7 Major Coronavirus Developments — Raimondo Admin to Reverse on Nursing Home Disclosures — April 23
GoLocalProv News Team
7 Major Coronavirus Developments — Raimondo Admin to Reverse on Nursing Home Disclosures — April 23
Now, policy changes by the Trump administration seem to have forced Rhode Island to disclose the information.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThis week, Politico reported, “American nursing homes will now be required to report coronavirus cases directly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as to patients and their families, CMS Administrator Seema Verma …The directive from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mark a significant change in practice. The CDC has not formally tracked the number of COVID-19 cases that spread inside homes for vulnerable elderly patients. Thousands have died.”
WATCH: Former RI Director of Health Dr. Michael Fine on GoLocal LIVE at 12 PM on Thursday
“It's important that patients and their families have the information that they need, and they need to understand what's going on in the nursing home,” Verma said at a White House briefing.
The Raimondo administration has until now refused to disclose all information. On April 16, the Rhode Island Health Department told GoLocal in an email, “We have moved away from reporting on facilities with isolated cases. This is because this has created some confusion in the past. In these instances, we are encouraging nursing homes to take the lead on communicating with residents and families.”
On Wednesday night, the Raimondo administration reversed its policy after GoLocal cited the federal requirement. "We are going to put a comprehensive spreadsheet online tomorrow," said the Health Department in an email.
In Rhode Island, the vast majority of all deaths have been linked to nursing home patients, but the state's data is incomplete. The Administration has only disclosed the age of about 50% of the deaths. Only 96 of the 181 have been released. According to that data, 79 of the 96 deaths are over 70 years of age.
Hot Beds of Infection and Lack of Protective Equipment
On Tuesday, the union representing the workers at Charlesgate nursing charged, “Staff that do have access to full body suits have had to purchase them out of their own pockets. Workers need full personal protective equipment to protect themselves, their families and their residents from further exposure.”
The union said that 35 patients and one staffer have tested positive. And, “Additionally, workers are calling on the Department of Health to conduct onsite testing of workers instead of asking them to travel at least 15 minutes away to an offsite testing location.”
READ 7 Major Coronavirus Developments BELOW
7 Major Coronavirus Developments — April 23, 2020
New Research From NY Hospitals Questions Ventilators
A new paper published in JAMA raises new questions about the use of ventilators -- one of the biggest political footballs over the past 6 weeks.
The report finds that the mortality for those requiring mechanical ventilation was 88.1%.
Other physicians have argued oxygen treatment is more effective. “I think we may indeed be able to support a subset of these patients” with less invasive breathing support, said Sohan Japa, an internal medicine physician at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in an interview with STAT two weeks ago. “I think we have to be more nuanced about who we intubate.”
The paper identified other critical factors as well:
"In this case series that included 5700 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the New York City area, the most common comorbidities were hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. Among patients who were discharged or died (n = 2634), 14.2% were treated in the intensive care unit, 12.2% received invasive mechanical ventilation, 3.2% were treated with kidney replacement therapy, and 21% died," according to the report written by Safiya Richardson, MD, MPH1; Jamie S. Hirsch, MD, MA, MSB; Mangala Narasimhan, DO2.
Financial Inequities of Coronavirus
In the past two days, the head of RI's Latino PAC Joseph Molina-Flynn and State Representatives Liana Cassar and Rebecca Kislak have written about how the coronavirus has exposed inequalities in the state.
Now Pew Research has issued a comprehensive report unveiling that the hardest hit by the closures are the poor and Latinos.
As the economic toll from the coronavirus outbreak continues to mount, a new Pew Research Center survey finds the impact is falling more heavily on lower-income adults – a group that was feeling significant financial pressure well before the current crisis.
Overall, 43% of U.S. adults now say that they or someone in their household has lost a job or taken a cut in pay due to the outbreak, up from 33% in the latter half of March. Among lower-income adults, an even higher share (52%) say they or someone in their household has experienced this type of job upheaval.
READ THE REST OF THE RESEARCH HERE
Ramadan Impacted
As Muslims around the world begin Ramadan, many leading clerics are urging prayer at home.
"From Mecca and Jerusalem to London and New York, Muslim scholars across the world have called on people to "stay home and stay safe" this Ramadan, keeping mosques closed and congregational prayers on hold to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Muslims observe Ramadan by fasting during daylight hours, but also essential to this holy month are gatherings to share meals and take part in communal prayers, known as tarawih, or night prayers."
Tech, Media Startups Getting Hit Too
PitchBook is reporting that companies that were tech darlings just months ago are getting hammered with layoffs and pay cuts.
Some of the top digital news companies -- VICE and Buzzfeed included -- are being hit hard.
Even as workers at venture capital portfolio companies have been losing their jobs, a growing number of startups are attempting to ride out the coronavirus pandemic by implementing salary cuts for rank-and-file employees and CEOs alike, according to a new survey.
The cost-cutting efforts will likely have varying impacts from company to company, but they're indicative of a worsening financial state across the broader venture landscape. The seemingly unending news of layoffs and furloughs continued this week at multibillion-dollar companies like Magic Leap, Vice Media and Houzz.
Notable startups that have reportedly issued pay cuts across the board over the past month include BuzzFeed and Oyo.
Raimondo's Beach Plan
Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo said Wednesday that reopening parks and beaches will be part of the "first phase" of lifting coronavirus restrictions in the state.
"I’m announcing an effort to reopen parks and beaches as part of the first phase of lifting restrictions," said Raimondo, who said she asked Janet Coit at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for a "phased" approach. Raimondo said she intends to unveil the plan next week.
The approach will be "slow and incremental" leading up to complete reopening -- with new restrictions, said Raimondo.
"This gives me hope. We're not there yet but hope is on the horizon," she said.
Numbers
5,871 Cases in Rhode Island
42,944 Cases in Massachusetts
181 Deaths in RI
2,182 Deaths in Massachusetts
849,092 Cases in the United States
47,681 Deaths in the United States
2,644,031 Global Cases
182,495 Global Deaths
733,300 Global Recoveries
GoLocal LIVE, Thursday, April 23, 2020
10:00 AM Steve Stycos, Candidate for Mayor of Cranston
12:00 PM Dr. Michael Fine, Former RI Director of Health
1:00 PM Governor Gina Raimondo Briefing
EDITOR'S NOTE: Raimondo does not allow Rhode Islanders to hear reporters' questions. Nearly all governors across the country and the White House allow reporters to ask questions directly and for the public to hear the questions and the responses.
