Category Archives: Covid-19

Maine Restaurant Week runs every year from March 1-12. Last year, it was one of the last events to take place before the COVID-19 shutdown.

MAINE, USA For the last 13 years, March 1-12 has been dedicated to Maine Restaurant Week.

"It's a celebration of Maine's incredible restaurants. This year, of course, it is more pandemic focused and we are really eager to get the word out that we should all go out and support our restaurants," Gillian Britt, a co-founder of the event, said.

Restaurants were among the hardest hit during the pandemic, but many adapted to outdoor dining and curbside pickup, two things that will continue throughout Maine Restaurant Week.

"This year we have focused on adding curbside and outdoor, as well as indoor, as categories to Maine Restaurant Week," Britt said.

Britt explained that Maine Restaurant Week is often used as an opportunity for people to experience a new place and dine out with a three course meal, and for some people that was the last time they went out to eat before the pandemic began.

"I've had people tell me that the last meal they had out inside a restaurant was last year's Maine Restaurant Week," Britt said.

This year there isn't a mandate for restaurants to provide that three course meal because of the pandemic, but Britt said a lot of places are still planning to do so.

The original goal of Maine Restaurant Week was to provide a boost to restaurants during the cold winter months when sales are typically low.

"We've had restaurants who've told us that it makes this week in March feel like a week in August," Britt said.

Restaurant owners are excited to get the momentum rolling into spring.

Joseph Christopher, owner of Saltwater Grille and Three Dollar Deweys said he sees more and more customers each week and thinks people are starting to become more comfortable with going out.

"People are starting to get excited about being out so we're hoping it's a good lead up to spring," he said.

While things are different this year, she added that it's important to spread the word that these small local businesses are still here and need support.

"Even just a reminder that these restaurants are still here and need our help and maybe people buy gift cards," she said.

For a full list of restaurants participating in Maine Restaurant Week visit mainerestaurantweek.com.

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Supporting Maine Restaurant Week in the time of COVID-19 - NewsCenterMaine.com WCSH-WLBZ

Long-term care facilities have some protections when it comes to pandemic-era lawsuits, lawyers say. Many states have passed civil immunity laws that protect businesses from COVID-19-related litigation, except in cases of willful, reckless, intentional or grossly negligent misconduct.

They dont completely get rid of the opportunity for a plaintiff to sue; they just make it a lot harder, Idelevich said. Were seeing creative lawyers try to get around all of these immunity statutes that are coming out from all of the states.

There is also the possibility that plaintiffs who successfully challenge immunity in one state could create a domino effect across the country. It would create enough media buzz around it that I think youd start seeing copycat lawsuits, Idelevich said.

Defense lawyers are also claiming the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, known as the PREP Act, which offers immunity to liability for COVID-19 countermeasures, covers all COVID-19 lawsuits at long-term care facilities, but courts so far have disagreed, Stahle said. In those cases, lawsuits that were sent to federal court were remanded back to state courts.

Its all in flux, she said.

Trying to obtain immunity through the PREP Act puts cases in limbo and delays the process for getting families answers, Richardson said.

Families want to hold the nursing home accountable for what errors and mistakes theyve caused. They also want to know what happened, Richardson said.

Because long-term care facilities have been closed to visitors to prevent the spread of COVID, family members are not able see their loved ones and often arent able to intervene until things seem severe, Stahle said. In Missouri, where Stahle practices, calls to the states elder abuse hotline are down from the previous year.

Never in her career has Stahle seen so many severe lawsuits involving nursing homes than in the past year. Her firm alone is handling fatal cases unrelated to COVID-19 where a resident allegedly drowned in the bathtub, a residents wound became infested with maggots and a resident died from extreme dehydration.

We are seeing neglect like never before, Stahle said. Youre getting these severe cases all at the same time.

The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living and some of its state affiliates have advocated for reasonable, limited liability protections that defend staff and providers for their good faith efforts during this challenging time.

We understand that loved ones are grieving and looking for answers, but this is a vicious virus and an unprecedented public health crisis, AHCA/NCAL said in a prepared statement. Caregivers are doing everything they can, often with limited resources and ever-changing information. Providers or individual healthcare workers who were following government guidance should not be held responsible for their good faith efforts during this once-in-a-century pandemic.

Long term care providers are already facing a financial crisis due to COVID. Compounded with an excessive litigation environment, thousands of long-term care facilities would be forced to close their doors, in turn, displacing tens of thousands of vulnerable residents and limiting access to critical services for our nations seniors.

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Long-term care providers prepare to fend off COVID-19 lawsuits - Modern Healthcare

Since last year humanity was shaken by fear and uncertainty due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, bringing to light the fragility and vulnerability of human existence. To fight against the propagation of this virus, the human family tried to adapt itself to this unprecedented and challenging situation by observing social distancing and lockdowns, the closing of borders and the massive use of digital technology. Pope Francis has often said that the virus brought us together and only in solidarity can we get out of this pandemic.

This year, vaccines have become available, thus, bringing much hope, but also a wider gap in inequality. The rich nations of the Global North that poured money into the production of the vaccines are now waiting for a return on their investment. It is believed that the miracle of the vaccines would reignite the global machinery. This has led to a kind of focus on the North, shown in nationalism and protectionism. The Global South, where the majority of the poor live, is left out.

