WHAT ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS?
News about the coronavirus seems to be getting more serious every day. Older folks, especially older persons with chronic illnesses, are at particular risk.  The aging network has to respond quickly and effectively based upon the best available science and public health protocols.  I will do my best to provide pertinent general information, related to the virus. As usual,  the articles selected will have an advocacy focus.  There is a vast and confusing array of information about the virus, be wary.


"From complacency to emergency: How Trump changed course on coronavirus-Over the course of a week, as leaders across the nation raced ahead of a conflicted president, Trump swung from resistance to capitulation — transforming his tone and executing extreme measures to combat a widening crisis," By Gabby Orr and Nancy Cook, March 14, 2020
What an awful lack of leadership. 
“I don’t take responsibility at all because we were given a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time,” Trump told reporters, complaining that his predecessor “didn’t do testing” during the 2009 swine flu outbreak. (In fact, diagnostic kits shipped just weeks after the CDC identified the first case of the virus in April 2009.)

Indeed, blaming his predecessors for troubles with his own administration's handling of the pandemic has become a common tactic of late. He accused former Vice President Joe Biden, the front runner in the Democratic presidential primary, on Thursday of overseeing “one of the worst [responses] on record” to a nationwide health epidemic, in reference to that H1N1 outbreak during Obama’s first year in office."


‘It will go away’: A timeline of Trump playing down the coronavirus threat," Aaron Blake, Washington Post, March 12, 2020
Either lies or incompetence.
"President Trump gambled very early and very often on the idea that the coronavirus wouldn’t turn out to be nearly as severe as some health officials have warned it could get.

The thrust of Trump’s statements about the virus has been almost relentlessly optimistic, which is a marked contrast to those of some health officials who prefer that people be overly prepared rather than underestimate the threat. Trump has frequently suggested that the United States is winning the battle against the virus, and he has regularly promoted the idea that it could suddenly disappear."


"Older Americans are more worried about coronavirus — unless they’re Republican," Philip Bump, Washington Post, March 14, 2020
"Seventy-year-old Sal Gentile, writing in response to a question from The Washington Post, suggested that he wasn’t particularly worried about the coronavirus outbreak.

“Yep, I have a pacemaker and recent fusion,” he wrote; “however my love for quality of life is more important to me than being rattled by a TV station.”

Gentile is one of the Americans most at risk from the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned those 60 and older and those with medical conditions to be particularly wary of its spread, given the higher mortality rates associated with those factors. Gentile would seem to fit into both categories, but, like many other residents of the Florida retirement community The Villages who were profiled by The Post this week, he doesn’t seem particularly worried."


"A coronavirus reading guide for the perplexed, the anxious, and the obsessive-Confused about coronavirus? Here’s a list of the articles, papers, and podcasts we’ve found most useful," By Roge Karma and Ezra Klein, Vox, March 14, 2020
"On March 11, the World Health Organization officially declared the Covid-19 coronavirus a global pandemic. The coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan, China, but it has now spread to most of the world and is surging in places like Italy, Iran, and South Korea. Global confirmed cases continue to rise, including in the US. In response, workers have been sent home, conferences have been canceled, store shelves have been emptied, a democratic country has been put under nationwide quarantine, and the global economy is under serious threat. It is safe to say this is one of the most serious public health crises in decades, if not a century.

It’s overwhelming — including for those of us covering it. But if you’re just getting up to speed, or you want to dig deeper, here’s a (not-comprehensive, but still expansive!) list of some of the articles, papers, podcasts, and interviews we’ve found most useful, from both Vox and elsewhere."


"A Demographer’s View of the Coronavirus Pandemic," By Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, March 14, 2020
"Jessica Metcalf, a professor of ecology, evolutionary biology, and public affairs at Princeton, is a demographer who studies the spread of infectious diseases. Her work on health policy has special importance now, as scientists and public officials seek to halt the spread of covid-19, the novel coronavirus. I recently spoke twice by phone with Metcalf about her work and how demographers assist in the response to rapidly spreading diseases. During our conversations, which have been edited for length and clarity, we also discussed what demography can teach us about the effectiveness of school closings, the history of disease outbreaks having a disproportionate effect on certain age groups, and what demographers have learned about aging societies."


