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Biden Picks Dr. Nunez-Smith to Lead Well being Fairness Activity Drive

Biden Picks Dr. Nunez-Smith to Lead Health Equity Task Force

Many factors have contributed to higher infection rates and serious illnesses in minority communities. Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans are more likely than whites to live in overcrowded households and are less likely to be able to work from home. Minority Americans have higher rates of underlying health problems that increase their risk for severe Covid-19, and they often have limited access to medical care. Asian-Americans were less likely to be infected than white Americans, but had slightly higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths.

While almost every American today knows someone affected by Covid-19, in color communities at least a third of people have lost someone close to them. “Think about the individual toll that costs,” said Dr. Nunez-Smith. “These are people’s parents, friends and relatives. We cannot overestimate the disproportionate impact. “

Dr. Nunez-Smith is currently one of three co-chairs on an advisory board that advises the Biden transition team on managing the pandemic. Colleagues describe her as a brilliant scientist with a gift for consensus-building, a sharp contrast to the politically motivated administrative officials who led the response during the Trump era.

“She is a national gem,” said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, Professor of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. “This is a person who spends their days thinking about how we can make health care more equitable and what interventions can address these differences.”

At Yale, Dr. Nunez-Smith many hats – practicing internist, scientist, teacher, mentor, and director of several research centers. She heads Yale’s Equity Research and Innovation Center, which she founded, and a National Institutes of Health-funded research collaboration investigating chronic diseases in Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and the US Virgin Islands.

She is also involved in community organizations such as the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and Connecticut Voices for Children. “She’s not sitting in her ivory tower,” said Christina Ciociola, senior vice president of grants and strategy at the foundation.

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6 Months Later, Covid Survivors Stricken by Well being Issues

6 Months Later, Covid Survivors Plagued by Health Problems

Most of the symptoms in the Wuhan report were slightly more common in women. 81 percent reported at least one health problem, compared with 73 percent for men.

Reports of other respiratory illnesses like the 2003 outbreak of SARS, another type of coronavirus, suggest that some Covid survivors may experience after-effects for months or years. Most SARS patients recovered physically, but the researchers found that many had “worrying depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic symptoms” a year later.

Commenting on the Lancet study, researchers from Italy wrote that 38 percent of SARS survivors had decreased the flow of oxygen from their lungs 15 years later, adding that “Evidence of previous coronavirus outbreaks suggests some degree Lung damage could persist ”.

While people hospitalized for Covid may have more serious or prolonged physical problems, increasing evidence shows that even people who have never been hospitalized may have residual symptoms. Many of these patients seek care in the post-Covid clinics in the United States.

A recent survey by a patient-led research team included 3,762 participants, mostly women, from 56 countries, most of whom had not been hospitalized. Nearly two-thirds said they had symptoms for at least six months, with most saying they were tired and their symptoms got worse after physical or mental exertion, the report, which was not peer-reviewed. More than half of those affected said they had “cognitive dysfunction” with brain fog or difficulty thinking or concentrating.

Dr. Peluso noted that most Wuhan patients were hospitalized in the first half of 2020 and most were not treated with newer therapies like remdesivir or dexamethasone. It is therefore unclear whether people who received these treatments would now receive the same level of long-term term complications.

Even so, he and other doctors said the study’s portrait of persistent symptoms is true. Dr. Ferrante said that in the post-Covid recovery program where she treats patients, “pretty much everyone I see reports impaired physical or cognitive function, or both.”

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Juggling My Kids, Their Alcoholic Sitter and My Personal Sobriety

Juggling My Children, Their Alcoholic Sitter and My Own Sobriety

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says she should stay. It is said that it is important to be of use. Another alcoholic’s community is crucial, they say. Still, I wish she hadn’t confessed. I wish she hadn’t told me about the kitchen island, in front of the kids as they ate spaghetti, as they ate every word, and saved her questions for the morning when I know they’ll ask me: what is drinking? What is sober Why is her face so fluffy?

They don’t know what it is to be bloated. They don’t understand edema or addiction. You’ve never seen me drink alcohol, not once, never. I have to explain it to you. They share my blood so it is possible that this thing, this alcoholic ailment, could metastasize within them, even now when they are in their beds chatting back and forth. I’ll have to explain at least part of it to them in the morning.

One day they’ll want to know everything. How I stopped drinking How I writhed as alcohol and drugs went out of my system. How dry I was. For years I was dry like a desert, like the air in winter, like a heap of ash. Angry. Pimples. Thirsty. That first year I locked myself in a halfway house where I learned how to shower, how to clean a toilet, how to cook spaghetti, how to wash dishes, how to make a bed, why to care should take care of making his bed. And AA meetings every day. Every day for three years. I had almost memorized the big book – the acceptance passage, the serenity prayer, how it works, the steps and traditions. I remember so little now.

I’ve been sober for 18 years, so I haven’t even thought about drinking and drugs for that long. Not really, anyway. Not often. Definitely not every day. But every now and then, maybe at dinner with friends, when someone orders a red wine, a beer or a vodka tonic.

