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Greetings!
 
On Sept. 1 in the U.S. there were 34,439 new cases (6.06M total cases): 488 deaths and the death total has now reached 184,000. In comparison: 996 new cases (270,189 total cases) and six deaths (35,491 total) in Italy; 610 new cases (244,797 total cases) and three deaths (9,371 total) in Germany; and in France, 3,082 new cases (281,025 total cases) and three deaths (30,635 total deaths); the United Kingdom had 1,406 new cases (335,873 total cases), two deaths increasing their Covid death total to 41,501.

Revitalize focuses today on Nursing Homes, leading with an elegant magazine article reporting in words and pictures on the tragedy of The Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, which was the first COVID hot spot in the U.S. We then link you to a Washington Post article on Maryland nursing homes who “failed to isolate Covid-19 patients. Now they face six-figure fines.” Skilled Nursing News offers us the insight that you cannot fine your way out of a pandemic in “CMS Cracks Down on Nursing Home Testing, Questions Remain on Logistics.” And that report on nursing home testing offered the Curators a transition to link to The Atlantic for some of the best recent writing on rapid testing followed by the author of those articles who is heard in a linked episode of Fresh Air.

For our final section the curators walked down the virtual S+C hallways finding colleagues Jerry Seelig and David Hoffman with Lou Cisz (our attorney in our recent Rose Garden-Legacy case), celebrating their just-published and linked-for-you article in the ABI Journal: “The Painful Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Troubled Skilled Nursing Industry” From the virtual hallways of Revitalize world headquarters and across the U.S. we bring this week’s Revitalize list for Sept. 2, 2020:
Revitalize: The week in health-care news you need

These nursing homes failed to isolate Covid-19 patients. Now they face six-figure fines.

The federal government last week cracked down on COVID-19 testing in nursing homes, with a host of new fines exceeding $8,000 per instance, but some industry leaders — and a prominent geriatrician — have raised concerns about whether providers can meet the new benchmarks, or whether the plan will have the intended effects.
Atlantic journalist Alexis Madrigal says millions of at-home saliva tests for COVID could be the key to life returning to normal—even if the tests are less accurate than the traditional PCR tests. We talk about the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of testing, and what it would take for the government to fund and manufacture millions of daily tests. "I think what's happened in the U.S. has been so catastrophic on so many levels...that we have to be at least willing to entertain the idea of a fairly radical plan that could work," Madrigal says. Fresh Air

The U.S. has never had enough coronavirus tests. Now a group of epidemiologists, economists, and dreamers is plotting a new strategy to defeat the virus, even before a vaccine is found. The Atlantic

A newly authorized test promises to double America’s monthly testing capacity, thanks in part to a huge purchase by the Trump administration. Can the test deliver?
Residents in skilled-nursing facilities (SNFs) make up more than half of the reported COVID-19 deaths nationwide. A leading health care publication reports that “[m]any nursing homes in the U.S. are fighting against two crises: the
pandemic that is sickening and killing residents, as well as the possibility of bankruptcy.” Those practicing in and for SNFs reasonably expected failure and death at rates greater than other health care settings because of what the authors deem the “SNFs’ pre-existing conditions.” The skilled-nursing industry’s pre-existing conditions have multiple causes, the most impactful being the unique financial model found in the SNF industry.

Jerry Seelig, CEO
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