DOJ Finally Starts Process of Investigating Nursing Home Deaths From COVID-19 (justice.gov) 232
onyxruby writes: The DOJ has finally launched the precursor to an investigation into the mass deaths of senior citizens in nursing homes and long term care facilities. Roughly half of all COVID-19 deaths in the United Stated have occurred in nursing homes. The governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan are being requested to provide information to the DOJ. This will be used to determine if a formal investigation into the deaths of tens of thousands of elderly patients will be launched.
From the release: "According to the Centers for Disease Control, New York has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States, with 32,592 victims, many of them elderly. New York's death rate by population is the second highest in the country with 1,680 deaths per million people. New Jersey's death rate by population is 1,733 deaths per million people -- the highest in the nation. In contrast, Texas's death rate by population is 380 deaths per million people; and Texas has just over 11,000 deaths, though its population is 50 percent larger than New York and has many more recorded cases of COVID-19 -- 577,537 cases in Texas versus 430,885 cases in New York. Florida's COVID-19 death rate is 480 deaths per million; with total deaths of 10,325 and a population slightly larger than New York.
The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is evaluating whether to initiate investigations under the federal 'Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act' (CRIPA), which protects the civil rights of persons in state-run nursing homes, among others. The Civil Rights Division seeks to determine if the state orders requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes is responsible for the deaths of nursing home residents." In other COVID-19 related news, Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal, reporting that Abbott has been given emergency use authorization for a rapid antigen test. "They say: [it takes 5 minutes and costs only $5]," writes schwit1. "Greater than 95% sensitivity and no machine or lab required, adding they have the ability to make 50 million tests per month by October.
From the release: "According to the Centers for Disease Control, New York has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States, with 32,592 victims, many of them elderly. New York's death rate by population is the second highest in the country with 1,680 deaths per million people. New Jersey's death rate by population is 1,733 deaths per million people -- the highest in the nation. In contrast, Texas's death rate by population is 380 deaths per million people; and Texas has just over 11,000 deaths, though its population is 50 percent larger than New York and has many more recorded cases of COVID-19 -- 577,537 cases in Texas versus 430,885 cases in New York. Florida's COVID-19 death rate is 480 deaths per million; with total deaths of 10,325 and a population slightly larger than New York.
The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is evaluating whether to initiate investigations under the federal 'Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act' (CRIPA), which protects the civil rights of persons in state-run nursing homes, among others. The Civil Rights Division seeks to determine if the state orders requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes is responsible for the deaths of nursing home residents." In other COVID-19 related news, Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal, reporting that Abbott has been given emergency use authorization for a rapid antigen test. "They say: [it takes 5 minutes and costs only $5]," writes schwit1. "Greater than 95% sensitivity and no machine or lab required, adding they have the ability to make 50 million tests per month by October.
I knew, but I did not understand (Score:5, Insightful)
For most of my life I've been aware that elders fear going to such places. Recent events have shown me not only that this fear is correct, but that I profoundly underestimated how bad they are. I plan to do anything and everything humanly possible to make sure I am never in the care of such a facility.
Re: I knew, but I did not understand (Score:5, Interesting)
Impossible. 70% of elders suffer falls that break bones. Healing time is three times longer for an elder so you end up sitting in elder care to heal.
You are thinking only of end of life. Most residents are in healing from injuries associated with being old and once healed are released. If they can take care of themselves.
Why can't they heal at home? They need physical help that is too expensive to provide.
Re: I knew, but I did not understand (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the current belief is that they break their hip (technically the femur head not the acetabulum), which results in a fall. Not the other way around. Being sedentary makes your bones atrophy. Your bone density is maintained by the impact of motion. Its a piezoelectric type stimulus that triggers the calcification of the bones. Even a simple exercise of raising up onto your tiptoes and allowing yourself to fall back down to your heels (not lower yourself, it has to be full gravity), do this repeatedly, will stimulate calcification of your pelvis, tibia, fibula, and femur.
The Chinese people that regularly engage in Taijiquan (Tai âChi chuan) and Qigong (Chi Gong) are much less effected by these particular ailments. X-ray scans of an 80yr old practitioner vs an 80yr old non-practitioner showed the practitioners hip area to be nearly as healthy as a 35yr old. Its not magic, its just movement.
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Agreed. Physical activity and diet are things everyone can do to help reduce the risk.
My mother, at 91, had a slip and fall while at the swimming pool. Broke her collar bone, because she contacted a step with it. Doctors advised us her active lifestyle (she goes for a walk, 3 to 5 miles, nearly every day) and diet, explained her lack of other injuries (broken hip mentioned) often seen in senior falls.
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There are a number of ways to reduce the rate of bone loss. Not quantifiable, but neither expensive nor troublesome, so why not do them anyway?
Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Magnesium (taken together), adequate Vitamin A (eating liver regularly is a good way), avoid any calcium supplements (any decent diet contains masses of the stuff), and walk (or run if you still can).
If you are able to do it safely, daily brief bursts of intense activity help. Anything from chin-ups, press-ups or windsprints to weight lifting.
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Exactly this! Keep a few bottles of whisky in the cupboard and when the time comes die gracefully rather than be mistreated in a home.
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On top of the booze and sleeping pills, always have a small charcoal-barbecue-grill at hand that fits in your bathtub.
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EVs can catch fire too, you know.
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That's because of elder abuse. They are sometimes raped, stolen from, intimidated, berated, beaten, given sedatives so caretakers can be free to be unattentive, and told to stay silent about these abuses, all when the elder's family members are away.
Re:I knew, but I did not understand (Score:5, Interesting)
They fear going to those places, partly because of abuse from those unemployable "carers" that provide such sensational news stories, but basically because they are waiting rooms for death.
You don't end up in a care home because you're healthy, you go there because you cannot look after yourself. And then you die after being looked after so you can watch the most mindless TV shows with a blank, lifeless expression on your face.
And then there's the cost of them - why does it cost less to hire a personal housekeeper for yourself than it does to survive residential care in a home with 20 or 30 others looked after by 1 or 2 staff?
Re: I knew, but I did not understand (Score:3)
Usually due to the memory ward costs. Once Dementia kicks in, it takes more staff. Not only is their mind slipping away but they forget how to eat, and eventually swallow. Much like parkinsons, aspiration pneumonia is a frequent cause of death, labled natural causes. Always hated that term, theres nothing natural about having bits of food finding its way into your lungs.
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Your imagined 1:10 staff to guest ratio is pure fantasy.
Nursing homes are staffed 24x7, your "visiting angel" at best works an 8 hour shift, more likely 2-3 hr/day.
There are 21x 8 hr shifts in a week to staff, it takes 5+ full-time workers (5x 8 hr shifts/wk) to cover all those shifts and allow for time-off/vacations, etc.
Then there is kitchen staff, doctors, orderlies to keep facility clean, etc.
Re:I knew, but I did not understand (Score:5, Informative)
The cost charged per patient depends on who is paying the bill, I think. My mom had her own home (1,000 miles from me) and was quite clear she wanted to die in that house. After several rounds of "mom has an injury, mom goes to the hospital, mom move from hospital to rehab, home goes home" it was getting clear that living on her own wasn't going so well.
During the last of these cycles*, I convinced her that she should consider assisted living. Her own apartment in the building, but with people to help out when she needed it. She didn't like the idea, but indicated she was willing to try. The hold-up was that the assisted living place didn't have an opening just yet. Since she had too many assets** to have the state pay for her stay the rehab center once she was not in immediate danger, she had to be a "private payer", billed at a rate of $23,000/month, for what amounted to a hotel room with staff that checked in on you from time to time, helped you if you needed it to get to the bathroom safely, helped you shower if you needed it, etc.
If you do the math, you'll see that this works out to $276,000/year, or enough to hire 3 people at $92,000 (fully-burdened cost, call it $46k salary plus benefits) for round the clock 24-hour care for a single individual. Most people wouldn't need 24-hour care; an eight-hour shift would get many most of what they need. But that's for private care for one person in their own home - at the rehab center/nursing home the staff ratios aren't so favorable (but they do have the expenses of the facility). Why the big cost for "private payers"? As far as I can tell, it is to offset the cost of care for those who are being covered by state funds (Medicare for rehab patients, Medicaid for nursing home patients).
Every discussion I had with the care centers about my Mom started with a discussion of her assets, how even a small amount of assets disqualified her for Medicaid to pay for their costs, and that she would have to go through the "spend down" phase first. "Spend down" is a euphemism for bleeding every last available dollar from your assets, which then makes you indigent, which then makes you eligible for MedicAid. That's the system; anyone who has saved anything (has assets) pays out at extraordinary rates, which quickly reduces their assets to $0 (transferring those assets as quickly as possible to the care center), and then they are covered by Medicaid. (See, all better now!)
It took me conversations with somewhere around 11 "elderly care" legal aid people/lawyers before one let slip that there were other ways to handle things. One of them is to put your assets into a special kind of trust; the balance of the trust goes to the state to provide reimbursement for Medicaid expenses after you die, but in the meantime those assets can be used to provide "benefit" to you. Things that the care center doesn't provide even at their rapacious private payer rates. None of the care centers I spoke with mentioned this option.
