https://khn.org/news/true-toll-of-covid-19-on-u-s-health-care-workers-unknown/
The number of health care workers who have tested positive for the coronavirus is likely far higher than the reported tally of 9,200, and U.S. officials say they have no comprehensive way to count those who lose their lives trying to save others.
Of the confirmed cases in China, 3.8% (1 716/44 672) were healthcare workers. Of those, 14.8% were severely or critically ill and five of the severe cases died [74]. Latest figures reported from Italy show that 10% of COVID-19 cases are healthcare workers [69], with the Lombardy region reporting up to 20% of cases in healthcare workers [75]. In Spain, the latest COVID-19 situation overview from the Ministry of Health reports that 20% of COVID-19 cases are in healthcare workers [66]. In the US, overall, only 3% (9 282/315 531) of reported cases were among healthcare workers; however, among states with more complete reporting, healthcare workers accounted for 11% of reported cases [76]. In a Dutch study, healthcare workers were tested voluntarily for COVID-19 and 6% tested
positive [77]. In a report on 30 cases in healthcare workers in China, all cases had a history of direct contact (distance within 1 metre) with COVID-19 patients, with an average number of 12 contacts (7 ̶16), and the average cumulative contact time being two hours (1.5 ̶2.7) [78]. In the Dutch study, only 3% of healthcare workers reported being exposed to hospital patients with COVID-19 prior to onset of symptoms and 63% had worked while asymptomatic [77]. In the US, from 1 423 healthcare workers, 55% reported a known contact with a laboratoryconfirmed COVID-19 patient in the 14 days before illness onset [76].
"What's Behind South Korea's COVID-19 Exceptionalism?" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/whats-south-koreas-secret/611215/
Fast Testing:
In late January, just one week after the country’s first case was diagnosed, government officials urged medical companies to develop coronavirus test kits and told manufacturers to prepare for mass production. By mid-February—while the U.K. was talking about “herd immunity” and President Donald Trump was predicting that the virus would “miraculously” disappear in weeks—South Korea was churning out thousands of test kits every day. By March 5, South Korea had tested 145,000 people—more than the U.S., the U.K., France, Italy, and Japan combined.
High Tech Expansive Tracing:
The national mapping of citizen activity yields fast results. On a Saturday in April, a 58-year-old man was diagnosed with the coronavirus. Surveillance data showed that he had voted in the election and visited several restaurants in previous days. Within 48 hours, South Korea had identified—and, in some cases, interviewed—more than 1,000 people who had potentially come into contact with him. All of them were instructed to self-isolate, thus cordoning off the virus’s spread. By the end of the month, no new clusters appeared in the Korean infection data.
Zero Tolerance Isolation:
To separate the sick from the healthy—and the somewhat sick from the very sick—South Korea’s patients are divided into several groups. The elderly and those with serious illnesses go straight to hospitals. Moderately sick people are sent to isolation dorms, where they’re monitored. And the asymptomatic “contacts” of recently diagnosed cases are asked to self-quarantine at home and use separate bathrooms, dishes, and towels from their cohabitants. Health-service officials check in twice daily to monitor their symptoms.
International arrivals are also subject to isolation rules. South Korea requires that foreign arrivals self-isolate for two weeks. Koreans arriving from overseas are required to download an app that registers their symptoms in the days after their arrival.
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FYI: Next mapathon will be Wednesday the 13th!
CovidCareMap Mapathon
Wednesday, May 13
5:30pm – 7:30pm Eastern Daylight Time
Please RSVP before the event: https://airtable.com/shrWMZWNnL8VLFD7D
Video meetup: meet.google.com/tsp-dxsh-fvt
Connect by phone: +1 484-841-9993 PIN: 729 825 903#
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/04/16/coronavirus-covid-19-field-hospital-army-corps-of-engineers-samaritans-purse-central-park-tcf-center/5119808002/
See what we collected at https://airtable.com/shrId9GL5mXSOHEGg/tblDQlqWVsC6e7hpb
After going thru and finding everything out there for all 50 states, we now know about 36K COVID cases among HCWs, which is the highest count i've seen so far and 4x the CDC reported number from last month. It's also higher than the 31K reported in this investigative report which just came out 2 days ago: https://www.revealnews.org/article/31000-and-counting/
What we have is still vastly incomplete with semi-outdated news sources. Only 10 states officially reporting HCW case numbers (via dashboards) + PA with daily press announcements
Racism is a public health issue. Police brutality is a public health issue.
Worth the 15-min listen in full: https://tradeoffs.org/2020/06/02/police-violence/
DG: Dr. Boyd points to a particularly powerful study on the mental health impacts of police violence that was published in 20-18 in the British medical journal The Lancet.
RB: It basically showed that police killing one unarmed black American in your state impacted the mental health of every other African-American in that state, and that the size of that burden of mental health impairments was analogous to the size of the burden of mental health impairments associated with diabetes. Just living in a state where police killed an unarmed black American causes a mental health impairment similar to if you actually had diabetes. I mean, it’s profound. And so the other thing that clinicians have to think about is how are we responding to the population level, mental health impact of police violence? Because now the person who needs an intervention is not just that one individual who is injured. It’s everyone in the state.
back to racism and inequitable covid response:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/what-the-covid-19-pandemic-means-for-black-americans/
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hi all, hope you are doing well. A long overdue update:
We've been updating state (and some county) ICU capacity data once weekly (usually collected Weds afternoon PST and pushed on Thurs morning) for the last 2 months.
These updates come from official state dashboards and validated data entries (and prior updates) can be viewed at https://airtable.com/shr3Mplh19M3ZGWeI/tblJCgmBz1SEsKeOn.
As of now, weekly updates come from 25 states or territories: AK, AZ, DC, FL, IL, IN, KS, LA, MA, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NE, NJ, OK, OR, PA, PR, SC, TN, VA, WY.
Note that Florida updates are not shown on the Airtable because we update this state at the more granular facility/county/HRR/state levels weekly through a separate more-automated method.
For other states where there are no updates, we fall back to the historical capacity data (from HCRIS, HIFLD, DH). The HRR, county, and facility data is also almost all historical since not many jurisdictions release updated data on that level of granularity.
We can also update or correct data ad hoc at the county or state level whenever we find an issue or someone lets us know via this form: https://airtable.com/shrvqvhLTTMO1Yazg.