Tag: seniors

Categories
Health

For Seniors Particularly, Covid Can Be Stealthy

For Seniors Especially, Covid Can Be Stealthy

“We’re not necessarily surprised by this,” said Dr. Maria Carney, a geriatrician and an author of the Northwell study. “Older adults don’t always present like other adults. They may not mount a fever. Their metabolisms are different.”

Younger diabetics, for instance, may become sweaty and experience palpitations if their blood sugar falls, Dr. Carney explained. An older person with low blood sugar could faint without warning. Older people who suffer from depression may have appetite loss or insomnia but not necessarily feel sad.

Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.

In May of 2020, Dr. Carney heard from a daughter worried about her mother, who was in her 80s and had suddenly grown weaker. “She didn’t have fever or a cough, but she was just not herself,” Dr. Carney recalled. Doctors at a local emergency room had diagnosed a urinary tract infection and prescribed antibiotics, the daughter reported. But five days later, her mother’s condition was worsening. “She needs a Covid test,” Dr. Carney advised.

Diagnosing Covid quickly in older patients can make a world of difference. “We have things to offer now that we didn’t have in the first wave,” said Dr. Eleftherios Mylonakis, chief of infectious diseases at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who led the Providence nursing home study. “We have better understanding, more treatments, better support.”

Among the improvements: using anticoagulant drugs to prevent clotting and using monoclonal antibodies (the treatment that former President Trump received at Walter Reed Hospital) that strengthen the immune system. But, Dr. Mylonakis added, “It’s paramount to start any kind of treatment early.”

Understanding that something as vague as weakness, confusion or appetite loss might signal a Covid infection can also help protect friends and family, who can then isolate and get tested themselves. “It not only helps the individual, but also can contain the spread of the virus,” Dr. Mylonakis said.

A Covid diagnosis can also ward off needless tests and procedures. “We can avoid unnecessary testing, poking and prodding, CT scans,” Dr. Carney said. CT scans are expensive, burdensome and take time to schedule and analyze; a nasal swab for Covid is quick, relatively cheap and now widely available.

Categories
Politics

ICE Meant to Seize Drug Lords. Did It Snare Duped Seniors?

ICE Meant to Capture Drug Lords. Did It Snare Duped Seniors?

WASHINGTON — After two decades in the military, after earning two master’s degrees and navigating a successful career as a corporate coach, Victor Stemberger seemed ready for a peaceful retirement. But he had a new venture in the works.

Mr. Stemberger, of Virginia, had a $10 million inheritance waiting for him, according to men claiming to be affiliated with the Nigerian Ministry of Finance. Through a dizzying web of more than 160 emails over the course of a year, Mr. Stemberger, then 76, somehow grew convinced.

The final step to collect his millions was a good-will gesture: He needed to embark on a whirlwind tour to several countries, stopping first in São Paulo, Brazil, to pick up a small package of gifts for government officials.

With that parcel tucked away safely in his luggage, Mr. Stemberger got ready to board a flight to Spain, the next leg of his trip.

“Standard protocol for dealing with government officials in this part of the world,” Mr. Stemberger assured his son, Vic, in an email. “No contraband — be sure of that.”

The next day, Vic Stemberger received a text from a Spanish number: “Your father is in prison.”

International criminals have long set their sights on older Americans, deceiving them with promises of money or romance and setting them up to unwittingly carry luggage filled with drugs or other contraband, hoping they will not raise flags in customs.

But Mr. Stemberger’s case shines a discomfiting light on a little-known program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement known as Operation Cocoon, which is devised to disrupt international drug trafficking rings.

Under the program, ICE officials share information with foreign law enforcement agencies when they learn about potential smuggling. But critics say the program does not do enough to warn unwitting drug mules that they are being duped; instead, U.S. officials in some cases are delivering vulnerable older Americans straight into the hands of investigators in foreign countries, where they can be locked up for years.

