Showing posts with label Coronavirus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coronavirus. Show all posts
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Friday, March 6, 2020
To predict an epidemic, evolution can't be ignored
March 2, 2020
College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Whether it's coronavirus or misinformation, scientists can use mathematical models to predict how something will spread across populations. But what happens if a pathogen mutates, or information becomes modified, changing the speed at which it spreads? Researchers now show for the first time how important these considerations are.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200302153551.htm
When scientists try to predict the spread of something across populations -- anything from a coronavirus to misinformation -- they use complex mathematical models to do so. Typically, they'll study the first few steps in which the subject spreads, and use that rate to project how far and wide the spread will go.
But what happens if a pathogen mutates, or information becomes modified, changing the speed at which it spreads? In a new study appearing in this week's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of Carnegie Mellon University researchers show for the first time how important these considerations are.
"These evolutionary changes have a huge impact," says CyLab faculty member Osman Yagan, an associate research professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and corresponding author of the study. "If you don't consider the potential changes over time, you will be wrong in predicting the number of people that will get sick or the number of people who are exposed to a piece of information."
Most people are familiar with epidemics of disease, but information itself -- nowadays traveling at lightning speeds over social media -- can experience its own kind of epidemic and "go viral." Whether a piece of information goes viral or not can depend on how the original message is tweaked.
"Some pieces of misinformation are intentional, but some may develop organically when many people sequentially make small changes like a game of 'telephone,'" says Yagan. "A seemingly boring piece of information can evolve into a viral Tweet, and we need to be able to predict how these things spread."
In their study, the researchers developed a mathematical theory that takes these evolutionary changes into consideration. They then tested their theory against thousands of computer-simulated epidemics in real-world networks, such as Twitter for the spread of information or a hospital for the spread of disease.
In the context of spreading of infectious disease, the team ran thousands of simulations using data from two real-world networks: a contact network among students, teachers, and staff at a US high school, and a contact network among staff and patients in a hospital in Lyon, France.
These simulations served as a test bed: the theory that matches what is observed in the simulations would prove to be the more accurate one.
"We showed that our theory works over real-world networks," says the study's first author, Rashad Eletreby, who was a Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student when he wrote the paper. "Traditional models that don't consider evolutionary adaptations fail at predicting the probability of the emergence of an epidemic."
While the study isn't a silver bullet for predicting the spread of today's coronavirus or the spread of fake news in today's volatile political environment with 100% accuracy -- one would need real-time data tracking the evolution of the pathogen or information to do that -- the authors say it's a big step.
"We're one step closer to reality," says Eletreby.
Other authors on the study included ECE Ph.D. student Yong Zhuang, Institute for Software Research professor Kathleen Carley, and Princeton Electrical Engineering professor Vincent Poor.
Story Source:
Materials provided by College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University. Original written by Daniel Tkacik. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Rashad Eletreby, Yong Zhuang, Kathleen M. Carley, Osman Yağan, and H. Vincent Poor. The effects of evolutionary adaptations on spreading processes in complex networks. PNAS, 2020 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1918529117
Downplaying virus could lose Trump the election
The US president is fumbling in the face of a health crisis of unknown proportions
MARCH 6, 2020
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/downplaying-virus-could-lose-trump-the-election/
Panic returned to the US stock market on Thursday as the federal government fumbled in the face of a health crisis of unknown proportions, and President Donald Trump appeared to downplay the scale of the problem in a Fox News interview. Someone should tell the president that reality shows don’t go as scripted when the studio is on fire.
Meanwhile, no one in the United States knows how fast Covid-19 has spread, where it is spread, or how it is spreading. The nationwide shortage of test kits has become an election-year issue, with Democratic officials denouncing the Trump Administration, and President Trump blaming regulatory decisions by the Obama Administration. That is a fight that the incumbent president only can lose: the incumbent president always will take the fall for a perceived fumble in a national emergency. The Obama-era policy, which required hospitals and private laboratories to submit test procedures to lengthy Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review, was an obstacle to rapid testing. But it wasn’t rescinded until February 29, six weeks after Washington State authorities believe that the first case appeared in that state.
