Category: Covid-19

People whove been vaccinated for COVID-19 can enjoy small gatherings again, but should keep wearing a mask and social distancing in public. Thats according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It says fully vaccinated people can gather maskless with other vaccinated people indoors. It also says people can meet with unvaccinated people from one household at a time, if those people are considered at low-risk. A person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine. For now, the CDC still discourages unnecessary travel for vaccinated people.

Read more:

I got the COVID-19 vaccine. What can I safely do? - WKOW

(Update: Weekly report shows more cases, fewer deaths, hospitalizations)

Outdoor capacity limits revised; state reports 3 more deaths, 239 cases

PORTLAND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen said Wednesday that that all Oregonians 16 and older will be eligible to seek vaccines on May 1.

"In Oregon, every single adult will be eligible for a vaccine on May 1 -- which does not mean they will get a vaccine on May 1, but they will be eligible," Allen said during a Wednesday interview with OPB.

KGW obtained this statement from the governor's office:

It is welcome news for all Oregonians that the Biden-Harris administration has secured the vaccine production agreements needed for everyone 16 and over in the United States to be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine by May 1.

We look forward to partnering with the federal government to ensure that Oregon and our local health partners have the vaccine supplies and federal support necessary to implement this directive.

We are following up with the administration for more specifics about when vaccine shipments to states will increase, but in a briefing with governors earlier this week, it was clear the White House has worked hard to secure additional vaccine supplies for states in the coming weeks.

We will continue to center equity in all of our vaccine distribution efforts, whether that means ensuring that seniors, people with underlying conditions, frontline workers, and the Oregonians most vulnerable to COVID-19 have the opportunity for vaccinations prior to May 1or after May 1, working with local health partners to ensure these priority groups continue to have access to appointments.

Meanwhile, OHA reported three new COVID-19 related deaths on Wednesday, raising the state's death toll to 2,349. It also reported 239 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19, bringing the state's total to 160,259.

Under the direction of Governor Kate Brown, outdoor capacity limits are now updated for outdoor recreation and fitness, and outdoor entertainment for Oregon counties.

As of Wednesday, outdoor entertainment establishments and outdoor recreation and fitness establishments in all Oregon counties may allow the following:

Previously, there were numerical capacity limits for all four risk levels, from 75 to 300 people for High, Moderate and Lower Risk. Oregon restaurants and bars recently also asked to move to percentage occupancy guidelines, but no such changes were announced for those facilities.

For updated outdoor capacity limits, please refer to theSector Risk Level Guidance Chart.

OHA reported that 15,289 new doses of COVID-19 vaccinations were added Wednesday to the state immunization registry. Of this total, 7,849 doses were administered on Tuesday and 7,440 were administered on previous days but were entered into the vaccine registry on Tuesday.

Wednesday's vaccine totals are lower than usual due to an outage in the ALERT IIS system that affected several states. It is anticipated that the number of doses from March 15 and 16 will increase over the coming days as providers catch up on submitting data to ALERT IIS.

Cumulative daily totals can take several days to finalize because providers have 72 hours to report doses administered and technical challenges have caused many providers to lag in their reporting. OHA has been providing technical support to vaccination sites to improve the timeliness of their data entry into the states ALERT Immunization Information System (IIS).

Oregon has now administered a cumulative total of 1,363,311 first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccines. To date, 1,777,145 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon.

These data are preliminary and subject to change. OHA'sdashboardsprovide regularly updated vaccination data, and Oregons dashboard has been updated Wednesday.

St. Charles Health System reported having given 33,270 COVID-19 vaccinations as of early Wednesday.

The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 across Oregon is 108, which is 11 fewer than Tuesday.There are 29 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds, which is four more than Tuesday.

The total number of patients in hospital beds may fluctuate between report times. The numbers do not reflect admissions per day, nor the length of hospital stay. Staffing limitations are not captured in this data and may further limit bed capacity.

More information about hospital capacity can be found here.

St. Charles Bend reported 11 COVID-19 patients as of 4 a.m. Wednesday, two of whom were in the ICU but not on a ventilator.

The Oregon Health AuthoritysCOVID-19 Weekly Report, released today, shows increased daily cases and declines in hospitalizations and deaths from the previous week.

