Category: Covid-19

WINNEBAGO COUNTY, Il. (WIFR) -- The Winnebago County Health Department confirms 29 new cases of COVID-19 and no additional deaths.

Winnebago County now has 2,730otal positive cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths as of Saturday. he county death total still stands at 78 deaths.

Areas of concern are the following:

-- Alden Alma Nelson Manor-- Alpine Fireside Health Center-- Amberwood Care Centre-- Bickford Senior Living-- Crimson Pointe-- East Bank-- Fairhaven Christian Retirement Center-- Forrest City Rehab & Nursing-- Highview in the Woodlands-- Lincolnshire Place-- Luther Center-- PA Peterson-- Presence Cor Mariae-- River Bluff Nursing Home-- Rock River Health Care-- St. Anne Ascension Living-- Van Matre-- Wesley Willows-- Winnebago County Jail-- Winnebago County Juvenile Justice Center

51 deaths (65.38 percent) came from in-congregate settings from an area of concern. 27 deaths (34.62 percent) came from non-congregate settings from an area of concern.

Here is the breakdown of cases and deaths in the county by age group:

-- 108 cases: 0-9 age group-- 227 cases: 10-19 age group-- 569 cases: 20-29 age group-- 436 cases: 30-39 age group-- 401 cases and 2 deaths: 40-49 age group-- 378 cases and 8 deaths: 50-59 age group-- 283 cases and 11 deaths: 60-69 age group-- 160 cases and 20 deaths: 70-79 age group-- 168 cases and 37 deaths: 80 and older age group

Here is the breakdown of the cases in the county by race ethnicity:

-- 26%: White, Not Hispanic or Latino-- 24.2%: Black/African American, Not Hispanic or Latino-- 20.2%: Hispanic or Latino-- 2.1 %: Asian, Not Hispanic or Latino-- 27.2%: Unknown-- 0.3%: Other, Not Hispanic or Latino

There have been 2,730 total tests that have come back positive and 26,547 tests that have come back negative.

The county recovery rate is currently 91.3 percent.

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29 new cases of COVID-19 in Winnebago County - WIFR

Kelly Womochil, an aide at Enterprise Estates Nursing Center in Enterprise, Kan., tries on a poncho that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending to nursing homes to protect against the coronavirus. Pamela Black hide caption

Kelly Womochil, an aide at Enterprise Estates Nursing Center in Enterprise, Kan., tries on a poncho that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending to nursing homes to protect against the coronavirus.

Across the United States, nursing homes trying to protect their residents from the coronavirus eagerly await boxes of masks, eyewear and gowns promised by the federal government. But all too often the packages deliver disappointment if they arrive at all.

Some contain flimsy surgical masks or cloth face coverings that are explicitly not intended for medical use. Others are missing items or have far less than the full week's worth of protective equipment the government promised to send. Instead of proper medical gowns, many packages hold large blue plastic ponchos.

"It's like putting a trash bag on," said Pamela Black, the administrator of Enterprise Estates Nursing Center in Enterprise, Kan. "There's no real place for your hands to come out."

As nursing homes remain the pandemic's epicenter, the federal government is failing to ensure these facilities have all the personal protective equipment, or PPE, needed to prevent the spread of the virus, according to interviews with administrators and federal data.

Cloth masks and ponchos

Despite President Trump's pledge on April 30 to "deploy every resource and power that we have" to protect older Americans, a fifth of the nation's nursing homes 3,213 out of more than 15,000 reported during the last two weeks of May that they had less than a week's supply of masks, gowns, gloves, eye protectors or hand sanitizer, according to federal records. Of those, 946 reported they have had at least one confirmed COVID infection since the pandemic began.

"The federal government's failure to nationalize the supply chain and take control of it contributed to the deaths in nursing homes," said Scott LaRue, president and CEO of ArchCare, the health care system of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, which operates five nursing homes.