Federal officials, meanwhile, are backtracking on promises of a rapid response.
Earlier this week FDA chief Stephen Hahn told Congress that a million test kits would be in use by Friday, but Republican senators warned Thursday that it would take much longer for testing to get underway. “There won’t be a million people to get a test by the end of the week,” Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida told Bloomberg News. “It’s way smaller than that. And still, at this point, it’s still through public health departments.”
Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma told Bloomberg, “By the end of the week they’re getting them out to the mail. It’s going to take time to be able to get them, receive them, re-verify them and then be able to put them into use.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today announced that it is no longer reporting the number of individuals tested for Covid-19 infection, because state and local governments have taken over most of the testing. As of March 5 the CDC reported just 49 cases under investigation, explaining on its website, “CDC is no longer reporting the number of persons under investigation (PUIs) that have been tested, as well as PUIs that have tested negative. Now that states are testing and reporting their own results, CDC’s numbers are not representative of all testing being done nationwide.”
The US agency added, “In the event of a discrepancy between CDC cases and cases reported by state and local public health officials, data reported by states should be considered the most up to date.”
The CDC added that it has no up-to-date national statistics on coronavirus infections. “State and local public health departments are now testing and publicly reporting their cases. In the event of a discrepancy between CDC cases and cases reported by state and local public health officials, data reported by states should be considered the most up to date,” the agency said.
According to the website ProPublica, the CDC made matters worse by insisting on developing its own test kit, rather than use kits from Europe – and then producing a test kit that didn’t work. “As the highly infectious coronavirus jumped from China to country after country in January and February, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost valuable weeks that could have been used to track its possible spread in the United States because it insisted upon devising its own test,” the website reported February 28.
WHO guidelines
Even worse, “The federal agency shunned the World Health Organization test guidelines used by other countries and set out to create a more complicated test of its own that could identify a range of similar viruses. But when it was sent to labs across the country in the first week of February, it didn’t work as expected. The CDC test correctly identified Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. But in all but a handful of state labs, it falsely flagged the presence of the other viruses in harmless samples.”
Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, told ProPublica, “The basic tenet of public health is to know the situation so you can deal with it appropriately. If you don’t look, you won’t find cases.” Lipsitch noted that in China’s Guangdong Province, health authorities tested 300,000 people in fever clinics in order to identify only 420 positive cases.
President Trump meanwhile appeared to dismiss public concerns about the epidemic in a March 4 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“Well, I think the 3.4% [mortality rate is really a false number,” the president said. “Now, and this is just my hunch, and – but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this. Because a lot people will have this and it’s very mild. They’ll get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor. You never hear about those people. So you can’t put them down in the category of the overall population in terms of this corona flu and – or virus. So you just can’t do that. So if, you know, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work but they get better.”
He continued, “When you do have a death – like you had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, believe you had one in New York – you know, all of a sudden, it seems like 3 or 4%, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%,” Trump added. “But again, they don’t know about the easy cases because the easy cases don’t go to the hospital. They don’t report to doctors or the hospital, in many cases. So I think that that [death rate] number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%.”
President attacked
News commentators attacked the president for appearing to encourage people with mild symptoms to go to work. Trump retorted in a March 5 tweet, “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work. This is just more Fake News and disinformation put out by the Democrats, in particular MSDNC. Comcast covers the CoronaVirus situation horribly, only looking to do harm to the incredible & successful effort being made!”
Short of test kits, Washington State health authorities have asked people with mild symptoms not to come to public clinics, because there is nothing that the clinics can do for them immediately. Microsoft, Google and Amazon have told their Seattle-area employees to work from home.
Lack of basic information, hesitant action, conflicting statements and the failure to acknowledge previous blunders contribute to the panic registered on the US equity market. In an election year, it really doesn’t matter whose fault it was. The buck stops at the president’s desk, in Harry Truman’s celebrated saying – but never more so than during a public health crisis.