“If somebody from the U.S. government showed up at my father’s house and spoke to my dad and said, ‘Hey, look, we have reason to believe you’re being scammed,’ there’s 100 percent no doubt he would have dropped it,” Vic Stemberger said.

His father has been in a Spanish prison since the police arrested him as he got off a plane in Madrid nearly two years ago and found more than five pounds of cocaine sewn into jackets in his luggage, according to court documents.

A Spanish court sentenced him last year to seven and a half years in prison.

Since Operation Cocoon was created in 2013, information shared by ICE has led to more than 400 travelers being stopped by law enforcement at foreign airports, resulting in about 390 drug seizures. More than 180 of those stopped on suspicion of carrying narcotics were American citizens, and 70 percent of those were over age 60.

(Asked if the operation’s name, which is no longer used by ICE, is a reference to the 1985 movie “Cocoon,” about elderly people rejuvenated by aliens, an agency spokeswoman said she had “no background readily available.”)

It is not clear how many of the older Americans stopped overseas were duped by drug organizations and how many were intentionally smuggling narcotics. ICE could not provide data on the number of times the agency warned older Americans they were being targeted by criminal organizations.

Vic Stemberger firmly believes his father was tricked; he said cognitive issues from a brain aneurysm 15 years ago made his father vulnerable to the scheme.

The Trump administration informed some members of Congress last year that Mr. Stemberger was most likely arrested after ICE shared information with foreign authorities through Operation Cocoon, according to correspondence reviewed by The New York Times.

The correspondence suggests U.S. authorities became aware of Mr. Stemberger’s plans before he left, something Vic Stemberger believes amounted to a missed opportunity to save his father. John Eisert, the assistant director of investigative programs for Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE, said the agency generally became aware of such plans when it picked up on irregular travel, but declined to comment on Mr. Stemberger’s case.

But he emphasized the difficulty of detecting and warning older Americans that they were being targeted for illegal activity. Even when agents do reach out, the victims occasionally ignore the warning, and officers will at times find out someone has been coerced or fooled only after that person has been arrested, Mr. Eisert said.

“Imagine how many more there really are,” Mr. Eisert said. “And that’s the sad aspect when we speak about elder fraud abuse.”

But, he said, older people are not ICE’s target — if agents become aware they are being lured by criminal groups, and discover evidence they are unwitting, the agents are supposed to find a way to warn them before they step on the plane. ICE officials say they are focused on sharing information with overseas partners to secure the arrests of serious criminals and to build a case against international trafficking organizations, he added.

“If we ever had the information to intercept somebody before traveling overseas, that’s the first priority,” Mr. Eisert said.

Some senators — and family members of older Americans in prison — wonder if the interceptions are coming too late, or at all.

“We are concerned that in an attempt to interdict illicit contraband being moved by unsuspecting senior citizens, Operation Cocoon may have led D.H.S. to provide information about these unwitting Americans to foreign law enforcement partners who then arrested, prosecuted and jailed them abroad,” Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, wrote in letters to the Department of Homeland Security last year and again to the Biden administration last month.

Investigators from the Southern District of New York and the Drug and Enforcement Administration, in part hoping to lighten Mr. Stemberger’s sentence, told Spanish authorities in October 2019 that he appeared to have been “pressured, cajoled and subjected to a variety of deceptive and manipulative strategies to induce him to believe that he would receive millions of dollars in inheritance funds.”

“This scheme resulted in Stemberger’s arrest,” the investigators said in the document, which was reviewed by The Times.

This spring, a court in Spain upheld Mr. Stemberger’s sentence, rejecting his lawyer’s argument that cognitive issues from his aneurysm made him easily coerced. The judge was also skeptical that Mr. Stemberger was not aware that the jackets he was carrying contained drugs.

“Just by picking them up, he could perceive something abnormal in the touch of the garments,” Judge Javier Hernández Garcia wrote in the Supreme Court ruling. Mr. Stemberger’s service in both Vietnam and Korea “should have led him to doubt the legality of the products transported,” the judge wrote.

