To capture the speed and audacity of its plan to field a coronavirus vaccine, the Trump administration reached into science fiction's vault for an inspiring moniker: Operation Warp Speed. The vaccine initiative's name challenges a mantra penned by an actual science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke: "Science demands patience."
Newly released data from the U.S. government show that nearly 26,000 nursing home residents have died from COVID-19 and more than 60,000 have fallen ill. These figures, however, don't account for all nursing homes across the country.
The Trump administration's testing czar announced Monday that he will be leaving that position in mid-June. Adm. Brett Giroir told a meeting of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS that he will be "demobilized" from his role overseeing coronavirus testing at FEMA in a few weeks and going back to his regular post at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Hundreds of thousands of respirator masks to protect against coronavirus have been sent through a decontamination system that has triggered warnings from front-line workers and has so far cost the government more than $110 a mask. The system is made by Battelle Memorial Institute, a nonprofit research corporation that has built more than 50 mask-decontamination units after getting more than $400 million in federal government contracts.
Hospitals, health providers likely to face scrutiny over use of taxpayer dollars. Terms and conditions tied to funding are vague, attorneys say. Money meant to save hospitals and health systems from collapse during the coronavirus pandemic is likely to ensnarl some providers in high stakes litigation.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive human and economic suffering. If there’s a silver lining, the CEOs of three major Connecticut health systems say, it’s that their otherwise competitive institutions found common cause during the presumed worst of the crisis.