Widespread equipment shortages continue in some places as the virus rages lethally through nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. More than 217,000 short-term patients and long-term residents in nursing homes have contracted COVID-19, and 43,000 have died.

Some homes still have not received the first of two batches of supplies the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it would ship in May. Instead, some got only cloth masks that the Department of Health and Human Services commissioned through a contract with HanesBrands, the apparel company known for its underwear. An HHS webpage says the masks are not intended for caring for contagious patients but can be given to workers for their commutes or to residents when they leave their rooms.

As homes keep scrounging for supplies in a chaotic market with jacked-up prices and continued scarcity, 653 skilled nursing facilities informed the government they had completely run out of one or more types of protective supplies at some point in the last two weeks of May, according to records released last week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS.

"The federal government has got to step up," said Lori Smetanka, executive director of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. "We're now what? three months into this pandemic, and these facilities still don't have enough PPE to protect themselves and their residents?"

A "relentless commitment"

In April, Trump pledged his administration "will never waver in its relentless commitment to America's seniors." But FEMA's shipments of masks, gloves, gowns and eye protection have had a more modest goal: "to serve as a bridge between other PPE shipments."

In written comments, FEMA defended the quality of the poncho gowns but said that because of complaints, the contractor was creating a "short instructional video about proper use of the gowns" to share with homes. FEMA officials said that, as of June 4, the agency had shipped packages to 11,287 nursing homes, starting at "the soonest possible date in the COVID-19 global supply chain climate."

Yet 67 of the Good Samaritan Society's 147 nursing homes have not received a FEMA shipment, including homes that are fighting the biggest outbreaks in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Greeley, Colo.; and Omaha, Neb., according to Nate Schema, the Good Samaritan Society's vice president of operations. "We have not received a shipment in our six or seven hot spots," he said.

The supplies that did arrive tended to be in one size only, he said, and "the quality wasn't quite up to the same level we've been receiving" through the society's affiliation with Sanford Health, a large hospital and physician system.

The society has enough equipment, but small nursing home groups and independent homes are still struggling, particularly with obtaining N95 masks, which filter out tiny particles of the virus and are considered the best way to protect both nursing home employees and residents from transmitting it.

The CMS records show 711 nursing homes reported having run out of N95 masks, and 1,963 said they had less than a week's worth. But FEMA is not shipping any N95 masks, and nursing homes are having trouble obtaining them from other sources. Instead, the agency is sending surgical masks, but more than 1,000 homes have less than a week's supply of those.

Messiah Lifeways at Messiah Village in Mechanicsburg, Pa., received a FEMA shipment this week that had face shields and gloves, but only three days' worth of surgical masks and "very low, low-grade quality" gowns that lacked sleeves, said Katie Andreano, a Messiah communications specialist.

Only two of ArchCare's five nursing homes have received any FEMA shipments, even though it is based in New York City, the site of the nation's biggest outbreak. The equipment for those two homes lasted less than a week. LaRue tried to procure equipment from abroad, but all of the potential suppliers turned out to be fraudulent. He said ArchCare has had to rely on sporadic supplies from the state and city emergency management offices.

"As we sit here today, I'm still not able to get more than a few days' supply of N95 masks, and I still struggle to a certain extent with gowns," LaRue said. "That doesn't make you sleep at night, because you're not sure when the next delivery comes."

In addition to the supplies, the administration has dedicated $5 billion to nursing homes out of $175 billion in provider relief funds appropriated by Congress. Hospitals are getting much more. Administrators said money doesn't solve the broken private supply chains, where the availability of personal protective equipment is spotty and the equipment is vastly overpriced.

"Too often, the only signs of FEMA's much-hyped promise of PPE are scattershot delivery with varying amounts of ragtag supplies," said Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit nursing homes and other service agencies for older people.

The cloth masks from HHS have been particularly perplexing to nursing home administrators, given the caveats that accompanied them. The instructions for the masks said they could be washed up to 15 times, according to Sondra Norder, president and CEO of St. Paul Elder Services in Kaukauna, Wis.

