About hospitals and health systems
'Tumultuous' year for hospitals results in 55% drop in median operating margin, Kaufman Hall finds: “Hospitals across the U.S. saw their median 2020 operating margin drop 55.6 percent throughout 2020, without taking into account federal relief aid, according to a new report from healthcare consulting firm Kaufman Hall. When factoring in Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act cash, hospitals saw their median operating margins dip 16.6 percent…
Overall, hosptials saw their median operating margin at 0.3 percent in 2020, without funding from the CARES Act. With funding, the median operating margin was 2.7 percent.”
About COVID-19
Transcript: Dr. Deborah Birx on "Face the Nation," January 24, 2021: The entire interview is interesting but this remark was especially revealing: “I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made. So, I know that someone- or someone out there or someone inside was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president. I know what I sent up and I know that what was in his hands was different from that. You can't do that. You have to use the entire database--”
Low Patient Portal Adoption Could Stymie COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout:”Up to 45 percent of patients ages 50 and older don’t have a patient portal, the very tool most providers across the country are using to communicate with patients about the COVID-19 vaccine, according to new data out of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
This could seriously hamper provider efforts to notify patients as they become eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and, at some organizations, take the next steps to schedule a vaccination.”
U.S. CDC says 21.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered: “U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 21,848,655 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Sunday morning.
The tally of vaccine doses is for both Moderna Inc’s vaccine and one by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech as of 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT) on Sunday, the agency said.
It said 18,502,131 people had received one or more doses, while 3,216,836 people got the second dose as of Sunday.”
FDA rolls back N95 mask reuse to 4 decontamination cycles: “The FDA has rolled back its emergency authorizations for N95 respirator decontamination systems, cutting down the number of times the agency said each mask could be safely reused.
During the early stages of the pandemic, when supplies of personal protective equipment and N95 filters were at a minimum, the FDA allowed masks to be reprocessed up to 20 times with certain hardware.“
Fauci: Vaccinations will help coronavirus variants from emerging: Another good reason to vaccinate the population quickly.
”Covid-19 vaccinations will not only help stop the virus from spreading, they will also hamper the coronavirus' ability to mutate into new variants, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday.
’Viruses don't mutate unless they replicate,’ Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a news briefing at the White House, his first under the administration of President Joe Biden.
’And if you can suppress that by a very good vaccine campaign, then you could actually avoid this deleterious effect that you might get from the mutations,"‘Fauci said.”
Merck cans both its COVID-19 vaccines due to weak clinical data: “Merck has stopped development of its two COVID-19 vaccine candidates after getting a look at phase 1 data. The vaccine powerhouse said neither candidate triggered immune responses comparable to those achieved by rival jabs, leading Merck to cut its losses and focus on COVID-19 therapeutics.”
2 in 5 Americans live where COVID-19 strains hospital ICUs: “Straining to handle record numbers of COVID-19 patients, hundreds of the nation’s intensive care units are running out of space and supplies and competing to hire temporary traveling nurses at soaring rates. Many of the facilities are clustered in the South and West.
An Associated Press analysis of federal hospital data shows that since November, the share of U.S. hospitals nearing the breaking point has doubled. More than 40% of Americans now live in areas running out of ICU space, with only 15% of beds still available.”
Israel sees 60% drop in hospitalizations for age 60-plus 3 weeks after 1st shot: “Full effects of Pfizer’s shots only kick in around a month after inoculation, but data from Israel shows there is a stark drop in infections even before that point.”
Moderna vaccine protects against British and South African variants, company says: “The coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna triggers an immune response that protected in laboratory tests against two variants of the virus first detected in Britain and South Africa, the company said Monday.
The finding was largely encouraging but contained a clear warning sign: Even though the vaccine generated disease-fighting antibodies that worked against the South African variant, that efficacy was diminished. Moderna said there was a reduction in response, prompting the company to design a new potential vaccine that could be added to the current two-dose regimen.”
Pfizer ships fewer Covid vaccine vials to U.S. after Trump FDA label change: “Pfizer is counting extra coronavirus vaccine it uses to top off each of its vials toward its commitment to deliver 200 million shots for the U.S. pandemic response — even though there aren't enough syringes capable of squeezing out the extra fluid.”
Civica Rx lays out $124M sterile injectables plant, pegged to supply COVID-19 drugs and more: “Construction has already started on the 120,000-square-foot plant, pegged to come online within the next three years, Civica said. The facility will ultimately crank out 90 million vials and 50 million prefilled syringes per year, focusing on drugs for COVID-19 patients as well as meds used in emergency rooms, intensive care units and surgeries.”
Researchers are developing color-changing stickers for masks to detect COVID-19: “The sticker is a test strip and blister pack that can be placed on N95, surgical or cloth masks and detect SARS-CoV-2 in the user's breath or saliva…
As the person wearing the mask breathes, the test strip aims to detect protein-cleaving molecules produced from a COVID-19 infection. Once the user removes the mask and test materials, they squeeze out the contents of the blister pack onto the test strip. If the test strip turns a specific color, it means infection molecules are present.”
Davos Agenda: What you need to know about the future of global health: These health goals are COVID-19 driven. Read the article for the World Economic Forum Agenda.