Vaccinations Category Archives — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

November 24, 2020

Even as the pandemic hits grim phase, we have much to be thankful for

With the pandemic tearing through the United States and overwhelming U.S. health care system, we pause from the grim news to tally some of the nation’s blessings in this time.

We can be thankful for the courage, fortitude, dedication, and skill of an army of health workers of all kinds. They have put themselves and their loved ones at formidable risk and strain to treat patients under unprecedented duress. They have dealt with fear and uncertainty, giving little quarter, and approaching their own breaking points. Some health workers have themselves fallen ill, with some dying. Their sacrifices cannot be forgotten, and we need to give sustained and extra support to health workers as the pandemic enters its next perilous phase.

November 18, 2020

Grim reprise in nursing homes: four-fold infection hike and doubling deaths

by Patrick A. Malone

Coronavirus cases are spiking among residents and staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. They increased four-fold between May’s end and late October — even as deaths among the vulnerable also doubled, disturbing new data show.

Those are the findings of Rebecca Gorges and Tamara Konetzka, University of Chicago researchers who analyzed federal data at the request of the Associated Press. They focused on 20 states hard hit by the latest pandemic surge.

Konetzka said the data raise major questions about the Trump Administration’s efforts to safeguard the aged, ailing, and injured in institutional care by sheltering them from infections in their surround areas and increasing testing for residents and health workers. But Koentzka, an expert on long-term care, told the AP this about such a plan:

November 17, 2020

Americans urged to redouble infection preventions as pandemic rips nation

by Patrick A. Malone

Although company-reported data on the potency of a prospective coronavirus vaccine provided rare glimmers of hope, the rampaging coronavirus pandemic triggered clangorous coast-to-coast health alarms: Infections are skyrocketing. So, too, are hospitalizations. And, yes, deaths are spiking, as well. Records are falling each day.

Covid-19 is raging unchecked among the American people, with a season of travel and festivities with friends and families bearing down on the country.

Will travelers heading across the country or around the block to Thanksgiving feasts or December religious celebrations also ensure that public health forecasters’ glum models turn into lethal reality? Will the 1,000 daily deaths occurring now double to 2,000 by mid-January and will the U.S. coronavirus death toll hit 440,000 by March?

November 8, 2020

As nation focused on vote tallies, coronavirus cases and deaths kept soaring

by Patrick A. Malone

While Americans have been riveted for days about incremental shifts in election results, other confounding numbers raced ever higher and into worrisome places. Just consider these numbers: 128,000, 9.6 million plus, and 235,000 and more.

“Covid, covid, covid. By the way, on Nov. 4 you won’t hear about it anymore,” President Trump asserted during his closing re-election campaign rallies.

If only. The nation’s coronavirus pandemic is unchecked and showing signs of worsening, bigly, with records shattering on consecutive days for infections diagnosed: 100,000 on Nov. 4, 120,000 on Nov. 5, and 128,000 on Nov. 6.

October 21, 2020

It was avoidable. Its harms can be lessened. Fall’s Covid surge is under way.

by Patrick A. Malone

As the weather has turned crisper, and autumn leaves have begun to fall, in sadly predictable fashion, coronavirus cases are rising once again coast-to-coast.

More than 8 million Americans have been infected — roughly equivalent to the population of New York and far exceeding the number of people who live in metropolitan Washington, D.C.

The nation is racing toward 220,00 Covid-19 deaths, with that number rising inexorably and likely an understatement of the disease’s terrible toll. The coronavirus now has claimed as many lives as the population of cities such as Des Moines, Iowa, Salt Lake City, Utah, or Modesto, Calif.

October 2, 2020

In the midst of a crisis, Trump administration throws billions at giveaways to favored political targets

by Patrick A. Malone

Taxpayers and lawmakers have ensured that the federal Health and Human Services agency operates with roughly $2 trillion in discretionary and mandatory funding. This means the agency can employ about 80,000 staffers, many of them top experts in medical science, health care policy, and public health.

This concentration of expertise and experience, however, may mean less than ever.

That’s because just one man, and his hand-picked few, insist that they hold the absolute power to make life and death decisions for more than 330 million Americans, especially when it comes to health care and government spending on it.

September 21, 2020

White House infects Covid-19 battle with yet more potent doses of politics

by Patrick A. Malone

As the November elections draw near, let’s not lose sight of the flurry of developments in response to the politicization of the pandemic and the assaults by the Trump administration on medical science. Among them:

Vaccine makers disclosed secret details about their plans to test the safety and effectiveness of a coronavirus inoculation on tens of thousands of Americans.
Leading medical experts stepped to the fore again to insist that clinical trials of the prospective shot would not be meddled with by politicians, and the vaccine would be unlikely to become available to the public before Nov. 3.

September 15, 2020

With speeding vaccine clinical trials, a pause that may prove reassuring

by Patrick A. Malone

The “warp speed” race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine has gotten hit with a yellow flag.

It could be a good thing that the product’s makers — Oxford University and AstraZeneca — followed medical-scientific protocols and paused their Phase III clinical trial due to a participant’s unexplained illness.

Officially, the company offered spare information about the occurrence, especially because it affects the private medical information of a single individual.

September 13, 2020

A viral confession: ‘This is deadly stuff … I wanted to always play it down.’

by Patrick A. Malone

Some fictional scenarios to contemplate:

What would happen to a military leader who was briefed and admitted to knowing of severe threats but downplayed them, resulting over a few months to the United States seeing its Indo-Pacific and European Commands wiped out — combined losses of roughly 180,000 in U.S. forces?
How would the governor of Maryland be treated if he was told of a public works problem but belittled it and in less than a year the cities of Columbia, Bethesda, and Annapolis and all the people in them were destroyed?

September 8, 2020

Federal pandemic response marked by yet more uproars and confusion

by Patrick A. Malone

The Trump Administration — yet again — has sowed confusion, frustration, and anger over the federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic, creating potentially harmful credibility issues for a prospective coronavirus vaccine, the scientific concept of “herd immunity,” a possible blood-based treatment for the illness, as well as testing, contact tracing, and quarantines for the disease.

The White House follies would be considered bad farce, save for the reality that the U.S. death toll races toward 200,000 and infections have skyrocketed past 6 million. The U.S. has 22 percent of the world’s Covid death toll, but only 4 percent of the world’s population.

With schools reopening, infections, hospitalizations, and deaths among children are on the rise.