"I don't know how we would possibly track how many times each mask has been washed," she said. The instructions also said the masks should not be washed with disinfectants, bleach or chemicals, which is how Norder said nursing homes clean their laundry.

Norder said she laundered about 100 masks and they shrank. "The ones that have been washed are tiny, and I certainly wouldn't want to put something on someone's face that hasn't been laundered," she said. "All my colleagues [at other nursing homes] received the same thing and were also baffled by it, wondering, 'How are we going to use these?' "

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit, editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, and is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. KHN senior correspondent Christina Jewett contributed to this report.

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US Nursing Homes Run Low On PPE As COVID-19 Deaths There Soar : Shots - Health News - NPR

Baystate Health reported seven new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.

Baystate Health has tested just under 17,000 people in Western Massachusetts. Of those, 15,008 came back negative, 1,842 positive and 142 are still pending results.

As testing has been expanded to include more people, the percentage of people testing positive has declined from 23% in mid April to just over 11% this month.

As of Saturday, the health care system is caring for 24 hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection, five of whom are in critical care units. An additional 23 are under investigation for possible COVID-19.

Baystate Medical Center in Springfield is caring for 23 of the confirmed cases and 11 under investigation. Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer is caring for one confirmed case and two under investigation. Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield is caring for one under investigation. Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield is caring for two under investigation.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 patients at Baystate Health hospitals peaked on April 9 at 179.

Excerpt from:

Baystate Health caring for 24 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 - MassLive.com

In the wake of COVID-19, some jobs, especially in retail and services, probably won't return. And have you heard of this business coming to Redding? Redding Record Searchlight

5:35 p.m., Friday June 12

Nail salons, tattoo parlors and other personal services are now allowed to reopen in Shasta County, while outdoor attendance at places of worship and other First Amendment-protected gatherings is now allowed without size restrictions as long as people keep their distance.

The state is recommending June 19 for a reopening date, but the county says as long as businesses have plans to meet its guidelines, they can open now.To see the state guidelines for the latest businesses allowed to reopen, go tohttps://covid19.ca.gov/pdf/expanded-personal-services.pdf.

Besides nail salons, the change applies to estheticians, body art, tattoo parlors, electrology, piercings, massage therapy that's not in a medical setting and cosmetology.

The latest reopening changes for the county also allow people to gather without restriction at outdoor worship services and other First Amendment-protected gatherings as long as they stay at least 6 feet from those not in their own household.

Meanwhile, the county doesn't have any new virus cases today, and its new COVID tracker is available at shastaready.org.

7 a.m., Friday, June 12

Shasta County's newest coronavirus patient is also its youngest yet a girl under 13, the county reported late Thursday.

The girl is in isolation at home. She had symptoms of the illness, while many who have tested positive recently including some elderly residents have been asymptomatic.

No additional details were immediately available.

Christa Blake, left, and other employees at DeVons Jewelers prepare for the store to reopen on Monday morning, May 18, 2020 inside Mt. Shasta Mall. She planned to put on her face mask after placing an item in the display case. It was the mall's first day reopening, about two months since it closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. J.C. Penney and Macy's, the mall's anchor stores, remained closed.(Photo: Hung T. Vu/Special to the Record Searchlight)

The county has now had 48 cases with four deaths.

Glenn County was the only otherin the region to record a new case Thursday, bringing its total to 24. But by Friday, Tehama County recorded a whopping eight new cases, bringing its total to 20, while Butte County's caseload rose to 74 and Mendocino's to 38.

In other local virus news, the county on Wednesday announced a new online "COVID alert" that will let residents more easily track the disease as more businesses reopen.

The county's shastaready.org website will soon havegraphs and more showingdisease transmission, impacts on hospitals and other medical providers, and the countys ability to contain the disease.

Health Officer Dr. Karen Ramstrom said the new tracker will be up by the end of the week.

Reopenings: Redding news roundup: Teen center toreopen Monday, with restrictions

There also will be a color-coded graphic online to score how the county is doing, Ramstrom said.