Vodka. I would like seven vodka tonics. I would like to slip into a bottle of vodka, bathe in it, slosh in it, only for the night, only for a short time.

So I know my addiction is still there, still lurking, still hungry. After 18 years, it is likely to be starved, but it is not starving. Hunger is something you die of, and addiction cannot be killed. You can’t cut it out or eradicate it. You have to contain it. Damn. Barricade it. Even then, it whispers. It gurgles through the levees you build. It spurts out a Morse code of desire. You get a certain type of numbness, a certain numbness, every day. That’s the job. This is how you develop from drunk to dry drunk to sober person. You will never be human. You will always be a sober person – a person almost, but not quite.

My babysitter has been sober for nine days. When she tells me she says how proud she is. I gave her my children for the night. If I go downstairs, they will sleep or lie in bed thinking about going to sleep. You and I will talk. I’ll tell her how it was, what happened, how it is today. I’m going to tell her half-truths – not even. She will tell me today, with her nine sober days, how it is for her now. I’ll believe half of what she says – not even.

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‘It Turned Kind of Lawless’: Florida Vaccine Rollout Turns Right into a Free-for-All

‘It Became Sort of Lawless’: Florida Vaccine Rollout Turns Into a Free-for-All

MIAMI — Linda Kleindienst Bruns registered for a coronavirus vaccine in late December, on the first day the health department in Tallahassee, Fla., opened for applications for people her age. Despite being 72, with her immune system suppressed by medication that keeps her breast cancer in remission, she spent days waiting to hear back about an appointment.

“It’s so disorganized,” she said. “I was hoping the system would be set up so there would be some sort of logic to it.”

Phyllis Humphreys, 76, waited with her husband last week in a line of cars in Clermont, west of Orlando, that spilled onto Highway 27. They had scrambled into their car and driven 22 miles after receiving an automated text message saying vaccine doses were available. But by 9:43 a.m., the site had reached capacity and the Humphreys went home with no shots.

“We’re talking about vaccinations,” said Ms. Humphreys, a retired critical care nurse. “We are not talking about putting people in Desert Storm.”

Florida is in an alarming new upward spiral, with nearly 20,000 cases of the virus reported on Friday and more than 15,000 on Saturday. But the state’s well-intended effort to throw open the doors of the vaccine program to everyone 65 and older has led to long lines, confusion and disappointment.

States across the country, even as they race to finish vaccinating health care employees, nursing home residents and emergency workers, are under pressure from residents to reach a broader section of the public. Florida, which has already prioritized a large swath of its population to receive the vaccine, illustrates the challenges of expanding a vaccination program being developed at record speed and with limited federal assistance.

“How do you do something this huge and roll it out?” said Dr. Leslie M. Beitsch, the chairman of the behavioral sciences and social medicine department at Florida State University. “It’s not in any way surprising — to anyone who followed it closely, for sure — that there would be halting kind of progress and missteps getting something of this magnitude underway initially, whether we’re talking about Florida or the entire country.”

Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend giving the next priority after the earliest groups to essential workers and people 75 and older. Some states, including Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Hawaii, decided to vaccinate people 65 and older, even before essential workers, and other states are following suit.

But with states and counties left to largely sort out logistics by themselves, the rollout has gone anything but smoothly.

People camped out overnight in the Florida winter chill in Fort Myers and Daytona Beach for vaccines administered on a first-come-first-served basis, a spectacle that made national headlines. Health department offices in Sarasota and several other counties, unequipped to schedule vaccine appointments on their own websites, resorted to using Eventbrite, a service usually associated with invitations to dinner parties and art exhibitions.

Palm Beach County was accepting vaccine requests only by email, said the county’s health administrator, Dr. Alina Alonso, after the county’s phone system “absolutely died.” People in the queue were warned that they might have to wait months for an appointment. In the meantime, some wealthy people with connections to health care facilities have been able to get the vaccine more easily.

Adding to the complications, the Florida Division of Emergency Management announced on Sunday that its coronavirus testing and vaccination site at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens — the recent scene of long lines of people awaiting vaccination — would be shut down for much of Monday to make way for the College Football Playoff national championship game.

Experts say Florida is an example of what happens when officials attempt to distribute a vaccine that is still in very limited supply to a broad spectrum of the population. In a state with about 4.4 million people 65 and older, more than 402,000 doses had been administered as of Friday, according to federal data, the fourth-highest total in the nation. But Florida has used only about 30 percent of the vaccine doses it has received, behind 29 other states.

Some people have been successful, including Janice and Walter Greer, who were in the same line as the Humphreys in Clermont on Wednesday. Ms. Greer had called Lake County repeatedly, hoping to get information about vaccine availability.

Mr. Greer has a brother in Ohio with Covid-19. “I couldn’t go and see him,” he said softly, welling up with tears. “He has pneumonia.”

