Daily Edition for Monday, January 31, 2022
Deadline Looms Today For Single-Payer Health Care Bill: California Democrats must decide Monday whether to advance a bill that would make the government pay for everybody’s health care in the nation’s most populous state. The bill would create a universal health care system and set its rules — but it would not pay for it. There’s another bill that would do that. It has a different deadline and does not have to pass on Monday. Read more from AP and KTVU.
It’s Day 6 of Covid, and a Rapid Antigen Test Comes Back Positive. Stay Home, Say Virologists.
By Rae Ellen Bichell
Say you’re on Day 6 — or 8 or 10 — of a symptomatic covid infection, and a rapid antigen test comes back positive. Could the test just be detecting bits and pieces of dead virus? If you’re a petri dish, sure. But if you’re a human, chances are you’re still infectious. Virologists weigh in.
States Were Sharing Covid Test Kits. Then Omicron Hit.
By Katheryn Houghton
The omicron variant upended a system in which states shared rapid covid tests with those that needed them more. Cooperation has turned into competition as states run out of supplies, limit which organizations get them, or hold on to expired kits as a last resort.
Colleges Struggle to Recruit Therapists for Students in Crisis
By Mark Kreidler
The need for mental health services on campus, which was already rising, has skyrocketed during the pandemic, with many students undergoing grave psychological crises. Colleges say they often lack the means to offer competitive salaries to therapists.
Universidades no consiguen terapeutas para el creciente número de estudiantes en crisis
By Mark Kreidler
En medio de la escasez nacional de estos profesionales, compiten con los sistemas hospitalarios, las consultas privadas y la floreciente industria de la telesalud para contratar y retener a los consejeros.
Daily Edition for Friday, January 28, 2022
San Francisco Revamps Its Indoor Mask Mandate: San Francisco will lift indoor mask requirements Tuesday for offices, gyms and other places where stable groups of vaccinated people gather. This time, everyone in those settings must also have received booster shots, if eligible, to go maskless. Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle, Bay Area News Group, KQED, AP and Los Angeles Times. Scroll down for more news on covid mandates.
Medicare Patients Win the Right to Appeal Gap in Nursing Home Coverage
By Susan Jaffe
If federal officials accept a court’s decision, some patients will get a chance to seek refunds for their nursing home and other expenses.
In California Nursing Homes, Omicron Is Bad, but So Is the Isolation
By Linda Marsa
Omicron infections are surging in residential care facilities, causing massive sickouts among staff members and an uptick in hospitalizations and deaths. The latest visitor restrictions and testing requirements are also compounding the isolation that residents have suffered for almost two years.
Listen: Generous Deals, and a Few Unwanted Surprises, at Covered California
Southern California correspondent Bernard J. Wolfson answers questions about the health coverage deals available on California’s Affordable Care Act marketplace during Radio Bilingüe’s news program “Línea Abierta.”
In Super-Vaxxed Vermont, Covid Strikes — But Packs Far Less Punch
By Sarah Varney
With its highest-in-the-nation vaccination rates, Vermont offers a glimpse of what’s possible as the U.S. learns to live with coronavirus.