A sign at the entrance of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area tells visitors to social distance due to coronavirus concerns on Friday, April 24, 2020.(Photo: Matthew Brannon/Record Searchlight)

In far Northern California, here's where COVID-19 case totals stand, according to reporting from county health departments.

News: One more big I-5 expansion could come to Redding in 2026

Coastal counties:

Story continues below the map

Here's what the state'snumbers look like as of Friday evening:

Coronavirus testing began at Shasta College on Thursday, April 30, 2020. One of the site's workers, Mckenna Adams, provided a test demonstration for reporters.(Photo: Matthew Brannon/Record Searchlight)

Here's how California's coronavirus cases break down by age and more:

More: Census 2020: Work restarts around North State as COVID-19 restrictions loosen

Here's the caseload nationwide and worldwide as of Friday afternoon:

Source: Johns Hopkins University.

Alayna Shulman covers a little bit of everything for the Record Searchlight. In particular, she loves writing aboutthe issues of this community through long-form storytelling. Her work often centers on localcrime, features and politics, and has won awards for best writing, best business coverage and best investigative reporting in the California News Publishers Association's Better Newspapers Contest.Follow her on Twitter (@ashulman_RS), call her at 530-225-8372 and, to support herwork, please subscribe.

Read or Share this story: https://www.redding.com/story/news/2020/06/12/california-coronavirus-covid-19-updates-cases-deaths-shasta-county/5347303002/

Originally posted here:

Coronavirus live updates: What we know Friday about COVID-19 in the North State - Record Searchlight

The indirect effects of COVID-19 on these groups may be greater than the number of deaths due to the virus itself, agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday.

The pandemic has overwhelmed health systems in many parts of the world, which means women may be at greater risk of dying from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Early evidence also suggests that people in their teens and 20s are at increased risk of depression and anxiety, online harassment, physical and sexual violence and unintended pregnancies.

In response, WHO has published guidelines for health facilities on maintaining essential services during the pandemic, including for newborn care.

Experts have also investigated the risk of COVID-19 being transmitted to babies during breastfeeding.

Based on the available evidence, WHOs advice is that the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh any potential risks of transmission of COVID-19, said Tedros.

Mothers with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 should be encouraged to initiate and continue breastfeeding and not be separated from their infants, unless the mother is too unwell.

So far, experts have not been able to detect live virus in breastmilk, though fragments have been identified in several cases, according to Dr. Anshu Banerjee, Director of WHOs Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing.

So, the risk of transmission from mother, to child therefore, so far, has not been established, he said.

Health experts are working to get a clearer picture of how COVID-19 affects children and adolescents.

Much remains to beknown about the diseases impacts on this population, according to Dr. Maria van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist and WHOs technical lead on the pandemic.

We have a number of unknowns that were really trying to better understand, she said, responding to a journalists question.

How often are they infected? Do they play a role in transmission and if so, how much are they playing in that role? What roles do schools potentially have?

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO head of emergencies, added that several studies are underway, including into why some children end up with severe outcomes and needing to be hospitalized from the disease.

Meanwhile, countries coming out of lockdowns to contain COVID-19 spread must strike a careful balance between public safety and the need to avert further damage to their economies.

Dr. Ryan said WHO is concerned that some nations, which have passed the peak of the pandemic, are now seeing an uptick in cases.

There is a careful balance to be struck between keeping everyone at home and continuing to completely suppress transmission of COVID-19, and the untoward effects of that on the economy and the society. And that is not an easy balance, he said.

Dr. Ryan reiterated WHO advice on the need for strong national public health surveillance to determine where the virus is increasing so that authorities can take action.

See original here:

Health experts concerned about indirect effects of COVID-19 on women and youth - UN News

Two new cases of COVID-19 were announced in Manitoba on Saturday.

The update means the total number of cases identified in the province is 303,the province posted on social media.

Data on testing, active cases, hospitalizations and recoveries will be updated again on Monday.

