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California Healthline Original Stories
School Districts Grapple With Quarantines, Face Masks And Fear
In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, school districts, especially those with large Chinese student populations, are in uncharted territory as they apply new federal travel rules to their students. Some also are weighing requests from parents that are more about fear than science, such as whether to allow students with no travel history to stay home from school. (Anna Almendrala, )
Good morning! Here are your top California health stories of the day.
High Health Costs Mean More Californians Are Postponing, Skipping Care: Fifty-one percent of California residents skipped or delayed seeking physical, mental or dental health care in the last 12 months because of cost concerns, according to the report, which surveyed 1,408 adults living in California in late 2019. That is up from 44% a year earlier. People skipped recommended tests or treatment, did not fill prescriptions, cut pills in half or skipped a dose. Among those who skipped or delayed care because of costs, 42% said their health condition got worse. Notably, a higher proportion of Californians are worried about certain types of health care costs than about housing costs, the survey found. Read more from Catherine Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Hundreds Of Americans Evacuated From Quarantined Ship Land In California: A flight carrying U.S. citizens and their families who were extracted from the Diamond Princess cruise ship landed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield late Sunday. Passengers on the flight from Japan will begin a federal 14-day quarantine, Travis AFB Public Affairs said in a statement. Of the 171 passengers quarantined on the base, none “have tested positive for COVID-19 or are symptomatic.” At least 14 passengers who developed symptoms or tested positive for the virus prior to departure were isolated in flight and were to be transferred to another location for “isolation and care” upon landing, the State Department and HHS said in a joint statement. Read more from Molly Sullivan and Benjy Egel of the Sacramento Bee and Dominic Fracassa of the San Francisco Chronicle.
In related news from The Mercury News: Coronavirus: Neighbors Call Cops, People Go ‘Bizonkers’ Over The Quarantined Girl Next Door
Street Medicine Teams Seek Out Homeless To Offer Care Instead Of Waiting For Them To Come To Hospitals: Each weekday morning at 8, a USC team heads out in its van, the trunk piled with blankets, tents, mattresses and socks. The team first identifies patients by connecting with homeless people already admitted to USC’s county hospital. After the patients are discharged, the team follows up with them wherever they live, a twist on a doctor house call. Often these patients will point them to other people nearby who are even more ill. Read more from Soumya Karlamangla of the Los Angeles Times.
In related news:
Los Angeles Times: As Leaders Spar Over Homelessness In Austin, California Becomes A Punching Bag
Sacramento Bee: How Much Does California Really Spend On Homelessness? Democrat Wants A Final Answer
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Assemblyman Marc Levine Calls For Timely Follow-Up Care For Mental Health Patients
A state lawmaker from Marin County has introduced a bill that would ensure timely follow-up appointments for patients needing urgent mental health care. The measure by Assemblyman Marc Levine would require that people covered by health plans offering mental health services are able to get an appointment with a mental health provider within 48 hours after their release from psychiatric centers where they were detained involuntarily. Currently, follow-up mental health appointments often take 30 days or more. (Espinoza, 2/16)
CalMatters:
The New Thing For California Politicians? Sweet Charity
Nonprofit entities offer politicians enormous flexibility in how much they tell the public about who’s giving them money. Federal law generally does not require that nonprofits disclose their donors to the public. State law does require California politicians to publicly report payments of $5,000 or more made to a group at the politician’s request for a legislative, governmental or charitable purpose — a transaction called a “behested payment.” Most of the nonprofits affiliated with California lawmakers report the bulk of the donations they receive as behests to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission. The amount of money lawmakers reported raising as “behested payments” for their nonprofits grew from $105,000 in 2011 to $2.9 million in 2019, for a total of nearly $13.3 million over the nine years. Much of it comes from industries that routinely have business before the Democrat-dominated Legislature and are consistently big spenders on state politics. Labor unions gave lawmakers’ nonprofits more than $1.9 million between 2011 and 2019, while health care organizations gave $1.4 million and telecom/cable companies gave $1.6 million, according to state data on behests. (Rosenhall, 2/18)
The Wall Street Journal:
Winter Is Wildfire Prep Season In California
