Viewpoints: Lessons From Front-Line Medical Workers On COVID-19 Truths; Vaccine Researchers Watch, Wait For Better Understanding
Opinion experts weigh in on these pandemic issues and others.
Modern Healthcare:
Some Positive Changes In Healthcare Amid The COVID Crisis
If COVID-19 is the war, then front-line healthcare workers are our hero soldiers. Sadly, the list of healthcare providers lost to COVID-19 worldwide grows longer and longer. How is it that the country that spends the most per person on healthcare ended up sending soldiers to the battlefield without proper protection (too few masks and caregivers resorting to garbage bags as gowns). (Dawn Bounds and Wrenetha Julion, 4/15)
Stat:
Protect Health Care Workers Speaking The Truth On Social Media
I think a lot of doctors now are feeling that the worry and the panic about coronavirus is gonna be worse than the actual coronavirus for them.” That was Dr. Mehmet Oz opining on Fox News not long ago. Within seconds, health care professionals responded fiercely and forcefully on social media. (Jessica Gold, 4/16)
CNN:
It's Shameful How Many Health-Care Workers Are Dying From Covid-19
When I was a young doctor in the 1980s, I cared for several health-care workers who had acquired HIV infection after an occupational exposure -- a needlestick, a cut, a laboratory accident. No effective treatment was available then, but I would see them every month and we would talk about the latest "cures" hitting the news. Some we tried and when zidovudine, the first approved medication, became widely available, we tried that too. But each person died, sooner rather than later. Their tragic situation has recurred in recent years as well. (Kent Sepkowitz, 4/15)
WBUR:
I'm Worried About The Psychological Toll On Health Care Workers. They Need Help
Our health care workers are under immense stress.They are facing dire shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE). They’re being asked to make life-and-death decisions that are potentially inconsistent with their values. They fear not only compromising their own personal well-being, but also that of their families. They are facing incomprehensible and unpredictable situations each day, that for some may result in delayed anxiety symptoms, traumatic memories, PTSD or depression. (Nancy Rappaport, 4/16)
The New York Times:
The Coronavirus Is Mutating. What Does That Mean For A Vaccine?
Around the world, hope for a return to normalcy is pinned on a vaccine, the “ultimate weapon,” as it’s been called by officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. But it’s still unclear how successful a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, can be. A lot will depend on how the virus mutates. Broadly, there are two ways mutations can play out. (Nathaniel Lash and Tala Schlossberg, 4/16)
Stat:
The Covid-19 Pandemic Could Improve The U.S. Health Care System
The Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly disrupted our everyday life... It’s a bleak scenario. And it won’t get better any time soon. Yet we have high hopes for how the U.S. health care system will emerge from this crisis. Why? In the past two weeks, the nation has adopted new policies to protect the health of vulnerable populations – policies that public health professionals and advocates have been pursuing for decades. (Julia L. Marcus and Joshua Barocas, 4/14)
The New York Times:
The Coronavirus Is Changing How Americans View One Another
America will almost certainly emerge from the coronavirus pandemic as a different society. A new survey suggests the experience has already changed what we believe we owe our neighbors and how much economic inequality we find acceptable. (Alexander W. Cappelen, Ranveig Falch, Erik O. Sorensen, Bertil Tungodden and Gus Wezerek, 4/16)
Stat:
Learning Lessons From Poor Countries That Have Fought Epidemics
About two months ago, when Covid-19 was still a somewhat distant problem in the United States, I caught sight of a poster in a remote airport in the Peruvian Amazon warning about the coronavirus. At the time I was leading a global health team from Dartmouth College working with Peru’s National Telehealth Network to extend its telehealth program to remote rural communities with limited health infrastructure and health care workers. (Anne N. Sosin, 4/16)
The Hill:
Supply Chain Management Is A Vital Weapon In The War Against The Coronavirus
The great French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus observed in his classic novel “The Plague” that “…always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.” What does not take people by surprise is the naming and blaming and politicization (especially in an election year) that immediately come front and center when a national catastrophe takes place. In the “Age of Coronavirus,” one side claims that COVID-19 did indeed take us by surprise, while the other counters that as early as November 2019 a report presented to the White House from the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence made it clear that the contagion was very real and rapidly growing and widening. (Ricardo Ernst and Jerry Haar, 4/15)
Stat:
Lawsuits Could Loom With HIPAA's De-Identified Data Exception
As money pours into health care startups built around artificial intelligence — more than 350 deals totaling $4 billion in 2019 — the field is generally overlooking the potential litigation risk surrounding the de-identified data exception in HIPAA. Large volumes of data underpin the development of any AI effort. So it’s no surprise we’ve been seeing partnerships between hospitals and holders of large amounts of consumer data (“big data”). (Patricia S. Calhoun and Patricia M. Carreiro, 4/16)