OHA reported 2,272 new daily cases of COVID-19 during the week of Monday, March 8 through Sunday, March 14. That represents a 31% increase from the previous week.

New COVID-19 related hospitalizations also dropped to 130, down from 139 last week.

Reported COVID-19 related deaths dropped to 26, down from 86 last week.

There were 94,079 tests for COVID-19 for the week of March 7 through March 13 a 27% drop from last week. The percentage of positive tests was sharply higher, at 3.6%.

People 70 years of age and older have accounted for 40% of COVID-19 related hospitalizations and 77% of COVID-19 related deaths.

WednesdaysCOVID-19 Weekly Outbreak Reportshows 37 active COVID-19 outbreaks in senior living communities and congregate living settings, with three or more confirmed cases and one or more COVID-19 related deaths.

OHA is now providing access to download the data that powers our vaccination dashboards as a CSV or Excel file. OHA currently posts summary tables for all existing COVID-19 case dashboards that are featured on weekdays, and OHA will now do the same for the vaccine dashboard.

The vaccine summary table is availablehere.

The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported Wednesday are in the following counties: Baker (1), Benton (5), Clackamas (15), Clatsop (7), Columbia (2), Coos (10), Crook (1), Curry (1), Deschutes (7), Douglas (8), Grant (6), Jackson (25), Jefferson (2), Josephine (16), Klamath (2), Lane (16), Lincoln (3), Linn (6), Malheur (3), Marion (26), Morrow (1), Multnomah (24), Polk (1), Tillamook (3), Umatilla (13), Union (1), Washington (28), Wheeler (2) and Yamhill (4).

Oregons 2,347th COVID-19 death is an 86-year-old man in Lane County who tested positive on March 5 and died on March 14. Location of death is being confirmed. He had underlying conditions.

Oregons 2,348th COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old man in Washington County who tested positive on Feb. 28 and died on March 13 at his residence. He had underlying conditions.

Oregons 2,349th COVID-19 death is a 90-year-old woman in Josephine County who tested positive on March 8 and died on March 16 at her residence. Presence of underlying conditions is being confirmed.

To learn more about the COVID-19 vaccine situation in Oregon, visit ourweb page, which has a breakdown of distribution and other useful information.

Read more:

Oregon will open COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to all adults on May 1 - KTVZ

SALEM, Ore. With the American Rescue Plan now signed into law, Oregon will soon be receiving more than $4.2 billion in coronavirus relief funds. Unlikeprovisions in last year's CARES Act, much of that funding will be going directly to local city and county governments.

President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package last Thursday after it passed both chambers of Congress. While the precise amount of aid that will be doled out to municipalities in the coming days is likely to fluctuate somewhat, the National League of Cities has been working to calculate the approximate amounts that each area will receive.

All told, Oregon is slated to receive more than $4.2 billion $2.6 billion of which will go to the state government to fund agencies impacted by COVID-19, with another $155,000 going to capital projects. Almost $1.5 billion will be split among counties, cities and towns throughout the state.

So what does this mean for governments our area? The NLC came up with these early estimates...

Cities

NOTE: Municipalities receiving less than $1 million have been omitted for brevity in this report, but many of them are eligible for their own funding in the relief package.

Counties

The National League of Cities came to these numbers after using the formulas set out by the bill on how much money each city in the country can get. For municipalities over 50,000 people, population, poverty, and housing instability all contribute to the monetary value given to each local government. Cities with less than 50,000 will get money from the state that will be sub-allocated from funding through a simple per capita formula.

According to the legislation, half of the relief money will be given out this spring and summer and the other half will be given out in 2022.

More here:

Billions in funding coming to Oregon from COVID-19 relief package - KDRV

Note: The news conference can be watched live in the video player above beginning at around 1 p.m.

Chicago's top doctor on Wednesday is expected to deliver an update on the city's COVID-19 data and announce the next steps and phases of the vaccination rollout.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady is scheduled to hold a news conference to deliver the update at 1 p.m. from City Hall, according to CDPH. The event can be watched live in the video player above.

The news conference will include "an update on COVID-19 data and the continued vaccine distribution in Chicago, including planned next steps and phases," CDPH said.

