Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Recent Outbreaks Hearken Back To Early Days When Virus Was Silently Brewing At Large Gatherings
The New York Times: Bars, Strip Clubs And Churches: U.S. Virus Outbreaks Enter Unwieldy Phase
After months of lockdown in which outbreaks of the coronavirus often centered in nursing homes, prisons and meatpacking plants, the nation is entering a new and uncertain phase of the pandemic. New Covid-19 clusters have been found in a Pentecostal church in Oregon, a strip club in Wisconsin and in every imaginable place in between. In Baton Rouge, La., at least 100 people tested positive for the virus after visiting bars in the Tigerland nightlife district, popular among Louisiana State University students. (Mervosh, Smith and Tompkins, 6/22)
ABC News: As Cases Rise, Pence Warns Young People Increasingly Catching Coronavirus
Vice President Mike Pence warned on Monday that young people across the country are increasingly testing positive for coronavirus, a trend that's been worrying experts as nearly half the states in the nation are now reporting overall increases in infections. "We are seeing more people test positive under the age of 35, particularly in our discussions with the leadership in Florida and in Texas," Pence said on a conference call with state governors Monday, according to audio of the call obtained by ABC News. (Faulders, Rubin, Kim and Romero, 6/22)
CNN: Public Restrooms: What You Need To Know About Using Them Safely Amid The Pandemic
When Mariel Balaban drove across the United States in the middle of the pandemic, she knew that avoiding public restrooms was not an option for her young family. "Traveling with a toddler and being seven months pregnant means lots of 'potty stops,'" said Balaban, a communications professional who moved from San Francisco to the Philadelphia area in early April. But Balaban worried that finding safe, clean public restrooms was going to be a challenge. (Smith, 6/23)
ABC News: Coronavirus Is Pushing The US Child Care Industry To The Brink Of Collapse: Advocates
Diana Limongi says she is heartbroken. "So I am here at my daughter's daycare, and that's it. You know, they're closing," Limongi said as she packed up her 3-year-old daughter's things from her now-closed child care center. "It's all empty. A beautiful space and both my kids went here. So I'm really, really sad." Limongi and many working parents are learning firsthand a tough reality -- the coronavirus pandemic is pushing the nation's child care industry to the brink of collapse. (Travers and Weinstein, 6/22)
The Washington Post: Movie Theaters’ Face Reopening Challenge: Becoming Covid Safe Without Alarming Customers
As he gets ready to open his movie theaters across Illinois and Wisconsin, Chris Johnson faces a dilemma.Johnson is eager to emphasize all the measures he and his staff are taking to protect patrons from covid-19. But he’s also wary of overdoing medical talk and scaring off potential customers.“You don’t want to make all the health stuff too obvious,” said Johnson, the chief executive of Classic Cinemas, which operates 120 screens at 15 theaters. “Because if it feels like they’re checking in for a flight, they aren’t going to come. But you have to let them know somehow. So it’s really hard." (Zeitchik, 6/22)
The New York Times: A Multibillion-Dollar Opportunity: Virus-Proofing The New Office
Truework, an income verification start-up, recently introduced software to help employers keep track of their workers’ health status. Gensler, an architecture and design firm, has a workplace floor-planning app that generates social-distancing layouts for desks and other office furniture. PwC, the professional services firm, is using technology that it originally developed to track inventory for a new contact-tracing system that logs employee interactions so workers can be notified in the event of exposure to the coronavirus. (Singer and Creswell, 6/22)
The New York Times: 'Nature Deficit Disorder' Is Really A Thing
LaToya Jordan and her family have no green space by their Brooklyn apartment. So she, like many other New Yorkers, relies on the city’s playgrounds and parks to give her two children, ages 2 and 8, some exposure to nature. The outbreak of the coronavirus in New York City took away that access to green space when playgrounds closed across the city, and the city’s parks, like Prospect Park in Brooklyn, became too crowded for her children to properly social distance. (St-Esprit McKivigan, 6/23)
Kaiser Health News: The Hidden Deaths Of The COVID Pandemic
Sara Wittner had seemingly gotten her life back under control. After a December relapse in her battle with drug addiction, the 32-year-old completed a 30-day detox program and started taking a monthly injection to block her cravings for opioids. She was engaged to be married, working for a local health association and counseling others about drug addiction. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. (Hawryluk, 6/23)
The Wall Street Journal: Back To School With Covid-19 Rules: Temperature Checks, Few Sports And Lots Of Distance
As American parents and students begin to consider what school will look like in the fall, children across much of the world have returned to schools already, finding them barely recognizable, with new layouts and routines adapted for the coronavirus pandemic. Cafeterias look like exam halls with desks spaced out, temperatures are checked, shared computers are unplugged, and there are no sports. For some, yellow signs on the ground dictate which directions they should walk, with paths divided by ages. For others, school has been reduced to a few hours a day or takes place only on alternating days. (Craymer and Jeong, 6/23)
The Washington Post: College Football Faces Tougher Road To Recovery Than NFL, Former FDA Chief Says
Playing football during the novel coronavirus pandemic presents a serious challenge, and it’s one that will be more easily solved by NFL teams than by college and high school teams, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration said. “I think the professional leagues can do a lot to create a bubble around the players and test them and put in place measures to control what they do off the field as well,” Scott Gottlieb said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I think it’s going to be much more difficult for colleges to do that. First of all to implement the testing — they don’t have the resources to do it — but also to control behavior off the field.” (Boren, 6/22)
NPR: How To Start Journaling
The term "journaling" encompasses a lot of different things: the list of birds you've seen in your neighborhood; the descriptions of sights you saw on your last vacation; the notes you jotted down about the dream you had last night. But the general, tried and true everything is a bit much in my life right now, and I have to write it down type of journaling can really help when, well, everything is a bit much. James Pennebaker, a professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, has spent decades studying "expressive writing." Basically, Pennebaker says, if you find yourself ruminating on something, "set aside some time to write about it for anywhere from five to 20 minutes a day, for one day, two days, maybe as many as five days." (Limbong, 6/23)
The New York Times: The Pets Left Behind By Covid-19
As a trained disaster responder, Dr. Robin Brennen was well versed in proper safety procedures when she entered a coronavirus patient’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in late March. She pulled on protective plastic bootees, a face mask and an eye shield. Then, with a gloved hand, she picked up the rest of her equipment: a 5-pound bag of cat kibble and a litter box. The pandemic’s devastating human toll in New York City has been well documented. But it has also affected people’s lives in ways that have gotten less attention, including what happens to the pets of those who become seriously ill. (Nir, 6/23)
CNN: Taxing Sugar Levels In Soda Could Prevent 2 Million US Cases Of Diabetes And Cardiovascular Disease, Study Says
Cities, states and nations have been turning to sugar taxes as a potential way to improve public health in their communities, but the jury has been out on how best to implement the fine. Taxes on sugary drinks, a new study has revealed, can lead to major health gains and reductions in health care costs — but just how much of a benefit they provide can vary by the design of the tax. (Howard, 6/22)
