Tag Archives: Healthcare

July jobs report: a very good *relative* gain – perhaps the last HEADLINES: 1,763,000 million jobs gained. Together with the gains of May and June, this makes up about 42% of the 22.1 million job losses in March and April. U3 unemployment rate declined -0.9% from 11.1% to 10.2%, compared with the January low of 3.5%. U6 underemployment rate declined -1.5% from 18.0% to 16.5%, compared with the January low of 6.9%. Those on temporary layoff decreased...

Coronavirus dashboard for July 28: the “pain threshold” exists, and leads to a decline in new cases Total US coronavirus cases: 4,275,188 Average daily cases last 7 days: 65,896 Total US coronavirus deaths: 140,309 Average daily deaths last 7 days: 1,004 (Source: COVID Tracking Project) Several months ago I wrote: my forecast over the past month [has been] that the population of the US as a whole lacks the political and social will to beat the...

“Republicans finally get “death panels,” Hullabaloo, Tom Sullivan, July, 26, 2020 Dr. Jose Vasquez, the health officer for Starr County, Texas located on the US-Mexico border “The situation is desperate.” At the only hospital in the county, over 50% of patients are testing positive for the COVID-19 virus — 40 new coronavirus cases were reported Thursday. Starr County Memorial Hospital in Rio Grande City made plans to set up a committee to decide which...

(Dan here…a note for reality) Full liability release for businesses and hospitals It’s necessary, Mitch McConnell and his colleagues say, because of a “flood” of frivolous lawsuits crushing businesses and threatening economic recovery. So it’s important to say this clearly and out loud: there is no crisis of COVID-19 litigation. It’s made-up, it doesn’t exist, it’s a ploy to get businesses out of paying for compliance. That’s entirely it. We have all the...

Important questions from my friend Paula W…….. ! Listen up world! Betsy DeVos, we have a few questions for you: • If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks? Is their sick leave covered, paid? • If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days? • Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested? Who pays for those...

A Framework for Coronavirus Policy There are two general ways to reduce the transmission of the virus.  One is “engineering”, changing the physical environment, the other is “social”, changing behavior to keep people distant from each other.  Under engineering, we can include not only physical partitions, UV lighting and ventilation, but also mask-wearing and other PPE.  I know, there is a very large behavioral component to masking, but I want to focus...

Coronavirus dashboard for July 14: A few US States are containing the coronavirus Headlines for the US: Total infections: 3,364,704 7 day average: 60,997 Total deaths: 135,615 7 day average: 780 We all know that taken as a whole, the US is failing abysmally in controlling the coronavirus. At least 13 States most notably including California are “re-closing” at least in part.  In the last week, deaths, which had continued to decline despite the renewed...

Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding . . . “No other ways to spin this.” Common Dreams, “Warnings of Possible Cover-Up in Progress” I was hoping I could get the clip of Doctor Wen discussing what the Trump administration has done in its end run around the CDC. I couldn’t C&P the embed code as it is in a lock down and I do not have the wave length to create one for it. You can view the news clip here “Trump Orders Hospitals to give him the data.”...

Coronavirus dashboard for July 8: deaths in the South and West finally suggest increasing trend Coronavirus death statistics have been plagued recently by State data dumps, where months of deaths have been released on a single day. In the past 2 weeks, both NJ and NY’s such releases had skewed the numbers. As of today, both are out of the 7 day statistics, so I thought I would update again. One bit of good news, statistics-wise, is that the COVID tracker...

Coronavirus dashboard for July 8: deaths in the South and West finally suggest increasing trend Coronavirus death statistics have been plagued recently by State data dumps, where months of deaths have been released on a single day. In the past 2 weeks, both NJ and NY’s such releases had skewed the numbers. As of today, both are out of the 7 day statistics, so I thought I would update again. One bit of good news, statistics-wise, is that the COVID tracker...