Pope Francis encouraged people to get vaccinated because it was one way of exercising responsibility towards others and collective well-being. He reiterated the need for vaccines for all, especially for the most vulnerable and needy in all regions on the planet. Before all others: the most vulnerable and needy! We are at a crucial moment, an opportunity to live the miracle of charity, through addressing together the present challenge.

The access to vaccines across the world has not been as equitable as it should be. It is sad to note that not all nations and those who want or need the vaccine can get it because of supply issues, while in our interconnected world, the vaccines must be made available equitably.

Since every life is inviolable, nobody must be left out. The poor, minorities, refugees, the marginalised are the most exposed to the virus. Taking care of them is a moral priority because abandoning them puts them and the global community at risk. Our collective well-being depends on how we care for the least.

As we face a global emergency, political leaders must look beyond the interests of their own nations and political groups. This pandemic is a global human security problem that threatens the whole human family. Addressing the vaccines issue from the perspective of a narrow national strategy might lead to a moral failure in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable across the globe.

The current vaccines crisis must be seen in the wider context of the global health situation. Many of the least developed nations still lack basic medical infrastructures and the means of storing the vaccines. Moreover, people in distant rural areas are not sensitised and are exposed to other infectious diseases that remain prevalent.Given this context, the international community should have a holistic, multi-stakeholder approach to avoid the danger of the pandemic getting out of hand in the Global South which may then lead to a global humanitarian crisis again.

The debt of low-income countries should be reviewed. The remission of debt could be a means for generating funds for the multi-stakeholders, Faith-Based Organisations in particular, to upgrade the medical services and facilities in these countries. The money that is meant to pay a poor countrys debt could be spent for strengthening health security.

The question of the patent on the vaccines must also be considered urgently to identify localised production in Africa, Latin America and Asia and accelerate access to the vaccines before it is too late. Involving local actors, in particular Faith-based Organisations, is important because they have the basic structures and the necessary contact with the most vulnerable people such as migrants, the internally displaced and the marginalised.

In line with the observations made by the Dicastery for promoting Integral Human development Vaccines for all: 20 points for a fair and healthier world, Caritas Internationalis urges the decisions makers and the United Nations to act on the following, namely:

Call for a Security Council meeting to address the issue of access to the vaccines as a global security problem with firm political decisions based on multilateralism.

Undertake the debt remission of the poorest countries as quickly as possible and use the funds obtained to upgrade the medical and health systems in these countries.

Promote the local production of vaccines in different technical hubs in Africa, Latin America and Asia and make them available in the next six months by addressing the issue of patent and technical collaboration with the poorer nations.

Allocate financial and technical support to the local Civil Society Organisations, and to Faith-Based Organisations in particular, to ensure the preparation of local communities awareness and capacity building to prepare them to have access to preventive care.

H.E. Luis Antonio Card. Tagle,President of Caritas Internationalis

H.E. Peter Kodwo Appiah Card. Turkson,Prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development

Aloysius John,Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis

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Urgent action for access to COVID-19 vaccines nobody should be left out - World - ReliefWeb

The good news is that Texas is finally seeing COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases trend downward after a holiday season marked by a record-breaking surge that pushed hospital systems and health care workers to their limits.

The bad news is that there are still more Texans getting sick and being hospitalized for the coronavirus than this summer, when the state was in the throes of the first wave.

And while vaccinations are reaching more people every day, health care experts warn that this doesnt mean Texas is out of the woods. They say people should remain vigilant and continue following safety guidelines like mask-wearing and social distancing, especially as new variants of the virus continue to emerge. With Super Bowl Sunday around the corner, many are concerned about super spreader events that could undo the modest progress the state has experienced in the past few weeks.

Cases peaked in mid-January at an average of more than 22,000 per day. By Thursday, the average had decreased to around 16,500 per day. COVID-19 hospitalizations have also dipped from an all-time high of more than 14,000 patients on Jan. 12 to 10,523 reported patients on Thursday.

Texas is still experiencing more than 40% more daily cases on average than it saw during the previous summer peak for confirmed cases.

The fact that things are decreasing, it doesn't mean that we [get] to relax because every time we've done that, things go back really, really bad, said Cesar Arias, a professor of infectious diseases at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Broadly, Texas health officials say the reason for the recent dip in numbers is because the state is coming off a spike related to gatherings from Thanksgiving and the December holiday season. But a combination of vaccines for health care workers and a decrease in large gatherings could also be contributing to the downward trends, said Philip Huang, director of health and human services in Dallas County.

Vaidehi Shah, Waco-McLennan Countys senior epidemiologist, added even before the pandemic began, January and February usually didnt see as much travel a trend that has helped lower positive case rates this year.

Still, more than 37,000 Texans have died, and there is still a long way back to normal, Arias said.

Comparatively, we are nowhere near to where we should be, to be able to control this pandemic, Arias said. Were getting to the peak of that exposure, and theres probably much more people that are infected than we have been able to detect. So maybe its scratching the surface.