There have been cases where Americans caught up in scams overseas have been released.

J. Bryon Martin, a 77-year-old retired pastor from Maine, spent nearly a year in jail in Spain after authorities found more than three pounds of cocaine hidden in an envelope he picked up in South America. He said a woman he fell in love with online had asked him to pick up the package and bring it to her.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, pushed the State Department to work with Spanish authorities to secure Mr. Martin’s release on humanitarian grounds in 2016.

Ms. Collins said she was disappointed the State Department had not done more to secure the release of other seniors like Mr. Stemberger. “That’s one reason we have embassies and consulate services all over the world, to take care of American citizens who are being unjustly treated by the host government, and that certainly seems to have occurred in this case,” she said.”

But often, once someone is arrested on foreign soil, the cases languish.

Just a month after Mr. Stemberger’s arrest, the police found more than two pounds of cocaine in an envelope at the bottom of 82-year-old Primo Hufana’s suitcase in Madrid. The Trump administration also indicated to members of Congress that another American was arrested because of information shared by ICE. Mr. Hufana appears to be that American; his arrest date matches the one specified in the correspondence obtained by The Times.

Mr. Hufana, a Californian, often ranted to his children about business opportunities he found on the internet. His daughter, Veronica, said that years before Mr. Hufana’s arrest, law enforcement officials had warned him that he could be at risk after he sent a large sum of money in a wire transfer.

Even now, when Ms. Hufana calls her father, who is serving a seven-year sentence, he asks her to connect the Spanish court with the bank employees who recruited him, so they can tell authorities his arrest was a mistake.

“They brainwashed my dad,” she said of the scammers.

Mr. Hufana’s lawyer, Matthias E. Wiegner, said Spain had become a hot spot for apprehensions in part because it is a common transit hub.

Mr. Wiegner said narcotics organizations used to recruit young people vacationing in South America but had turned to less obvious targets. “You probably wouldn’t suspect a grandmother or grandfather of carrying 25 kilos of cocaine,” he said. “If you have a 25-year-old European surfer, it might raise a bit more suspicion.”

ICE insists that warning unwitting drug mules is part of Operation Cocoon “where appropriate.”

Ms. Collins, who has served as head of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, acknowledges that the job is tricky.

“ICE has an obligation to try and prevent seniors with cognitive difficulties or who simply have been duped from becoming further victimized by these international criminals, but it’s not always easy for ICE to do so,” Ms. Collins said. “There may be cases where ICE can’t be certain whether the person is an unwitting victim or is involved in a scheme in order to get money.”

Mr. Eisert also emphasized the difficulties facing investigators, who must pick up a pattern of “irregular travel” before they can intervene in an older American’s plans, or family and friends who come forward to report their elders.

In Mr. Stemberger’s case, such a pattern was obvious, his family and lawyers say.

Nine months before Mr. Stemberger was arrested, the scammers had lured him into another trip, which took him to Buenos Aires, then by ferry to Montevideo, Uruguay, and on to Madrid. His family members said they had no idea — Mr. Stemberger told his wife he was heading to Chicago.

For all his globe-trotting, Mr. Stemberger heard from no one in law enforcement, according to his family. “No welfare check. No phone call. No email,” Vic Stemberger said.

In his email exchanges with the scammers, Mr. Stemberger occasionally expressed concern that he was entering a fraudulent agreement, a finding U.S. investigators highlighted to Spanish authorities when arguing that Mr. Stemberger thought he was pursuing a legal business opportunity.

“You are aware of those risks due to the corruption in Africa, so my suspicion should not be a surprise to you,” Mr. Stemberger wrote to the men in June 2018, adding that he wanted to ensure no one he met overseas would demand money from him. “If these kinds of things occur, my time will have been wasted, and there could be other kinds of trouble in store for me.”

One of the men responded: “I don’t understand why you flair up at the slightest error or misjudgment. Nobody is perfect.” He accused Mr. Stemberger of being “full of rage.”

