US to pay hospitals to treat uninsured

Good move by Pres Trump to invoke Defense Production Act to accelerate production of ventilators to save lives as COVID-19 cases surge. Medtronic is included in six companies. Key will be equitable distribution where most needed. https://bit.ly/2wX69aN

I want to share an important statement that we released today in response to the announcements issued by the White House last evening:

As the #coronavirus crisis has spread, people in states with stay-at-home orders have largely stopped traveling. But those in places that waited to enact such rules have continued to move around widely, potentially increasing the risk for illness. I contributed to this project with a wonderful team at The New York Times, looking at mobility data from 15 million smartphones. We found that the effectiveness of stay-at-home orders held true for all types of areas, whether they were rural or urban, Northern or Southern. It wasn't a matter of people in rural areas continuing to travel for necessities or of people in certain places ignoring edicts. The government action is what made the difference, and experts said it could be enough to help. As someone who has covered technology and privacy, I had a lot of questions about using such data. The information we are using here is aggregated, meaning we didn't have information on individual devices. But there are still plenty of potential concerns. If you have comments or questions about the article or about the data behind it, I would love to hear from you. https://lnkd.in/e_jzhAZ

Why wouldn't the Federal government make an emergency declaration to get control of U.S. PPE and ventilators and hire logistics experts to allocate them to hospitals in regions as they are needed? The free market wasn't designed for this.

Secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, has described the spread of COVID-19 as an unprecedented test unlike anything we have faced in the past 75 years. His comments came in the wake of a White House briefing where President Trump's top health advisors said they expect between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans to die from COVID-19, even if stringent social distancing guidelines are kept in place. This Statista infographic attempts to put the grim forecast into some kind of perspective by comparing the expected death toll to past historical events. It would not be too far off the 291,557 U.S. combat deaths in World War II documented by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and it would be over five times as high as the U.S. military death toll in Vietnam. Full article on Statista.com here: https://lnkd.in/dJxPvn5

A more transparent task force briefing today. More informative with data, more of Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, especially at the beginning. Sobering data, but can turn this around quicker with lower mortality if the whole country seriously applies mitigation and shelters in place orders. The 100,000 deaths projected will not happen if everyone is serious about staying inside. Clearly, the models depend on the assumptions they are fed and we can still avoid these catastrophic numbers. Importantly, the models do not reflect that we are very likely further along on the upward slope since testing started LATE. I am convinced that mortality numbers will be a LOT LESS but as long as the whole country shelters inside. From Anthony Fauci: “Plea to put your foot on the accelerator when it comes to other states and mitigation”. So why the resistance to mandate a NATIONAL LOCKDOWN and leave each State to its own devices? Remarkable to see California and Kentucky FLATTEN the curve with EARLY shelter in place orders. Why not the rest of the country follow their lead before it’s too late? Clearly, Florida is one glaring example of the need to do more. National shelter in place orders should come from the White House now because even one more life lost is one too many.