We ensure quality care through
Interim Management, Skilled Monitoring, and Reinvention
Greetings!

In this issue, the curators continue to both provide up-to-date information on the Covid-19 pandemic while offering you articles and podcasts that provide our eclectic readership what they need and want to know on key health care practice and policy issues. The New York Times State of the Virus updated as of May 3 reports:
 
  • Reports of new coronavirus cases have doubled in the past month as Omicron subvariants have spread across the country.
  • Cases are increasing in all but four states and territories, and in more than a dozen, the daily case average is twice as high today as it was two weeks ago. Despite this rapid growth, the virus's true spread is believed to be even greater, since many infections go uncounted in official case reports.
  • Hospitalizations have also risen in recent weeks, though more modestly than cases. Just over 17,000 people are in American hospitals with the coronavirus each day, an increase of 16 percent since mid-April.
  • Still, the surge so far appears milder than the waves that preceded it. Cases remain well below the levels seen during the Delta and Omicron surges late last year, and fewer coronavirus patients are in intensive care today than at any point since the pandemic's earliest days.
  • Coronavirus deaths in the United States are expected to reach 1 million in the coming weeks, but for now, daily death reports continue to decline. Fewer than 350 deaths are currently being announced each day, a decrease of more than 20 percent in the past two weeks.

We link to the Washington Post, which reported earlier this week, that BA.2 has overtaken the original omicron version of the coronavirus that quickly dominated the world this winter. Among our curators' neighbors and good friends are four families with brilliant and charming children under five, for them and so many of our readers we link to Time's recent article “U.S. is getting closer to having Covid-19 vaccines for children under five years old.”
 
We turn to a must read from Vox on “Finding the next pandemic virus before it finds us,” which informs readers on “The tricky work of seeking, sequencing, and sharing viruses around the world.” The Atlantic’s Ed Yong returns with “We created the ‘Pandemicene’ by completely rewiring the network of animal viruses, climate change is creating a new age of infectious dangers.”

From The New York Times, “Loss of pandemic aid stresses hospitals that treat the uninsured,” is linked and a must read on how safety net hospitals in non-Medicaid expansion are struggling to provide care and how their patients are suffering due to the politically motivated choices made to deny them care. 

In a recently published, linked, and must read article in Innovation in Aging: “Putting the Nursing and Home in Nursing Homes,” Harvard University professor David Grabowski finds that “Most U.S. nursing homes lack adequate nursing staff, and they are typically not very home-like in either their physical structure or culture. These problems were magnified during the pandemic. The underlying reasons for these long standing issues are that most state Medicaid payment systems reimburse nursing homes at a relatively low level and the government does not hold nursing homes accountable for spending dollars on direct resident care.”

The Washington Post reported earlier this week “With the Supreme Court poised to overturn the right to abortion, the survey finds that 54 percent of Americans think the 1973 Roe decision should be upheld while 28 percent believe it should be overturned — a roughly 2-to-1 margin.” Regardless of your position, we believe that you should link to the next two linked articles. Firstly, The Conversation, a great online publication that we believe you should consider subscribing to provides us with "What's at stake as Supreme Court appears intent on overturning Roe v. Wade—3 essential reads." Scientific American’s article “Being denied an abortion has lasting impacts on health and finances” reports on research documenting the “negative outcomes that we could expect for people—if they are unable to travel, to obtain an abortion—living in a state that makes abortion unavailable.” In the article, we find that a strong rebuttal to Mississippi’s argument for overturning Roe is that access to abortion has made little difference in people’s lives; with the author Mariana Lenharo presenting what she finds to be the “solid scientific evidence showing that Roe mattered to people’s lives, and we know that abortion access matters to people’s lives now.”

We close with a podcast that addresses a non Covid-19, yet equally important and pressing issue, “How do we prevent the next mass shooting before it happens?” That's the question addressed in Fresh Air’s “How behavioral threat assessment can stop mass shootings before they occur,” by Mother Jones national affairs editor Mark Follman. “Since 2012, when a gunman killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.,” Follman tells us that mass shootings are planned violence and "there is, in every one of these cases, always a trail of behavioral warning signs." 
 
This is Revitalize for May 5, 2022, brought to you from Culver City by publishers and curators who are always most interested in getting via EMAIL, LinkedIn, and Twitter your feedback, comments, criticism and praise.  
Revitalize: The week in health-care news you need
How fast omicron’s BA.2 variant is spreading around the world
BA.2 has overtaken the original omicron version of the
coronavirus that quickly dominated the world this winter

U.S. is getting closer to having Covid-19 vaccines for children under five years old

Finding the next pandemic virus before it finds us
The tricky work of seeking, sequencing, and sharing viruses around the world.
 
We created the ‘Pandemicene’
By completely rewiring the network of animal viruses, climate change is creating a new age of infectious dangers.

Loss of pandemic aid stresses hospitals that treat the uninsured.
 
Putting the nursing and home in nursing homes. As the late Robert Kane observed, the term nursing home is often a misnomer. Most US nursing homes lack adequate nursing staff, and they are typically not very home-like in either their physical structure or culture. These problems were magnified during the pandemic. The underlying reasons for these longstanding issues are that most state Medicaid payment systems reimburse nursing homes at a relatively low level and the government does not hold nursing homes accountable for spending dollars on direct resident care. 

“With the Supreme Court poised to overturn the right to abortion, the survey finds that 54 percent of Americans think the 1973 Roe decision should be upheld while 28 percent believe it should be overturned — a roughly 2-to-1 margin.”

What's at stake as Supreme Court appears intent on overturning Roe v. Wade—3 essential reads.
 
Being denied an abortion has lasting impacts on health and finances. “Even if a direct extrapolation is not possible, the Turnaway findings hint at what could happen if the Supreme Court allows states to ban or further restrict abortion, according to Liza Fuentes, a senior research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute. “It gives us insight into the types of negative outcomes that we could expect for people—if they are unable to travel, to obtain an abortion—living in a state that makes abortion unavailable,” says Fuentes, who was not involved with the study. Myers notes that one of the pillars of Mississippi’s argument for overturning Roe is that access to abortion has made little difference in people’s lives. “That is patently false,” she says. “We have solid scientific evidence showing that Roe mattered to people’s lives, and we know that abortion access matters to people’s lives now. And that is where I think it’s very important for science to come in and say, ‘We have answers to these questions of fact.’”

How behavioral threat assessment can stop mass shootings before they occur. How do we prevent the next mass shooting before it happens? That's the question Mother Jones national affairs editor Mark Follman has been researching since 2012, when a gunman killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. Follman says the first step is recognizing the misconceptions we have about mass shootings — beginning with the notion that these massacres come out of nowhere, and that no one saw them coming. That's not the case, he says. "This is planned violence," he says. "There is, in every one of these cases, always a trail of behavioral warning signs."
Jerry Seelig, CEO
LA Office: 310-841-2549
Fax: 310-841-2842