Arwady hinted at the announcement in a Facebook Live video on Tuesday, saying Chicago is expected to move ahead to its next phase of vaccinations, Phase 1C, at the end of the month, with details to be released Wednesday.

The city is slated to move to Phase 1C, which opens up eligibility to people with certain underlying health conditions and other essential workers not already eligible under Phase 1B, on March 29, Arwady said Tuesday.

"We are intending March 29 to move ahead with 1C, which means moving ahead to the people who have the list of the underlying conditions as well, to be clear, as the frontline workers who are unable to work from home," Arwady said.

She hinted that the move will expand eligibility not only to those currently qualified under the state's 1B Plus plan, but also to other essential workers.

"I feel pretty strongly about making sure that people who are working in restaurants and people who are, you know, clergy and people who are working in, you know, doing your hair and the nails, people who have trouble keeping the distance, who can't work from home... We want to make sure that they have the opportunity to get vaccinated," Arwady said. "We have plans to be vaccinating particularly in some of the settings that may have a lot of lower wage workers, that may have more difficulty accessing vaccine, and so we are planning to move ahead."

She noted, however, that much like previous phases, the rollout for Phase 1C will take time as eligible residents work to get appointments.

"Not everybody's going to be able if we open March 29," Arwady said. "You know, there's nowhere near enough vaccines to vaccinate all those people on March 29, but people will be able to get vaccinated in April and May, just like when we moved from 1A to 1B, we said - that was at the very end of January - we said most people are going to get vaccinated in February or March in 1B. That's exactly what's happened and that's going to be the same thing and 1C will open up at the end of March, most people in 1C will get vaccinated in April and in May."

Chicago remains under Phase 1B, which includes frontline essential workers and residents age 65 and older, as well as health care workers and long-term care facility staff and residents who were eligible under Phase 1A of the city's rollout.

The city opted out of expanding to Phase 1B Plus alongside the state, which made those with certain underlying medical conditions eligible, due to what it said was a lack of supply.

For a full look at who's eligible to get vaccinated in Phase 1B Plus,click here.

Phase 1C would expand vaccine eligibility to all other essential workers not already eligible as well as Chicagoans over the age of 16 with underlying medical conditions.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Phase 1C includes:

The CDC notes, however, that Phase 1B and Phase 1C can overlap in some cases, such as underlying medical conditions.

Already, many residents eligible under Phase 1B Plus of the state's rollout can get vaccinated at the federally-run United Center mass vaccination site.

For a complete look at where and how you can make an appointment in Illinois or where you can receive vaccine information for your area, clickhere.

Read more:

Watch Live: Chicago's Top Doctor to Update on COVID-19, Phase 1C of Vaccinations - NBC Chicago

(WKBN) - The Pennsylvania Department of Health will give an update on COVID-19 in the state Thursday.

As of Wednesday, more than 3.8 million vaccine doses have been administered in the state. The health department has reported a statewide total of 973,721 cases and 24,689 deaths attributed to COVID-19.

Link:

Several COVID-19 vaccination clinics happening in Youngstown - WKBN.com

Covid-19 paused climate emissions but they're rising again

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The world's sudden launch into lockdown a year ago had an interesting effect on carbon emissions now they're returning back to normal far quicker than society is.

T

The planet had already warmed by around 1.2C since pre-industrial times when the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020. This began a sudden and unprecedented drop in human activity, as much of the world went into lockdown and factories stopped operating, cars kept their engines off and planes were grounded.

There have been many monumental changes since then, but for those of us who work as climate scientists this period has also brought some entirely new and sometimes unexpected insights.

Here are three things we have learned:

1. Climate science can operate in real time

The pandemic made us think on our feet about how to get around some of the difficulties of monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon dioxide in particular, in real time. When many lockdowns were beginning in March 2020, the next comprehensive Global Carbon Budget setting out the year's emissions trends was not due until the end of the year. So climate scientists set about looking for other data that might indicate how CO2 was changing.

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We used information on lockdown as a mirror for global emissions. In other words, if we knew what the emissions were from various economic sectors or countries pre-pandemic, and we knew by how much activity had fallen, we could assume that their emissions had fallen by the same amount.