Mr. Stemberger’s wife waits by the telephone most days, unsure of when her husband might be able to use his daily phone call. He is now taking anti-depressants in prison. During one recent conversation, Mr. Stemberger told his son he felt “all alone.”

“No one speaks English or even tries to communicate with me,” he said.

Vic Stemberger said he asked his father to reflect on the ordeal that landed him in prison, potentially for the rest of his life.

“I always look for the downside in a business transaction, and I thought I had made sure that everything was right,” Mr. Stemberger replied. “I guess I was wrong.”

Raphael Minder contributed reporting.

Categories
Health

Medicare must OK rule giving seniors entry to FDA-approved medical units

Medicare needs to OK rule giving seniors access to FDA-approved medical devices

Mina De La O | Digital vision | Getty Images

Dr. Anand Shah is an oncologist and former FDA Assistant Commissioner and former Chief Medical Officer of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. He is also an advisor to Morgan Stanley.

Navigating public and commercial health insurance to cover innovative medical products can be a never-ending cycle of bureaucracy.

Medical technologies classified as “safe and effective” by the Food and Drug Administration – the global gold standard for regulating drugs and devices – are not always covered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, adding the added hurdle for companies Proof of their requirements must be met Product is “reasonable and necessary”.

Unlike medications, which are typically covered by CMS immediately after FDA approval, seniors can only access many FDA cleared or approved medical diagnoses and devices if they can participate in a CMS approved clinical trial. These studies can take years – additional data and a lengthy regulatory process to determine coverage criteria – and in the meantime sustain potentially life-saving medical interventions from Medicare beneficiaries.

A new policy, due to go into effect in mid-March, would have allowed seniors and their doctors to decide whether or not they needed these devices. However, it was postponed along with other pending regulations when the Biden Administration took office. The proposed Medicare Innovative Technologies Coverage Policy, postponed until May 15 for regulatory review, leverages existing FDA legal expertise under the Breakthrough Devices program to identify a limited number of promising medical technologies, and offers these products a short Medicare warranty. granted on the day of FDA approval.

The proposed policy would be a critical step forward for Medicare beneficiaries to make informed decisions about their care.

Currently, the FDA has approved, authorized, or cleared at least 26 breakthrough diagnoses and devices. These medical products include in vitro diagnostic and imaging platforms for implants and wearable devices that cover a range of diseases, including Ebola, traumatic brain injury, severe emphysema, and heart disease.

As an oncologist who helped develop this medical device policy at CMS, I have looked after many patients who have not had access to state-of-the-art tests such as next-generation DNA sequencing as part of a cancer screening because Medicare does not allow them. The same product can often be obtained by the patient through a commercial insurance policy, which many do not get under the Medicare program after aging. As a last resort, the patient has no choice but to pay out of pocket.

Seniors deserve access to FDA-named breakthrough medical devices – narrowly defined by Congress to include the most promising new technologies, such as those that can treat life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating conditions – once the FDA deems them safe and effective.

It is important that the proposed rule maintain the same high standards required by both the FDA and the CMS. In addition, the existing FDA requirements for post-market surveillance will be maintained. This policy bridges the void for patients who would otherwise not have access to the latest FDA authorized technology while waiting for CMS coverage. Still, it encourages researchers to continue collecting real-world evidence of health outcomes that are specific to Medicare beneficiaries.

Patient protection is maintained as MCIT uses existing procedures to restrict access to new technology when safety or efficacy concerns arise.

There is no disadvantage in approving this policy change. Seniors will have more treatment options, and medical technology innovators can work with CMS to carefully examine these patients over a four-year period, generating meaningful real-world evidence to prove that a new device is “sensible and necessary.” “Is Medicare coverage decision and potentially offers more permanent security.

This policy also encourages early investors to support innovation for the most pressing medical conditions as it creates a clear and predictable path – from investing to developing medical products to regulatory review and subsequent patient access.