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/downplaying-virus-could-lose-trump-the-election/
Panic returned to the US stock market on Thursday as the federal government fumbled in the face of a health crisis of unknown proportions, and President Donald Trump appeared to downplay the scale of the problem in a Fox News interview. Someone should tell the president that reality shows don’t go as scripted when the studio is on fire.
Meanwhile, no one in the United States knows how fast Covid-19 has spread, where it is spread, or how it is spreading. The nationwide shortage of test kits has become an election-year issue, with Democratic officials denouncing the Trump Administration, and President Trump blaming regulatory decisions by the Obama Administration. That is a fight that the incumbent president only can lose: the incumbent president always will take the fall for a perceived fumble in a national emergency. The Obama-era policy, which required hospitals and private laboratories to submit test procedures to lengthy Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review, was an obstacle to rapid testing. But it wasn’t rescinded until February 29, six weeks after Washington State authorities believe that the first case appeared in that state.
Federal officials, meanwhile, are backtracking on promises of a rapid response.
Earlier this week FDA chief Stephen Hahn told Congress that a million test kits would be in use by Friday, but Republican senators warned Thursday that it would take much longer for testing to get underway. “There won’t be a million people to get a test by the end of the week,” Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida told Bloomberg News. “It’s way smaller than that. And still, at this point, it’s still through public health departments.”
Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma told Bloomberg, “By the end of the week they’re getting them out to the mail. It’s going to take time to be able to get them, receive them, re-verify them and then be able to put them into use.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today announced that it is no longer reporting the number of individuals tested for Covid-19 infection, because state and local governments have taken over most of the testing. As of March 5 the CDC reported just 49 cases under investigation, explaining on its website, “CDC is no longer reporting the number of persons under investigation (PUIs) that have been tested, as well as PUIs that have tested negative. Now that states are testing and reporting their own results, CDC’s numbers are not representative of all testing being done nationwide.”
The US agency added, “In the event of a discrepancy between CDC cases and cases reported by state and local public health officials, data reported by states should be considered the most up to date.”
The CDC added that it has no up-to-date national statistics on coronavirus infections. “State and local public health departments are now testing and publicly reporting their cases. In the event of a discrepancy between CDC cases and cases reported by state and local public health officials, data reported by states should be considered the most up to date,” the agency said.
According to the website ProPublica, the CDC made matters worse by insisting on developing its own test kit, rather than use kits from Europe – and then producing a test kit that didn’t work. “As the highly infectious coronavirus jumped from China to country after country in January and February, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost valuable weeks that could have been used to track its possible spread in the United States because it insisted upon devising its own test,” the website reported February 28.
WHO guidelines
Even worse, “The federal agency shunned the World Health Organization test guidelines used by other countries and set out to create a more complicated test of its own that could identify a range of similar viruses. But when it was sent to labs across the country in the first week of February, it didn’t work as expected. The CDC test correctly identified Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. But in all but a handful of state labs, it falsely flagged the presence of the other viruses in harmless samples.”
Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, told ProPublica, “The basic tenet of public health is to know the situation so you can deal with it appropriately. If you don’t look, you won’t find cases.” Lipsitch noted that in China’s Guangdong Province, health authorities tested 300,000 people in fever clinics in order to identify only 420 positive cases.
President Trump meanwhile appeared to dismiss public concerns about the epidemic in a March 4 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“Well, I think the 3.4% [mortality rate is really a false number,” the president said. “Now, and this is just my hunch, and – but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this. Because a lot people will have this and it’s very mild. They’ll get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor. You never hear about those people. So you can’t put them down in the category of the overall population in terms of this corona flu and – or virus. So you just can’t do that. So if, you know, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work but they get better.”
He continued, “When you do have a death – like you had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, believe you had one in New York – you know, all of a sudden, it seems like 3 or 4%, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%,” Trump added. “But again, they don’t know about the easy cases because the easy cases don’t go to the hospital. They don’t report to doctors or the hospital, in many cases. So I think that that [death rate] number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%.”