There is a loophole, of course, If your assets are no longer in your name (with a 5-year lookback/clawback provision) and you are in need of care, then Medicaid covers the cost (i.e., the state pays). I have no idea how many people make sure that there are no significant assets in their names as they head towards their elder years. I suspect that people who are more used to dealing with having $$ than my mom are probably more knowledgeable about how to protect their estates, whether that is "fair" or not. For example, immediately after my mother died, I spoke with a long-time friend of mine who revealed that his parents had already put their house in his name.
My approach is to line up personal nursing care well in advance of actually needing it, and to investigate long-term care insurance as well. If that $$ runs out, then I guess it is off to the nursing home on state expense for me. But not until then...
* She died while in the care of the care center when she was supposedly healthy enough to get in to assi
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Be nice to your kids. They choose your nursing home.
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True..
My mother stayed at my home until the day she died. Trust me, if you can do it, do it. It's worth it, both to them and to you. Don't send them to a nursing home if at all possible..
I don't want to be a burden to my kids but I also hope they don't believe they cannot live with me as an old man. We took care of their grandparents, hopefully they will take care of their children's grandparents too.
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I'm going to give my mother the same degree of consideration she gave to me.
That is to say, she can work it out on her own.
My father already died in his own home.
Re:I knew, but I did not understand (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to give my mother the same degree of consideration she gave to me.
That is to say, she can work it out on her own.
My father already died in his own home.
Sorry about your father and I hope you can someday soon bury the hatchet with your mother. I cannot imagine letting my parents die alone, even my step father who mistreated us kids and my mother doesn't deserve that, but I understand that repairing some relationships isn't possible. Forgiveness isn't something that benefits the one who did wrong, it benefits you, give it a try.
Minnesota should also be on the list (Score:5, Informative)
At 74% Minnesota has one of the highest death rates at 74% of long term care facilities in the United States. We have at times led the nation and consistently been proportionally been even worse than New York. As of the latest data from the state 74% of our deaths came from our most vulnerable population:
1793 deaths:
1325 nursing homes / long term care facilities
https://www.health.state.mn.us... [state.mn.us]
To the best of my knowledge Covid positive patients are still being placed in nursing homes and long term care facilities. Unfortunately the slaughter of our most vulnerable citizens has gotten very little coverage from our local media. The latest articles that readily turned up in a google search are a few months old.
https://www.startribune.com/mi... [startribune.com]
https://www.twincities.com/202... [twincities.com]
The Minnesota Dept of Health helped to cover up the deaths and only started to release data at all when threatened with a subpoena:
https://www.minnpost.com/state... [minnpost.com]
So many things going wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
So many questionable things were done in the name of "protecting" us from this pandemic... and still... if you dare ask questions, you're immediately denunciated as an anti-masker.
Switzerland is now considering having everyone wear masks in shops because our cases are rising again... but so our the numbers of tests done.
Meanwhile, the daily death rate is between zero and 2, seldom 3. that's individuals, not percent or anything.
The number of hospitalized has been steady for weeks between 100 and 130. The number of ICU patients has been steady for weeks between 20 and 30.
Remember when social distancing was there to flatten the curve? Because we were all scared of overloading hospitals?
When hospitals started to cut down on staff due to being underused (is that a word?), people still bleated about how we're all going to die if we open up certain restrictions.
And these days, the media will not let us forget that our cases are rising but I know of exactly one media outlet that will show ALL relevant graphs, including mortality displacement... and they put it on a sub-page, never to actually put their headlines into context.
I don't care anymore if people call me such nice things as anti-masker or put me in the same corner as flat-earthers. I'm telling you covid isn't as bad as they make it out to be. After NOT putting covid patients with the elderly and after no longer overpressuring covid afflicted lungs, death rates have been under control. We should guide our efforts by the number of ICU beds we're have occupied and largely ignore the case numbers... especially considering that the tests are so beyond anything I'd call reliable...
The damage these measures are causing will haunt us for generations to come...
Re:So many things going wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
It's not just the death rate that matters. Even if you have great ICU wards and more people survive a COVID 19 infection can have lasting, serious consequences.
Confidence is also an issue for the economy. If people don't feel confident to go out shopping or for entertainment, if they don't feel confident going to work then it hits the economy. Masks help people feel safe.
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You can't argue with these morons who think it's no big deal. Every day they find new ways the virus has caused damage to critical organs. https://www.mayoclinic.org/dis... [mayoclinic.org]
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Maybe the honest answer is that we really don't know for sure exactly what the risk is.
Masks are a bit annoying but a cheap and simple way to give people a bit of confidence and maybe help reduce the actual numbers.
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Individuals that know they are high risk can choose to remain in isolation.
But then all the things you are complaining about will happen anyway. There won't be enough teachers because half of them are isolating so you kids won't be able to be in school full time. Restaurants will reduce capacity to try to attract those customers back.