While emissions may have dropped because airlines halted flights, the lack of air traffic may have actually caused a slight warming in temperatures (Credit: Getty Images)

By May 2020, a landmark study combined government lockdown policies and activity data from around the world to predict as much as a 7% fall in CO2 emissions by the end of the year, a figure later confirmed by the Global Carbon Project. This was soon followed by research by my own team, which used Google and Apple mobility data to reflect changes in 10 different pollutants, while a third study again tracked CO2 emissions using data on fossil fuel combustion and cement production.

The latest Google mobility data shows that although daily activity hasn't yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, it has recovered to some extent. This is reflected in our latest emissions estimate, which shows, following a limited bounce back after the first lockdown, a fairly steady growth in global emissions during the second half of 2020. This was followed by a second and smaller dip representing the second wave in late 2020/early 2021.

Meanwhile, as the pandemic progressed, the Carbon Monitor project established methods for tracking CO2 emissions in close to real time, giving us a valuable new way to do this kind of science.

2. No dramatic effect on climate change

In both the short and long term, the pandemic will have less effect on efforts to tackle climate change than many people had hoped.

Despite the clear and quiet skies, research I was involved in found that lockdown actually had a slight warming effect in spring 2020: as industry ground to a halt, air pollution dropped and so did the ability of aerosols, tiny particles produced by the burning of fossil fuels, to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. The impact on global temperatures was short-lived and very small (an increase of just 0.03C), but it was still bigger than anything caused by lockdown-related changes in ozone, CO2 or aviation.

Looking further ahead to 2030, simple climate models have estimated that global temperatures will only be around 0.01C lower as a result of Covid-19 than if countries followed the emissions pledges they already had in place at the height of the pandemic. These findings were later backed up by more complex model simulations.

Closing down a global economy is not a practical way to clamp down on carbon emissions (Credit: Getty Images)

Many of these national pledges have been updated and strengthened over the past year, but they still aren't enough to avoid dangerous climate change, and as long as emissions continue we will be eating into the remaining carbon budget. The longer we delay action, the steeper the emissions cuts will need to be.

3. This isn't a plan for climate action

The temporary halt to normal life we have now seen with successive lockdowns is not only not enough to stop climate change, it is also not sustainable: like climate change, Covid-19 has hit the most vulnerable the hardest. We need to find ways to reduce emissions without the economic and social impacts of lockdowns, and find solutions that also promote health, welfare and equity. Widespread climate ambition and action by individuals, institutions and businesses is still vital, but it must be underpinned and supported by structural economic change.

Colleagues and I have estimated that investing just 1.2% of global GDP in economic recovery packages could mean the difference between keeping global temperature rise below 1.5C, and a future where we are facing much more severe impacts and higher costs.

Unfortunately, green investment is not being made at anything like the level needed. However, many more investments will be made over the next few months. It's essential that strong climate action is integrated into future investments. The stakes may seem high, but the potential rewards are far higher.

Piers Forster is a professor of physical climate change and director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds.

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Covid-19 paused climate emissions but they're rising again - BBC News

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Williamson County confirms its first 3 cases of COVID-19 UK variant - KXAN.com

On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (P.L. 117-2), a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, into law. Among other things, this latest relief bill, the nations sixth, infuses new funding for critical COVID-19 public health activities, including vaccine distribution, testing, contact tracing, surveillance, and the public health workforce, building on prior emergency relief funding provided by Congress (other provisions of the bill expand the Affordable Care Act by making marketplace and private health insurance more affordable and by providing new incentives to states that have not yet expanded their Medicaid programs to do so). Funding for COVID-19 public health focused activities in the bill totals almost $93 billion, most of which has been made available until expended. The main public health provisions are as follows:

Read more:

What's in the American Rescue Plan for COVID-19 Vaccine and Other Public Health Efforts? - Kaiser Family Foundation

A lab scientist scans bar codes on saliva samples collected from members of the CU Boulder community. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder)

A few super carriers with off-the-charts viral loads are likely responsible for the bulk of COVID-19 transmissions, while about half of infected people arent contagious at all at the time of diagnosis, suggests a new CU Boulder analysis of more than 72,000 test samples.

A second, related study lends further credence to the idea that viral load, or the amount of virus particles a person carries, drives contagion. It found that only one in five university students who tested positive while living in a residence hall infected their roommate. And their viral load was nearly seven times higher than those who didnt spread the virus.