President attacked
News commentators attacked the president for appearing to encourage people with mild symptoms to go to work. Trump retorted in a March 5 tweet, “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work. This is just more Fake News and disinformation put out by the Democrats, in particular MSDNC. Comcast covers the CoronaVirus situation horribly, only looking to do harm to the incredible & successful effort being made!”
Short of test kits, Washington State health authorities have asked people with mild symptoms not to come to public clinics, because there is nothing that the clinics can do for them immediately. Microsoft, Google and Amazon have told their Seattle-area employees to work from home.
Lack of basic information, hesitant action, conflicting statements and the failure to acknowledge previous blunders contribute to the panic registered on the US equity market. In an election year, it really doesn’t matter whose fault it was. The buck stops at the president’s desk, in Harry Truman’s celebrated saying – but never more so than during a public health crisis.
What must be done to fight the Pandemic
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/06/pers-m06.html
6 March 2020
The coronavirus pandemic continues to spread through dozens of countries around the world in what is among the worst outbreaks of infectious disease in a century, threatening the lives of millions of people.
Refuting the White House’s criminally dishonest dismissal of the disease’s severity, the number of cases in the United States continues to rise rapidly. The response at every level of government has been negligent and incompetent, exposing a total lack of planning and preparation in the world’s richest capitalist country.
Even as the White House was downplaying the lethality of the virus and equating it with the common flu, the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO) reported on March 4 that 3.4 percent of people infected by the coronavirus had died.
There is no way to accurately determine the extent of the infection in the United States because of the absence of testing equipment.
The indifference of the Trump administration to the health of the population is no better, and perhaps worse, than the attitude of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the slaves. The media has spent far more time bemoaning the fall in share values on Wall Street than the loss of human life.
Congress has authorized a mere $8.3 billion to fight the outbreak—less than one tenth the annual cost of the war in Afghanistan and one fifteenth the wealth of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Without emergency intervention, there is a danger that this pandemic will spread uncontrollably throughout the population and cause a staggering loss of life. In the worst-case scenario, outlined this week by Dr. Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University, as much as 60 percent of the global population could become infected. At current rates of mortality, this would mean the deaths of over a hundred million men, women and children.
As the World Health Organization pointed out in its February 28 report, “The COVID-19 virus is a new pathogen that is highly contagious, can spread quickly, and must be considered capable of causing enormous health, economic and societal impacts in any setting.”
The report noted that the virus “is transmitted via droplets and fomites [objects] during close unprotected contact between an infector and infectee.” The WHO added that “human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 virus is largely occurring in families.”
Measures can be taken to dramatically reduce the number of infections and prevent the loss of countless lives. But the response of governments throughout the world has been disastrously inadequate and an untold number of people will die as a result. The vast majority of the victims will be from the working class, the poor and other vulnerable sections of society.
This social catastrophe must be prevented. All sections of the working class, youth and students must demand that governments take emergency action to stop the spread of the virus and provide the necessary care for all those who are infected by the disease. This requires a massive reallocation of social resources.
The principle that must guide the response is that the needs of society overrule the interests of profit. Capitalist calculations of share values and profits must not be allowed to limit, undermine, or prevent the combating of the disease.
From this standpoint we raise the following demands:
No expense can be spared in making testing for the coronavirus available immediately in every country. Trillions of dollars must be invested internationally in testing regimes, the manufacture of protective clothing, the purchase of oxygen machines and other necessary technology, the construction of new hospitals and the expansion of existing hospital facilities.
Accessible and universal testing: There is no way to combat the spread of coronavirus without testing that is accessible to all those who show symptoms. It is essential that testing be made available immediately throughout the United States and the entire world.
Free high-quality treatment: Stopping the spread of the coronavirus is impossible in a society where only those with money can see a doctor. In a country like the United States, where the average household cannot afford to pay cash for a $400 expense, providing free treatment is inseparable from controlling the spread of the disease.
Every country must immediately begin to provide free testing and treatment, and pay all medical costs associated with the coronavirus. Medical care is not a privilege, it is a right!