But while the Greers got in line early enough to receive shots, many more people left without one and were quite upset.

“My heart is beating 100 miles a minute,” said Shirley LaBoy, 65, of Polk County, who got to the recreation center only to see a line of cars and a digital road sign saying “NO VACCINES TODAY.”

Covid-19 Vaccines ›

Answers to Your Vaccine Questions

If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine?

While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.

When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated?

Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.

If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask?

Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially get authorized this month clearly protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical trials that delivered these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. That remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected by the coronavirus can spread it while they’re not experiencing any cough or other symptoms. Researchers will be intensely studying this question as the vaccines roll out. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will need to think of themselves as possible spreaders.

Will it hurt? What are the side effects?

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection won’t be any different from ones you’ve gotten before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. But some of them have felt short-lived discomfort, including aches and flu-like symptoms that typically last a day. It’s possible that people may need to plan to take a day off work or school after the second shot. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and mounting a potent response that will provide long-lasting immunity.

Will mRNA vaccines change my genes?

No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.

“I found myself on the computer all day. I feel, emotionally, all stressed out,” said Ms. LaBoy, who has been unable to see her children for fear of contracting the virus. “We are tired of being locked in. Then I get an opportunity to get the vaccine, and I can’t even get that.”

Aaron Kissler, the health administrator for Lake County, said officials wanted to get shots in arms quickly, even without a more organized appointment system available. “Right now, we just wanted to get out as much as possible,” he said.

In Texas, about 527,000 residents had received at least the first vaccine dose as of Friday, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. About 107,000 of them were 65 or older, out of more than 3.7 million Texans eligible in that age range. But there have been problems similar to Florida’s.

Dr. Bob Kelly, a 77-year-old retired veterinarian in Austin, said he made 20 or more phone calls searching for a vaccine before he finally connected one night at 3 a.m. on a hospital internet link that offered an appointment for several days later.

He and his wife drove 25 miles to the appointment, only to be told that supplies were so limited that the vaccine would only be given to people with aggravating health conditions. So they are back to where they started, with their names on five waiting lists at pharmacies, chain hospitals and a doctor’s office.

“That’s what’s going on,” Dr. Kelly said. “The rollout is slow, the method of administration is not efficient and who gets it is kind of arbitrary.”

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has acknowledged that the initial rollout has been bumpy.

But he has steadfastly defended the state’s decision to open the door to all seniors, saying he could not in good conscience see a 20-something who bags groceries getting vaccinated before a grandparent, not in a state where of the more than 22,000 people killed by the coronavirus, 83 percent have been 65 or older.

The plurality of vaccine doses have gone so far to people between the ages of 65 and 74, not to people 75 and older who are the most vulnerable to the virus.

Some of the lag in numbers may be a result of older people who are being extra cautious about getting a new vaccine developed in record time. But older seniors may also be at a disadvantage because the process has often required a degree of computer proficiency and has generally not been clear or consistent, Dr. Beitsch said.

“Each of our 67 counties seems to be taking a slightly different pathway — and that’s remarkable, because we have a single department of health that is supposed to cover the entire state,” said Dr. Beitsch, whose 71-year-old tech-savvy brother got vaccinated in Orlando after filling out a request form that took him about 40 minutes.

The Florida Department of Health is working on an online appointment system for all counties, but it is not yet ready, though the DeSantis administration says it has been preparing for the vaccine rollout since July. It stockpiled millions of supplies and enrolled more than 270 providers to receive the shots once they became available.

Mr. DeSantis said his administration moved more aggressively than other states, getting teams of health workers and National Guard members to nursing homes the week before CVS and Walgreens pharmacies began vaccinating those residents. Florida is also distributing doses to Publix supermarkets and churches to increase community access.

“We’re going to be there for our parents,” he said in a news conference on Sunday. “We’re going to be there for our grandparents. And that will do more than anything else we can do to reduce mortality and change the scope of how this virus behaves in the state of Florida.”

The lucky vaccine recipients have been thrilled.

“Everything was great,” Susan Hacker said after getting her shot on Thursday at the Century Village retirement community in Boca Raton.

The state has no residency requirement for people to get the vaccine in their home county — or to be Florida residents at all. News reports in Argentina have recounted how wealthy people vacationing in Miami managed to get vaccinations.

More worrying to officials have been private institutions distributing the vaccine to people who are not in any of the priority groups. MorseLife Health System, a nursing home and assisted living facility in West Palm Beach, is under investigation by the Florida inspector general and the health department after The New York Post and The Washington Post reported that it steered vaccines to rich donors.

In an interview on Tuesday, Hong Chae, the organization’s chief financial officer, said that a number of the nursing home’s board members and volunteers were offered the vaccine in case facility managers became incapacitated by the virus and board members needed “to come in and chip in,” he said.

Some hospitals in Miami have vaccinated board members as well, according to local doctors and patients.

One of them, Rosario Rico Toro, posted news of receiving the Pfizer vaccine to Facebook friends on Dec. 30. “Baptist vaccination day!!” she wrote alongside an image of her Covid-19 vaccination record.

