The focus of this week’s post is school leaders’ decisions on the return to in-person schooling, including whether, when, and how to structure the return to school. To inform these conversations, the nation’s health protection agency issued recommendations, a research
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Mental Health in the Time of COVID-19 While the public health emergency the led to widespread school shutdowns focused on preserving the physical health of students, their families, and others with whom they came into contact, many are emphasizing the
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Resource Allocation This ethics roundtable by Baumrucker et al. discusses the difficult case of critical care resource priority in the context of COVID-19, presenting a case in which an otherwise healthy 59-year-old and a 17-year-old both require ventilator care with
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Nationwide Eviction Freeze The CDC issued an Emergency Action this week implementing a nationwide temporary freeze on evictions. The freeze runs from September 4 through December 31, 2020. Here is a link to the CDC’s Declaration Form which must be filled
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Racial and Ethnic Disparities This article by Figueroa et al. analyses racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 rates in Massachusetts, which has had one of the highest incidence rates in the U.S. The disparate impact of the pandemic on Black
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Resource Allocation This article by Webb, Shah & Fernandez Lynch addresses ethical issues in allocating access to unproven but promising drugs that become available through Pre-Approval Access (PAA) programs and Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). PAA programs allow access to unapproved
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All Nursing Homes Must Test Facility Residents, Staff, others for Covid-19 A new rule was issued Tuesday by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requiring long term care facilities to test their facility residents, staff, volunteers and individuals
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COVID-19 Policy Playbook Released This new report from 50 leading experts on public health law, health care law, and global health law and policy analyzes developments in U.S. law and policy during the Covid-19 pandemic. The report, which was sponsored
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Supplies As reported in this Axios article, FDA released a list of medical supplies that remain in short supply. FDA is required to provide this list under provisions of the CARES Act passed in March 2020, based on mandatory reports
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Is there a connection between ABO histo-blood group phenotypes and COVID-19? One study set out to investigate the possible connection between blood type and COVID-19 susceptibility. The study was focused on 397 patients with confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses who were admitted
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