How will those self isolating be handled? Do they qualify for benefits because they personally decided to isolate, or do they need a doctor's note, or some other test of vulnerability? Are their employers able to claim furlough payments for them?
The o
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These things are all "unacceptable" to me without strong evidence that they are in fact strictly necessary and no "if it saves one life does not cut it."
Wait, these things?
Restaurants being forced to remain well under seating capacity
They shouldn't be allowed to be open at all, except for outside seating, and that only on sunny days and with substantial (well over 6') distance between patrons.
Schools remaining closed
There's no safe way to reopen schools. Just because children are less likely to die, that doesn't mean they won't be harmed. We can't even stop lice transmission in schools, how do you think we're going to stop Covid?
States still restricting theaters and gyms
There's no safe way to reopen those either.
Travel Restricts and quarantines some states are still mandating
It's a reasonable way to reduce transmission.
Airlines not filling center seats as if 14" inches of additional separation makes a difference
True, they shouldn't be op
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"Switzerland is now considering having everyone wear masks in shops because our cases are rising again... but so our the numbers of tests done."
Really? Your testing is up?
You did 112,594 tests per million, while even tiny Luxembourg did 1,182,146 per million.
Re: So many things going wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
I look at deaths and hospitalizations per capita. Unless you are going to mandate every person test weekly, the number of positive is not a statistically relevant measure. I talked with a nurse at a testing facility. She was angry because if you tested positive, and came back in 2 weeks to see if you were clear, and tested positive again, that is counted as a NEW case. Its totally fucking up the positivity rate.
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LOL No wonder you all keep dying of covid. You only do that once I assume.
Yes; but we're working on that.
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Switzerland is now considering having everyone wear masks in shops because our cases are rising again... but so our the numbers of tests done.
Meanwhile, the daily death rate is between zero and 2, seldom 3. that's individuals, not percent or anything.
The incubation period for Covid-19 is widely cited as 2-14 days. (Very occasionally longer).
The median time from first symptoms to death is 18.5 days.
So it seems very likely that if a person is still healthy a month after a positive test or showing symptoms, that person has shaken off the virus or recovered.
Doesn't that imply that, if deaths don't track "infections" with a lag of one month at most, the "infections" were trivial or false?
Actually one can be neither dead nor healthy (Score:4, Insightful)
> Doesn't that imply that, if deaths don't track "infections" with a lag of one month at most, the "infections" were trivial or false?
No. It isn't a choice between either "dead" or "trivial/false".
After wishing you could just die and get the agony over with, a COVID patient may be left with extensive damage to your lungs, heart, brain, and whatever additional damage hasn't been documented yet.
It's kinda like being run over by a car - either your dead or it never happened?
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And these days, the media will not let us forget that our cases are rising but I know of exactly one media outlet that will show ALL relevant graphs, including mortality displacement... and they put it on a sub-page, never to actually put their headlines into context.
Could you link that please? I can guess what "mortality displacement" might mean, but I'd want to see a precise definition of what they're measuring.
The graphs I've seen in mainstream media (Economist, BBC) are of excess deaths, which I reckon are the absolute non-negotiable non-twistable truths (so long as they're gathered reliably). They show that every country got a lot of excess deaths, and almost nowhere has the number of deaths dropped to below expected values. This seems like clearcut proof that the
Victoria - Australia #1 for Nursing Home Deaths (Score:2)
Same Problem in Massachusetts (Score:2)
We had a case in a care facility in our town, and when they traced the contacts, they found it came from a worker who had another part-time job at a similar facility in a nearby city. Another worker at our local facility then spread it to yet another place where that worker also had a part-time job.
The problem here is that all the assisted-living facilities try to keep the staff as part-time employees so that they don't have to pay benefits (mostly health care). This means most workers have two or three j
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It's not the "DMV", that's an Americanism. It was previously the RTA (Road Traffic Authority), but it's been VicRoads for decades. Also, it isn't new number plates that say "THE PLACE TO BE" - they haven't been issuing those for years now. They changed to "VICTORIA - STAY ALERT, STAY ALIVE", and then changed again to the current "VICTORIA - THE EDUCATION STATE". The current one is still pretty ironic, considering the number of people getting caught doing dumb things.
"Finally" (Score:2)
We actually don't care about this sort of opinion and it makes the headlines worse.
Anything that is good could have been done sooner and it would have been better. This sort of criticism has its own chapter in "Loserthink".
Obviously the public doesn't get to hear anything until significant work has been done and a green light has been given to proceed.
Half of the people will claim that the investigation is going off half-cocked anyway, rushed for political purposes.