If the federal government wants to incentivize investment in developing transformative medical innovations and expand choices for our seniors while promoting rigorous evidence generation, MCIT offers a clear way forward. Too many lives depend on it.

Correction: This editorial has been updated to correct the name of the agency that needs to approve the rule in the headline. It’s CMS.

Categories
Health

Easy methods to Vaccinate Homebound Seniors? Take the Photographs to Them.

How to Vaccinate Homebound Seniors? Take the Shots to Them.

A vial of vaccine. Five elderly homebound patients. Six hours to reach her before the vaccine goes bad.

Doctors at Northwell Health, the largest health care provider in New York State, set out last week to solve one of the toughest medical and logistical challenges facing the campaign to vaccinate Americans against the coronavirus: How to vaccinate the millions of seniors who live there live at home and are too frail or disabled to go to a clinic or line up at a vaccination site.

Members of the network’s home visit program had prepared for their first run. The delivery of Johnson & Johnson’s new coronavirus vaccine made the operation easier as a visit would do the trick.

A medical team designed a route that would include a cluster of homes not far from each other, starting with elderly patients in underserved communities badly affected by the virus. Doctors contacted patients well in advance of the visits, knowing that they would need enough time to consult with their families about the vaccination. Few refused; Most of them loved it.

Before the doctors took to the streets, they checked patients on the phone to make sure they were relatively healthy. Unexpected problems had to be avoided. Doctors ran against the clock: once they broke the vial seal and withdrew the first dose, they only had six hours to use the remaining vaccine or they had to throw it away.

“We’ll be sailing a tight ship, I think, but very compassionately,” said Dr. Karen Abrashkin, the program’s medical director, when a bulky high-tech cooler – actually a car refrigerator – was loaded in the back seat of her car last Wednesday and plugged into a cigarette lighter.

Inside was an ampoule the size of a thimble containing five doses of vaccine. “It’s a historic moment,” she said.

Her first stop was a Twofer, the home of a married couple in Hempstead, New York, Hector Hernandez, 81, a retired window cleaner who used to scrub high-rise buildings in Manhattan, and his wife Irma, 80, a retired seamstress, decided to get vaccinated after reviewing a potpourri of conflicting advice from friends and family.

“At first I was skeptical – is it safe?” Mr. Hernandez said. Two friends had warned him to be careful because the vaccine was new. But Ms. Hernandez’s cardiologist assured the couple it was safe, and another friend seemed confident that it was better to get the vaccine than not to get it.

The couple’s granddaughters, including one who was with Covid-19 for two weeks, advised to wait and see if the vaccine had any long-term side effects. In the end, said Mr Hernandez, her daughter persuaded her to get vaccinated.

“She called and said, ‘You have to make it because if you ever get Covid it can be really bad – you can’t breathe,” said Hernandez.

When Dr. Abrashkin pierced the vial’s seal with a syringe, Lorraine Richardson, a social worker who accompanied her, noted the time: 10:11. The two monitored the Hernandezes for side effects for 15 minutes and then set off. They had until 4:11 p.m. to reach three more patients.

At least two million Americans like the Hernandezes are tied to their homeland, a population that is virtually invisible. Most have multiple chronic conditions but cannot access basic home care. They often end up in hospitals and are prone to the coronavirus because of their ailments.

Updated

March 22, 2021, 8:27 p.m. ET

As public health officials drew up vaccine distribution plans, priority was given to the roughly five million residents and employees of communities such as nursing homes, where the coronavirus spread like wildfire in the early days of the pandemic. The virus killed at least 172,000 residents and employees, accounting for about a third of all deaths from Covid-19 in the United States.

However, the vast majority of Americans over 65 do not live in nursing homes or assisted living facilities, but rather in the community, where they are more difficult to reach. There is no central register for older people in their home country. Geographically dispersed and isolated, they are often difficult to find.

“This could be the next big hurdle for the elderly population,” said Tricia Neuman, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “So much of the vaccination has been a patchwork quilt at the state or local level, but this presents a whole different set of challenges.”