The takeaway from these studies is that most people with COVID dont get other people sick, but a few people get a lot of people sick, said Sara Sawyer, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and senior author of the first study. If you dont have a viral super-carrier sitting near you at dinner, you might be OK. But if you do, youre out of luck. Its a game of roulette so you have to continue to be careful.

For the studiesamong the largest to date to examine trends in asymptomatic peopleresearchers analyzed saliva samples collected from students, and some faculty and staff, on the CU Boulder campus between Aug. 17 and Nov. 25.

A member of the CU Boulder community hands over a saliva sample for COVID-19 surveillance testing. (Credit: CU Boulder)

Asymptomatic students in residence halls are required to test weekly, using a free, highly-sensitive saliva-based screening test called RT-qPCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction), which detects and quantifies genetic material from the virus that causes COVID-19.

In the fall, out of 72,500 samples taken from asymptomatic people, 1,405 cases of COVID-19 were identified.

What is so special about these samples is that they are all from infected people with no symptomsa snapshot of all these seemingly healthy people you assume it is safe to be around, said Sawyer.

Sawyer and her team quantified just how many viral particles, or virions, each of those samples contained, plotted it and compared it to samples from hospitalized patients. A few surprising patterns emerged. First, the distribution of viral loads in the asymptomatic sample was indistinguishable from that of highly symptomatic patients.

This means that symptoms tell you very little about what is going on inside a persons body, said Sawyer. Some of these asymptomatic people are carrying a viral load as high as someone who is intubated with COVID in a hospital bed.

Just 2% of all the COVID-positive individuals at CU Boulder carried 90% of the circulating virus. One student with the highest load carried 5%.

Meanwhile, about half of those who tested positive had viral loads so low (below 106 virions per millilieter) that they were probably not carrying live virus anymoreinstead they may have just been shedding viral fragments from tissue under repair. Thus, they were probably not contagious.

This provides another example of why you dont necessarily need super sensitive tests that may take longer to process, said coauthor Roy Parker, director of the BioFrontiers Institute and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Even a faster but less sensitive test will catch all the people who are contagious.

For a second study, researchers used the same samples to explore how often one roommate infected another.

In all, 1,058 students living in the dorms tested positive, constituting 16.5% of the population.

Students in single rooms were about half as likely to be infected. But this was not because the virus was spreading between roommates. (Previous research has shown that students who live alone tend to have fewer social contacts).

In fact, only 20% of infected studentsthose with significantly higher viral loadstransmitted the virus to their roommate.

Notably, CU Boulderwhile allowing students to have roommates in the fallrequired that students diagnosed with COVID-19 move into a dedicated isolation dorm for 10 days. But it can take time for a student flagged through screening to get a follow-up diagnostic, get notified and move out.

One might think that students who were co-housed with another student longer before isolating would be more likely to transmit the virus to their roommate but we saw no impact, said lead author Kristen Bjorkman, COVID scientific director for CU Boulder.

This does not mean that isolation has no impact at all on the spread of the virus, she said, but it does provide a ray of optimistic news for people who want to live with other people but are worried about safety.

This is important for us and other universities to know because it tells us we can continue to offer on-campus housing and roommate pairing, she said.

The findings may also offer relief to those who have received a positive COVID-19 test and fear for people they live with.

People feel a lot of guilt about this but our study suggests that getting a positive test is not a guarantee you will infect your loved ones or roommates, Bjorkman said.

Neither paper has been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet.

Collectively, the research shows that, in some cases it might be prudent to contact those with high viral loads fastand encourage them to isolate quickly.

This could go a long way in preventing large outbreaks, said Bjorkman.

Read this article:

2% of people carry 90% of COVID-19 virus, and roommates are safer than you think - CU Boulder Today

Even as the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out is accelerating across the country, the public health and economic effects of the pandemic continue to affect the well-being of many Americans. The American Rescue Plan includes additional funding not only to address the public health crisis of the pandemic, but also to provide economic support to many low-income people struggling to make ends meet. Millions have lost jobs or income in the past year, making it difficult to pay expenses including basic needs like food and housing. These challenges will ultimately affect peoples health and well-being, as they influence social determinants of health. This brief provides an overview of social determinants of health and a look at how adults are faring across an array of measures one year into the pandemic.