In an interview, Ms. Rico Toro, a onetime Miss Bolivia who now does charitable work for hospitals, said she had received the vaccine as a result of her donations and volunteer work for Baptist Hospital in Miami. When one of the hospital’s doctors canceled an appointment to get the shot, the hospital offered her the spot.

“They called and said, ‘As a board member, would you like to get it?’” she recalled.

The hospital did not respond to requests for comment.

Ms. Rico Toro, who is 49 and in good health, said she initially hesitated. But the hospital gave her the impression that if she turned down the vaccine, it would be offered to another board member or possibly not even be used, so she took it. “My question is, why not?”

Dr. Perri Young, an internist in Miami, said that the distribution process has been shambolic and ineffective. Even as a doctor, she said, her access to information is minimal.

“It’s crazy here,” she said. “It became sort of lawless.”

By the end of week, Ms. Kleindienst Bruns in Tallahassee had gotten some good news: Her internist had received vaccine doses. Would she like one?

She got it on Saturday. “It was so easy,” she said.

Patricia Mazzei reported from Miami, Eric Adelson from Clermont, Fla., and Kate Kelly from New York. David Montgomery contributed reporting from Austin, Texas; Neil Reisner from Coconut Creek, Fla., and Boca Raton, Fla.; and Rachel Abrams from Los Angeles.

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Single within the Pandemic: Coronavirus and Hooking Up

Single in the Pandemic: Coronavirus and Hooking Up

Anna, who is 29 and being asked to be identified by her middle name to protect her high-profile Washington, DC job, said the pandemic had put her under pressure. “When people my age aren’t married, they’re getting serious – about marriage, about children,” she said. “For people together, their schedules are speeding up because the pandemic is forcing them to make decisions. While single people cannot return in that year of their life. “

In August, she flew to Chicago to meet a man she’d texted and spoken to on FaceTime for a month. “You need the physical meeting,” she said. “I don’t even say sex. You might decide that you hate someone for chewing that way. “

The two spent a weekend in a hotel. “He was the only person I was familiar with for 10 months,” said Anna. She said she wouldn’t want to meet a stranger in person on a dating app. In this case, she knew where her date was working and that because of his work he had to undergo background checks and follow the strict security guidelines of Covid-19.

“It’s very difficult as an individual,” said Laura Khalil, 40, a Detroit podcast producer and host. Her parents who live nearby belong to a risk group and she is afraid of infecting them. “I couldn’t even touch my family,” said Ms. Khalil.

In August she decided to try again. After a few unsuccessful walks, she struck a match in a street cafe. They had a date as normal as a pandemic, with no mask, and after that, Ms. Khalil took a coronavirus test and was quarantined.

“I knew he was working from home, he had a capsule and he wasn’t going out,” she said. “Do I trust you? I believe you these are things we can’t know I can only accept and hope that you are not lying to me. “

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HHS secretary recommends states open pictures to older People, weak teams

HHS secretary recommends states open shots to older Americans, vulnerable groups

Minister of Health and Human Services Alex Azar on Wednesday urged states not to micromanage their assigned coronavirus vaccine doses, saying it was better to get the shots off as soon as possible, even if they don’t all have theirs Vaccinate healthcare workers.

“There is no reason states need to complete vaccination of all health care providers before opening vaccinations to older Americans or other high-risk populations,” Azar told reporters during a news conference.

“When they use all of the vaccine that’s allocated, ordered, distributed, shipped, and got it in the arms of the healthcare providers, that’s all great,” he added. “But if for some reason their distribution is difficult and you have vaccines in freezers, then you should definitely open them to people 70 and over.”

US officials are trying to speed up the pace of vaccinations after a slower-than-expected initial rollout. The coronavirus pandemic in the United States continues to grow. The nation has at least 219,200 new Covid-19 cases and at least 2,670 virus-related deaths each day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided states with an overview recommending that priority be given to health workers and nursing homes first. However, states may distribute the vaccine at their own discretion.

Azar said Wednesday that states that offer some “flexibility” about who gets the first doses are “the best way to get more shots in the arms, faster”. “Faster administration could save lives now, which means we cannot allow perfect to be the enemy of good,” he said. “Hope is here in the form of vaccines.”

More than 4.8 million people in the United States received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine at 9 a.m. ET on Tuesday, according to the CDC. The number is a far cry from the federal government’s goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 and 50 million Americans by the end of this month.

US officials admitted vaccine distribution was slower than hoped. Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told STAT News Tuesday that she expects the vaccine rollout to accelerate “fairly massively” in the coming weeks.

“It is the beginning of a really complicated task, but one that we are ready for,” she told STAT.

Global health experts had said distributing the vaccines to around 331 million Americans within a few months could prove to be much more complicated and chaotic than originally thought. In addition to making adequate doses, states and territories also need enough needles, syringes, and bottles to complete vaccinations.