On Friday, one new case of the illness caused by the new coronavirus was announced in the province.

As of Friday, there were five active cases in Manitoba, while 289 people had recovered.

The number of deaths related to COVID-19 remained at seven, and there was no one inhospital with the illness.

The total number of tests for the coronavirus performed in Manitoba was52,255.

View original post here:

2 new cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba - CBC.ca

COVID-19 cases since reopening fall within expectation levels, say public health officials  KRCRTV.COM

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COVID-19 cases since reopening fall within expectation levels, say public health officials - KRCRTV.COM

MADISON, Wis. (WBAY) - Wisconsin's coronavirus case numbers are back in familiar territory Wednesday after a record low for the percentage of positive test results the day before.

The state received results of 10,472 tests and 2.72% of them were positive, which is in line with the percentage of positive tests for the past week but down from the 5 to 6% averages seen in May.

The testing identified 285 patients carrying the coronavirus.

The state reported 10 deaths, including one each in Calumet, Sheboygan and Winnebago counties. Deaths were also reported in Dane (1), Jefferson (1) and Milwaukee (5) counties.

After the state's report came out, the Appleton Health Department reported the death of a Calumet County resident in the city. The patient was in their 60's. It was the city's fourth COVID-19 related death and will likely appear in the state numbers in the next day or two.

Winnebago County, which has become a local hotspot for the coronavirus, identified 26 new patients in this latest state report. That's at least twice as many cases as any other county in this 24-hour period except Milwaukee County. Winnebago County health officials link the increase to gatherings of young adults once the safer-at-home orders were lifted (see related story).

County-by-county case numbers appear below.

Statewide, people in their 20s account for 19% of confirmed coronavirus cases, more than any other age group. There are 4,008 cases. However, they only account for 4% of hospitalizations for COVID-19. Only children and teens have a lower percentage.

The state has seen nearly 3,000 patients (2,943) hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19 since the virus reached the state. That's 39 more than Tuesday.

There are currently 328 patients hospitalized for COVID-19, with 114 of them in intensive care. Another 190 people who are hospitalized are waiting for test results.

68% of people who tested positive are considered recovered, which the state defines as 30 days since the onset of symptoms or diagnosis, or having the absence of symptoms or their release from isolation medically documented.

County case numbersCounties with new cases and/or deaths are in bold.

WisconsinAdams - 6 cases (1 death)Ashland - 3 casesBarron - 21 cases (+1)Bayfield - 3 cases (1 death)Brown - 2,405 cases (+7) (38 deaths)Buffalo - 6 cases (2 death)Burnett - 1 cases (1 death)Calumet - 81 cases (2 deaths) (+1)Chippewa - 60 cases (+1)Clark - 45 cases (4 deaths)Columbia - 49 cases (+2) (1 death)Crawford - 26 casesDane - 884 cases (+13) (31 deaths) (+1)Dodge - 410 cases (+4) (4 deaths)Door - 39 cases (3 deaths)Douglas - 20 casesDunn - 29 casesEau Claire - 126 cases (+2)Florence - 2 casesFond du Lac - 247 cases (+6) (6 deaths)Forest - 34 cases (2 deaths)Grant - 99 cases (12 deaths)Green - 71 casesGreen Lake - 23 casesIowa - 16 casesIron - 2 cases (1 death)Jackson - 20 cases (+1) (1 death)Jefferson - 138 cases (+4) (4 deaths) (+1)Juneau 23 cases (1 death)Kenosha - 1,308 cases (+13) (36 deaths)Kewaunee - 37 cases (1 death)La Crosse - 81 cases (+4)Lafayette - 36 cases (+1)Langlade - 5 casesLincoln - 7 casesManitowoc - 40 cases (1 death)Marathon - 69 cases (+3) (1 death)Marinette - 37 cases (3 deaths)Marquette - 7 cases (+1) (1 death)Menominee - 3 casesMilwaukee 8,973 cases (+123) (336 deaths) (+5)Monroe - 23 cases (+4) (1 death)Oconto - 42 casesOneida - 13 casesOutagamie - 294 cases (+5) (8 deaths)Ozaukee - 185 cases (+1) (13 deaths)Pepin - 1 casePierce - 51 casesPolk - 36 cases (+2) (1 death)Portage - 51 cases (+12)Price - 2 casesRacine - 1,952 cases (+13) (51 deaths)Richland - 14 cases (4 deaths)Rock - 724 cases (+10) (21 deaths)Rusk - 5 casesSauk - 84 cases (3 deaths)Sawyer - 9 casesShawano - 60 casesSheboygan - 120 cases (+2) (4 deaths) (+1)St. Croix - 108 cases (+1)Taylor - 2 casesTrempealeau - 44 cases (+1)Vernon - 22 casesVilas - 8 casesWalworth - 456 cases (+4) (17 deaths)Washburn - 3 casesWashington - 283 cases (+2) (10 deaths)Waukesha - 842 cases (+13) (34 deaths)Waupaca - 61 cases (+3) (1 death)Waushara - 13 casesWinnebago - 457 cases (+26) (8 deaths) (+1)Wood - 13 cases (+1) (1 death)