Social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age. They include factors like socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood and physical environment, employment, and social support networks, as well as access to health care (Figure 1).

Though health care is essential to health, research shows that health outcomes are driven by an array of factors, including underlying genetics, health behaviors, social and environmental factors, and financial distress and all of its implications. While there is currently no consensus in the research on the magnitude of the relative contributions of each of these factors to health, studies suggest that health behaviors and social and economic factors are the primary drivers of health outcomes, and social and economic factors can shape individuals health behaviors. There is extensive research that concludes that addressing social determinants of health is important for improving health outcomes and reducing health disparities. Prior to the pandemic there were a variety of initiatives to address social determinants of health both in health and non-health sectors. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated already existing health disparities for a broad range of populations, but specifically for people of color.

Across a wide range of metrics, large shares of people are experiencing hardship. The Census Bureaus Household Pulse Survey was designed to quickly and efficiently collect and compile data about how peoples lives have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. For this analysis we looked at a range of measures over the course of the pandemic. Since the start of the pandemic, shares of people reporting hardship across various measures has been relatively constant, with a slight peak for the December reporting periods (Figure 2). For the most recent period, February 3-February 15:

Black and Hispanic adults fare worse than White adults across nearly all measures, with large differences in some measures. For example, just over 75% of Black and Hispanic adults reported difficulty paying household expenditures compared to 53% of White adults; about 13% of Black and Hispanic adults reported no confidence in their ability to make next months housing payment compared to 5% of White adults, and 20% of Black adults and 18% of Hispanic adults reported food insufficiency in the household compared to 8% of White adults. While these disparities in social determinants of health existed prior to the pandemic, the high current levels among certain groups highlights the disproportionate burden of the pandemic on people of color.

While variation across age and gender was not as stark, in general younger adults (ages 18 to 44) and women fared worse on most measures compared to older adults and men. For example, higher shares of younger adults and women reported symptoms of anxiety and depression as well as difficulty paying for usual household expenses. Higher shares of younger adults reported food insufficiency in their household and higher shares of women reported delaying medical care in the last four weeks due to the pandemic. As with race/ethnicity, some of these differences in social determinants were present even before the pandemic, but understanding them in the context of heightened levels of need over the past year highlights these differences and who may benefit most from assistance.

Across most measures, adults with children in their household fared worse compared to overall adults. For example, 53% of adults with children in the household experienced loss of employment income in the household compared to 47% of adults overall, and just over two-thirds of adults with children in the household reported difficulty paying for household expenses compared to the overall population of 61%. Notably, adults in households with children were more likely to report food insufficiency than the general population.

The American Rescue Plan provides $1.9 trillion in funding to address the ongoing health and economic effects of the pandemic. Some of the provisions that provide key economic support for individuals include direct stimulus payments to individuals, an extension of federal unemployment insurance payments, a child tax credit of up to $300 per child per month from July through the end of the year, additional funding to address food insecurity, emergency rental assistance, and emergency housing vouchers. In terms of provisions to address COVID and health care, the plan provides additional funding for The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) related to administration and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines as well as increased funding for testing and tracing coronavirus infections as well as testing supplies and personal protective equipment. The plan includes provisions to make health insurance more affordable by temporarily expanding and increasing Marketplace subsidies and fiscal incentives to encourage states that have not adopted the Medicaid expansion to do so.

Additional funding and policy changes could lead to improvements in many of the indicators related to economic security and health access highlighted in this brief. In addition, as more people receive the vaccine, state restrictions may continue to ease and economic activity may increase. Future data from the Pulse survey may reflect these changes. Many of the problems and disparities highlighted in this data existed prior to the pandemic, but the economic crisis has heightened the level of challenge faced by many. Changes to address COVID-related and underlying economic security issues tied to poverty, access to food and housing have direct links to improvements in health and can also help to address health disparities. While addressing these underlying social determinants of health can be difficult and would likely require significant government spending, we are unlikely to make significant progress in narrowing health inequities without doing so.

Visit link:

One Year into the Pandemic: Implications of COVID-19 for Social Determinants of Health - Kaiser Family Foundation