Vaccination rates among seniors have risen rapidly, with at least 60 percent vaccinated so far. Dr. However, Neuman noted that there is no system to get home: “Some people just can’t get to a vaccination site, so the challenge is getting the vaccine to where they live.”

In the absence of a centrally coordinated campaign aimed at home, local initiatives have sprung up across the country. Fire paramedics deliver vaccines to seniors in Miami Beach, Florida and Chicago. A visiting nurse service vaccinates older adults resident in East St. Louis, Illinois as part of the Meals on Wheels program.

Several health systems, like Geisinger Health in Pennsylvania and the Boston Medical Center, have identified hundreds of Americans and sent them vaccines. In Minnesota, nonprofits have set up pop-up vaccination clinics in senior housing and adult daycare.

On Monday, New York City announced that it would expand door-to-door vaccination efforts for seniors in the home, reaching at least 23,000 residents. According to Dr. Linda DeCherrie, the Mount’s clinical director, has the visiting physicians program at Mount Sinai, New York, which serves 1,200 residents, vaccinated 185 patients, and received the green light to vaccinate the senior caregivers of the Sinai at home program as well.

Northwell’s home visit program, which serves patients in Queens, Manhattan, and Long Island, calls for vaccinating 100 patients a week for the next 10 weeks. That schedule could be sped up if nurses were allowed to wear rescue medication in the event patients develop side effects such as anaphylactic shock.

While Dr. Abrashkin administered vaccines in Long Island last week, Dr. Konstantinos Deligiannidis, a colleague, found five elderly women in the Brentwood, NY area within four hours.

“You were so relieved,” he said. “They were all concerned – how could they get the vaccine since they couldn’t get out of the house?”

Dr. Abrashkin and Ms. Richardson visited and vaccinated two more elderly women on Wednesday before making their final stop in the sunny, plant-filled kitchen of Juanita Midgette, 73, a retired computer science and economics teacher with arthritis whom Eddie Murphy counts among her previous students. (Spoiler alert: he was a respectful student, she said, and she recommended his new movie, Coming 2 America.)

It was 12:31 when they knocked on the door. Ms. Midgette had heard mixed reviews of the coronavirus vaccine and had argued with her sister about it. But she hadn’t been able to travel to her North Carolina home and visit relatives since the pandemic, and she hoped the vaccine would give her the freedom to do so.

She believed in God and in science. Ms. Midgette said her research on the vaccine led her to conclude that “positivity far outweighs negativity”.

“My research shows me that with the data they have gathered so far, they are doing the best they can to save lives,” said Ms. Midgette.

“It reminds me of when we had the first computers and they were so big, but we started teaching with them,” she said. “Now they fit in the palm of your hand. If they had waited to get something smaller, the world would look different than it is today. “

After getting the shot, she asked Dr. Abrashkin: “Is it all over?”

“It’s hard to be isolated,” said Ms. Midgette. “I’m looking forward to somehow talking again.”

Categories
Health

White Home advisor Andy Slavitt thinks 89% of seniors will enroll

White House advisor Andy Slavitt thinks 89% of seniors will sign up

Andy Slavitt, White House Senior Advisor on Covid Response, predicted a growing number of Americans will continue to take the Covid vaccine based on news and evidence from trusted sources.

“In Israel, where they are a little ahead of us, 89% of seniors have chosen the vaccine,” Slavitt said. “We believe we can achieve these numbers if we continue to reliably answer people’s questions because these are very good, safe and effective vaccines.”

Around 37% of people in the US over the age of 65 have been fully vaccinated, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the last week alone, the states fired around 17 million shots.

To further facilitate the distribution of vaccines, the Biden government announced that it will launch a nationwide vaccine availability website that will act as a link between the numerous vaccine registration websites from states, pharmacies, and other companies.