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I expect governments will have insulated themselves from any potential liability. The UK is similar, massive number of deaths in care home and very little effort made to protect residents or staff. No PPE, no proper monitoring or reporting, people discharged from hospital into care homes with known infections etc.
Expect to hear "we were following the science" and then see some scapegoats fired. It's already happening in the UK, several people not actually responsible have resigned or been sacked but no-one
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but no-one at the top has taken any responsibility.
Sounds very familiar [politico.com].
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"Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me) Third Edition: Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts"
https://www.amazon.com/Mistake... [amazon.com]
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Your mention of PPE, monitoring and reporting are both false. The care homes had PPE and it was only reported that they didn't by political activists (and a childish MP who lied about it [nottinghampost.com]) who wanted there to be insufficient PPE in order to increase their anti-government political point scores.
and on top of that, care homes are private organisations, so it has nothing to do with the government anyway!
As for reporting - public health england has full stats on all the covid deaths, cases, tests, etc. More repo
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...scientific experts like Prof. Ferguson of the uselessly shitty C++ code that didn't work properly...
I agree with most of your comment, but this isn't quite right. The reviews of the Imperial College code were very critical, but as far as I know did not definitively blame faulty code.
The original model - which, according to Dr Malcolm Kendrick and others could have been written on the back of an envelope - was nonsensical, based on arbitrary "estimates" (i.e. wild guesses). Feeding it through a "computer model" was done only to impress the broad masses who don't understand how computers work.
Yet another ca
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I expect governments will have insulated themselves from any potential liability. The UK is similar, massive number of deaths in care home and very little effort made to protect residents or staff. No PPE, no proper monitoring or reporting, people discharged from hospital into care homes with known infections etc.
Expect to hear "we were following the science" and then see some scapegoats fired. It's already happening in the UK, several people not actually responsible have resigned or been sacked but no-one at the top has taken any responsibility.
The usual privileges of real power: If you do not do it to openly (or anger somebody with even more real power), you are not subject to the law.
Re:Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
This is on the governors. They demanded and received, the power to make the decisions on day to day policies for their states. Some states chose to protect their vulnerable populations, some did not. In some states like New York, New Jersey and Minnesota they put Covid positive patients in nursing homes where the most vulnerable people were. In other states like Texas and Florida they protected the most vulnerable people.
The data speaks volumes. Even when adjusted for population those four states represent extremely disproportionate levels of deaths. Your chances of surviving in Florida or Texas were significantly higher than New York or New Jersey - especially if you were a senior citizen. Factor in the fact that Florida and Texas both have disproportionately high numbers of senior citizens to begin with (many from New York & New Jersey) as they are retirement states and you can see that state policies really were the primary determining factor in death rates.
Take away the partisanship and have an honest look at the data. Where were senior citizens and vulnerable people most likely to survive and most likely to die? Just under half of Covid deaths in the United States came from long term care facilities. Consider that New York undercounted there rates significantly and you quickly reach half the deaths in the US coming from nursing homes. If you adjusted for these needless deaths you would see that the United States was actually doing quite well.
Truly, this is on the governors. The biggest thing Trump did was agree to let the governors have that power without a court fight. I distinctly recall the media reaction when he suggested that perhaps he was going to take charge in the beginning instead of the governors. Perhaps you think he should have done so?
Re:Trump (Score:4, Informative)
In some states like New York, New Jersey and Minnesota they put Covid positive patients in nursing homes where the most vulnerable people were.
Its worse than that. For instance in New York the executive order putting covid patients in nursing homes also contained language making it a crime to tell anyone, staff included, that the patients they were receiving had covid.
But Democrats did it... so whatever... no matter how many people they murder, its someone elses fault.
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wait... was it not a crime already to expose someone's medical data? US privacy law is worse than I thought.
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wait... was it not a crime already to expose someone's medical data? US privacy law is worse than I thought.
"...making it a crime to tell anyone, staff included, that the patients they were receiving had covid.
Ah, so you think this group should have also been kept in the dark about a deadly virus, infected customers, and HIPPA data they're well aware of and protect every fucking day?
(Just give it a minute. The logic will hopefully burn through the ignorace...)
Re:Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Trump (Score:2)
Medicaid is a state department. Medicare is a federal organization. Are you certain about it being both? Its unlikely one would draw a paycheck from both levels of government. They sometimes do hire private companies to be the administrators of the accounts, but they do not get to set policies, just process claims.
Re: Trump (Score:2)
That's who issued the guidelines the hospitalist showed me. She was originally hospitalized for a knee injury (had knee replaced about a year ago and fell) and then got sick and tested positive. It was a mild case, but she couldn't get in home therapy so they sent her to a nursing home like 2-3 days after testing positive.
Re: Trump (Score:5, Informative)
The CDC guidelines stipulated the infected patients should go to nursing homes IF the facility could adequately quarantine the infected patients from the general population.