The logistics involved in obtaining and administering the vaccine are complex and require special training. For example, Pfizer’s vaccine requires a storage temperature of minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cannot be re-frozen and must be given at room temperature and within hours, otherwise there is a risk of going bad.

Read More: The Long Road Of The Covid Vaccine: How Doses Get From The Manufacturing Plant To Your Arm

Azar also said the holidays likely played a factor in the slow adoption of vaccines. Healthcare providers knew it would be difficult to hire millions of people for vaccinations by December.

Nearly 20 million doses of vaccine have been dispensed to more than 13,000 locations across the country, General Gustave Perna, who oversees logistics for President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed ​​vaccination program, said during the same meeting.

The vaccine distribution is going “very well,” he said, adding that officials are still working to improve the process. “Our goal is to keep the drum beat constant so that states have a cadence of allocation planning and then the appropriate allocation to the right places as indicated.”

“We are constantly re-evaluating the numbers and making sure that they are distributed in the right places [and] Make sure execution is happening so other decisions can be made about assignments, “he added.

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At Elite Medical Facilities, Even Employees Who Don’t Qualify Are Vaccinated

At Elite Medical Centers, Even Workers Who Don’t Qualify Are Vaccinated

A 20 year old who works on computers. A young researcher studying cancer. Technicians in basic research laboratories.

These are some of the thousands of people who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus at Columbia University, New York University, Harvard, and Vanderbilt hospitals, despite millions of frontline workers and older Americans waiting their turn.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued recommendations to ensure the country’s vaccines reach those most at risk first: healthcare workers interacting with Covid-19 patients, residents and nursing home workers, followed by Persons aged 75 and 75 older and certain essential employees.

Each state has its own version of the guidelines, but as the rollout pace has accelerated, the pressure for a more flexible approach has increased. Officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration recently suggested that it might be wiser to just relax the criteria and distribute the vaccine as widely as possible.

However, these officials did not intend that the vaccines should be given to healthy people in their twenties and thirties, in front of the elderly, important workers, or anyone else at risk. States should continue to prioritize groups that “make sense,” said Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner, told reporters on Friday.

But a handful of the most prestigious academic hospitals in the country have already taken the idea much further. Workers unrelated to patient care who are not 75 years of age or older were offered admissions. Some of the institutions were among the earliest recipients of the limited shipments in the United States.

“Cronyism and connections have no place in the launch of this vaccine,” said Ruth Faden, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “If we don’t do it right, the consequences can be pretty disastrous, so it’s very important that people here are overly sensitive to the rules of the game.”

The CDC never intended to include workers who do not interact with patients, such as administrators and graduate students, in the first tier of priority vaccinations, said Dr. Stanley Perlman, an immunologist at the University of Iowa and a member of the committee issued the recommendations.

“It all got so confusing,” he said. “Looking back, I think it probably had to be a bit more specific about what we thought because we never thought of hospital administrators.”

In Nashville, Vanderbilt University Medical Center asked all staff whether they were treating patients or not to register for the vaccination. Vaccinations began in December when the Tennessee Hospital Association approved vaccinations for all hospital workers regardless of role.

On January 6, the medical center announced plans to begin vaccinating its high-risk patients, but only after “the initial vaccine dose to well over 15,000 at the medical center,” according to an email it sent to the medical center working people had administered “patients.

“We continue to follow instructions received from the Tennessee Department of Health when we vaccinate Vanderbilt Health staff and other priority groups of patients, staff and community health workers,” said John Howser, chief communications officer for the medical center. said in a statement.

But the Tennessee Department of Health sees it differently. “Hospitals have been encouraged since the onboarding process began to use any remaining vaccines to vaccinate high priority populations,” said Bill Christian, a department spokesman.

“Some hospitals have interpreted their ‘staff’ broadly,” he added.

The Tennessee department, he said, “continues to applaud hospitals that have only prioritized their high-risk frontline staff for vaccination and made any remaining vaccinations available to meet community vaccination needs,” groups with high priority.

“I wish our elderly relatives had the vaccine before I did,” said a young Vanderbilt employee who has no contact with patients and asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.

In Boston, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, both affiliated with Harvard University, have immunized more than 26,000 employees, including those involved in patient care, researchers who may come into contact with coronavirus samples, and those involved in clinical trials are Rich Copp, a spokesman for the hospitals.

The reason? Some laboratory scientists may be needed in the hospitals if the coronavirus returns. “Our experience in the first wave showed that some members of the research community may need to be redeployed to support work in patient care with Covid,” said Copp.

Still, the medical centers have announced plans to immunize the rest of their staff from Monday.

In New York State, only a fraction of the estimated 2.1 million front-line workers were vaccinated. Governor Andrew Cuomo has threatened to impose fines of up to $ 100,000 on hospitals for not vaccinating fast enough to use their doses.

At Columbia University, the news quickly spread to research laboratories far removed from patient care: If you showed up at Millstein Hospital, the university’s primary medical center, you could get vaccinated, regardless of whether your work involved patients had to do.