Slavitt told CNBC’s The News with Shepard Smith that “the idea would be if you put in your zip code it would show you on a map all the places near you that claim to have vaccines.” He added that streamlining the process would not only reduce widespread frustration, but also reduce vaccine hesitation.

Host Shepard Smith pressed Slavitt on his comments on vaccination records. Speaking at a press conference at the White House Monday, Slavitt said vaccination records should be free, private and secure. However, it is “not the job of the government to save this data and do so”.

Slavitt said Tuesday night that a government-run vaccination record campaign could lead some Americans to believe that the government is too involved in collecting data required for a vaccination record. This resistance is counterproductive for the entire vaccination effort.

“We believe that the public is more reluctant to get vaccinated if they feel like the government. The federal government is too big a role in this,” Slavitt said.

Categories
Health

Insurers launch program to get 2 million American seniors vaccinated

Insurers launch program to get 2 million American seniors vaccinated

Residents await to receive a Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine at The Palace, an independent residential community for senior citizens, on January 12, 2021 in Coral Gables in Miami, Florida, USA.

Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

More than a dozen health insurers are starting a pilot program to vaccinate 2 million American seniors as quickly as possible, President Joe Biden’s senior advisor for the Covid-19 pandemic announced on Wednesday.

The pilot program – Vaccine Community Connecters – is designed to educate seniors about the vaccines, schedule admissions, and arrange transportation, advisor Andy Slavitt told reporters.

Insurers will also talk about “efficacy, safety and the value of vaccinating vaccines,” said Slavitt, who served in the Obama administration. He added that insurers could deploy mobile vans in the communities most in need. The White House is working with America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association on the initiative.

“Vaccines save lives, and health insurers have worked hard to break the barriers between Americans and COVID-19 vaccines,” said Matt Eyles, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trading group that represents Aetna, Cigna and CVS Health.

“We will continue to work on this commitment with all levels of government and every organization that shares our goal until we jointly defeat the COVID-19 crisis.”

The announcement comes as the Biden government works to increase supplies of Covid-19 vaccines and reach the majority of Americans as soon as possible. Around 51.8 million out of around 331 million Americans have received at least their first dose of a Covid vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And 26.2 million of those people have already had their second shot, which is roughly 10% of the total US adult population, according to the CDC.

The risk of developing serious illness with Covid increases with age, with older adults at the highest risk, according to the CDC.

Insurers will work with federal, state and local officials to deliver vaccines to underserved communities and will work closely with other vaccination partners, including pharmacies.

The trade group said some communities are best served by mobile clinics, voice assistance, or a combination of interventions. Others will benefit from health insurers that work directly with ridesharing to provide transportation, the group said.

This isn’t the first senior-tailored vaccination program the federal government has touted. In October, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a contract with CVS Health and Walgreens to deliver coronavirus vaccines to the elderly and workers in long-term care facilities.

Categories
Health

Not all seniors will get Covid vaccine rapidly. Most should wait

Not all seniors will get Covid vaccine quickly. Most will have to wait

Ergin Yalcin | E + | Getty Images

For the nation’s oldest seeking protection from Covid, the waiting game has begun.

Shipments of 2.9 million doses of the first U.S.-approved coronavirus vaccine began on Sunday and resulted in hundreds of locations across the country. Because initial supply is limited – the total US population is around 330 million – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that priority be given to healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities during this first phase.

In other words, without the elderly in these facilities – including nursing homes and the like – the 65-year-old and the elderly may need to be patient.

“Seniors might start vaccinating in the first quarter, but it really will depend on how quickly the supply increases,” said Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

More from Personal Finance:
Watch out for this $ 1,200 Stimulus Check Scam
Avoid making mistakes in asset division divorce
What should I do before making a charitable donation?

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in people aged 16 and over. One from Moderna could also get similar approval from the FDA in the coming days.

“If the Moderna vaccine gets approved this week, it will help because there will be more coverage,” Kates said.