In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Alger and Keweenaw counties had their first confirmed coronavirus cases. Only Ontonagon County in the northwestern part of the peninsula hasn't had a confirmed case.

Michigan's Upper PeninsulaAlger - 1 case (+1)Baraga - 1 caseChippewa - 2 casesDelta - 17 cases (2 deaths)Dickinson - 6 cases (2 deaths)Gogebic - 5 cases (1 death)Houghton - 8 cases (+1)Iron - 2 casesKeweenaw - 1 case (+1)Luce - 3 casesMackinac - 8 casesMarquette - 59 cases (11 deaths)Menominee - 9 casesOntonagon - 0 casesSchoolcraft - 4 cases

SymptomsThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified these as possible symptoms of COVID-19:

PreventionThe coronavirus is a new, or "novel," virus. Nobody has a natural immunity to it. Children and teens seem to recover best from the virus. Older people and those with underlying health conditions (heart disease, diabetes, lung disease) are considered at high risk, according to the CDC. Precautions are also needed around people with developing or weakened immune systems.

To help prevent the spread of the virus:

Follow this link:

Local COVID-19 deaths and positive cases increase in latest state report - WBAY

People with intellectual disabilities and autism who contract COVID-19 die at higher rates than the rest of the population, according to an analysis by NPR of numbers obtained from two states that collect data. They also contract the virus at a higher rate, according to research looking into group homes across the United States.

In Pennsylvania, numbers obtained by NPR show that people with intellectual disabilities and autism who test positive for COVID-19 die at a rate about twice as high as other Pennsylvania residents who contract the illness.

In New York, the state with the most deaths from COVID-19, people with developmental disabilities die at a rate 2.5 times the rate of others who contract the virus.

The numbers in Pennsylvania are compiled by the Office of Developmental Programs of the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and count people who get state services while living in group homes, state institutions or in their own homes. As of June 2, there were 801 confirmed cases and 113 deaths among people with intellectual disabilities and autism. In New York, NPR calculated data obtained from the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. Of people who get state services from that office, 2,289 have tested positive for COVID-19 and 368 have died.

The high rate of death "is disturbing, but it's not surprising," says Scott Landes, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

He's been collecting his own data from state and private research groups and says people with developmental disabilities who live in group homes have some of the highest death rates from COVID-19 in the country.

"They're more likely four times more likely, we're showing to actually contract COVID-19 than the general population," he says. "And then if they do contract COVID-19, what we're seeing is they're about two times more likely to die from it."

That's higher than the death rates for Hispanics and African Americans.

Landes co-authored a recent study that used private health records to show that 18- to 74-year-olds with developmental disabilities, mostly those diagnosed with autism, who contracted COVID-19 died at nearly twice the rate as others.