Paid sick leave for all workers: It is vital to ensure that workers do not feel pressured to work when they are sick. Corporations and governments must immediately begin providing paid sick leave for all employees.
Equality of care: In the United States, a vast and disproportionate share of medical resources is monopolized by the financial oligarchy. Reports abound of the V.I.P. emergency rooms in Manhattan and the Hamptons for the super-rich, and the massive emergency bunkers and private medical treatment centers being constructed by the oligarchs in their own mansions.
There can be no preferential treatment in combating this pandemic! Equality of care is not only a moral question, but an urgent social necessity. The private doctors of the rich and those engaged in vanity procedures must be immediately drafted to treat the general population. Access to care must be determined by necessity, not wealth. The rich have the right to the same treatment as anyone else—but no better.
Protect refugees, prisoners and the homeless: Around the world, millions of people are homeless, millions more are fleeing war and poverty, and countless others are imprisoned under conditions that make them vulnerable to infectious disease. Everything must be done to improve the conditions of prisoners, refugees and the homeless and provide these vulnerable populations with access to hygiene and the best quality medical care.
Stop price gouging: Medical supplies and sanitary products must be made available to households and medical workers, and all those profiting from the crisis should be held criminally liable.
Safe working conditions: Employers and the government must be responsible for providing all employees—from medical workers to factory, warehouse, retail and service workers—with a safe work environment.
The supervision of safety cannot be left to the employers. Workers should form rank-and-file committees to make sure that safety codes are being observed by the employers and measures are being taken to combat the spread of the disease. These committees will ensure that workers are not compelled to work in an unsafe environment and that coworkers who become ill receive the necessary treatment and support.
Support the ill and the quarantined: No one should fear that being designated and quarantined means neglect and ostracism. Workers should form neighborhood committees to ensure that those who are sick and quarantined are safe and have social support and the necessary food and supplies.
For international collaboration: US economic sanctions against Iran are causing severe medical shortages in a country with over 3,000 coronavirus cases, and the US political establishment has been waging a campaign to demonize Chinese scientists and doctors. All sanctions must immediately be lifted and all restrictions on international medical collaboration ended!
In responding to this dangerous disease, one principle must guide us: that human need is primary. Combating an epidemic that threatens millions of lives cannot be subordinated to considerations of private profit.
Any claim that there is no money to save the lives of millions of people is a contemptible lie. In the United States alone, there are more than 13,000 individuals with over $30 million in wealth. Just three people—Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett—own more wealth than the poorest half of American society.
Funding shortfalls must be covered by emergency seizures of the fortunes of ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
It is necessary to build a mass movement of the working class to demand an immediate emergency response to the crisis, to be paid for by the corporations, the government and the financial oligarchy.
As the International Committee of the Fourth International wrote its statement of February 28, 2020:
In demanding that capitalist governments implement these emergency measures, the international working class does not abandon its fundamental aim: the ending of the capitalist system. Rather, the fight for emergency action will raise the consciousness of the working class, develop its understanding of the need for international class solidarity, and increase its political self-confidence.
The opportunities provided by modern medical technology to stop such an outbreak are unprecedented. Never before has so much been known about a pathogen so early: Its genome has been sequenced and effective tests have been designed within a matter of weeks.
But the outbreak of the disease has exposed the gaping chasm between the enormous promise of modern medical technology and the totally irrational character of a society based on the private accumulation of wealth.
Whatever the outcome of this pandemic, the crisis irrefutably establishes the fact that capitalism cannot deal with the existential threats facing humanity—from climate change to natural disasters and infectious diseases. The coronavirus crisis poses the urgent necessity for the socialist reorganization of society.
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (United States)
As CDC Says 'Do Not Go to Work,' Trump Says Thousands With Coronavirus Could Go to Work and Get Better
"These are really dangerous lies."
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/05/cdc-says-do-not-go-work-trump-says-thousands-coronavirus-could-go-work-and-get?
Running roughshod over the advice of trained medical professionals and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, President Donald Trump Wednesday night suggested to millions of Fox News viewers that people infected with coronavirus could still go to work and recover, comments that were immediately condemned as irresponsible and dangerous.
