Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Lessons On Mental Health, Loneliness Of College Students; Stop Deaths From Guns, Overdoses
Los Angeles Times: Why College Students Have A Hard Time Living By Pandemic Rules
As a college professor, I am very worried about more colleges and universities opening around the country over the next few weeks. If campus communities can’t comply with social distancing requirements, thousands of students could contract COVID-19, forcing schools to scramble to shut down again and go fully remote. Quite a few schools that have opened — with safety protocols in place — have already either closed or are struggling to deal with coronavirus spikes. Cases have been reported at colleges and universities in 36 states, including Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Iowa, Alabama, Massachusetts and Mississippi. And fingers are being pointed at students for being irresponsible and dangerous for violating social distancing rules in the midst of this pandemic. (Samuel J. Abrams, 8/25)
Bloomberg: Covid-19 Has Long-Term Effects For Health And Wealth
Many Covid-19 patients keep feeling sick for months after infection. Known as “long haulers,” there may be hundreds of thousands of such people in the U.S. But in a way, we’re all at risk of being pandemic long-haulers. The coronavirus and its obliteration of normalcy have led to a separate pandemic of depression and despair, writes Andreas Kluth, particularly among young people and those perpetually unlucky millennials. These effects can weigh on people for a lifetime and can be deadly in their own right, constituting a second health-care crisis policy makers must confront. (Mark Gongloff, 8/24)
NBC News: Back To School? COVID-19 Advice For American Parents And Teachers Amid A Pandemic
As states around the United States weighed whether schools should reopen, children began testing positive for the coronavirus in alarming numbers. Across the country, there was a 40 percent increase in pediatric cases, according to a study looking at the last two weeks in July. Florida, a COVID-19 epicenter, reported a 137 percent rise in school-age children in July, including a 105 percent uptick in hospitalizations. (Dr. Valda Crowder, 8/24)
Tampa Bay Times: Judge Correctly Gives Power Back To Local School Boards
Local school boards have rightly regained the power to decide when schools can safely reopen classrooms during this pandemic. Local boards can weigh the best medical evidence, not worry about financial penalties wielded by the state, in making such important steps. That’s thanks to Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson, who ruled Monday in favor of the Florida Education Association’s legal challenge to the state’s forced reopening of schools before the end of August. (8/24)
Stat: Use Lifetime Risk To Visualize Deaths From Firearms, Drug Overdoses
Shortly before the coronavirus shuttered schools last spring, I toured a new elementary school in my community in Ohio. But I had a hard time concentrating on the gleaming whiteboards, the new computers, or the cheerfully decorated walls. A new way I had recently devised to put into context deaths from firearms and overdoses kept distracting me. (Ashwini Sehgal, 8/25)
KQED: Let's Talk About Wildfires And Prisons
When officials ordered local residents to be evacuated because of the fire, the evacuation area originally outlined by the Vacaville Police Department contained the two prisons. But the people in both prisons were never evacuated, and instead given masks. Soon after, the facilities were removed from the mandatory evacuation listing, with a CDCR spokesperson giving the reason that "they were not in immediate danger." At the same time, the Mercury News reported that as firefighters approached Cherry Hill Road, just over the ridge from the prisons, they radioed to each other, “do not worry about any firefighting.” Instead, they scrambled to assist in the evacuation of local residents. (Pendarvis Harshaw, 8/24)
Stat: Hospital CEOs, Med School Heads Shouldn't Sit On Company Boards
In late July, Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, president of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, came under intense scrutiny for activities she undertook outside her role at the hospital. The focus was on her sitting on the boards of directors of two publicly traded companies: Medtronic, a medical device company, and Moderna, a Boston-based biotech whose Covid-19 vaccine is now in clinical trials — and the Brigham is one of the testing sites for it. (Jeffrey S. Flier, 8/24)
St. Louis Post Dispatch: Another Brutal Police Attack On An Unarmed Black Man. Did They Not Get The Message?
Americans are bracing for a new round of protests after white officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin, unleashed a barrage of gunfire at an unarmed Black man who appeared to pose no threat to them. In a video of the shooting, the man had his back turned to the officers when at least one opened fire at point-blank range. Considering that seven rounds were fired into Jacob Blake’s back, he was lucky to have survived. Defenders of the police action can try all they want to portray Blake as the perpetrator of his own troubles. He failed to follow orders. He walked away when commanded to stop. He tried to get into his car where his three sons sat. Maybe, from the officers’ perspective, those constituted super-bad crimes. But under no law we know of can such infractions be construed as capital offenses worthy of attempting Blake’s immediate execution on the street. (8/24)
