Kaiser Health News -
December 8, 2020
When the University of California’s Board of Regents got a close look at the numbers in September, it was the visual equivalent of a thunderclap. The massive university system, with 10 campuses and more than 285,000 students, was hemorrhaging money — $2.2 billion in lost revenue and additional costs, mostly due to the pandemic. … In the age of pandemic-induced remote learning, the campuses were largely deserted. And when students aren’t living on campus, schools stop making money. Fast.
NPR -
December 8, 2020
New data released by HHS on Monday gives the most detailed picture to date of how COVID-19 is stressing individual hospitals in the US. The information provides nationwide data on hospital capacity and bed use at a hospital-by-hospital level. This is the first time the federal agency has released the COVID-19 hospital data it collects at the facility level. Previously, HHS only released data aggregated at the state level. The dataset — which includes capacity reporting from hospitals in 2,200 counties in the U.S. — spotlights areas where hospitals are getting dangerously full.
CNN -
December 7, 2020
A record 101,487 Covid-19 patients were in US hospitals on Sunday, according to the Covid Tracking Project, underscoring the immense pressure on the nation's hospitals and health care workers. … It took almost 100 days for the US to reach 1 million coronavirus infections after the first cases were confirmed on January 20. But in the first five days of the month, from Tuesday to Saturday, 1,000,882 cases were reported in the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
CBS News -
December 7, 2020
The CDC on Friday issued its strongest mask guidance yet during the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for "universal mask wearing" in all activity outside of one's home … "Compelling evidence now supports the benefits of cloth face masks for both source control (to protect others) and, to a lesser extent, protection of the wearer," the report states. … The new guidance lists "universal wearing of face masks" as the first recommendation to help stop the spread of the disease. It says masks should be worn for all indoor activity outside of an individual's home, as well as during all outdoor activity when at least 6 feet of social distancing can't be maintained.
STAT -
December 7, 2020
Hospitals across the United States are preparing for a Covid-19 vaccine distribution timeline that’s well behind official government targets as they face ongoing confusion about the process for inoculating frontline employees. Leaders of Operation Warp Speed have repeatedly said they are on track to vaccinate 20 million people in December, enough for nearly all the health care workers and long-term care residents who are first in line to get a vaccine. But those involved in vaccine planning at four health care systems, in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Kansas, told STAT they expect to still be giving staff their first shots in mid-January.
AP -
December 7, 2020
Top health officials warned Americans that this is no time to let their guard down. “The vaccine’s critical,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But it’s not going to save us from this current surge. Only we can save us from this current surge.” … With the U.S. facing what could be a catastrophic winter, top government officials warned Americans anew to wear masks, practice social distancing and follow other basic measures — precautions that President Donald Trump and other members of the administration have often disdained.
NPR -
December 7, 2020
Nearly 85% of California residents are now under sweeping new restrictions as the state's struggles to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control. The new restrictions come as coronavirus cases continue to surge and while the state's intensive care capacity has neared dangerously low levels. … The order means strict new closures for many businesses and a ban on gatherings with people outside your immediate household in two regions of the state that are collectively home to some 27 million people. The order will be in effect for at least three weeks.
AP -
December 7, 2020
School districts from coast to coast have reported the number of students failing classes has risen by as many as two or three times — with English language learners and disabled and disadvantaged students suffering the most. … Educators see a number of factors at play: Students learning from home skip assignments — or school altogether. Internet access is limited or inconsistent, making it difficult to complete and upload assignments. And teachers who don’t see their students in person have fewer ways to pick up on who is falling behind, especially with many keeping their cameras off during Zoom sessions.
AP -
December 7, 2020
When children and teens are overwhelmed with anxiety, depression or thoughts of self-harm, they often wait days in emergency rooms because there aren’t enough psychiatric beds. The problem has only grown worse during the pandemic, reports from parents and professionals suggest. … And with surging numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, bed space is even scarcer. By early fall, many Massachusetts ERs were seeing about four times more children and teens in psychiatric crisis weekly than usual...
Good Morning America -
December 7, 2020
As companies race to create vaccines to alleviate the devastation caused by COVID-19, two companies -- Pfizer and Moderna -- say their vaccines are more than 90% effective in adults. But they don't know if their vaccines work in children, meaning the expected, imminent authorizations won't apply to children. … Doctors, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, predict that there could be a vaccine available for children by mid-to-late 2021. Typically, childhood vaccines are approved after being tested and showing promise in adults. Vaccine specialists say that ethically, it's appropriate to test a vaccine in adults before testing in children.
AP -
December 4, 2020
States drafted plans Thursday for who will go to the front of the line when the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine become available later this month, as U.S. deaths from the outbreak eclipsed 3,100 in a single day, obliterating the record set last spring. With initial supplies of the vaccine certain to be limited, governors and other state officials are weighing both health and economic concerns in deciding the order in which the shots will be dispensed.
AP -
December 4, 2020
Joe Biden said Thursday that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president, stopping just short of the nationwide mandate he’s pushed before to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The move marks a notable shift from President Donald Trump, whose own skepticism of mask-wearing has contributed to a politicization of the issue. … The president-elect has frequently emphasized mask-wearing as a “patriotic duty” and during the campaign floated the idea of instituting a nationwide mask mandate, which he later acknowledged would be beyond the ability of the president to enforce.
Yahoo! Finance -
December 4, 2020
The U.S. economy added back the smallest number of jobs in seven months in November, as the labor market endured mounting pressure from the coronavirus pandemic while businesses wait for a vaccine to be distributed next year. … Change in non-farm payrolls: +245,000 vs. +460,000 expected and a revised +610,000 in October.
NPR -
December 4, 2020
More Americans stayed home for Thanksgiving this year compared with last year — but by relatively small margins. An NPR analysis of mobile phone location data showed that 42% of Americans with smartphones remained home, up from 36% last year. … Despite the warnings, 13% of Americans still traveled a significant distance, the data showed, although that number was down from 17% last year.
NPR -
December 4, 2020
Facebook is banning claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts, as governments prepare to roll out the first vaccinations against the virus. That includes posts that make false claims about how safe and effective the vaccines are, and about their ingredients and side effects. … The new ban is an expansion of Facebook's rules against misinformation about the coronavirus that could lead to imminent physical harm. The company said it removed 12 million such posts from Facebook and Instagram between March and October.
HealthDay -
December 4, 2020
Analyzing data on nearly 26 million EMS calls in 2020, they found that OD-linked cardiac arrests reached a peak in May, when lockdowns began to really take hold across the United States. "Peak rates [for emergency ODs] in May 2020 were more than double the baseline from 2018 and 2019," the researchers reported Dec. 3 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. For the year as a whole, these incidents have risen by 50% compared to rates in 2018-2019.