According to a CDC advisory committee, demand is expected to outstrip supply in the first few months of the vaccination program. Although the vaccine will be phased out and administered to prioritize the most vulnerable populations, it is not certain how long it will take to cover each of these audiences.

According to a new Kaiser study, 19.7 million adults work in the healthcare sector, of which 15.5 million have direct patient contact. Around 2 million people live between nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Introducing the Pfizer vaccine is a complex federal and state undertaking. Not only does the vaccine need to be stored at subzero temperatures and handled according to strict protocols, but it also requires two doses three weeks apart.

While Medicare – which insures a large proportion of the 65-year-olds and the elderly – recently changed its rules to fully cover a fast-moving vaccine, individual states are tasked with actually distributing the doses and identifying priority populations to be vaccinated. All states generally follow federal recommendations for their initial audiences, Kates said, adding that some have an expanded list of priorities.

What [the advisory committee] In reflection it has been said that they are very likely to recommend that key workers come next, then seniors and those with existing medical conditions.

Jennifer Kates

Senior Vice President at the Kaiser Family Foundation

It is uncertain which groups the CDC will recommend for prioritization after the first round of reporting or whether an earlier target of 20 million people vaccinated by the end of the year will be achieved. However, the Agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices last month suggested that the next priority population should be people 65 and over, critical workers, and those with underlying medical conditions who are at higher risk for Covid complications.

“What [the advisory committee] has said on reflection that they are very likely to recommend that key workers come next, and then seniors and those with existing medical conditions, “Kates said.

If these three populations focused on health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, an estimated 87 million vital workers, more than 53 million people aged 65 and over, and 100 million would be targeted with high-risk medical conditions, Kaiser finds in new research.

Availability also depends on how many doses each state is receiving, which is currently based on each state’s adult population. However, there aren’t the same proportions of audiences across all states – for example, some have more health care workers while others have more nursing home residents, Kates said.

“It’s possible that some of the initial assignments might not match,” Kates said.

According to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic has killed at least 299,191 people in the United States, with the number of cases over 16.25 million. These numbers account for around 19% of the 1.6 million Covid deaths worldwide and 23% of the 72.3 million cases worldwide.

CDC data shows that of approximately 262,000 Covid deaths as of December 9, more than 209,000 people were 65 years of age or older. Overall, residents of long-term care facilities have caused about 40% of deaths in the United States from Covid to date, according to the CDC.

Categories
Business

CVS Well being has 10,000 staffers able to vaccinate seniors at nursing houses

CVS Health has 10,000 staffers ready to vaccinate seniors at nursing homes

Larry Merlo, chief executive of CVS Health, said the company was ready to deliver “vaccines into the arms of some of our most vulnerable populations” within 24 to 48 hours of receiving its share of Covid-19 vaccines.

“We are ready to go. We are in great shape and as I mentioned, people are excited to be an important part of this solution,” Merlo said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday.

Merlo said the company has 10,000 health professionals ready to take the shots in nursing homes and assisted living centers. He said the company has “hired individuals” to help with Covid-19 testing since this pandemic began. And he added it has experience with seasonal flu vaccinations in long-term care facilities.

The government signed a contract with CVS and Walgreens in October to give the coronavirus vaccinations to residents and employees of long-term care facilities across the country. The vaccines are free and are administered in on-site clinics at each location, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

As part of the massive effort, CVS and Walgreens had to ensure they had enough staff to fan into the centers and expedite the process.

Merlo said the company has reached out to pharmacy schools to help find and recruit pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy interns. He said there are also hired health professionals who are retired but still have their licenses and are willing to work part-time.

He said all CVS pharmacies already have refrigerators and freezers that can store five of the six vaccine candidates at the right temperature. He said only one of the six vaccine candidates – Pfizer’s – would require special storage.

The Pfizer vaccine will be distributed in special thermal mailers that can help achieve a 15-day life cycle, Merlo said. It can then be stored for an additional five days in the drugstore’s typical refrigeration facility, which can either freeze or chill, he said.