TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalAustin area moves to Stage 4 risk precautions as COVID cases soar
The Austin area is returning to Stage 4 of Austin Public Health's risk-based guidelines to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Stage 4 is the agency's second highest level.
“One of the greatest traits of Austin-Travis County is how we have consistently been one of the leaders in the state when it comes to lower Community Transmission Rates. Our people have continually stepped up for the greater good and been the example of how to navigate the COVID-19 surges with masking, social distancing, and vaccinations,” Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County health authority said in a statement Wednesday. “However, as our vigilance begins to wane, our community is falling behind. We can't afford to be lax in our prevention efforts and I'm confident that Austin-Travis County will once again lead the way."
In this stage, vaccinated people are urged to wear masks at indoor and outdoor gatherings with people outside their households, and while traveling, shopping and dining. Unvaccinated people are urged not to gather with people they don't live with, to travel and shop only if essential, and to use takeout and curbside dining services.
To determine the risk stage, APH looks at new hospital admissions, as well as the area's positivity rate, the doubling time of new cases, and the number of current ICU and ventilator patients. In a press release Wednesday, APH said test positivity rate and the seven-day moving average of hospital admissions are "spiking."
Read more: https://www.kut.org/covid-19/2021-12-29/as-covid-cases-surge-austin-area-moves-to-stage-4-risk-precautions
Medical labs face understaffing and burnout as demand for COVID tests skyrockets in Texas
Medical lab workers in Texas are dealing with a surge in COVID-19 tests as cases skyrocket nationwide.
COVID testing conducted in a lab, which include PCR tests, is an essential public health tool for slowing the spread of the virus. But experts say this recent onslaught of work for people who run the tests is coming on the heels of years of understaffing and burnout in the profession.
Rodney Rohde, the reagents professor and chair of the clinical laboratory science program at Texas State University, said many lab professionals are underpaid and overworked right now. He said it’s an ongoing issue that has only gotten worse during the pandemic.
“Our profession, in general, has issues primarily because of recruitment and retention efforts,” he said.
Read more: https://www.kut.org/covid-19/2021-12-29/medical-labs-face-understaffing-and-burnout-as-demand-for-covid-tests-skyrocket-in-texas
Opinion: Guard members should not be political pawns, Beto O'Rourke says
Terrible news came to light last week that four Texas National Guardsmen who’d been activated for Operation Lone Star have committed suicide since October, increasing concerns about the role and treatment of troops who’ve been deployed to the border through rushed, involuntary, and indefinite deployments.
The news of the suicides broke the day before Christmas Eve, as thousands of soldiers remained at the border away from their homes and families — sleeping in truck trailers converted into squad barrack bays — amid ongoing pay delays, benefit cuts, and an unaddressed mental health crisis within their units.
This devastating string of suicides must serve as a wake up call to the way that our Guard members are being treated at the border.
The warning signs have been there from the beginning. As Gov. Greg Abbott rushed to expand his border mission in September, Texas deployed a total of 10,000 troops in a matter of months. Some were given less than a week’s notice before deployment, complicating work and family commitments and leaving soldiers still scrambling to resolve issues at home while deployed at their posts along the border.
On top of that, families have reported that some troops have gone months without pay. A woman I met in Lubbock a few weeks back told me that her husband had been on duty in Laredo for over six weeks, but hadn’t received a single paycheck or any of the per diems he’d been promised.
Read more: https://elpasomatters.org/2021/12/27/opinion-guard-members-should-not-be-political-pawns-beto-orourke-says/
McKee gives RI's hospitals protection from lawsuits during pandemic
Gov. Dan McKee has granted Rhode Island hospitals new liability protection during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An executive order McKee signed last week said licensed hospitals and their workers "are not liable for civil damages arising out of the level or manner of care received by a patient ... if such care has been affected by shortages in staffing and/or supplies."
Hospitals and other health-care facilities have lost thousands of workers since the start of the pandemic, leading to long emergency-room waits and fewer beds available in intensive-care units.
According to the executive order, hospital executives believe the threat of lawsuits is contributing to the staffing crisis and can "hinder staff recruitment, constrain medical professional judgment and limit the hospitals’ flexibility to adjust medical staff to patient ratios..."
Read more: https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/politics/2021/12/29/mckee-gives-ri-hospitals-liability-protection-during-covid-staffing-shortage/9034346002/
Student math scores take a hit after year of COVID remote learning
New Hampshire students who engaged in virtual learning saw a drop in mathematics assessment scores over the last academic school year, according to data released by the Department of Education Tuesday, in what officials said was an indication of pandemic-driven learning loss.
Across the state, proficiency in math dropped from 2019 to 2021, the assessment data says. Where 48 percent of students were measured as proficient or above proficient in math in 2019, only 38 percent of students had achieved a similar result in 2021, the data shows.
English language arts and science proficiencies stayed relatively level. Fifty-two percent of students achieved proficient or above proficient scores in English in 2021, compared with 56 percent in 2019. The number of students who scored the same in science moved from 39 percent in 2019 to 37 percent in 2021.