NY, NJ, PA, MN ignored that quarantine requirement - they apparently didn't have time to read the entire paragraph. Other states understood the entirety of the directive and lives were saved.
Interesting handle you have their Gov Cuomo (Score:2)
Re: Trump (Score:2)
Was this before or after they stopped fudging the numbers?
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That is a gross misuse of the statistic.
Re: Trump (Score:2)
Another thing that NY is guilty of is lying about nursing home deaths. It is actually a lot worse than reported. If you are a nursing home resident who gets covid and gets transported to a hospital, and later dir in that hospital they are reporting your residence as the hospital and NOT a nursing home death. Its deceitful in a deliberate attempt to hide their incompetence. I am glad our Governor put nursing homes on complete lockdown March 15th, 4 days after the first confirmed case in my state.
Re: Trump (Score:2, Flamebait)
The power they demanded happened because Trump refused to act.
If we had a strong federal response in March. Shut the whole country down then we would be more like Australia or Europe instead of Brazil. But we piece mealed our response so it was incomplete.
We could have had the v recovery Trump wanted he would just have had to do not at the national level.
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We would be more like Venezuela or Zimbabwe. But carry on with your rant.
Re: Trump (Score:3)
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Or we were like America, where we had a weak federal response (because, we're a republic), and a range of state responses. Turns out that the Democrat led states seemed to have terrible responses, if you consider the death rates.
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Did we win WWII with a weak federal response and a range of state responses?
Re: Trump (Score:4, Informative)
The death rates are a function of population density. Densely populated areas trend toward blue because they actually see the reality of poverty and the issues that need solved because of proximity.
You can only compare those numbers to an estimate of a similar location. A red state full of small towns is just not comparable and the response really hasn't made a meaningful impact either way. The exposure levels are so much lower in rural areas even when people aren't keeping 6 feet apart or wearing masks. It's only been since vacation season that these areas have even seen an impact - and that's because it's the only time anyone has traveled outside of their tiny circle.
Re: Trump (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps, but the primary factor here is time: NY and New England was hit before remdesivir, before we knew steroids worked so well, before they could stock up on PPE.. before a lot of things were figured out, and then there's a lot unknown about early versus later viral strains. Texas was hit after they reopened and the standard of care had improved greatly. The DOJ is being disingenuous by comparing the two.
Re: Trump (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of states that are messed up are states that tend to lean blue, not all but most.
And most of the states that are seeing the worst of it now are Red states.
Why didn't they learn anything from the blue states?
Why does Florida have a greater % of nursing home deaths than New York? 40% vs 20%
Re: Trump (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, the alleged president declared a travel ban and then declared the Covid problem was solved. It took several months of getting slapped in the face with the problem before he acknowledged its severity, and that's only because it impinged on his re-election. But keep believing in him, the Covid problem will magically disappear one day.
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Yea.. But hey, let's cause a panic over something the experts where still deliberating about how serious it was going to be... No problem there..
There are always multiple conflicting interests to take into account when making such decisions. Was it worth the disruption to the economy? To the flow of people, goods and services? Early in this series of events much of what we knew about the virus turned out to be untrue. China and the WHO where pulling the punches, holding up data for political reasons, pr
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In short, Cuomo has blood on his hands. But he thinks he did a great job! Even writing a book about it.
Just like Julius Caesar!
Let's hope that morality and law has changed since those days...
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Now, I'm not saying NY didn't have a lot of deaths, clearly they did. They got hit first, and it was probably spreading silently for a long time, and it took everyone by surprise when it happened. They are a major international hub with indoor attractions after all.
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Re: Trump (Score:2)
Actually NY did number shifting. Total dead? Accurate. Nursing home deaths? Under reported. How? Oh they dont live in a nursing home anymore, they moved to a hospital. Thats where they died.
Flordia (Score:2)
Meanwhile in Florida 9000 children have tested positive in a two week span https://thehill.com/homenews/s... [thehill.com]
Re: Florida (FTFY) (Score:2)
Testing positive and succumbing to the illness are not the same thing. I am more concerned with severe reactions, hospitalizations, and deaths than positive tests. If those 9000 kids stay at home, and their parents pull through with a mild response, thats more than 9000 new steps toward herd immunity. Just have them stay home, and mask up when they can.
