Tag Archives: Healthcare

It appears the FDA is now willing to deviate from its “bedrock mission” of guiding the public with accurate science-based information to a different road emphasizing variable political interests. “The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult  .  .  .   @SteveFDA“, addressing you directly with your Twitter handle (trump). FDA is endorsing twitter as a mechanism to broadcast actions with and by Commissioner Dr. Hahn. Tweeting:  “I...

Coronavirus dashboard for September 2: Trumpism still kills Total US cases: 6,073,840 Cases, 7 day average: 42,304 Total US deaths: 184,604 Deaths, 7 day average: 888 Source: COVID Tracking Project US cases by region: US deaths by region: Superficially, this looks somewhat promising, as both cases and deaths have declined. But note that cases have flattened in the past week or so without further declines. This is particularly of concern, because...

CDC tells states: Be ready to distribute vaccines on Nov. 1, Modern Healthcare, September 2, 2020 The federal government told states to prepare for a coronavirus vaccine to be ready to distribute by Nov. 1; from which the declaration of the early timeline raised concern among public health experts about the  “October surprise” of a vaccine approval and use being driven by political considerations ahead of a presidential election, rather than science. The...

Effect of Remdesivir vs Standard Care on Clinical Status at 11 Days in Patients With Moderate COVID-19A Randomized Clinical Trial, JAMA, Christoph D. Spinner, MD; Robert L. Gottlieb, MD, PhD; Gerard J. Criner, MD, August 21, 2020 This is a freebie so you should be able to get into this article and pickup on additional detail. Those who were treated early on had a better result from remdesivir than those who were treated later after contracting Covid. This...

Whining About Lack Of Academic Leadership  At my so-called university named for the fourth president, the slave-owning “Father of the Constitution.”  No, I am not going to talk about the racism issue, which there is some effort to deal with on campus, notably in renaming three buildings named for Confederate figures, with our Provost originally from South Africa speaking reasonably intelligently about that issue. No, we had our annual general faculty...

Coronavirus dashboard for August 19: a regional look at infections; the Deep South remains almost totally out of control Total US cases: 5,457,824 Average last 7 days: 48,764 Total US deaths: 163,595 Average last 7 days: 1,048 Source: COVID Tracking Project My overall thesis is that under the present leadership the US as a whole is politically and socially incapable of bringing the coronavirus under control, as almost every other industrialized country...

Coronavirus dashboard for August 10: some good news to balance the bad Total US cases:  5,060,880 Average last 7 days: 52,393/day Total US deaths: 154,947 Average last 7 days: 1,045/day Source: COVID Tracking Project Let’s take a look at some good news as well as continued bad news today. First, the bad news. Here are the top 10 States for coronavirus infections: And here are the top 10 States for deaths: Note that with the exception...

Photos emerged last week of students, with very few wearing masks, in a crowded hallway in North Paulding High School, in Dallas, Georgia. Dallas, about 45 miles NW of Atlanta, is in Paulding County. Last week, Paulding County recorded 214 new cases of COVID-19 and an infection rate of 1,036 per 100k population. Nearby by Fulton county, home to Atlanta, had 1789 new cases and an infection ratio 1,922/100K. According to a CNN story, a sophomore student...

Oklahoma If you remember, I wrote about Oklahoma squeaking through its own initiative to expand Medicaid for low-income people. In theory, the state will be in the driver’s seat (mostly) in deciding how much money it will allocate to the program rather than the Federal government. Political interests will have a difficult time killing Medicaid without another ballot initiative to override what The State Question 802 initiative was passed by a margin of...

Initial and continuing jobless claims: back to being “less awful” This morning’s initial and continued jobless claims resume the trend of “less awful” numbers. New jobless claims fell to under 1,000,000 for the first time on an un-adjusted basis – 984,192, to be specific (gold in the graph below). After seasonal adjustment, they declined 249,000 to a new pandemic low of 1,186,000 (blue), also a new pandemic low: Continuing claims (red, right scale),...