Grass and other vegetation have begun to cover the ash left behind when the largest blaze of the 2019 wildfire season burned the edge of this Northern California town about four months ago. Windsor still stands because most of its residents, acting on the lessons of deadly blazes in 2017 and 2018, grabbed pre-packed emergency go-bags and evacuated immediately when ordered. Unlike in other dangerous California blazes, including 2018’s Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, first responders were able to focus entirely on the firefight rather than last-minute rescues. (Ailworth, 2/18)
Modesto Bee:
More Space Needed To Help Kids Grieving Loved One’s Death
Jessica’s House, a nonprofit organization in Turlock, offers support for area children, teens, young adults and their families grieving the loss of a loved one. It’s located in a rented, cozy 2,200-square-foot Craftsman house on Main Street in Turlock, the same place since its inception in 2012. But Jessica’s House has far outgrown its home. To raise funds to build a larger, permanent structure to meet the growing demand for services, the organization has been heading up a For Healing Hearts capital campaign. (Mink, 2/16)
CalMatters:
Living At The Intersection Of Rich And Poor
Carmen Preciado has always been able to identify the precise spot along Middlefield Road that marks the end of her world and the beginning of another. “When I go to the other side, it’s just like: ‘Oh, this is a rich people area,'” said Preciado, a 31-year-old single mother and life-long Redwood City resident. “You can see the difference.” At one end of the road is famously well-to-do Atherton, where a luxurious canopy of trees hovers over multi-million dollar mansions. At the other, just a few miles away, is a neighborhood of modest, single-story homes in Redwood City with a poverty rate that’s nearly twice the average in the five-county Bay Area. (Hellerstein, 2/18)
The Bakersfield Californian:
La Unica Market Closed Due To Health Violations
The Kern County Health Department has closed La Unica Market on Thursday for multiple health violations. The market, located at 731 Chester Ave., had a walk-in freezer full of mixed frozen meats all piled on top of each other. There was also no hot water available for cleaning equipment and utensils, and no warm water to wash hands with, according to the health departments website. With no hot water available, employees failed to recognize the health risk associated to removing grease and disease causing bacteria from hands and surfaces, according to the health department's website. (2/14)
The New York Times:
Rate Of New Fatalities Drops In China
China’s National Health Commission on Monday reported 2,048 new cases of coronavirus infections and 105 new deaths over the previous 24 hours. The number of new deaths dropped from the previous day, when 142 deaths were reported, though the increase in the number of new infections remained steady. The vast majority of cases and deaths have occurred in Hubei Province, where the outbreak began, though the commission’s latest announcement also reported three deaths in neighboring Henan Province and two in Guangdong, the province next to Hong Kong. (2/16)
The Associated Press:
Chinese Health Report Says 80% Of Virus Cases Have Been Mild
Health officials in China have published the first details on nearly 45,000 cases of the novel coronavirus disease that originated there, saying more than 80% have been mild and new ones seem to be falling since early this month, although it’s far too soon to tell whether the outbreak has peaked. Monday’s report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention gives the World Health Organization a “clearer picture of the outbreak, how it’s developing and where it’s headed,” WHO’s director-general said at a news conference. (Marchione, 2/16)
The New York Times:
Hospital Director Dies In China's Wuhan, Epicenter Of Coronavirus Outbreak
The head of a leading hospital in China's central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak, died of the disease on Tuesday, state television said, becoming the second prominent Chinese doctor to have succumbed to the pathogen. Liu Zhiming, the director of Wuhan Wuchang Hospital, died at 10:30 a.m., it said. Earlier this month, millions in China mourned the death of Li Wenliang, a doctor who was previously reprimanded for issuing an early warning about the coronavirus. (2/18)
The New York Times:
France Confirms First Death In Europe From Coronavirus
A Chinese tourist has died in France of the coronavirus, the French health minister said on Saturday, becoming the outbreak’s first fatality in Europe and outside Asia. France’s health minister, Agnès Buzyn, said the tourist, who was 80 years old and from the Chinese province of Hubei, the center of the outbreak, died at the Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris on Friday after weeks of hospitalization. His daughter, who also has the virus, is receiving treatment and is expected to be discharged soon, Ms. Buzyn said. (Peltier, 2/15)
KQED:
Wuhan Natives Living In The Bay Area Organize Long-Distance Coronavirus Relief
There are 15 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in the United States, compared with more than 40,000 in China, where the virus first surfaced in Wuhan City. There are also thousands of graduates from Wuhan-based universities who call the Bay Area home. So on January 23, when Chinese officials locked down the city in an effort to contain the COVID-19 virus, Tom Gong sprung into action in the South Bay. Gong, who attended university in Wuhan and now lives in San Jose, connected online with fellow alumni and others with ties to the city of 11 million people to figure out how to help. (Arcuni and Dillon, 2/14)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Coronavirus Shows Why You Must Read Travel Insurance Policy Before You Buy