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Long term effects are no joke. https://www.mayoclinic.org/dis... [mayoclinic.org]
Herd immunity is also a fallacy. Estimates are 60-70% of the population needs to recover from the virus for that https://www.mdanderson.org/can... [mdanderson.org]
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not recover, vaccinations also create herd immunity. as long as asymptomatic people stay quarantined and mask up, their getting infected is actually a good thing. We just dont want them to spread it to people who will not be asymptomatic. If we had a way of knowing who would be completely asymptomatic, we could literally schedule infections in order We still don't even know, for certain, what the viral load needs to be in order to spread it. Its possible that asymptomatic people might be a much lower risk o
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Same. It's not about catching COVID-19, it's about keeping those at risk of severe reaction from catching COVID-19, the 0.5% of the population. We should be looking for ways to help support those 5 out of 1000 people, many of which appear to be at least 70 years old.
This, by the way, is much more doable than trying to support 10% who are currently unemployed. That's a 100 vs. 5 difference. If we shutdown the economy again, unemployment rates are sure to rise back to 15% like they were in April. That goe
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I don't think we actually CAN go into another full lockdown. Too many financial people have said a second lockdown would actually have a greater impact than the first because there is no net capitol to even absorb some of it. The CDC is still screwing over the cruise industry, treating them vastly different than airlines. Taking 300 people and shoving them in an aluminum tube only 100ft long for a 4hr flight is, IMO, substantially more risky, than being on a cruise ship, especially if everyone gets tested p
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The amount of deaths in Florida doubled in the past four weeks, so there is that.
what in the fuck are you talking about? (Score:3, Informative)
That's fucking insane. Literally, insane. Pandemics do not stop at state lines. This was never a state problem, and it wasn't handled that way in any other country. This is a national problem, and Trump simply made up the story about it being states problems because he didn't want to and didn't know how to handle it.
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You're the one that is fucking insane. The governors didn't "demand" control. They had it all along. We have a republic. . . 50 independent states working together. That is the way it has been for over 200yrs, and it didn't get changed because of a pandemic.
As proof of my contention, reference the uproar when the President indicated that he was going to open the entire country. The clear and proper response was loud and clear. "You don't have the authority to do that!!" He didn't have the authority t
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That's how it works in Canada. Healthcare is clearly a Provincial matter according to the Constitution, so you have lots of variety in how the Provinces (and Territories) responded, including some who unconstitutionally closed their borders, which is why Nunavut has had only one case last I heard and the Atlantic Provinces did so well. Helps to only have limited access for that.
The Federal government did do a lot of support, closing the borders, though way to slow along with enforcing the Quarantine Act, so
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That's a lot of partisan ranting without any data. I get it, you don't like Republicans and orange man bad. Now, where's the data? Science should be above partisan politics. In my state of Minnesota 74% of deaths came from Minnesota. This is directly attributable to the governors policy of putting covid positive patients in nursing homes. Here is a source for data for Minnesota.
https://www.health.state.mn.us... [state.mn.us]
I already provided data for New York and New Jersey as well as Texas and Florida via the Dept of J
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In my state of Minnesota 74% of deaths came from Minnesota.
If your state is killing 74% of its own people, first of all I'm glad you survived. Second of all, I have no idea what you're saying.
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How did the blue states fix it but the red states can't?
A forest needs time to grow back, before it can burn down a second time.
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Here in Minnesota we have had one of the highest, and at times the highest rate of nursing home deaths in the country. We have even had higher rates at a proportional level than New York.
https://www.health.state.mn.us... [state.mn.us]
https://www.startribune.com/mi... [startribune.com]
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You do realize half the deaths come from nursing homes in Texas and Florida also.
If you adjusted for these needless deaths you would see that the United States was actually doing quite well.
Only the Trumpiest of Trumpsters would consider America doing quite well... Even in your fantasy scenario of completely ignoring 1/2 the dead. America would still be about top 20 worst deaths per capita.
Texas is HUGE, both in size and population, so comparing raw numbers is pointless.
IF you look at death RATES, Texas is 1/4th that of New York. Part of that difference is the average age of those dying. In NY a lot of older folks got sick and died (per capita), where in Texas, we are not generally clearing out Nursing homes by shipping COVID patients to them and our average age COVID patient is younger.
I can tell you that here in Texas we are being VERY careful with our Nursing homes. I know a number of
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I don't think you've looked at numbers for 4 or 5 months. Your information is old.
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well, they would have to constitute federal offenses. Regardless, don't expect the alleged president's lapdog at Justice to investigate anything that will reflect badly on dear leader. The alleged president corrupts absolutely everything he touches.
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Can we please start prosecuting Trump now for all the COVID-19 deaths he caused? I don't think we have to wait until he gets kicked out of office to start this.
Of course we have to wait. Since appointing Barr, Trump has owned the DoJ [theintercept.com]. Any investigation undertaken now will exonerate Trump as a matter of course.
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Countries that responded to COVID at the federal level and followed the guidelines by the scientists have COVID beat and economies are rebounding. Putting peoples health first is the smart move. S. Korea and New Zealand are just two examples.