Landes says there are two reasons for the high death rates. People with developmental disabilities are far more likely to have a preexisting health condition, such as respiratory disease, that adds to their risk. They're much more likely, than even elderly people, to live in a setting with roommates and staff like group homes where two or four or 10 or more people live together. About 13% to 20% of people with developmental disabilities live in such settings, Landes notes, compared with only about 6% of people over age 65.

"You reside with multiple roommates, with staff coming in and out," says Landes, "your chances of actually contracting COVID are high. And then if someone in your home gets it, it's like there's nowhere you can go."

There has been a lot of attention to the deaths in nursing homes, and with good reason. About a third of all deaths nationwide from COVID-19 have been linked to them. According to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, there have been at least 31,782 deaths of nursing home residents from COVID-19 as of May 31. The CMS total does not count nursing home staff who died.

Medics suit up in personal protective equipment as they prepare to pick up a patient in severe respiratory distress from a group home in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn on May 11. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption

Medics suit up in personal protective equipment as they prepare to pick up a patient in severe respiratory distress from a group home in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn on May 11.

Still, says Nicole Jorwic, senior director for public policy at the Arc, a group that represents people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, there are consequences to paying less attention to people who live in other care home settings.

One result, she says, is that it has been harder for the groups that serve people with disabilities to get personal protective equipment or extra pay for staff workers. In most states, these workers don't get the bonus pay that is sometimes offered to other front-line health care workers and, in some states, the staff who serve people in group homes or their own homes aren't considered essential workers.

"You don't go into a hospital and some doctors have on masks and some don't. Or some are underpaid and some are not," says Antonio McCall, a direct service provider who works with two men at a Philadelphia group home. "No, everyone gets what they're working for. Everyone's covered with protection, because that's what's required."

There have been no infections at the house where McCall works, but there have been some outbreaks of COVID-19 and even a death at others. He says his agency managed to find masks for him, and he has received some extra pay.

And McCall is careful. He doesn't want to bring an infection into the group home or his own home, where he helps care for his mother, who has an underlying health condition, and is raising his niece and nephew.

In New York, a direct service professional working in a group home makes little money "at or below the poverty line," in the mid $20,000s a year, says Tom McAlvanah, president of New York Disability Advocates, a coalition of service providers. He says it has been hard to keep workers healthy and on the job. They're vulnerable not only because of where they work, but because they often rely on public transportation.

McAlvanah says New York's Medicaid program, the main source of payment for group home providers, has failed to increase reimbursements even before the coronavirus pandemic. Now, he says, group home residents have stopped going to work and group home providers have had to pay staff without government reimbursement to work more hours and overtime to run the group homes where residents now spend their full days.

That's the case in most states, although Colorado and several others did increase Medicaid resources to providers. The CARES Act, the coronavirus relief act signed into law in March, became a source of extra funding, but only through the end of June.

Provider agencies say that, on average, they've spent a third of their annual revenue on unexpected costs from the pandemic and have cash reserves to cover a month or less of operations, according to a recent national survey by the American Network of Community Options and Resources, a trade association for groups that provide services to people with disabilities.

"For years and years and years, people we serve in group homes like this, they're the forgotten people," says Todd Goodwin, who runs John F. Murphy Homes, a large provider agency in Maine. "Nobody sees them. Nobody notices them. We see that repeatedly through policy, we see that in financing at the state and federal level. It's been an issue for years."

In Washington state, there was a Zoom meeting last month of men and women with developmental disabilities who belong to an advocacy group called People First of Washington. They spoke of their opposition to state budget cuts that, they worried, would cut off public transportation that they depend on to get to work or cut the hours of their state-funded caregivers. And they were worried about the effects of the coronavirus.

Shane Cody Fairweather, who lives in his own apartment in Chewelah, Wash., with support from service providers, said in an interview that he worries that people like him are not getting attention, despite their risks for contracting COVID-19.