According to information from several university employees, doctoral students, postdocs and researchers were soon lining up in the hospital auditorium. Almost everyone in a cancer research center affiliated with the hospital received the vaccine.

Hospital officials said that at some point they became aware of emails directing people to the auditorium, but that anyone who didn’t need the vaccine was turned away.

“We have worked to vaccinate tens of thousands of employees, starting with those with patient contact, and we are constantly striving to improve our vaccination process,” said Kate Spaziani, vice president of communications at the hospital.

She added, “We will do this until everyone gets a vaccine. We follow all guidelines from the New York State Department of Health on vaccine priority. “

However, some recipients were upset to learn that they did not qualify according to state guidelines.

“My understanding now is that it wasn’t our turn and I feel terrible if I get out of line,” said a young researcher whose work has no bearing on Covid-19. “I’m also honestly a little angry at the hospital and the university for not controlling it properly.”

At NYU’s Langone Medical Center, contact with non-patient staff was more conscious.

“We currently only offer the Covid-19 vaccine to frontline employees,” the center’s website says. “We will send a message to our patients as soon as we have the vaccine available for patients.”

In an email to staff on December 28, Dr. Anil Rustgi, Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine, said the center has completed vaccinating its 15,000 patient-interacting staff and will begin vaccinating all other staff. Elderly adults or other New York State priority groups were not mentioned.

An email sent Tuesday to NYU Medical Center employees who hadn’t yet signed up for a vaccination said, “As a health care worker, you have the opportunity to get a vaccine that millions across the country want – and You can have it: right now. “

In a tacit admission that these employees would not qualify for the vaccine anytime soon, the email warned that once the eligibility criteria are expanded, the state may have to wait weeks, if not months, to get it based on demand and Maintain availability. ”

State officials were dismayed that both NYU and Columbia had opened vaccinations for low-risk employees before millions of citizens needed the shots.

On Friday, New York expanded its guidelines on vaccination to include key workers and those over 75.

The guidelines “do not, however, provide a license to vaccinate all hospital staff regardless of their role,” said Gary Holmes, a spokesman for the state health department. “While we don’t know all the facts here, DOH will investigate if there is a violation.”

In private, some state officials were furious. Institutions should instead have asked the state what to do next once the immunization of frontline workers is complete, one official said on condition of anonymity as he was not empowered to discuss the matter.

“The only reason they have as much vaccine as they do is because they were vaccine administrators – because they have a cold store,” the official said. “It wasn’t NYU’s vaccine for NYU”

The problem is not limited to academic medical centers. Some hospitals have carried out so few checks that many people have been able to circumvent the line with false claims about the vaccines.

For example, in Maricopa County, Arizona, an online form recommends that applicants use a personal email address instead of one associated with a hospital, and not require employee identification numbers.

“Yes, we want people to be vaccinated, but we need to make sure the high-risk groups get access,” said Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizona Hospital. When the process is so disorganized, “trust in the process damages public health, and I think it’s just really heartbreaking.”

Some university employees, including some who unknowingly wrongly accepted the vaccine, were also dissatisfied with what they viewed as an unjust and unfair trial.

“It’s such a naked display of privilege, you know?” said a Columbia faculty member who failed to receive the vaccine and asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation by administrators. “It’s because we’re in elite universities and medical centers.”

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Health

Merkel open to producing Russia’s Sputnik within the EU

Merkel open to producing Russia's Sputnik in the EU

Test studies of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate Sputnik V are being carried out in Russia.

Sefa Karacan | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

According to a spokeswoman for her office, Chancellor Angela Merkel is “open” to the idea of ​​producing Russia’s coronavirus vaccine in the European Union.

Germany has so far carried out the highest number of vaccinations among the 27 European nations since the rollout began at the end of December. However, there are large discrepancies within the bloc, where, for example, the Netherlands only started vaccination on Wednesday.

The EU has been criticized for slow adoption of Covid-19 vaccines compared to other parts of the world, with the US, China and Israel leading the way in the number of doses given.

Merkel spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday about the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. During the phone conversation, she said she was “open to the idea of ​​bilateral cooperation to develop European production capacities (for the Russian vaccine),” said Ulrike Demmer, deputy spokeswoman for the German government, on Wednesday, according to Politico.

A Brussels-based federal government spokesman confirmed the same statement to CNBC.

Germany has made it clear that this would only happen if the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the Sputnik V vaccine.

European regulators approved the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine last month and the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday. However, the EMA has not yet received a formal application to evaluate the Russian Covid vaccine for EU-wide administration.

Russian Gamaleya Institute, the developers of the Sputnik-V vaccine, said Tuesday that more than 1 million people received the sting, the Financial Times reported.

Vaccines for everyone

Earlier this week, Germany announced a further tightening of social restrictions, with schools closing until January 31.

Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn said on Thursday that there would be a vaccine for “everyone” this year. “In 2021, 50 million vaccine doses from Moderna and 90 million from BioNTech will be secured. That alone is enough to offer a vaccination to practically everyone,” Spahn told the German television station ZDF.

Germany has around 83 million inhabitants.

On Wednesday, Spahn spoke to reporters that “if all goes well” a new Pfizer BioNTech factory will be built in February to increase the number of vaccines available in Europe. BioNTech is a biotechnology company based in Mainz, a city on the Rhine in western central Germany.

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Health

The best way to Preserve Your Pandemic Habits

How to Keep Your Pandemic Habits

The following is a print review of several longer stories published this week called the 7 Day Well Challenge. Below are links to the full stories.

Looking back at 2020, bans and pandemic restrictions forced many people to start new routines. Work pendulums disappeared. Fitness classes have been canceled. Houses became classrooms and workplaces.

Some people blossomed with all the changes; others fought.

“The experience of 2020, tough as it was, contained many lessons,” said Gretchen Rubin, author of the book “Better Than Before: What I’ve Learned About Making and Breaking Habits”. “Some people’s habits have improved – often when they use the time they normally spend on business travel or commuting, exercising, cooking, reading, or other healthy habits. Other people’s habits deteriorated because they were under stress or were torn out of their usual helpful routines. “

As you ponder the changes and challenges of the past year, you have an opportunity to recycle your best pandemic routines and build on them in the new year. Here are five habits you can keep.

Pandemic Habit: During this crisis, we learned that we are all interconnected and that taking care of ourselves – staying safe and healthy is also a way to care for our community.

Recycle the habit: Continue to make self-sufficiency a priority after the pandemic ends. If you are someone who believes you don’t have time to care for yourself, or if it seems selfish and indulgent, you are not alone.

“One of the things that you keep coming across is the idea that I can’t invest in things that are good for me because it robs me of my ability to be a good parent or to do what I have to do Work, ”said Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist at Stanford University and author of The Willpower Instinct. “Wouldn’t it be great if we learned how to be interdependent and if we actually have some kind of joy in knowing that when I take care of myself, I often take care of others too?”

Self-care isn’t just a nap or a hot bath to get away from family. It’s about setting priorities, setting boundaries, and finding a purpose. Start mapping on a typical day, from morning to bedtime. You probably sleep eight hours – but how do you spend the other 16 hours? List the time it takes to prepare meals, get work done, shop, watch TV, wash up, help children with homework, care for an aging parent, or catch up on emails. (Wirecutter, the Times recommendation site, has reviewed the best time tracking apps and recommends Toggl.)

In what one or two hour period each day do you feel best? Your most energetic? Your most productive? Now look at your list. Who gets these lessons? Instead, try to give yourself this time.

This doesn’t mean taking a break from life. It means focusing on your priorities, not others. You can use that hour or two for a hobby, a work project you feel passionate about, time with your kids, or even volunteering. Focusing on your personal goals and values ​​is the ultimate form of self-care.

Pandemic Habit: To prevent the virus from spreading, everyone learned to hold each other accountable by wearing a mask, restricting contacts and keeping their distance.

Recycle the habit: While you still need to take precautionary measures against pandemics, you can build on your accountability. Find someone responsible to help you meet your health goals. You can check in to a friend’s home every day to talk about healthy eating. Make a plan to go for a walk with a friend. You can create public accountability by posting your goals on social media.

If you prefer to be accountable only to yourself, you can be accountable by using an app that will send you daily reminders such as: B. Headspace or Calm for meditation, Noom for tracking your diet or Fitbit for tracking your exercise habits. You can even hold yourself accountable through a daily journal entry.

“We do better when someone is watching,” said Ms. Rubin, who wrote the book on Habits. “Even if we are the observers!”

Pandemic Habit: When the gyms closed and fitness classes canceled, many people had to figure out how to work out at home.

Recycle the habit: Instead of trying to plan a long training session, take small training breaks throughout the day. Take a walk after a long meeting. When you’ve been on an appointment all day, take a break and do some yoga stretches. Do jumping jacks or wall pushups while listening to the news or a podcast.

Several studies show that short breaks in exercise lead to significant changes in your fitness and metabolic health. Begin with 20-second exercise breaks three times a day. If you want to do more, take a few minutes off.

“You don’t have to do any structured exercises. You can just be active, ”said Martin Gibala, professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, whose lab has conducted several studies on short bursts of exercise. “It is much easier to start activities when you do it in these small workouts. Every little thing counts. “

Pandemic Habit: According to a survey by Axios, Last summer, nearly half of Americans said they formed a capsule or social bubble – a select group of friends supposed to help them navigate pandemic life.

Recycle the habit: Don’t dissolve your pandemic capsule when Covid-19 restrictions end. Keep it to support your health goals. Even if you haven’t had a quarantine capsule, you can still form a new health conscious bubble in 2021. Create a hiking capsule and meet a few times a week for group hikes. Or talk to your podmates about their healthy eating goals. They can share recipes and tips, and plan potlucks for healthy eating after the social restrictions are removed.