"At-Risk Populations," By Frederica Freyberg, Here & Now, Wisconsin Public Radio, March 14, 2020
On Wisconsin.
"Dr. Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection control at UW Hospital, discusses how the medical community is handling at-risk communities amid coronavirus fears."
"How to Protect Older People From the Coronavirus-People over 60, and especially over 80, are particularly vulnerable to severe or fatal infection. Here are some steps to reduce their risk," Katie Hafner, New York Times, March 14, 2020
Amid the uncertainty swirling around the coronavirus pandemic stands one incontrovertible fact: The highest rate of fatalities is among older people, particularly those with underlying medical conditions.

Of the confirmed cases in China to date, nearly 15 percent of patients over 80 have died. For those under 50, the death rate was well below 1 percent.

There is no evidence yet that older people are significantly more likely to acquire the coronavirus than younger people. But medical experts say that if people over 60 are infected, they are more likely to have severe, life-threatening disease, even if their general health is good. Older people with underlying medical conditions are at particularly high risk. Experts attribute some of the risk to a weakening of the immune system with age.

This leaves older people and their families wondering what extra precautions they should take. Several best practices have been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, geriatricians and infectious diseases specialists."
Go here -> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-elderly-protection.html?referringSource=articleShare
And here -> 
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/respect-old/607864/


"The Coronavirus Is a Reminder That Elder-Care Workers Deserve Much Better-What happens when an eldercare crisis decades in the making meets a pandemic? We’re about to find out," Haley Swenson, Slate, March 11, 2020
"In 1985, adults over 65 made up just 11 percent of the U.S. population. Today that number is 16 percent and rising rapidly. In 10 years, they’ll be almost one-quarter of the population, according to an estimate by the Population Reference Bureau. More than three-fourths of Americans over 65 face chronic health challenges, from immobility to diabetes.

Already, the number of available professional caregivers and elder care facilities to care for these aging adults have been stretched beyond capacity. Just as they do with child care, Americans face a growing eldercare crisis of too few options and too few resources, and have been forced to rely on ad hoc, informal, and half-measure solutions.

None of these facts is breaking news, but breaking news is now headed straight for them. Older adults face the greatest level of risk posed by the growing COVID-19 outbreak. The preliminary data from the World Health Organization shows that for patients under age 50, coronavirus has less than a 1 percent fatality rate. The number climbs exponentially as the ages go up. More than one-fifth of deaths from coronavirus thus far have been adults over age 80."


"Fighting the Coronavirus Requires a Strong Direct Care Workforce," Robert Espinoza, PHI, March 12, 2020
"The news seems to worsen by the day. According to the latest statistics, there were more than 1,200 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. and nearly 128,000 cases globally—with many more expected as the virus spreads and testing improves.

As the number of COVID-19 cases surges, we must question whether health care workers—direct care workers, in particular—are adequately supported to care for themselves and the people who are most at risk: older people and people with serious medical conditions."


"Home Caregivers Looking After The Elderly Are Vulnerable To Coronavirus," Tonya Mosley  and Serena McMahon, WBUR/NPR, March 12, 2020
"Health care has become a high-risk job in the wake of the coronavirus.

Many caregivers — much like workers at Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, where more than 20 people have died from COVID-19 — are supporting some of the most at-risk people, such as the elderly, those with preexisting conditions and people with disabilities. Oftentimes, these workers are going into people’s homes.

“While everybody else is running from the coronavirus, they're running towards it in terms of supporting one of the most vulnerable populations,” says Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance."


"Data Note: How might Coronavirus Affect Residents in Nursing Facilities?" Priya Chidambaram, Kaiser Family Foundation, March 13, 2020
"While knowledge about COVID-19 continues to evolve daily, experts agree that certain populations are particularly vulnerable to severe cases of the infection – those with chronic conditions, compromised immune systems, and of old age. Nursing facilities provide care to populations with those characteristics, and residents in these facilities are particularly at risk of developing serious illness or dying if infected. In 2017, there were approximately 1.3 million residents receiving care across 15,483 nursing facilities in the US (Table 1). This data note provides key data points to highlight the potential implications of COVID-19 on nursing facility residents and overall operations."


"The Coronavirus and Long-Term Care," Bill Gardner, The Incidental Economist, March 16, 2020
 "The sick and elderly in long term care facilities are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Worse, many aspects of long-term care facilities make them conducive to rapid spread of infectious disease.

We’re talking about a large population. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), “about 65,600 paid, regulated, long-term care services providers”—by this, NCHS means facilities, not staff—“in five major sectors served more than 8.3 million people in the United States.” Caring for the elderly is a full-time job for about 1.5 million people.