Shah said she hopes hospitalization patterns in Waco will continue to improve at similar rates. By the beginning of January, COVID-19 patients were being treated in more than 30% of hospital beds in that region, a number that has since dropped in half.

During the pandemic, Shah said the trend has been a rise in cases, followed by a rise in hospitalizations, then a rise in deaths.

And when the numbers go down, it goes in a similar pattern, Shah said. So [our region] did start seeing a reduction in cases about two to three weeks ago Were really hopeful well see that same thing with fatality numbers as well.

Medical professionals are also worried by the new COVID-19 mutations that have emerged in Texas and across the country over the past few months. The variants have the potential to be more contagious and could lead to another increase in case rates and hospitalizations down the line.

But Arias said hes hopeful proliferation of the COVID-19 vaccines will help mitigate that spread. While the vaccine may be effective on new mutations as well, Arias said there are still factors that prevent vulnerable populations, like people of color, from receiving a dose in the first place.

I dont think we still have a very good plan to cover those at the moment, Arias said. Those are most likely where these situations are going to emerge in terms of the system viruses or mutated viruses that transmit better. So aggressive vaccination is really the only way out.

Stephen Love, president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, said hes worried about Super Bowl parties as another source of spread. Love said while people are often vigilant in settings like grocery stores, that level of caution tends to diminish at small gatherings.

They get lax when they get home, Love said. I think a lot of the spread weve seen, especially during the holidays,and right after the holidays, didnt occur out in public it occurred in the home.

Mandi Cai contributed to this report.

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Texas COVID-19 cases trend down from record highs, still higher than summer - The Texas Tribune

Faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences will present a webinar for the Meredith community about vaccine science and COVID-19.

Presenters will be Assistant Professor Carolina Perez-Heydrich, Professor Jason Andrus, and Professor Karthik Aghoram. They will explain the role of vaccines in combating COVID-19, immune responses against coronaviruses, and the development of mRNA vaccines. The presenterswill also discuss the benefits and risks associated with vaccination.

The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Kelsieanne Schmidt, 21, a public health and biology major. Meredith Director of Student Health Services Mary Johnson and Director of Human Resources Pam Galloway will also participate in the panel discussion along with Perez-Heydrich, Andrus, and Aghoram.

There will be two opportunities to participate in the COVID-19 Vaccines: Get the Facts webinar.

Covid-19 Vaccines: Get the Facts Session 1Tuesday, February 16 at 5:30 p.m.Register in advance for this webinar

Covid-19 Vaccines: Get the Facts Session 2Friday, February 19 at 10 a.m.Register in advance for this webinar

COVID-19 Vaccines: Get the Facts is open to Meredith students, faculty/staff, and alumnae.

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Meredith Webinar to Share Facts about the COVID-19 Vaccine - Meredith College News

Feb. 5, 2021 -- The Biden administration is pushing to make quick at-home tests for COVID-19 available to more Americans.

In a media call on Friday, Andy Slavitt, the White House senior adviser for the pandemic response, told reporters that the administration was working with six companies under the auspices of the Defense Production Actto surge manufacturing of at-home test kits with the goal of, by summer, having millions of Americans being able to access at-home tests.

So far, the plan is short on details. He didnt name the companies or the tests but said more announcements would be coming shortly.

At-home tests are one of the key steps to getting back to normal life, Slavitt said.

While the U.S. waits for vaccines to quench the pandemic, experts believe an important way to control the virus and fully reopen the economy could be to use quick, cheap paper strip tests to find people who could spread COVID-19.

The tests use saliva or a swab from inside the nose, mixed into a bit of solution. Users drop the solution onto a paper strip, much the way home pregnancy tests work.

The tests use proteins embedded in the paper to recognize and grab onto key pieces of the virus. When the virus is found, another indicator -- like a line or a plus sign -- changes color to show the result.

Because the tests latch on to a part of the coronavirus that is not mutating, they should still work well to detect even the new variant forms of the virus.

Regulators have been wary of approving them because they have a higher rate of false negatives, compared to gold-standard PCR tests, which are run in a lab.

Instead, the results are most accurate when a person has a lot of virus circulating in their body, typically a day or two before they start showing symptoms to a few days after getting sick.

While that may make them less reliable for diagnosing a COVID-19 infection in someone who has been sick or carrying the virus for a while, testing experts say that makes them great to use as screening tools -- a way to catch people who are contagious and isolate them before they can spread the virus.

Michael Mina, PhD, an assistant professor at Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an expert in diagnostic testing, has been a vocal proponent of rapid tests to control the spread of the virus. He said he has taken no funding from any testing companies, though he has been talking to many of them about their technologies.

This test is as powerful as it is because it will find you when youre positive. It wont tell you that you were positive 2 weeks ago, like PCR will tell you that you were positive 2 weeks ago, he said, And it will give it to you in a time when it is actionable, in 15 minutes.

Mina says if the tests are cheap enough, people could test themselves before they go to work, two to three times a week, for example, to know when they need to stay home so they dont run the risk of infecting their co-workers. The tests could be used at the entrances of sports arenas, concerts, and airports to help catch people who are contagious and may not know it because they arent showing any symptoms.