"We're part of society. We're more vulnerable," he says. "It should be on equal footing. They should be paying attention to the elderly and the disabled as well."

Fairweather says there have been no outbreaks of the coronavirus in the apartments where he lives. He's healthy and ready to return to his job as a janitor at the local library.

Read more here:

COVID-19 Infections And Deaths Are Higher Among Those With Intellectual Disabilities - NPR

Two new papers published in the journal Nature say that lockdowns put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus were highly effective, prevented tens of millions of infections and saved millions of lives.

"Our estimates show that lockdowns had a really dramatic effect in reducing transmission," says Samir Bhatt, a senior lecturer at the Imperial College London's School of Public Health, who worked on one of the papers published in Nature.

Bhatt's team analyzed infection and death rates in 11 European nations through May 4. They estimate that an additional 3.1 million people in those countries would have died if lockdowns had not been put in place.

"Without them we believe the toll would have been huge," Bhatt says.

In addition to the paper from Bhatt and his colleagues, Nature also published a separate study from the Global Policy Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. That study analyzed lockdowns in China, South Korea, Iran, France, Italy and the United States.

It found that the lockdowns in those six countries averted 62 million confirmed cases.

For example, in the U.S. through the first week of April, there were officially just over 360,000 confirmed cases nationwide. Without lockdowns and other interventions, the researchers at Berkeley calculate that the U.S. would have had nearly 14 times as many by April 6: more than 5 million confirmed cases. To put this in perspective, the U.S. now, two months later, is hitting the 2 million mark.

Solomon Hsiang, director of the Global Policy Lab, says these unprecedented shelter-in-place orders came at an extreme economic cost. Yet when government officials were ordering them, it was unclear exactly how significant the social benefits would be.

"The value of these studies you're seeing today is that they're demonstrating what the benefits of this policy are," Hsiang said in a press call discussing the studies. "They averted tens of millions of additional infections and millions of deaths."

The two studies used different methods to calculate the number of cases averted by the lockdowns. Bhatt's team looked at reported deaths to calculate community transmission that occurred weeks before and used the change in death numbers over time to track how much the lockdowns suppressed transmission. Hsiang's group at Berkeley used economic models usually used to examine how specific policies impact economic growth. They looked at how daily transmission growth rates shifted as lockdowns went into effect. Despite their different approaches, both groups came up with similar findings.

Both sets of researchers also caution that as lockdowns start to ease around the world, public health officials still have very limited tools to combat the coronavirus.

Testing is more widely available. Social distancing has become standard at many shops. Most large gatherings at sporting events and concerts remain banned.

But the virus continues to circulate. The vast majority of people are still susceptible to COVID-19.

Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, this week warned that the world shouldn't ease up in its efforts against this pandemic.

"I know many of us would like this to be over and I know many situations are seeing positive signs. But it is far from over," she said. "We need everyone to focus on the job at hand, which is stopping this pandemic, suppressing transmission and saving lives. There's a lot more work to do. Let's celebrate the successes but let's remain focused on the remaining work that needs to be done because unfortunately this is far from over."

Bhatt also warns that as places come out of lockdown, transmission could rapidly flare back up again without some measures in place to check it.

"We are not saying that, you know, the country needs to stay locked down forever. But it's a cost/benefit situation," Bhatt says. "The longer you stay in lockdown, the less infections you have. People aren't moving around. When you release lockdown and you go for milder interventions, economic stability can return to some degree, but you then have the rise of infections that is possible. What we are saying is that some degree of intervention [against the virus] needs to be in place."

The researchers from both papers say that people need to understand how much of an impact the lockdown measures have been having. Hsiang at Berkeley says that as difficult as this year has been, things would have been much worse if millions of people around the globe hadn't stayed home.

"Without these policies deployed," Hsiang says. "We would have lived through a very different April and May." A period so bad, he says, "that we believe it's probably almost unimaginable."

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Pandemic Lockdowns May Have Kept Millions From Dying Of COVID-19 : Goats and Soda - NPR