People who purchased travel insurance may be surprised to learn that it might not cover claims arising from the coronavirus.Some plans exclude coverage for losses arising from epidemics. Even if it’s not excluded, no standard policy will cover claims from events — be it a hurricane or epidemic — if the policy was purchased after it became known or foreseen. (Pender, 2/15)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Air Force Officials: Coronavirus Patients Will Not Stay At Fairfield Base
The group of coronavirus patients whisked to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield late Sunday after evacuating a Japanese cruise ship did not linger for long at the California military facility. While the base opened its gates for uninfected passengers who had been quarantined aboard the cruise ship, military officials said they would not be treating coronavirus patients at the airfield. Instead, the infected people were transported by the State Department to medical facilities in California and Nebraska. (Fracassa, 2/17)
The New York Times:
Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory Of Coronavirus Origins
The rumor appeared shortly after the new coronavirus struck China and spread almost as quickly: that the outbreak now afflicting people around the world had been manufactured by the Chinese government. The conspiracy theory lacks evidence and has been dismissed by scientists. But it has gained an audience with the help of well-connected critics of the Chinese government such as Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist. And on Sunday, it got its biggest public boost yet. (Stevenson, 2/17)
Stat:
Disease Modelers Gaze Into Computers To See Future Of Covid-19
At least 550,000 cases. Maybe 4.4 million. Or something in between. Like weather forecasters, researchers who use mathematical equations to project how bad a disease outbreak might become are used to uncertainties and incomplete data, and Covid-19, the disease caused by the new-to-humans coronavirus that began circulating in Wuhan, China, late last year, has those everywhere you look. That can make the mathematical models of outbreaks, with their wide range of forecasts, seem like guesswork gussied up with differential equations; the eightfold difference in projected Covid-19 cases in Wuhan, calculated by a team from the U.S. and Canada, isn’t unusual for the early weeks of an outbreak of a never-before-seen illness. (Begley, 2/14)
The Wall Street Journal:
Gilead’s Coronavirus Drug Trial Slowed By Lack Of Eligible Recruits
Clinical trials being conducted in Wuhan to test Gilead Sciences Inc.’s antiviral drug, a promising remedy for the new coronavirus, are going more slowly than hoped for as the drugmaker struggles to recruit qualified patients, underscoring the challenges in quickly developing drugs during outbreaks. The trials, aimed at testing more than 700 patients infected with the Wuhan coronavirus, have succeeded in recruiting fewer than 200 people after 10 days. (2/18)
The New York Times:
‘Are You Sick?’ For Asian-Americans, A Sneeze Brings Suspicion
Most Americans have gone about their lives, confident that they have little to fear from an epidemic that has mostly been felt abroad. But for small pockets of people — those who come from China, or travel there frequently, and health workers who are charged with battling the virus — life has been upended. Hundreds of Americans who were in China are now marooned in anxious quarantine on military bases. And many Asian-Americans in the United States have felt an unnerving public scrutiny, noticing that a simple cough or sneeze can send people around them scattering. (Bosman, Stockman and Fuller, 2/16)
The New York Times:
The Next Hurdle For Bernie Sanders: Nevada’s Top Union Dislikes ‘Medicare For All’
Senator Bernie Sanders is a longtime supporter of “Medicare for all.” “I wrote the damn bill,” he said on a debate stage last summer, and his support for universal health care has helped propel him to the front of the 2020 Democratic field. But in Nevada, where the race heads next, his signature policy is a liability with the largest labor union in the state. And the union has enthusiastic allies in Mr. Sanders’s opponents. On Friday morning, moments after Senator Amy Klobuchar finished a tour of the health care facility run by the culinary workers’ union, she began to lace into Mr. Sanders and his focus on the proposal, which would effectively eliminate union members’ current health care system. (Medina and Martin, 2/16)
The New York Times:
Biden Calls On Sanders To Show Accountability For ‘Outrageous’ Online Threats By Followers
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took aim at Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Saturday, calling on him to condemn the “vicious, malicious, misogynistic” rhetoric of some Sanders supporters and to do more to stamp it out. The remarks came at a key time for both campaigns, as Mr. Biden tries to regain his footing after weak showings in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — in which Mr. Sanders surged toward the front of the Democratic pack — and a week before next Saturday’s Nevada caucuses. (Kaplan, Ruiz and Gabriel, 2/15)
The Associated Press:
Biden In Vegas Takes On Sanders' Gun Votes In Fiery Speech
Joe Biden, standing on a Las Vegas stage roughly 1,000 feet from the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, took on White House rival Bernie Sanders for his past vote to exempt gun manufacturers from liability for shootings. The former vice president devoted the majority of his Saturday night speech at a Democratic gala on the Las Vegas Strip to deliver a fiery charge against the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers, vowing to hold gun makers accountable if elected president. (2/15)
The New York Times:
Democrats Plan To Highlight Health Care And Jobs Over Investigating Trump
House Democrats, recovering from their failed push to remove President Trump from office, are making a sharp pivot to talking about health care and economic issues, turning away from their investigations of the president as they focus on preserving their majority. Top Democrats say that oversight of the president will continue, and they plan in particular to press Attorney General William P. Barr over what they say are Mr. Trump’s efforts to compromise the independence of the Justice Department. But for now, at least, they have shelved the idea of subpoenaing Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, who was a central figure in the president’s impeachment trial. (Stolberg, 2/16)
The New York Times:
Appeals Court Rejects Trump Medicaid Work Requirements In Arkansas
A federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a lower court’s ruling striking down work rules for Medicaid recipients in Arkansas, casting more doubt over broader Trump administration efforts to require poor people to work, volunteer or train for a job as a condition of getting government health coverage. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that approval of the Arkansas work requirement by the health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar, was “arbitrary and capricious” because it did not address how the program would promote the objective of Medicaid as defined under federal law: providing health coverage to the poor. (Goodnough, 2/14)
The Wall Street Journal:
Medicaid Standoff: Trump Plan To Tighten Oversight Of States Draws Objections
Many governors, insurers and hospitals are denouncing a Trump administration plan to tighten oversight over how states pay for their share of Medicaid, saying it would deprive them of billions of dollars in funding, jeopardize health coverage and strain state budgets. The proposal would impose new reporting requirements and restrictions on financial practices used by states to pay for Medicaid. The Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Regulation, as the proposal is known, also would apply to extra payments states give to some doctors and providers. (Armour, 2/15)
Reuters:
Nonprofit Hospitals With Healthiest Finances Offer Little Charity Care
Among nonprofit hospitals, those with the highest net incomes tend to devote the smallest proportion of their earnings to providing free care to uninsured patients and low-income people who struggle to pay their bills, a U.S. study suggests. Overall in 2017, the study found, nonprofit hospitals nationwide generated $47.9 billion in net income, provided $9.7 billion in charity care to uninsured patients and spent another $4.5 billion in charity care for people with insurance who couldn't afford their bills. (2/17)
The New York Times:
Payout From A National Opioids Settlement Won’t Be As Big As Hoped
As talks escalate to settle thousands of opioid-related lawsuits nationwide, a harsh reality is emerging: The money the pharmaceutical industry will pay to compensate ravaged communities will likely be far less than once envisioned. Lawyers on all sides have been stepping up efforts to reach a national agreement before the start of a New York trial next month. But even plaintiff lawyers now believe the payout from dozens of opioid makers, distributors and retailers is likely to be less than half of what the four Big Tobacco companies agreed to pay more than 20 years ago in a landmark settlement with states over costs associated with millions of smoking-related deaths. (Hoffman, 2/17)
Reuters:
Young Cancer Survivors Have Higher Risk Of Severe Health Problems Later
People who survive cancer during childhood and early adulthood are more likely to experience severe, life-threatening health problems and die prematurely, a recent study suggests. Researchers followed almost 12,000 young cancer survivors and roughly 5,000 of their healthy siblings for around two decades, until many of them were in their 40s. Even though all of the cancer survivors were tumor free for at least five years at the start of the study, they were still roughly six times more likely to die during follow-up than their siblings. (2/17)
The Washington Post:
A Guatemalan Family Was Separated In 2017. They're Still Apart.
She tries to avoid the word. What she says is that her mom is in Guatemala. Or that her mom has been deported and will try to come back soon. But when her teacher, or her social worker, or her best friend Ashley asks, Adelaida sounds it out — one of the first words she learned in English. “They separated us.” Adelaida Reynoso and her mother, María, were among the first migrant families broken up by the Trump administration, on July 31, 2017, long before the government acknowledged it was separating parents and children at the border. (Sieff, 2/17)