He said the strategy many people are trying to use now -- testing themselves a few days before they travel or visit family -- is useless, and I can't say it enough. That is a pointless waste of money, he said in a call with reporters on Friday.

The best thing you can possibly do is test yourself the moment right before youre walking into whatever it is, whether it's work or school or an event or the grocery store, whatever it might be, he said.

The success of a plan like this depends on having many rapid tests and making them cheap enough so people can use them regularly.

Slavitt said the U.S. was on its way to that goal.

In addition to the tests announced on Friday, Slavitt said the U.S. would be working with an Australian company called Ellume to get 8.5 million of their tests to Americans by the end of the year. That test uses a device that connects to a smartphone app to give people test results in about 15 minutes. It can also connect to public health reporting systems to help health authorities track positive cases.

Mina said he doesnt think the Ellume test can be an effective screening tool. For one thing, its price may put it out of reach for regular use. When it was authorized in December, the company said the kit to do the test would cost about $30, which is too expensive for people and businesses to use frequently. Mina said the quantity ordered by the U.S. would only amount to about 3,000 tests a day, not nearly the millions of daily tests the U.S. would need to be using for a while to control the spread of the virus.

Thats nothing, he said. We have wasted money on it.

So far, the FDA has declined to approve other rapid, fully over-the-counter tests for home use, saying their results so far have not been accurate enough to meet the agencys standards for diagnostic tests. Two other tests that deliver results at homehave been approved but they require a prescription.One is being made by a company called Lucira and costs$50. The other is the $25 BinaxNow test, which is made by Abbott.

Mina says that if the rules were more flexible, the FDA could approve several new tests and get them to Americans very quickly.

I don't think that waiting until the summer is good, he said in a call with reporters on Friday. I am encouraged that the administration is making multiple steps right now to try to signal that they are going to be pushing for speedier access to testing, but I think that we have these tests in front of us this moment. We just need to listen to the science a bit more.

WebMD Health News

Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser for the pandemic response, Washington, DC.

Michael Mina, PhD, assistant professor, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA.

White House COVID Response Team Press briefing, Feb. 5, 2021.

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Article: Government Seeking More Rapid COVID-19 Tests - WebMD

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of February 5, 2021, there have been 1,970,429 total confirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 123,641 total cases and 2,100 total deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of a 60-year old male from Mason County, an 83-year old male from Wood County, a 77-year old male from Raleigh County, a 71-year old female from Ohio County, a 92-year old female from Harrison County, a 24-year old male from Berkeley County, a 49-year old male from Ohio County, a 59-year old female from Harrison County, a 72-year old male from Cabell County, an 89-year old male from Berkeley County, a 94-year old female from Hancock County, a 71-year old female from Ritchie County, a 73-year old male from Hardy County, an 88-year old female from Mercer County, a 66-year old male from Mason County, a 79-year old male from Raleigh County, a 79-year old female from Mingo County, an 86-year old female from Putnam County, an 86-year old female from Putnam County, and a 71-year old female from Grant County.

As this pandemic continues, it doesnt get any easier to report the deaths of our residents, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. Our sincere condolences are extended to these families.

CASES PER COUNTY: Barbour (1,138), Berkeley (9,127), Boone (1,473), Braxton (752), Brooke (1,932), Cabell (7,256), Calhoun (215), Clay (360), Doddridge (421), Fayette (2,468), Gilmer (658), Grant (1,010), Greenbrier (2,301), Hampshire (1,421), Hancock (2,521), Hardy (1,234), Harrison (4,570), Jackson (1,591), Jefferson (3,394), Kanawha (11,311), Lewis (894), Lincoln (1,147), Logan (2,514), Marion (3,455), Marshall (2,874), Mason (1,700), McDowell (1,285), Mercer (3,977), Mineral (2,521), Mingo (1,976), Monongalia (7,262), Monroe (899), Morgan (881), Nicholas (1,080), Ohio (3,438), Pendleton (595), Pleasants (777), Pocahontas (564), Preston (2,452), Putnam (3,925), Raleigh (4,283), Randolph (2,252), Ritchie (573), Roane (472), Summers (681), Taylor (1,036), Tucker (475), Tyler (585), Upshur (1,551), Wayne (2,447), Webster (271), Wetzel (1,023), Wirt (331), Wood (6,643), Wyoming (1,649).

Delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from the local health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the local health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain county may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual in question may have crossed the state border to be tested.

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COVID-19 Daily Update 2-5-2021 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Abstract

As the United States prepares for a COVID-19 recovery, policymakers need to understand why some cities and communities were more vulnerable to the pandemics economic consequences than others. In this paper, we consider the association between a citys core industry, its economic susceptibility to the pandemic, and the recessions racially disparate impact across six select metropolitan areas. We find that areas with economies that rely on the movement of peoplelike Las Vegas with tourismfaced substantially higher unemployment at the end of 2020 than cities with core industries based on the movement of information. Further, we find the hardest-hit areas have larger Hispanic or Latino communities, reflecting the demographic composition of workers in heavily impacted industries and susceptible areas. We conclude by recommending targeted federal policy to address the regions and communities most impacted by the COVID-19 recession.

