About the public’s health
CommonSpirit Health transforms cafes in some hospitals into grocery stores to help front-line workers: “CommonSpirit Health has converted the cafes in several of its hospitals in Arizona and the Pacific Northwest into grocery stores to help out overwhelmed physicians and staff members.
The 137-hospital system said that the stores will provide staples that are not available in most retail stores, such as toilet paper and disinfectant cleaner.”
Coronavirus in Mississippi: UMMC makes ventilators with basic hardware store supplies: MacGyver lives! “Made with "primarily a garden hose, a lamp timer and electronic valve, the ventilator, named the Robertson Ventilator [after inventor Dr. Charles Robertson, a UMMC pediatric anesthesiologist] , for less than $100, can be assembled in approximately 20 to 30 minutes, meaning a dedicated team of four to five could produce nearly 100 in a day if needed…”
Coronavirus Becomes Number One Cause of Death Per Day in U.S., Surpassing Heart Disease and Cancer:The headline speaks for itself.
Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs: “A Nature investigation of several university labs certified to test for the virus finds that they have been held up by regulatory, logistic and administrative obstacles, and stymied by the fragmented US health-care system. Even as testing backlogs mounted for hospitals in California, for example, clinics were turning away offers of testing from certified academic labs because they didn’t use compatible health-record software, or didn’t have existing contracts with the hospital.” Read the article for more details about the need for central governmental coordination.
COVID-19 fallout could push half a billion people into poverty in developing countries: “New research published by UNU-WIDER [United national University-WIDER] today warns that the economic fallout from the global pandemic could increase global poverty by as much as half a billion people, or 8% of the total human population. This would be the first time that poverty has increased globally in thirty years, since 1990.” [Emphases in the original.] This economic impact will affect their ability to afford healthcare and increase the need for foreign aid.
Germany to run Europe’s first large-scale antibody test programme: “Germany is to carry out Europe’s first large-scale coronavirus antibody testing in an effort to help researchers assess infection rates and monitor the spread of the virus more effectively…
Germany has already emerged as a leader in testing for coronavirus itself, carrying out up to 100,000 tests per day, according to health minister Jens Spahn.” Recall that Germany developed a test early in the pandemic, but our federal government decided to develop its own via the CDC. Also recall that the test did not work.
About hospitals
Fitch puts 15 nonprofit hospitals on its watch list for ratings downgrade due to coronavirus: “The action by Fitch impacts $3.7 billion of total outstanding debt.” See the article for the list.
CMS sends $51B in advance payments to hospitals: “CMS announced April 9 that it has delivered more than $51 billion in payments to hospitals and other healthcare providers in the past week through the Accelerated and Advance Payment Program.”
About health insurance
White House says no ‘surprise’ bills for COVID-19 patients: “Hospitals taking money from the $2 trillion stimulus bill will have to agree not to send ‘surprise’ medical bills to patients treated for COVID-19, the White House said Thursday.”
46 telehealth services UnitedHealthcare covers during COVID-19 pandemic + their codes:The article provides a list of services, and their respective codes, that UnitedHealthcare will cover when provided via telehealth through June 18.
About healthcare personnel
AWS powers new platform to train one million volunteer healthcare workers: “Amazon Web Services (AWS) is supporting a new initiative launched by nonprofit consortium Volunteer Surge, Inc., to recruit, train, and deploy 1 million volunteer health workers. The initiative will offer communities across the U.S. volunteer support so doctors and nurses can focus on tending to the most critical needs. To become trained, volunteers will complete an approximately 30-hour, fully-online Community Health Worker Course developed by Cinematic Health Education in consultation with the Yale School of Public Health. AWS is powering the virtual learning platform to train volunteers before they head into the field.”
About pharma
Coronavirus fuels a surge in fake medicines: In addition to fake medications are masks that do not offer protection.
Covid-19 drugs could be made for $1 per day, say academics: For example, “sofosbuvir/daclatasvir combination, a Hepatitis C treatment… is on sale for $18,610 per treatment course in the US, and for $6 in Pakistan… [The academic study calculates] that it would cost $5 to produce a course of the medicine — or 39 cents a day.” The figures include a 10% profit! Here is a link to the journal article.