Of those 8.3 million, about 286,300 adults are in adult daycare centers. The rest are in nursing homes, hospice care, and other types of residential care. Under ordinary conditions, long-term care facilities are vulnerable to outbreaks of respiratory illness. Large groups of patients are cohabiting in a confined setting with communal meals and many group social activities. Many residents are incapable of practicing the levels of personal hygiene required to stop transmission.


"Trump Administration Is Relaxing Oversight of Nursing Homes-A proposal would loosen federal rules meant to control infections, just as the coronavirus rips through nursing homes," By Jesse Drucker and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, New York Times, March 14, 2020
"The Trump administration has been working to relax regulations governing America’s nursing homes, including rules meant to curb deadly infections among elderly residents.

The main federal regulator overseeing nursing homes proposed the rule changes last summer, before the coronavirus pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of nursing homes to fast-spreading diseases. The push followed a spate of lobbying and campaign contributions by people in the nursing-home industry, according to public records and interviews.

The coronavirus has killed 13 residents at a nursing home in Washington State; dozens more residents and employees there have fallen ill. Seeking to prevent further contagion, some states, including New York, have banned most nonmedical personnel from setting foot inside nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, which nationally have about 2.5 million residents."


"Trump's coronavirus payroll tax cut would punch hole in Social Security, Medicare budgets," Howard Schneider, Steve Holland, Reuters, March 11, 2020
"President Donald Trump has picked his favorite weapon to fight the economic fallout from the coronavirus: an elimination of the “payroll tax” on workers’ gross earnings that is used to fund national retirement programs.

If approved by Congress, Trump's proposal would result in a massive, roughly $1 trillion dollar cash injection into the pockets of workers and businesses over the rest of the year, based on a Congressional Budget Office estimate www.cbo.gov/topics/taxes of current projected federal tax revenue.

It would also mean “you’ve blown a trillion-dollar hole” in the trust funds that pay Social Security benefits for retirees and help fund the Medicare healthcare program for Americans over age 65, said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. “What do you do about that?”
Go here -> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-payroll-analys/trumps-radical-plan-to-waive-payroll-tax-would-punch-hole-in-social-security-medicare-budgets-idUSKBN20Y351


"Coronavirus will also cause a loneliness epidemic-We need to take both social distancing and the “social recession” it will cause seriously," By Ezra Klein, Vox, March 12, 2020
"Deborah Johnson Lanholm, 63, lives in Sicklerville, New Jersey. A retired nurse, she’s the primary caretaker for her older sister, Helen Palese, who lives with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. “She’s nonverbal,” Deborah says. “I do her speaking for her. So every other day, we do something together. We go to the movies. I take her to my crocheting group. We go out to dinner or the mall. But she’s with other people. All of that will have to stop because she’s too compromised.”

And it won’t just stop for Helen. It’ll stop for Deborah, too. “I’ll have to change my routine because I have to care for her,” Deborah says. “I won’t go out in crowds or be in places where I’ll be exposed.”

Make no mistake: The rapid implementation of social distancing is necessary to flatten the coronavirus curve and prevent the current pandemic from worsening. But just as the coronavirus fallout threatens to cause an economic recession, it’s also going to cause what we might call a “social recession”: a collapse in social contact that is particularly hard on the populations most vulnerable to isolation and loneliness — older adults and people with disabilities or preexisting health conditions."


"Isolation of older Americans prompts fears amid coronavirus-Older adults and those supporting them worry precautions could further exclude a vulnerable community, exacerbating loneliness and other social ills," Victoria Bekiempis, The Guardian, March 11, 2020
"Basilisa Riggio keeps a busy schedule. Five days a week, she goes to the Henry Street Settlement Senior Center, located in the Lower East Sideof New York City. At this center, senior citizens such as the 77-year-old Riggio can partake in activities ranging from arts and crafts to yoga.

On any given day, friends and neighbors might catch up with each other over a pool match or game of dominoes, maybe even stop by the gym. Wednesdays and Fridays are karaoke nights. Sometimes, a dozen people show up to hear her and other participants sing.

“I like to sing the old songs, like Only You,” Riggio said.

Riggio is among the approximately 1 million US elderly people who patronize some 10,000 senior centers in this country. “This is our place to be,” she said. “It’s our place to socialize. It keeps us from being home.”