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More so than any prior economic downturn, the COVID-19 recession has crushed certain industriesthose that depend on the movement of peoplewhile leaving others relatively unscathedthose that depend on the movement of information. City economies are concentrated in different industries: Las Vegas and Orlando in travel and tourism, Seattle and San Francisco in technology, and Washington D.C. in government. Thus, the COVID-19 recessions economic geography is uniquely impacted by the pandemics effect on a citys primary industry. Overlaying geography with race reveals another under-appreciated impact of this recession: an increase in the economic hardship faced by Hispanic or Latino communities.

This piece explores the economic implications of the COVID-19 recession using select metropolitan areas (often referred to by the name of the metros primary city), identifying problems and offering policy responses. We examine six metropolitan areas: three with heavy concentration in industries negatively impacted by COVID-19 (Las Vegas, Orlando, and Reno) and three with economies heavily concentrated in industries less negatively, or even positively, impacted by COVID-19 (Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.). We find that the cities with industries more acutely impacted have a higher concentration of Hispanic or Latino residents.

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Cities and metropolitan areas often specialize in select industries, creating agglomeration economies. Put simply, there is an economic benefit when firms producing similar goods are located near each other. For example, the auto industry is headquartered in Detroit, finance in New York, entertainment in Los Angeles, information technology in Seattle, and so on. The performance of core industries spills over to supporting industries and affects the entire regional economy; restaurants and retail stores do better when the core industry is booming and struggle when it is not. In this section, we discuss the primary industries in each metropolitan area of interest prior to COVID-19.

Before COVID-19, Orlando had the largest tourism industry in the nation, producing $26 billion per year, while Las Vegas came in second at over $19 billion.1 However, Las Vegas total GDP is smaller than Orlandos, so the impact of tourism is relatively largerhospitality and leisure employed more than a quarter of Las Vegas workers in 2019.2 There are a larger share of leisure and hospitality workers in Las Vegas than government workers D.C. Orlando and Reno have similarly high employment concentrations in hospitality and leisure, although production as a portion of their economy is sizably smaller than in Las Vegas. Figure 2 shows that roughly one in five workers in Orlando (21%) worked directly in hospitality and leisure in 2019, as did 16% (roughly one in seven) of Renos workforce.3 In these cities, many secondary industrieslike the professional or business sectorare driven by their primary economic engines.

Seattle and San Francisco, on the other hand, specialize in technology, an industry that may have benefitted from COVID-19. Seattle is the well-known birthplace of Microsoft and the home of Amazon. San Francisco is the modern-day home of enormous tech conglomerates like Salesforce and Adobe and features major corporate offices for many of the Silicon Valley giants located nearby. Anchor industries employ different types of workers; employment in Seattle and San Francisco are both over two times (2.36 and 2.14 respectively) more concentrated in their largest occupational group, computer and mathematical occupations, than the national average.4 Orlando, by contrast, has slightly less than the national rate of employment in computer and mathematical occupations, while that figure plummets in Las Vegas (50%) and Reno (54%).5Put another way, San Francisco and Seattle have more than four times as many employees in computers and math than Las Vegas and Reno, proportionate to the total number of workers in each metro.

Moving beyond the technology versus tourism binary, we add the nations capital and government hotspot, Washington, D.C., where one in five workers are employed directly by the government. The corresponding army of lawyers is a good indicator of how the primary industry of a city drives secondary workforces; D.C. has almost three times (2.76) as many legal service workers per capita as the national average. With governing also comes a demand for research (military and civilian) and, as a result, D.C. has an even greater share of employees in computer and mathematics than Seattle or San Francisco (2.46 times the national average), approaching five times as many as Las Vegas and Reno, as a proportion of each metros workers.6

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COVID-19, which devastated some industries like leisure and hospitality, barely impacted others. Table 1 shows the change in the unemployment rate among our comparison metros; Las Vegas unemployment increased by nearly eight percentage points from November 2019 to November 2020almost five percentage points more than the nation as a whole. Las Vegas and Orlando are among the metros with the current highest unemployment rates in the country; Las Vegas had the fourth highest unemployment rate of all metropolitan areas, over five points higher than the national rate in November 2020.7 Las Vegas and Orlando also had among the top 10% highest employment declines of all metro areas from November 2019 to November 2020 (the most recent data available at the metro level).8 Meanwhile, the technology- and government-based metros tend to have lower unemployment than the national average, even if they started with rates similar to (or even slightly higher than) Orlando.

In this section, we examine the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the leisure and hospitality sector (the hardest-hit industry and core sector of Las Vegas, Reno, and Orlando), the pandemics effect on COVID-19-resilient industries (like technology in Seattle and San Francisco or government in Washington, D.C.), and discuss economic outcomes for the Hispanic or Latino population in each city.

