Signs abound that the coronavirus pandemic has really stressed out Americans. Dentists say they are seeing a surge in patients needing care for jaw-clenching and teeth grinding. Doctors report treating increased numbers of patients who have shed abnormal amounts of hair due to fear and anxiety about getting sick with Covid-19, losing a job as….
Continue ReadingArchives for September 2020
Senate Democrats rip White House and GOP for inaction on nursing homes
The White House and Senate Republicans have failed to protect more than 1.3 million Americans in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, with persistent inaction contributing to the rising toll of Covid-19 deaths and infections among the institutionalized — months after the crisis in long-term care exploded into the public consciousness. Those are the….
Continue ReadingCity Council approves package of measures to increase safety of DC streets
Officials in the nation’s capital have approved a broad-based plan to crack down on the dangers that motorized vehicles pose to pedestrians, cyclists, other drivers, and whole neighborhoods. The District of Columbia City Council acted in response to spiking fatalities and injuries — harms that have increased not only locally but nationwide, as the Washington….
Continue ReadingNursing homes’ continuing crisis inflicts big toll on residents with dementia
Even as news organizations reported that the coronavirus pandemic has taken a grievous toll on seniors institutionalized with dementia, a presidential panel on nursing home care split over common sense but limp recommendations on how the nation might reduce Covid-19’s savaging of the old, sick, and injured in long-term care facilities. The unsurprising, 180-plus pages….
Continue ReadingAs D.C. Council considers more scooter laws, is it time to require helmets?
Officials in the nation’s capital are working quietly to improve the regulation of e-scooters, aiming to ensure the trendy devices are available across the District of Columbia and don’t pose hazards to pedestrians, especially those with disabilities. But is it also time for politicians to grapple with a rising safety issue: Is it time to require….
Continue ReadingHere are 7 big reasons why Americans should worry a lot about health care
Americans have made health care a central concern of the upcoming elections with excellent reasons. Their nightmares about this issue are getting worse, not better: Medical debt, one of the disgraces of the world’s most expensive health care in the planet’s wealthiest nations, has spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic. A consumer finance firm recently found….
Continue ReadingWhite House infects Covid-19 battle with yet more potent doses of politics
As the November elections draw near, let’s not lose sight of the flurry of developments in response to the politicization of the pandemic and the assaults by the Trump administration on medical science. Among them: Vaccine makers disclosed secret details about their plans to test the safety and effectiveness of a coronavirus inoculation on tens….
Continue ReadingNursing homes failing to fix well-known infection-control fundamentals
Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities now account for around 62,000 coronavirus deaths, 42% of the country’s total. So how is it possible that, months into the pandemic, owners and operators keep failing to fix well-known infection-control basics, like mixing healthy and infected residents and allowing poorly paid staffers to work at multiple facilities,….
Continue ReadingOpioid crisis worsens during pandemic, and vaping shrinks to its hard-core
The Covid-19 pandemic has complicated the already difficult efforts to combat substance abuse: New reports affirm how opioid abuse and drug overdoses are soaring, and vaping, while showing favorable declines for the first time in years, also may be creating a hard-core group of nicotine-addicted young people. With powerful painkillers, the Wall Street Journal reported:….
Continue ReadingWith speeding vaccine clinical trials, a pause that may prove reassuring
The “warp speed” race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine has gotten hit with a yellow flag. It could be a good thing that the product’s makers — Oxford University and AstraZeneca — followed medical-scientific protocols and paused their Phase III clinical trial due to a participant’s unexplained illness. Officially, the company offered spare information about….
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