Here, the response was placed at the state level - when COVID is a NATIONAL problem. The science was ignored. And the rush to open things up to protect profits and Wall Street has the paradoxical effect of hurting our ecnomy even more.
Trump is c
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Exactly what is the charge? "Something something people died" isn't a chargeable crime.
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Criminal negligence causing death is a crime here. Whether it is an appropriate charge, I have no idea.
Re:Trump (Score:4, Insightful)
Can we please start prosecuting Trump now for all the COVID-19 deaths he caused? I don't think we have to wait until he gets kicked out of office to start this.
Huh? Maybe you should impeach, it worked out soooo well last time (sarc off).
What - exactly - do you believe was knowingly done wrong here? Please be specific. Also, anybody saying that they could/would have done better on this, needs to document that they where advocating for their current position concurrently with the action you are claiming was wrong.
It's easy to *say* you could have done better, it's harder to prove. It's easy to critique after the fact, to play Monday morning quarterback with the benefit of hindsight, but it's a lot harder to call the shots in the midst of the game. Talk is cheap, prove your contention.
I think a lot of your attitude is ginned up partisan mud slinging. Yea, mistakes where made, but you are a whole new level of stupid if you think "the other guy' is an idiot who cannot do anything right, or that somehow having a "D" after your name would insulate you from making mistakes of your own. Don't believe me? Read these and note the dates: https://thehill.com/homenews/c... [thehill.com] https://www.cerescourier.com/o... [cerescourier.com]
Joe wouldn't have done better here... But he sure wants to claim, after the fact, he would have done better. It's a lie. What we needed was MORE restrictions on travel, but not knowing the full danger at the time, the travel restrictions we did enact saved lives, purchased us time to prepare and where the right thing to do. Back in January, these actions where roundly called overreactions and unnecessary. Who was wrong back then? Both sides... But who was more wrong?
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> Can we please start prosecuting Trump now for all the COVID-19 deaths he caused?
There's already a number of other cases in front of this one, so get in line:
- Trump is accused of starting black slavery in the 1400's
- Trump is accused of getting the Chinese hooked on opium.
- Trump, although he didn't actually kill Jesus, his parent company owned the floral shop that created the crown of thorns.
- Trump is also responsible for genocide through the systemic racism of Neanderthals, which eventually led to t
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The guidelines can be found here: https://www.cms.gov/files/docu... [cms.gov]
Starting at the end of page 4 and continuing on to page 5 to the bold section near the top of page 5 is the relevant guideline stating that admission should not be denied.
Re:This should be a simple investigation (Score:5, Insightful)
What is wrong with those guidelines? Do you think nursing homes would normally admit individuals known to be infected with a highly virulent disease that has a high infection fatality rate among the elderly, and especially people with the kinds of underlying conditions that are more common in nursing homes?
Maybe you should quote the rest of that paragraph, which pretty strongly suggests that the guidelines expect these new admissions would be people who are not known to have COVID-19 -- there is no reason to keep people in isolation for 14 days if you already know they are infected; instead, you would want to keep them in a dedicated wing until they are no longer infectious.
People who quote those guidelines as a way to defend how New York, New Jersey, and a number of other states handled hospital crowding ... are being incredibly disingenuous.
Re: Correction (Score:2)
They had no authority to mandate anything you blithering moron. Everything they do is a suggestion.
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From what specific wording do you get the sense that the guidelines "expect that nursing homes do not turn away people with known cases"? The guidelines recommend admitting "any individuals that they would normally admit to their facility", and my argument is that they would normally not admit patients known to be infected with a pandemic disease that is particularly likely to kill nursing home residents. Even in mid-March [cebm.net] and early March [medrxiv.org], we knew that the CFR was radically higher among older patients and
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I dunno. Talk about data quality (or lack thereof) in the context of a worldwide health emergency where policy is being driven by decades-old C++ code written by amateurs sounds pretty nerdy to me.
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I dunno. Talk about data quality (or lack thereof) in the context of a worldwide health emergency where policy is being driven by decades-old C++ code written by amateurs sounds pretty nerdy to me.
Except that the quality of the code is irrelevant. The model was hopelessly wrong before a single line of code was written.
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/... [drmalcolmkendrick.org]
And the data produced by the model was "astronomically wrong", according to Dr. John Ioannidis.
https://fee.org/articles/model... [fee.org]
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Texas is already up to 420 and Florida 500. New York is increasing at < 10 deaths per day. Texas and Florida are increasing at over 100/day each. Someone else can predict when they will catch up.
Does nobody understand that the measuring stick should be death RATES and not the raw count? Texas is HUGE, both geographically and in population, it makes no sense to compare the raw number of deaths without factoring in total population...
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Your numbers are outdated.