’t afford health insurance, is at great risk of contracting the virus, according to one of the unions that represent them. Which means the passengers they’re feeding could be at higher risk, too. (Johnston, 4/28)