Public-health officials are enthusiastic about the new, single-shot COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, despite its having a somewhat lower efficacy at preventing symptomatic illness than other available options. Although clinical-trial data peg that rate at 72 percent in the United States, compared with 94 and 95 percent for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, many experts say we shouldn’t fixate on those numbers.
Much more germane, they say, is the fact that the Johnson & Johnson shot, like the other two, is essentially perfect when it comes to preventing the gravest outcomes.
The Differences Between the Vaccines Matter
www.theatlantic.com
Yes, all of the COVID-19 vaccines are very good. No, they’re not all the same.Larry Polivka, executive director of the Tallahassee-based Claude Pepper Center, which focuses on issues involving seniors, said long-term care liability protections passed nearly 20 years ago by the Legislature are sufficient and that further changes are not needed. Polivka served as staff director of a long-term care task force that was headed by then-Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan and championed the liability protections.
“Their business plan it to avoid as much liability threat as possible,” Polivka said of long-term care providers.
Lawsuit Protections Weighed For Florida's Long-Term Facilities
news.wjct.org
The Republican-led Legislature has promised to fast-track legislation to protect Florida businesses from COVID-19 lawsuits, but shielding the state’s longFrom the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, long-term care (LTC) workers around the world have been at the epicentre of the crisis, caring for those most vulnerable to the disease in extremely high-risk environments. They work long hours in congregate settings, some even moving into care homes to ensure they will not transmit
the virus in or out.
This report, prepared for UNI Global Union’s UNICARE, corrects a common oversight in reporting on the impact of COVID-19 in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities by focusing on the challenges workers in those settings face each day. It summarizes research on the pandemic’s impact on LTC workers in five countries where the most data were available in February 2021.
www.usw.org/news/media-center/articles/2021/february/The-Impact-of-COVID-19_fin.pdf
People with dementia had significantly greater risk of contracting the coronavirus, and they were much more likely to be hospitalized and die from it, than people without dementia, a new study of millions of medical records in the United States has found.
Their risk could not be entirely explained by characteristics common to people with dementia that are known risk factors for Covid-19: old age, living in a nursing home and having conditions like obesity, asthma, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. After researchers adjusted for those factors, Americans with dementia were still twice as likely to have gotten Covid-19 as of late last summer.
People With Dementia Are Twice as Likely to Get Covid, Huge Study Finds
www.nytimes.com
The analysis of nearly 62 million electronic medical records in the U.S. also found that Black people with dementia were at an even greater risk.Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has threatened to move a pop-up vaccination clinic that his state has set up in an affluent community in Manatee County after he was confronted with allegations of political favoritism and preference for the wealthy at a news conference Wednesday.
Manatee County announced on Tuesday that Florida's Division of Emergency Management would host a "pop-up" vaccination spot at Lakewood Ranch this week for 3,000 Manatee County residents, according to a statement from the county. The vaccines, however, would be limited to people living in only two zip codes -- 34202 and 34211.
DeSantis defends controversial vaccine deal with developer -- and threatens to pull vaccines if officials don't like it
www.cnn.com
Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has threatened to move a pop-up vaccination clinic that his state has set up in an affluent community in Manatee County after he was confronted with allegations ...