The data represents the aggregate of the state’s annual assessment; each spring, students in grades three to eight are evaluated in English language arts and mathematics, and students in grades five, eight, and 11 are assessed in science.
Read more: https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2021/12/28/student-math-scores-take-a-hit-after-year-of-covid-remote-learning/
Crowds at Burlington City Council Meetings Are Becoming Increasingly Uncivil
Amanda Skehan felt nervous when she stepped to the microphone at the Burlington City Council meeting on October 18. The atmosphere that night was tense. Dozens of people had converged on city hall to debate two highly charged topics: the city's plan to close a homeless encampment and a proposal to hire more police officers.
Skehan had come to ask councilors to retain the police department's domestic violence prevention position. But as soon as she broached the topic, members of the audience booed and laughed. Skehan revealed that she was a survivor of domestic abuse and said police officers can help victims such as herself. Then she turned to the crowd.
"Please, everyone, you know how hard it is to get up here and talk about this," Skehan said evenly. "Please, stop booing people."
Skehan's experience was hardly a one-off. The crowds at Burlington council meetings have become increasingly uncivil in recent months as elected officials have confronted issues including poverty, racial justice and the coronavirus pandemic. Speakers routinely blow past their allotted time during the public forums that are a regular part of council meetings. Audience members hurl profanities at councilors despite warnings.
Read more: https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/crowds-at-burlington-city-council-meetings-are-becoming-increasingly-uncivil/Content?oid=34512680
Private Equity Group Drops Bid to Purchase Five Vermont Nursing Homes
A group of New York-based nursing home investors has dropped its effort to purchase five of the state's largest and most troubled facilities.
Priority Healthcare Group withdrew its application to the Vermont Agency of Human Services to assume full control of Burlington Health & Rehab and similarly named homes in Bennington, Berlin, St. Johnsbury and Springfield, according to a spokesperson for the current owner, national health care conglomerate Genesis HealthCare.
The application had been pending for more than a year. A Seven Days investigation of the buyers' backgrounds last July revealed problems at some of the homes members of the group owned in other states.
The withdrawal comes just as state officials were preparing to issue a decision on the application, which involves more than 500 beds — nearly 20 percent of all skilled nursing home care across Vermont. It follows a hearing earlier this month in which agency officials scrutinized Priority's track record and questioned the complex and shifting ownership structure for the Vermont deal.
Read more: https://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2021/12/28/private-equity-group-drops-bid-to-purchase-five-vermont-nursing-homes
Secret FBI statements from ex-Gov. Shumlin, other state leaders in EB-5 case may be revealed
BURLINGTON — A federal judge appears willing to reverse part of an earlier ruling that kept secret the FBI statements made by former Gov. Peter Shumlin and other high-ranking state officials in the largest fraud case in Vermont history.
Judge Geoffrey Crawford last month endorsed a protective order at the request of federal prosecutors. That order blocked the documents from being provided to attorney Russell Barr of Barr Law Firm in Stowe, who is representing bilked foreign investors suing the state.
After listening to arguments from Barr on Tuesday in federal court in Burlington about why the documents should be turned over to him and his clients, Crawford said he was willing to do just that, provided federal prosecutors had no earlier agreements with those witnesses to keep them off-limits.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Van de Graaf said during the hearing that he did not believe that such agreements existed, though he needed to double-check before saying so definitively.
Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2021/12/28/secret-fbi-statements-from-ex-gov-shumlin-other-state-leaders-in-eb-5-case-may-be-revealed/
Austin Public Library condemns Texas book bans, censorship
Austin’s public library system this week took a firm stand on the wave of book bans happening in public and school libraries throughout Texas in 2021.
Libraries across the state have been reviewing children’s and young adult books on their shelves after lawmakers and parents questioned whether some content is appropriate for students, including accusations of overly sexual narratives and the promotion of critical race theory (CRT).
“Freedom to read is a right that must be protected in our schools and public libraries, and we must not give in to the vocal few that want to speak for the many,” said Roosevelt Weeks, director of the Austin Public Library, in a statement released by the organization Monday. The system operates 20 branches throughout the state capital.
The statement also noted that the Texas Library Association has seen a “substantial increase in censorship activity” in state libraries. The association's Office for Intellectual Freedom reported an “unprecedented volume” in book challenges this past fall.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Austin-Public-Library-condemns-censorship-book-16734125.php
Vermont Legislature panel recommends 1st two weeks be remote
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - A panel of the Vermont Legislature is recommending that the body meet remotely for the first two weeks of the session that begins next week and then reassess to determine whether it will be safe to resume in-person meetings.
The Legislature’s Joint Rules Committee made the recommendation Tuesday.
The Legislature had been considering ways for lawmakers, staff and the public to meet safely in the Montpelier Statehouse. But the expected upcoming spike in the more transmissible omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 prompted lawmakers to reconsider.
The Tuesday decision must be approved by the rules committees of both the Vermont House and Vermont Senate.
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https://www.wcax.com/2021/12/28/vermont-legislature-panel-recommends-1st-two-weeks-be-remote/
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