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Trump administration wants to loosen federal rules meant to control infections in nursing homes

Trump administration wants to loosen federal rules meant to control infections in nursing homes

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration has been working to relax regulations governing America’s nursing homes, including rules meant to curb deadly infections among elderly residents. The main federal regulator overseeing nursing homes proposed the rule changes last summer, before the coronavirus pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of nursing homes to fast-spreading diseases. The push followed a spate of lobbying and campaign contributions by people in the nursing-home industry, according to public records and interviews. The coronavirus has killed…

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With unprecedented force and speed, a global recession is likely taking hold

With unprecedented force and speed, a global recession is likely taking hold

The Washington Post reports: The United States is suffering the most abrupt and widespread cessation of economic activity in its history, hurtling toward a recession that could mean lost jobs, income and wealth for millions of Americans. Across the country, consumer spending — which supports 70 percent of the economy — is grinding to a halt as fears of the escalating coronavirus pandemic keep people from stores, restaurants, movie theaters and workplaces. The rapid national shutdown already has caused layoffs…

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Singapore was ready for Covid-19 — other countries should take note

Singapore was ready for Covid-19 — other countries should take note

Wired reports: This pandemic—the new disease Covid-19, the virus SARS-CoV-2—is not Singapore’s first epidemiological nightmare. In 2002 and 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the original SARS, tore out of China and through Asia, killing 33 people in Singapore and sparking wholesale revisions to the city-state’s public health system. “They realized they wanted to invest for the future, to reduce that economic cost if the same thing were to happen again,” says Martin Hibberd, an infectious disease researcher now at the…

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As protective measures against the coronavirus vary county to county, Americans see the cost

As protective measures against the coronavirus vary county to county, Americans see the cost

The New York Times reports: David Norton, who helps to run a community center in this small Rhode Island city, is not a scientist. Neither were the board members who gathered for an emergency meeting last week, to decide whether the risk of contagion meant they should cancel their upcoming events. They sat together — a nurse, a civil servant, a therapist, an insurance executive — and tried to decode the guidance given by state and federal authorities. Rhode Island’s…

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Why a Roman philosopher’s views on the fear of death matter as coronavirus spreads

Why a Roman philosopher’s views on the fear of death matter as coronavirus spreads

Lucretius Carus. Internet Archive Book Images/Flickr By Thomas Nail, University of Denver With the global spread of the new coronavirus, fears about illness and death weigh heavily on the minds of many. Such fears can often result in a disregard for the welfare of others. All over the world, for example, essential items such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer have been sold out, with many people stockpiling them. A first-century B.C. Roman poet and philosopher, Lucretius was worried that…

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This coronavirus is unlike anything in our lifetime, and we have to stop comparing it to the flu

This coronavirus is unlike anything in our lifetime, and we have to stop comparing it to the flu

Charles Ornstein writes: As a longtime health care reporter, I see the unfolding coronavirus pandemic as representing everything I’ve read about — from the early days of epidemiology to the staggering toll of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic — but had not covered in my lifetime. And still, I have been caught off guard by the pushback from top elected officials and even some friends and acquaintances who keep comparing it to the flu. “So last year 37,000 Americans died…

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Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized

Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized

CNN reports: New studies in several countries and a large coronavirus outbreak in Massachusetts bring into question reassuring assertions by US officials about the way the novel virus spreads. These officials have emphasized that the virus is spread mainly by people who are already showing symptoms, such as fever, cough or difficulty breathing. If that’s true, it’s good news, since people who are obviously ill can be identified and isolated, making it easier to control an outbreak. But it appears…

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Gathering in groups right now is selfish and puts the lives of others at risk

Gathering in groups right now is selfish and puts the lives of others at risk

Charlie Warzel writes: The coronavirus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, are spreading across the United States faster than we can track or test. This week the confirmed caseload jumped from 309 to at least 2,170 cases in 49 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. A testing shortage has experts fearing the true number is likely thousands of cases higher. Public life in America has methodically ground to a halt. This week companies instituted mandatory…

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Trump is breaking every rule in the CDC’s 450-page playbook for talking to the public during a health crisis

Trump is breaking every rule in the CDC’s 450-page playbook for talking to the public during a health crisis

The Washington Post reports: Amid an outbreak where vaccines, drug treatments and even sufficient testing don’t yet exist, communication that is delivered early, accurately and credibly is the strongest medicine in the government’s arsenal. But the Trump administration’s zigzagging, defensive, inconsistent messages about the novel coronavirus continued Friday, breaking almost every rule in the book and eroding the most powerful weapon officials possess: Public trust. After disastrous communications during the 2001 anthrax attacks — when white powder in envelopes sparked…

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A giant hole in Pelosi’s coronavirus bill

A giant hole in Pelosi’s coronavirus bill

An editorial in the New York Times says: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday night celebrated the coronavirus legislation that passed early Saturday as providing paid sick leave to American workers affected by the pandemic. She neglected to mention the fine print. In fact, the bill guarantees sick leave only to about 20 percent of workers. Big employers like McDonald’s and Amazon are not required to provide any paid sick leave, while companies with fewer than 50 employees can seek…

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As Europe shuts down, Britain gambles on ‘herd immunity’

As Europe shuts down, Britain gambles on ‘herd immunity’

The New York Times reports: Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain once said his political hero was the mayor in the film “Jaws,” praising him for defying mass hysteria to keep the beaches open after a constituent is eaten by a shark. As the coronavirus now stampedes across Britain and much of the world, Mr. Johnson is heeding the same principle, spurning the mass closures that have become commonplace across Europe and gambling his political future on a more restrained…

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Coronavirus cancels campaign rallies in blow to Trump and Sanders. Biden, not so much

Coronavirus cancels campaign rallies in blow to Trump and Sanders. Biden, not so much

Steve Rabinowitz writes: You know it’s bad when President Donald Trump is canceling campaign rallies. The massive gatherings of loyal devotees are events he feeds off and are central to his re-election strategy: Whip up the base to make sure they vote and get as much free media attention as possible while doing it. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., takes a similar approach to rallying the masses, even turning his large crowds into rock concerts to jack up the energy and…

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Could the 2020 election be postponed? Only with great difficulty

Could the 2020 election be postponed? Only with great difficulty

Alexander Burns writes: The date of the general election is set by federal law and has been fixed since 1845. It would take a change in federal law to move that date. That would mean legislation enacted by Congress, signed by the president and subject to challenge in the courts. To call that unlikely would be an understatement. And even if all of that happened, there would not be much flexibility in choosing an alternate election date: The Constitution mandates…

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Singapore wins praise for its COVID-19 strategy, but the U.S. does not

Singapore wins praise for its COVID-19 strategy, but the U.S. does not

NPR reports: Hong Kong and Singapore were hit early with the coronavirus. But each now has fewer than 200 cases, while France, Germany and Spain, which were hit late, all have more than 10 times that number. Three weeks ago, Italy had only three cases. Now it has more than 10,000. These dramatic differences show that how governments respond to this virus matters, says Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s head of emergencies. “Hope is not a strategy,” says Ryan,…

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I ran the White House pandemic office that Trump closed

I ran the White House pandemic office that Trump closed

Beth Cameron writes: When President Trump took office in 2017, the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense survived the transition intact. Its mission was the same as when I was asked to lead the office, established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014: to do everything possible within the vast powers and resources of the U.S. government to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic. One year…

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