Cities with core industries that have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 recession have broader spillover effects (e.g., an unemployed casino worker in Las Vegas is less likely to buy new clothes). In the aggregate, the devastation of a core industry can mean the decline of others nearby, like with manufacturing in the Rust Belt in the second half of the twentieth century. As a result, metropolitan areas concentrated in hard-hit industries are likely to see negative ripple effects throughout their economy (lower tax revenue, less spending, etc.). As we will explore, the metropolitan areas concentrated in industries susceptible to COVID-19 tend to have larger Hispanic or Latino populations as well. Thus, the pandemics economic geography magnifies existing disparities, exacerbating the racial wealth gap for Hispanic or Latino families. This is particularly concerning given that the federal governments initial COVID-19 relief policies failed to appreciate the economic and geographic realities of this recession and were implemented in a way that reduced benefits for many Hispanic or Latino families.9

Ten months since the initial wave of closures due to COVID-19, leisure and hospitality workers continue to face the highest unemployment rate amidst the pandemic; over 16% of the sectors labor force is unemployed.10 While every metropolitan area has hotels, only a few stake their economies on them. Being a destination city for travel includes the economic benefit of both personal tourism and corporate conferences; COVID-19 devastated both as people stopped travelling altogether. The $100 billion a year U.S. conference industry, which fills hotels during the week for conferences in cities that become hotspots for vacationers on the weekends, is at a near standstill.11 In November 2019, 88% of Las Vegass hotel or motel rooms were occupied; in November 2020, that figure was just 47%.12 Similarly, 59% fewer passengers passed through Las Vegas McCarran International Airport in November 2020 than a year earlier, and 52% fewer tourists visited the city. Orlando is suffering a similar fate; 44% fewer flights were serviced at Orlandos airport in October 2020 compared to a year before.13

To demonstrate the broader impact COVID-19 is having on economies like Las Vegas or Orlandos, we compare a metro areas employment concentration in hospitality and leisure before the pandemic with its change in unemployment. Figure 3 shows the portion of nonfarm workers employed by the leisure and hospitality sector in a metro area in 2019, the change in the total unemployment rate (percentage points) from November 2019 to November 2020, and the proportion of the metro area that is Hispanic or Latino for areas with data for each metric.14

We see the spillover effect in force; cities that depend on hospitality and leisure also had higher overall unemployment, suggesting that the performance of the core industry impacted the performance of a metro areas overall economy. Las Vegas, for example, has the second highest concentration of jobs in hospitality and faced the second largest increase in unemployment (behind Atlantic City). Orlando also stands out with a particularly large hospitality workforce and substantial increase in overall unemployment; both rank among the top 50 metros in November 2020 unemployment. Seattle and Washington D.C., by contrast, are below average in both concentration in hospitality and leisure and change in unemployment, demonstrating again how COVID-19-resilient industry concentrations have helped temper overall job loss.

Figure 3 also overlays the size of a metros Hispanic or Latino population: the bigger the circle, the larger the Hispanic or Latino share of the metros population. Tourism-dependent cities like Las Vegas and Orlando also tend to have larger Hispanic or Latino populations, while cities with below-average changes in unemployment like Seattle and Washington D.C. tend to have smaller Hispanic or Latino populations.

The decline in travel and hospitality employment was similar across the cities we analyze. The leisure and hospitality industry in Las Vegas suffered a 21.4 percentage point decline in employment since November 2019, but the leisure and hospitality industry in Orlando, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle all declined by 30 percent or more.15 Reno is the only city in our sample that faced a smaller unemployment decline in the sector (16%) than Las Vegas (21%).16 In other words, there was nothing unique about working in the hospitality industry in Las Vegas, Orlando, or Reno as compared to Seattle, San Francisco, or Washington, D.C. except the portion of employment in the sector. If anything, employment held up better in cities core industries. However, the employment effects in non-core industries seemed to have been compounded or mitigated by core industry performance. Over a quarter of Las Vegas workers are in the hard-hit leisure and hospitality industry, and the metros information, financial activities, and professional business service industries also fared the worst of our comparison metros. Unsurprisingly, Las Vegas overall unemployment is also the highest among this group. By contrast, almost a quarter of Washington, D.C.s employment is in government, a sector that performed better in November 2020 in the metro than in 2019; D.C. also faced the second smallest increase in unemployment among our comparison metropolitan areas.

While COVID-19 wreaked havoc on industries that depend on in-person contact, distancing restrictions caused a sharp increase in the usage of technology for remote work and business transactions. Businesses of all types invested more in technology, with one survey by McKinsey finding that, about the impact of the crisis on a range of measures, [executives] say that funding for digital initiatives has increased more than anything elsemore than increases in costs, the number of people in technology roles, and the number of customers.17 That survey also found a sharp increase in the share of North American consumers who interact digitally, rising by over 58% as a result of the crisis.

Relative to other industries, information technology and government have done well. Between February and April 2020, sales for non-store retailers (i.e., online shopping) increased by 15%Amazon added 400,000 jobs this year, nearly doubling its workforce in response to the pandemic.18 While these jobs are spread throughout the nation, Amazons corporate headquarter(s) will likely see disproportionate economic gain from the companys growth. Facebook also announced plans to hire 10,000 additional workers in April 2020.19 Meanwhile, the 12-month change in information and government industry unemployment is less than half that of leisure and hospitality.20

As Table 2 indicates, job losses in information and technology were generally in-line with or slightly below total job loss rates for technology hub cities like Seattle and San Francisco, as well as for D.C., Orlando, and Reno. Interestingly, only in Las Vegas and D.C. were the proportion of job losses greater in information than overall job losses. This could be the result of classification, where information industry jobs that are part of hospitality and leisure or government are classified differently, although one might expect similar impacts in Orlando and Reno.