"Trump Is Cutting Food Stamps During a Pandemic, More than half a million SNAP recipients are on the edge of losing access to the crucial food safety net—just as they need it most," By Karina Piser, New Republic, March 13, 2020
"James Murphy has spent a lot of time looking for a job—“in retail, manufacturing, anything”—but always ends up moving from gig to gig, unable to find something steady. He can’t afford permanent housing, so for months, he has slept outside or at a Brooklyn men’s shelter. “SNAP is my livelihood until I find a job,” he said, adding that he’s worked since he was 15 years old. “I grew up with food stamps. Now, I’m getting scared.”

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is part of the federal food safety net that helps low-income people and families buy groceries every month. It’s also a popular target when it comes to federal cuts: Last year, President Trump announced plans to tighten its eligibility requirements. Currently, “able-bodied” adults between the ages of 18 and 49 without dependents—a demographic called “ABAWDs” by the U.S. Department of Agriculture—are restricted to three months of SNAP benefits in a 36-month period, unless they work at least 80 hours a month. But states have long been able to obtain waivers, and in its more than two decades on the books, every state except Delaware has sought one. But the Trump administration rule, slated to go into effect next month, will make it harder to do that, with significant implications for some of the country’s most needy SNAP recipients. In all, the rule will eliminate access for at least 700,000 Americans, cutting around 6.2 billion meals in the next decade."


"The Trump administration plans to kick 700,000 off food stamps during a pandemic-Although a growing number of people will lose their jobs because of a slowing economy, the government will still impose strict work requirements for SNAP," By Catherine Kim, Vox March 13, 2020
"The coronavirus outbreak may be an economic and public health crisis, but that isn’t stopping the Trump administration from going through with its plan to kick nearly 700,000 people off food stamps.

Starting April 1, the administration will tighten work requirements for those seeking the help of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Able-bodied people between the ages of 18 and 49 who aren’t raising children will have to work at least 20 hours a week to become eligible for SNAP. That’s a requirement that many states have been able to waive until the Trump administration stepped in.

It doesn’t help that SNAP assistance is generally the only government help these people — whose income is at 92 percent below the poverty line — can get, as they don’t qualify for other programs that provide for the elderly, disabled, or parents, according to CNN. On average, this group earns about $2,250 a year and receives about $165 in monthly SNAP benefits. That’s only about $1.80 per meal, CNN reports, but it can go a long way for those in low-wage jobs or who are underemployed."


"Feeding the Country during a Pandemic: Seven Ways Forward," Elaine Waxman, Urban Institute, March 16, 2020
"The coronavirus pandemic is disrupting many of the typical ways food assistance is provided to those in need while economic prospects for many Americans are rapidly deteriorating. A top priority for our nation’s emergency response should be figuring out how to feed those who already struggle with food insecurity and those who may be newly in need.

In some cases, experience from the Great Recession and lessons from recent efforts to improve outreach in federal nutrition programs and the food banking system offer ideas for a way forward. In other cases, we face new challenges that require creative thinking and rapid innovation between government, philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and local communities.

Here are seven strategies that can inform immediate actions on national, state, and local levels."


"GOP - Who needs sick leave and treatment? Corporations come 1st!" Jake's Wisconsin Funhouse, March 15, 2020
On Wisconsin.  These guys are a joke, or they would be if it wasn't so serious.  Confront them on their reasoning for acting against the best interest of Wisconsinites.
"As businesses shut down and schools close all over Wisconsin while the state's coronavirus cases go from 9 to 33 in a span of 3 days, GOP "representatives" in Congress spring into (in)action. 

This is absurdly inefficient and puts the onus on the sick everyday workers. But hey, I'm sure having the Fed cutting interest rates to near-zero and giving away a total of $2.2 trillion to allow debt-ridden banks and corporations to keep paying their bills will get everyday people tested, treated and help them pay their bills when they get laid off.

The priorities are telling, aren't they? And Charlie Pierce reminded us that a select few are likely to make a lot of money while much of the rest of the country suffers from the effects of this pandemic."


"Trump Declares National Emergency, Congress Reaches a Deal," Pat Kreitlow, Up North News, March 14, 2020
On Wisconsin.  Who do these guys work for?
"All of Wisconsin’s Congressional Republicans voted against the deal that passed overwhelmingly, 363-40. The Senate is not meeting over the weekend. In a Saturday morning statement, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said he opposed the bill because of the potential impact of paid sick leave on small businesses, and that he hopes the Senate will pass a bill with changes “or, it won’t, (then) pass nothing at all.”