We Should See These Everywhere!
Author: marciarillegmailcom
Health Law Professor at UMKC School of Law; Board of Directors for Justice in Aging
A Ray of Pandemic-time Sunshine from Davis, California
It is overwhelming enough to try to manage Covid-19 within the four geographic corners of a university, so it is a deeply admirable university, indeed, that acknowledges its role in spreading and preventing the spread of Covid-19 from inside its walls to the community at its gates.
What Happens to the Very Old Receiving In-Home Care?
Well, it turns out it is quite difficult for them to access the vaccine signup programs. It is no surprise, then, that many of them remain unvaccinated. Some of us in multi-generational households are very afraid.
What’s Up With the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine?
It looks like the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19’s drug trial data contained some errors — particularly errors in administration of the vaccine itself and then documentation of the results. Not gonna lie, AstraZeneca’s clinical results for the new vaccine trials they have initiated should be given a searching review. Apparently, they have not always been fully forthcoming to the FDA on drug trials. I recommend Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies for those who would like to learn more.
Yelp Reviews of Anti-Covid-19 Vaccination Doctors
The New York Times thinks online patient reviews of doctors spouting dangerous anti-vaccination swill is the first place to express your concern, not the state licensing authority. I have always seen the value in such sites, but what have we become that we no longer think state medical boards care about science?
What’s Up With Unmarked Driverless Cars?
Sneaking out for a New Year’s Day walk around Land’s End, I pulled up next to a Waymo (formerly Google Car) driverless car near Civic Center. Yes, there was a safety driver in the car but I could see he did not have his hands on the steering wheel at the stop and did not have his hands on the steering wheel as it moved to turn the car to bear left after the stop. The Waymo vehicle is kind of cool looking and I do know what Waymo means, but does everybody else? Whose idea, when approving the pilot project authority to operate this way for Waymo and a number of its competitors to allow the “driverless” aspects of the car not to be marked on the exterior. After all, don’t we want to know who is a student driver and don’t we give student drivers some space as well as some grace? And shouldn’t we have the option to move away from this experiment, if we so choose?
It’s Everyone for Themselves in a COVID-19 World
Why would this report of hospital-based gaming of vaccine access amaze or astonish anyone? Isn’t it exactly what was advised in the race for PPE in the late winter and early spring of 2020?
Let’s Not Kid Ourselves About Acute Care Bed Supply
Some parts of the country, I’m looking at you Northern California, have so effectively squeezed all excess acute care bed capacity out of the system pre-Covid-19, that I don’t know what the New York Times could possibly mean:
Hospitals across the country are operating near or above capacity … With so many hospitals facing the same problems, the elasticity in the health care system is gone, and medical workers are being run ragged.
What elasticity? “Hospital Realignment” (a.k.a.merger activity) has long been praised for its ability to squeeze excess capacity out of the system.
Be careful what you ask for. You may get it.
Decades of Exposure to PM 2.5 Pollution
I stop and read when articles on the long term health implications of PM 2.5 exposure catch my eye. I follow the science, in this casual way, as well as the environmental action (or inaction) taken in response to the deleterious effects of decades of exposure to these tiny lung-damaging industrial particles.
And, I also casually track the discussion among long ago childhood friends on the lived experience we shared of growing up within the dreaded four kilometer range of a coal burning power plant. It ain’t pretty. Some see any criticism of what we were exposed to — living within the four kilometer range of not one but two coal burning power plants– as criticism of the hard work their blue collar parents did at dirty and sometimes dangerous work to achieve their modest financial stability. Others, of course, are terrified of what the data appears to show and what the patterns of disease and cause of death in their own families has shown them.
COVID-19 may write the risk large, which is even harder to face.
CVS is Hiring for Vaccine Project!
Of course, it was never true that the mighty vaccination staffs of CVS and Walgreens, independent pharmacies, supermarket pharmacies, etc. combined would be able to vaccinate all takers. So, now CVS has to seriously bulk up to meet its contractual obligations. Walgreens can’t be far behind.
Missouri State of Mind 