Acceleration of long-run trends towards increased technology use benefits technology firms and, consequently, the communities where technology firms are located. When Amazon and Facebook grow in both employment and value (see Amazon, Facebook stock prices), wealth is disproportionately created in their headquarter cities. As the growth of the auto industry powered Detroits rise in the 20th century, growth in technology is powering Seattle and San Franciscos rise in the 21st century. COVID-19, while a net loser for all of society, is a relative winner for technology firms and correspondingly, on a relative basis, for their main cities.

Likewise, COVID-19 has put the federal government to the test and Washington responded with money and new jobs. The federal government grew by over 50,000 jobs from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020 and the D.C. metros government employment grew by over two percent, one of the few positive figures in Table 2.21 The old Washington adage that the most secure job is a federal government job held and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, secure employment is incredibly valuable. One caveat to our analysis is that while federal government hiring has remained strong, state and local government has not. State and local governments across the country lost over 1.1 million jobs during over the same period, more than offsetting the federal employment boost.22Thus, state capitals may not be experiencing similar government booms to Washington D.C.

Perhaps over the long run, structural changes allowing for increased remote work started by the response to COVID-19 will weaken the link between cities and their major industry. If so, this will likely be stronger in the IT sector, where a greater share of remote work is possible than in service sectors such as hospitality, leisure, and gaming. Put simply, the amenities that Las Vegas and Orlando offer cannot be as easily substituted by people sitting behind a computer a thousand miles away as may be the case for technology or government jobs.

Hispanic or Latino workers are particularly negatively impacted by the COVID-19 recession, as has been found in prior studies. In December 2020, the Hispanic or Latino unemployment rate was 9.3%, over three points higher than the white unemployment rate.23When COVID-19 initially struck, the Hispanic or Latino unemployment rate skyrocketed, surpassing the Black unemployment rate. By the end of 2020, the gap between Hispanic or Latino and white workers was still larger than when COVID-19 unemployment first struck around March.

Our metro-level analysis confirms the race gap in unemployment; metropolitan areas with above-average unemployment at the end of 2020 are 31% Hispanic or Latino, compared to 10.9% Hispanic or Latino in metro areas with below-average unemployment. Thus, the geographic spillovers in industry performance likely drive the increase in the racial disparity between the Hispanic or Latino and white unemployment rates.

Compounding the geographic effects are industrial concentration differences between racial or ethnic groups. Prior to COVID-19, nearly a quarter of the hospitality sectors labor force was Hispanic or Latino. COVID-19 has decimated tourism, driving the hospitality and leisure industry to the highest unemployment rate among major industries.24 Figure 5 shows select industries change in employment from November 2019 to November 2020 and the portion of Hispanic or Latino workers in each industry in 2019.

With unemployment also comes a number of other issues; employees often receive health benefits from their employer and losing a job may mean losing affordable health care. These impacts compound existing racial inequity in health care access as the Hispanic or Latino population is also disproportionately likely to contract COVID-19. Las Vegas coronavirus rates per 1,000 residents are much higher among Hispanic or Latino people than white people. This helps explain why data through mid-January 2021 indicate that one out of twelve Hispanic or Latino Las Vegans have had COVID-19, while only one in twenty white residents have.25 On an age-adjusted basis, death rates for Hispanic residents in Nevada are nearly three times as great as that of white residents.26

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Federal aid has so far been suboptimal in allocating economic assistance to those who need it the most. Over half of coronavirus aid went directly to businesses, many of which were not compelled to keep their employees or prove that they were negatively impacted by the pandemic.27 By contrast, only about a fifth went directly to workers and families, and the aid that did was not always well-targeted. For example, initial direct payments (stimulus checks) excluded children if they had one parent who was an undocumented immigrant.28Direct stimulus payments were also administered slowly, with millions of American families waiting months to receive their funds.

For the purpose of this analysis, the most well-targeted program was supplemental unemployment insurance. By tracking unemployment and incorporating a broader definition of unemployed workers, enhanced unemployment benefits should have flown disproportionately to those in more impacted industries such as leisure and hospitality. As a result, enhanced benefits did more to support the economies of Las Vegas and Orlando than their relative impact in San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Likewise, we would expect Hispanic or Latino workers to make up a disproportionate number of claims given that they faced disproportionately high unemployment. Herein lies one serious potential problem. Many states continue to struggle with significant difficulty in administering the new unemployment insurance aid.