"A lot of people will have this and it's very mild. They'll get better very rapidly," Trump told Fox's Sean Hannity. "They don't even see a doctor, they don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people."
"Trump has had briefings from the nation's best doctors and scientists on COVID-19 and he still spouts total, dangerous bullshit."
—Peter Gleick
"So you can't put them down in the category of the overall population in terms of this corona flu and/or virus," Trump continued. "So you just can't do that. So, if, you know, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work. Some of them go to work, but they get better."
The CDC has advised that anyone exhibiting symptoms of coronavirus such as a fever, coughing, and/or shortness of breath stay home from work, avoid public areas as much as possible, and seek medical attention.
"You should restrict activities outside your home, except for getting medical care," the CDC's website states. "Do not go to work, school, or public areas. Avoid using public transportation, ride-sharing, or taxis."
Trump also claimed in the interview with Hannity that the World Health Organization's (WHO) estimate of a 3.4% global death rate from coronavirus is a "false number."
"This is just my hunch," the president said.
"These are really dangerous lies," tweeted The Nation's Jeet Heer.
"Trump has had briefings from the nation's best doctors and scientists on COVID-19 and he still spouts total, dangerous bullshit," added climate scientist Peter Gleick.
Trump's remarks came just hours after California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency following the death of a 71-year-old man, the first U.S. coronavirus fatality reported outside of Washington state.
"This is not something that I say hyperbolically," Newsom said of the emergency declaration during a press conference Wednesday. "The proclamation is to serve to help advance our resources."
As Trump and other White House officials have attempted to downplay the severity of the outbreak and hurled accusations of fearmongering—the president said at a rally last week that Democrats' criticism of his handling of the health crisis is a "new hoax"—coronavirus has spread to at least 15 states in the U.S. and killed 11 people.
"The death rate so far—which includes more than 3,000 deaths [globally]—is many times higher than the mortality rate of the seasonal flu, which is 0.1%," the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. "WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that is at least partly because COVID-19 is a new disease, and no one has built up an immunity to it."
'Hospitals Not Prepared,' Warn Nurses as Nationwide Survey Shows 'Fractured' System Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
"We just don't have the capacity in the hospitals and health systems to deal with a massive influx of patients and keep them isolated."
Eoin Higgins, staff writer
9 Comments
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/05/hospitals-not-prepared-warn-nurses-nationwide-survey-shows-fractured-system-amid?
The nation's healthcare system is unprepared to handle a coronavirus outbreak that could already be underway, health professionals are warning, and the result could be "chaos."
"This crisis highlights our country's completely fractured health care system and failure to invest in public health," said Bonnie Castillo, executive director of the National Nurses United (NNU), on Thursday as her union released preliminary findings from an ongoing nationwide survey of health professionals and facilities.
"Facilities don't have a plan, or they haven't explained the plan, or they don't have the supplies, equipment, and training to carry out any plan," said Castillo. "The outcome of this chaos is that health care workers, patients, and the entire community are exposed to this virus and needlessly put at risk."
The survey focused on coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) preparedness and made clear that the vast majority of healthcare facilities are not ready to deal with an outbreak, the group said.
According to NNU:
Thousands of responses show that high percentages of hospitals do not have plans, isolation procedures, and policies in place for COVID-19; that communication to staff by employers is poor or nonexistent; that hospitals are lacking sufficient stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE) or are not making current stocks readily available, and have not provided training and practice to staff on how to properly use PPE.
"The survey results confirm what we have been hearing from nurses across the country: Hospitals are not prepared," said Castillo. "This crisis highlights our country's completely fractured health care system and failure to invest in public health."
The survey results came just after President Donald Trump said on national television Wednesday night that people with the coronavirus could go to work and suggested—based on a "hunch"—that global reporting on the virus' death rate was false.
A Washington Post report Wednesday evening cited similar concerns from health professionals worried about their ability to handle an outbreak.
"We just don't have the capacity in the hospitals and health systems to deal with a massive influx of patients and keep them isolated," Johns Hopkins University professor Gerard Anderson told the Post.
