Nuggets arriving over the transom.
Blood Supply
The American Red Cross is facing a serious blood shortage RIGHT NOW.
“We need people to start turning out in force to give blood,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s biologics evaluation and research, said in a statement. “We need people to prevent the blood supply from getting depleted. We need it not to get to the point that surgeries are having to get cancelled,” Marks said. “That’s something we absolutely do not want to have happen. To ensure an adequate blood supply we need people to come out and donate blood.”
Although hospitals around the country are cancelling elective surgeries, they cannot cancel emergency surgeries. A 2018 study concluded the Emergency-To-Elective Surgery Ratio to be 9.4 in the U.S., 5.5 in the E.U., but a whopping 62.6 in sub-Saharen Africa (not a lot of elective surgery going on there). Emergency surgeries still have to happen. So, what’s the beleaguered Red Cross to do? In this time of CoVid 19, it has quite the dillema. Federal and state governments tell us to stay home as much as possible, but the Red Cross, which faces an emergency every eight minutes, depends on people going to one of their centers to donate blood, which, given the virus scare, is something many are finding hard to do.
Information – Where To Get It
Everywhere you look (including this blog), people are passing on CoVid 19 updates. It can all be a bit of a mish-mash. So, at the risk of compounding the problem, I’d like to suggest looking at the website of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). It is superbly organized and helpful. Its staff publishes Situation Updates every day, both for Europe and the world. The main reason to spend some time with the ECDC is to get a better idea of what is likely heading our way. Europe is about two weeks ahead of us for CoVid 19 communal spreading, and the ECDC’s charts are well-done, enlightening and scary. Compare the Situation Updates in Europe to the CDC’s here and here in the U.S.
And In The World Of Workers’ Compensation
The state of Washington was the first U.S. CoVid 19 hot spot. We noted yesterday the plight of a 70-year-old Washington ER doctor who was in critical condition after contracting the disease. That certainly qualifies for workers’ compensation benefits. But what about clinicians, doctors and nurses who, although asymptomatic, are forced to quarantine themselves for two weeks following exposure? It’s one thing if their employers continue to pay them while quarantined, but what if they don’t? And what about the health care charges incurred during quarantine? Who pays?
In a move that could start a trend, Governor Jay Inslee yesterday said any Washington health care workers forced to quarantine themselves following exposure would qualify for workers’ compensation benefits. Will this propel health care institutions to discontinue paying clinicians under quarantine? Regardless, workers’ compensation covering all the health care charges is a big deal.
Like a red rope in the snow, we will follow this story to see whether other states follow Inslee’s lead.
And now to once more assume the position of the CoVid 19 shut-in and watch the Dow Jones bounce around like a bee bee in a boxcar.
Stay safe.
