Rush To Find Rooms, Care For Homeless: LA, Seattle Scramble To Protect Most Vulnerable
Advocates say relocating the nation's estimated 560,000 homeless people to indoor shelters will connect them to health care services key to detecting and combating outbreaks. In Los Angeles, officials install hand-washing stations and try to spread the word about social distancing to people who are used to sharing. Other public health news is on easing blood-donation restrictions for gay men, disruptions in cancer treatments, primer on coronavirus vs. other ailments, mental health, and tracing how travelers quickly spread the virus, as well.
The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Tries To House Its Homeless In A Hurry To Prevent Coronavirus Outbreaks
After years spent struggling to find the funds and political will to address the homelessness crisis, state and local leaders are being forced to shelter homeless people as fast as possible in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Doing so is necessary to avoid an outbreak among one of the nation’s most vulnerable groups of people, according to experts. “We’ve never moved this many people ever or had the ambition to move this many people off the streets at any given time,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti at a press conference last week. (Mai-Duc, Caldwell and Armour, 4/3)
KQED:
'Palpable Fear' Within Homeless Communities As Coronavirus Crisis Forces Shelters To Limit Capacity
Shelters in Alameda County have stopped accepting new clients — as they have in San Francisco and elsewhere around the Bay Area — so they can begin to implement the social distancing guidelines that have been mandated by the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But that makes it hard for those who have nowhere else to go, Moore said. She knows. She’s homeless, too. (Baldassari, 4/2)
ABC News:
FDA Loosens Restrictions On Gay And Bisexual Men, Encourages Blood Donations Amid Coronavirus Crisis
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it would loosen some of the restrictions that have blocked gay and bisexual men from donating blood. The agency is changing the recommended deferral period for men who have had sex with another man from 12 months to three months. Restrictions on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, and other groups considered to be high risk for HIV or AIDS transmission, date back to the 1980's. (Ebbs, 4/2)
NPR:
Cancer Patients Face Treatment Disruptions During Coronavirus Pandemic
As hospitals across the country are forced to delay or cancel certain medical procedures in response to the surge in patients with COVID-19, those hard choices are disrupting care for some people with serious illnesses. The federal government has encouraged health centers to delay non-essential surgeries while weighing the severity of the patient's condition and the availability of personal protective equipment, beds, and staffing at hospitals. (Stone, 4/2)
The New York Times:
Coronavirus Vs Flu Vs Allergies: Which One Is It?
With the spread of the coronavirus comes another ailment: anxiety about every single symptom. Is your nose feeling itchy because you’re trying not to touch your face, because you picked up the flu — or is it, just maybe, the coronavirus?With the start of spring, allergies may be triggering symptoms that can make it difficult to determine what your body is trying to fight off. Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, helps explain the subtle differences between signs of allergies or infection with the flu or the coronavirus. (Sheikh, 4/2)
The New York Times:
How O.C.D. And Hand-Washing And Coronavirus Collide
The coronavirus outbreak has turned many of us into nervous germophobes, seeking to protect ourselves from infection by washing our hands methodically and frequently, avoiding unnecessary contact with so called high-touch surfaces and methodically sanitizing packages, our homes and our bodies. For people diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or O.C.D., the worry created by the threat of coronavirus has the potential for more intense and longer-lasting implications. (Rosman, 4/3)
ABC News:
Disaster In Motion: 3.4 Million Travelers Poured Into US As Coronavirus Pandemic Erupted
An ABC News investigation offers sobering insight into how COVID-19 has spread and penetrated so broadly, so deeply and so quickly in the United States. It also helps explain why Americans, no matter where they live, must continue to heed the warnings of health officials to self distance and why the virus likely was here far earlier than first realized. (Thomas, Date, Salzman and Strauss, 4/2)