It took a pandemic to teach some people what many cultures have known since time immemorial – that social networks can bring us healthier and happier lives. In Okinawa, Japan, which has one of the longest average life expectancies in the world, people form a type of social network called a moai during their childhood – a group of five or more friends who offer social, logistical, emotional, and even financial support a life long. Members of each moai also appear to influence the other’s lifelong health behaviors.

Several communities in the United States have attempted to reproduce the moai effect by creating health moais from like-minded people who go out together or share healthy meals. After Dan Buettner, a National Geographic associate and writer, persuaded 110 people in Naples, Florida to potluck moai, 17 percent said they lost weight and 6 percent reported an improvement in blood sugar.

Forming groups of friends to help you achieve your goals is one way to sustain your healthy habits, said Buettner, author of Blue Zones Kitchen, which studies healthy eating habits in regions where people live longer. “It’s the best intervention you can invest in,” he said. “It’s long-lasting and has a measurable impact on your health and wellbeing.”

Pandemic Habit: In the early days of the pandemic, people panicked, hoarding toilet paper and packing their pantries to cope with the uncertainty of shutdowns.

Recycle the habit: Plan for uncertainties and compile a collection of legal documents to ensure everyone is prepared for an emergency.

Start with a three ring binder. While you should make a digital copy of all of your important documents, it is good to have a physical folder that your loved ones can access during a crisis. The first few pages should contain a list of your important documents – banking information, insurance papers, and important contacts. However, the most important document in the folder is your advance directive.

An upfront referral should designate someone to make medical decisions for you if you cannot make them and provide specific advice on what to do if you become seriously ill. The correct documents for your state can be found on the AARP website (aarp.org/caregiving).

And here’s a surprise: if you sit down to imagine a serious health crisis and the guidance you want to offer a surviving family member, it doesn’t have to be depressing. Use the process as an opportunity to reflect on your values, your hopes for aging well, and what makes life worth living. It can be like traveling back in time to the future and helping loved ones in one of the most difficult moments of their life.

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Health

Do not like your Medicare Benefit Plan? Now’s the time to swap or drop it

Don't like your Medicare Advantage Plan? Now's the time to swap or drop it

Female doctor works with elderly patient in a modern office clinic / hospital

momcilog | E + | Getty Images

When it comes to Medicare benefit plans, they don’t have to be as permanent a choice as you might think.

Your 2021 plan, which you have either selected or re-enrolled, can be changed or canceled between January 1st and March 31st. That said, you can swap your benefit plan for another or drop it and return to basic Medicare Hospital (Part A coverage and Part B Outpatient coverage).

The most common reasons beneficiaries make changes are because their doctors aren’t on the plan’s network or drugs aren’t included in their insurance coverage, said Danielle Roberts, co-founder of insurance company Boomer Benefits.

Also from January 1st to March 31st, if you missed your first Medicare registration period and do not qualify for an exemption, you can register during that time. If this is your situation, coverage won’t start until July 1, said Elizabeth Gavino, founder of Lewin & Gavino and independent broker and general agent for Medicare plans.

Of the 63 million or so Medicare beneficiaries, around 25 million are enrolled in a benefit plan that includes Parts A and B, and usually Part D for prescription drugs, as well as extras such as teeth and eyesight.

The current opportunity to change or drop your benefit plan is only a few weeks after Medicare’s annual fall enrollment ended, when a variety of options became available to those looking to change their coverage.

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In contrast, the upcoming window related to the benefit plan has limitations.

For starters, you can only do one switch. This means that the change will generally be locked in 2021 as soon as you switch to another benefit plan or delete it for basic Medicare (unless you meet an exclusion that qualifies you for a specific registration period).

Additionally, you cannot switch from one standalone Part-D prescription medication plan to another in that three month window.

In the fall, if you selected a Part-D plan based on inaccurate or misleading information, anytime during the year you can call 1-800-Medicare to see if your situation allows you to make changes.

In the meantime, deleting a benefit plan in favor of Basic Medicare often means losing drug supplies – which means you have to sign up for a standalone Part-D plan. This is important because if you remain uncovered for 63 days, you face a life penalty for late enrollment that will affect your monthly premiums.

If you switch back to Original Medicare and want to get supplementary insurance (also known as “Medigap”), be aware that you may not be eligible for guaranteed coverage. These guidelines cover all or part of the cost sharing of some aspects of Parts A and B, including deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance. However, they have their own rules for signing up.

“If someone plans to go back to Original Medicare and get a Medigap plan, be aware that they will likely have to answer health questions and go through the underwriting,” said Roberts.

She recommends starting the process by applying for the Medigap plan and getting approval before leaving the benefit plan or signing up for a standalone Part-D plan.

“If you sign up for the Part-D plan, you will be removed from the Medicare Benefits Plan, so it’s important to wait for that part as well,” said Roberts. “We encourage people who need to make changes to do so at the beginning of the legislature.”