It’s About More Than Ventilators: Inadequate Access To Dialysis Threatens Patients Also Hit By Kidney Failure
At the peak of the outbreak, the number of COVID-19 patients fighting kidney failure led to a soaring demand for dialysis at hospitals around New York City, but treatment was in short supply. Other public health news reports on Facebook's efforts to quell misinformation, a JAMA report on the hard-hit poor and challenges for ''disconnected'' youth, as well.
Orphaned as a youth in Bangladesh, Jamal Uddin worked in a ribbon factory in Lower Manhattan while attending high school, before graduating from college and ultimately finding a career helping people with H.I.V./AIDS. Over his 68 years he had proved that he was a survivor, but the battle of his life would take shape in a Brooklyn intensive care unit as the new coronavirus swept the city. He had a ventilator to help him breathe, the one piece of equipment everyone feared would be unavailable if the hospitals were overwhelmed. (Kulish, 5/1)
In an attempt to corral false coronavirus claims, Facebook launched a new strategy last month that the social media giant says pulls from a string of psychology studies on combating inaccurate posts. The problem: The researchers behind some of those papers and outside experts say Facebook appears to be interpreting the findings incorrectly 鈥 and their approach could be running counter to the goal of tamping down on runaway misinformation. (Brodwin, 5/1)
COVID-19 infected and killed more people in poor, ethnically diverse New York City boroughs than in affluent, predominantly white ones, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA. Also, a prospective case series in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) of 86 COVID-19 patients with聽immune-mediated inflammatory disease such as rheumatoid arthritis found that those taking anticytokine biologics or immunomodulatory therapies did not have worse outcomes than their peers. (Van Beusekom, 4/30)
After two weeks of 鈥渕ental toughness鈥 training, 20 teenagers and young adults in a YouthBuild daily program in Enid, Oklahoma, were on the cusp of turning their lives around. Out of school and out of work, they proved to organizers that they could be punctual, follow instructions and work hard. As a result, the youths were invited to the next phase of the program: working toward earning their high school diplomas and helping with local construction projects. (Simpson, 5/1)