Multiple factors are at play, including specific states difficulty modernizing their systems to accommodate the new federal rules and the sudden spike in demand. Florida, for example, had an archaic system that made it difficult for newly eligible workers to qualify.29 Nevadas difficulty in expanding eligibility and processing record levels of unemployment claims were also well-documented, leading to a class-action lawsuit against the states employment department.30 Delays in processing claims and providing payments are particularly harmful for people with little savings and difficulty accessing short-term credit at a reasonable cost, burdens that apply disproportionately to Hispanic or Latino Nevadans. This could be one reason why enhanced unemployment insurance benefits were not equitably taken up by those who need it; about the same proportion of workers who filed for unemployment benefits are Hispanic or Latino as are in the workforce, even though Hispanic or Latino workers were disproportionately unemployed (see Figure 4).31

The heralded Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offered affected businesses and workers forgivable loans (in effect grants), saved many fewer jobs than the lofty anticipated 30 million; in the first two months of the program, researchers estimate that only 2.3 million jobs were saved, at a price of $286,000 each.32 The PPP grants that were distributed seemed mismatched with the unemployment rate in those sectors. According to a Washington Post analysis, 32% of jobs lost were in the lodging, restaurants, and bar industry (a core component of hospitality and leisure), but the industry only received 8% of PPP grants. Similarly, the arts, entertainment & recreation industry had a job loss rate three times higher than the portion of PPP grants it received. Correspondingly, finance and insurance companies that relatively prospered throughout the pandemic received over $8 billion in PPP funds. Put another way, finance and insurance received over $350,000 in PPP funding per job lost from February to April as compared to about $8,000 in arts, entertainment, and recreation, and $7,800 in accommodation and food services.33

Much of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act money allocated directly to state and local governments was allocated by population, despite the demonstrated disparate geographic and economic effects of COVID-19.35Allocating by population rather than economic impact results in too little money going to states and local government suffering larger economic consequences. Because the economic geography of COVID-19 fell disproportionately Hispanic or Latino workers, this error will have consequences for racial equity; funding misallocation exacerbates existing racial income and wealth gaps.

Even if all unemployment benefits, PPP loans, and other COVID-19 aid were distributed in the most equitable way possible, people of colorespecially Hispanic or Latino workersare more likely to be unemployed in general and because of COVID-19, more likely to live in the key metro areas disproportionately hit by the recession, and are more likely to contract COVID-19. The impacts of the recession will also not disappear in the years to come. Hispanic or Latino workers who lost their job over the course of the pandemic may not be able to find work for months or years after the final COVID-19 aid has been distributed. There will also be a long lag in tourisms recovery. Even if most Americans who want to be have been vaccinated, international tourism and close contact among people may take months or years to recover. Stimulus spending and temporary aid are a great starting point, but policymakers should pay attention to the industries and people who will face an uphill battle in the foreseeable future.

For government aid to maximize its assistance to vulnerable Americans, increased attention to actual need is necessary. Specific improvements include:

Full PDF version of this report available here.

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See original here:

Explaining the economic impact of COVID-19: Core industries and the Hispanic workforce - Brookings Institution

MADISON (WKOW) -- One year ago, Wisconsin's first coronavirus case was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The patient was treated at UW Hospital in Madison.

Dr. Louis Scrattish was on duty in the emergency department that day.

He told WISN-TV about his concern for the patient, the other 30 patients in the ER and the medical team.

"I remember that the charge nurse had gone up to me and said that they had a patient that had just checked in whom had just traveled from China ---- and was coming in with symptoms consistent with possible COVID," Dr. Scrattish said. "There was a lot we did not know about the coronavirus at that time, and how sick it could make people. So I think there certainly was some fear there."

The patient came in days before the case of COVID-19 was confirmed. It took some time to get the test results back because the test had to go all the way to the CDC in Atlanta.

Originally posted here:

UW Health doctor reflects on treating first Wisconsin COVID-19 patient - WKOW

A 10-year-old Latino boy from East County who died on Jan. 23 is now the regions youngest COVID-19-related death, according to San Diego Countys latest coronavirus tracking report released Friday.

It was a day for grim records. In addition to the youngest, a 106-year-old man, also from East County, became the oldest local COVID-related death among the 2,777 announced to date.

Previously, the youngest to suffer such stark consequences after novel coronavirus infection was a 19-year-old man who died on Jan. 3. The previous-oldest COVID-19 casualty was a 104-year-old woman from the north central part of the county who died on Jan. 1, according to county records.

Both the oldest and youngest were said to have had other health problems present in addition to testing positive for the virus. Thirty-seven of the 39 deaths announced in Fridays report had other health problems present.

It was not immediately clear why it took nearly two weeks for the 10-year-old boys death to be reported to the public. Generally, the county health department has said in the past, reporting delays can be caused by the time it takes to process death certificates or to a lag in a hospital reporting the loss to public health.

As is always the case, the county released no information on the specific circumstances including what other illnesses were involved in the losses. Such details are not connected to individual deaths for fear that doing so may make it easier to identify those who have died.

Generally, death has been very uncommon among those who are younger than age 18. According to provisional death counts listed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 67 children age five through 14 have died after a confirmed coronavirus infection among more that 421,000 COVID-related deaths nationwide. That figure is known to be incomplete given the sometimes weeks-long reporting delays.

While the community continues to record the deaths of those hospitalized during the patient surge in December and January, the local pandemic continues to run far below previous daily new case totals that topped 4,000 several times after the holidays.

Fridays report, though, showed a slight uptick. After two days under 1,000, the daily case total was 1,453 Thursday following Wednesdays tally of 1,598.

Total COVID-related hospitalizations continued to fall, reaching 1,183 with 353 in intensive care beds.

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Ten-year-old boy is San Diego's first pediatric COVID-19 death - The San Diego Union-Tribune