Mar 11, 2021 | Sci-Tech
From July 2020:
How did they do it?
From Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths (WSJ):
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top advisers successfully pushed state health officials to strip a public report of data showing that more nursing-home residents had died of Covid-19 than the administration had acknowledged, according to people with knowledge of the report’s production.
The July report, which examined the factors that led to the spread of the virus in nursing homes, focused only on residents who died inside long-term-care facilities, leaving out those who had died in hospitals after becoming sick in nursing homes. As a result, the report said 6,432 nursing-home residents had died—a significant undercount of the death toll attributed to the state’s most vulnerable population, the people said. The initial version of the report said nearly 10,000 nursing-home residents had died in New York by July last year, one of the people said.
The changes Mr. Cuomo’s aides and health officials made to the nursing-home report, which haven’t been previously disclosed, reveal that the state possessed a fuller accounting of out-of-facility nursing-home deaths as early as the summer. The Health Department resisted calls by state and federal lawmakers, media outlets and others to release the data for another eight months.
State officials now say more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities were confirmed or presumed to have died from Covid-19 since March of last year—counting both those who died in long-term-care facilities and those who died later in hospitals. That figure is about 50% higher than earlier official death tolls.
Related: Governor Andrew Cuomo Deserves Emmy But Not Governorship
Jun 26, 2020 | Politics
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer provides “a recap with links about how the FDA responded to just a couple of issues since the start of the pandemic.”
Writes Romer:
It might be time to review the massive damage that the FDA is doing by restricting the supply and use of tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Massive? With enough tests, the US could have avoided the enormous cost that this virus is imposing – at least 200,000 excess deaths and $8 trillion in lost output.
[…]
Many accounts have noted how the failure of the virus test developed by the CDC delayed the US response to the virus. The fact that has not gotten as much attention is that although the FDA promptly approved the broken test from the CDC, it took an excruciatingly long time to approve tests that actually worked.
Read The FDA’s Perpetual Process Machine.
Related articles:
May 10, 2020 | Politics
Dr. Amesh Adalja is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. His work is focused on emerging infectious disease, pandemic preparedness, and biosecurity.
Recommended Reading: COVID19: A Path Forward by Amesh Adalja
Some key takeaways:
- Asynchronous outbreaks around the world – worldwide cases are coming again (South Korea) — the virus is not going anywhere;
- We are going to be dealing with COVID-19 for the next two years until a vaccine is developed;
- South Korea COVID-19 Response was “textbook”: acted quickly and took the right actions’;
- Keep the number of cases so not to overwhelm hospital capacity — in Japan had to reimplement lockdown when cases spiked up again;
- The jury is still out on Sweden: most deaths in nursing homes; still some restrictions on large crowds; Swedes tend to social distance “naturally” (Brook); not appropriate for U.S. hotspots like New York;
- Taiwan “great success story” pounced on this and was very aggressive on testing; injustices against Taiwan; prohibited from WHO (and U.N.) because Taiwan government respects individual rights of citizens;
- Virus mutations: “most mutations have no functional significance”; what matters is how virulent it is (speed of spread);
- Death rates dependent on host (co-factors like obesity and diabetes); can run rampant in nursing homes (must lockdown and be “fortified”) which is high risk;
- Not apocalyptic, but still dangerous: New virus with no protection against it (more deadly and challenging then flu — which we have antivirals for); what makes it deadly is that it can affect everybody; so even if a small amount (0.6);
- Cannot extrapolate one area (high population density like New York City) to another (rural area);
- Politicization has made it hard to get an objective opinion; CDC: “constrained” by the political environment; Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID): “made major breakthroughs”, “pioneer with HIV”, “icon in the field”;
- How durable is immunity? People in South Korea were not reinfected — the test does not test for viable virus, but tests for materials (debris) from virus;
- “Flattening the Curve” is not about saving lives, but spreading cases out over time so as to not overwhelm hospital capacity; as you peel back social distancing the number of cases will go up;
- Hydroxychloroquine is not the answer, but the effectiveness depends on controlled grouped trials; the final solution is a vaccine;
- Island nations (Iceland, New Zeland) are good at infectious diseases as they have a natural barrier;
- Number of cases is less important then hospitalization rates;
- California — lockdown (“blunt instrument”) of the entire state is not necessary at this time; should be done a county level;
- 1968 Hong Kong Flu [influenza A subtype H3N2] compared to COVID-19: This will be worse, but not as bad as 1918 [1918–19 pandemic, which caused between 25 million and 50 million deaths].
- A lot of gray areas: a lot of things we do not know the answer to and are “learning things on the fly”; lots of false alternatives being created between opening up completely and shutdowns;
- What individuals should do: high-risk individuals should avoid COIV-19 at all costs; avoid contact with high-risk individuals so as to not infect them with the virus; different for every person’s risk tolerance; make sure people you visit consent to making contact with you.
May 8, 2020 | Politics
Victor David Hanson makes some important observations in “The War between Experience and Credentials” (5 May 2020, National Review):
One of the most depressing aspects of the coronavirus epidemic has been the failure of the credentialed class — the alphabetic transnational and federal health organizations, the university modelers, the professional associations, and their media enablers. Their collective lapse was largely due to hubris and the assumption that titles and credentials meant they had no need to accept input and criticism from those far more engaged in the physical world — they saw no need to say, “At this time, I confess we are as confused as you are.”
In sum, the ER doctors, the nurses, and the public in general all eagerly welcomed the research of the experts. But the reverse — in which experts would listen to those with firsthand experience — was not true.
The asymmetrical result is that we all have paid a terrible price in misjudging the perfidy of China; the rot within the World Health Organization; the origins, transmission, infectiousness, and lethality of the virus; and the most effective, cost-to-benefit response to the epidemic in terms of saving lives lost to the infection versus the likely even more lives lost through the response.
Truly a must-read.
May 8, 2020 | Politics
From “Andrew Cuomo: Healthcare workers who volunteered to help New York with pandemic must pay state income taxes“, 6 May 2020, Washington Examiner:
Healthcare workers who traveled to New York to help patients during the coronavirus pandemic may not have realized they were also going to be assisting the state dig itself out of a financial hole. […] “Ken Isaacs, the vice president of Samaritan’s Purse, a nonprofit organization that set up a temporary hospital in Central Park to help with the pandemic, told PIX 11 he was shocked to learn that workers who volunteered to come to the state would have to pay the state’s income tax.”
Thus, a nurse from Texas (which has no state income taxes), who volunteers to work in New York, will have to file paperwork, and pay taxes for money she is paid in Texas.