According to the Post:
The amount of federal funding given to state and local officials to prepare for health emergencies has been cut in half or more over the past couple of decades, according to Crystal Watson, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
The two key federal programs amounted to $1.4 billion in 2003. Those two programs amount to $662 million this year.
"Every administration has made cuts to these programs," Watson said. "It's been in a downward trend for a long time."
In Seattle, the hardest-hit U.S. community to date, city councilmember Kshama Sawant called on local and state officials to take action to protect the public beyond simply declaring the situation an emergency.
In its press release announcing the survey's results, NNU called on federal and state governments, as well as health facilities, to emphasize clear communication, health protocols, and to immediately provide federal spending to address the unfolding crisis. NNU Executive Council vice president and nurse Cathy Kennedy said that help from healthcare administrators would be critical to ensuring public health.
"Nurses are confident that we can contain this disease and prevent unnecessary deaths and suffering," said Kennedy. "But our employers and the government need to provide us with the right guidelines, staffing, equipment, and supplies in order for us to do this work safely. We, our patients, and the public deserve nothing less."
9 Comments
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/05/hospitals-not-prepared-warn-nurses-nationwide-survey-shows-fractured-system-amid?
The nation's healthcare system is unprepared to handle a coronavirus outbreak that could already be underway, health professionals are warning, and the result could be "chaos."
"This crisis highlights our country's completely fractured health care system and failure to invest in public health," said Bonnie Castillo, executive director of the National Nurses United (NNU), on Thursday as her union released preliminary findings from an ongoing nationwide survey of health professionals and facilities.
"Facilities don't have a plan, or they haven't explained the plan, or they don't have the supplies, equipment, and training to carry out any plan," said Castillo. "The outcome of this chaos is that health care workers, patients, and the entire community are exposed to this virus and needlessly put at risk."
The survey focused on coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) preparedness and made clear that the vast majority of healthcare facilities are not ready to deal with an outbreak, the group said.
According to NNU:
Thousands of responses show that high percentages of hospitals do not have plans, isolation procedures, and policies in place for COVID-19; that communication to staff by employers is poor or nonexistent; that hospitals are lacking sufficient stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE) or are not making current stocks readily available, and have not provided training and practice to staff on how to properly use PPE.
"The survey results confirm what we have been hearing from nurses across the country: Hospitals are not prepared," said Castillo. "This crisis highlights our country's completely fractured health care system and failure to invest in public health."
The survey results came just after President Donald Trump said on national television Wednesday night that people with the coronavirus could go to work and suggested—based on a "hunch"—that global reporting on the virus' death rate was false.
A Washington Post report Wednesday evening cited similar concerns from health professionals worried about their ability to handle an outbreak.
"We just don't have the capacity in the hospitals and health systems to deal with a massive influx of patients and keep them isolated," Johns Hopkins University professor Gerard Anderson told the Post.
According to the Post:
The amount of federal funding given to state and local officials to prepare for health emergencies has been cut in half or more over the past couple of decades, according to Crystal Watson, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
The two key federal programs amounted to $1.4 billion in 2003. Those two programs amount to $662 million this year.
"Every administration has made cuts to these programs," Watson said. "It's been in a downward trend for a long time."
In Seattle, the hardest-hit U.S. community to date, city councilmember Kshama Sawant called on local and state officials to take action to protect the public beyond simply declaring the situation an emergency.
In its press release announcing the survey's results, NNU called on federal and state governments, as well as health facilities, to emphasize clear communication, health protocols, and to immediately provide federal spending to address the unfolding crisis. NNU Executive Council vice president and nurse Cathy Kennedy said that help from healthcare administrators would be critical to ensuring public health.
"Nurses are confident that we can contain this disease and prevent unnecessary deaths and suffering," said Kennedy. "But our employers and the government need to provide us with the right guidelines, staffing, equipment, and supplies in order for us to do this work safely. We, our patients, and the public deserve nothing less."
Thursday, March 5, 2020
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