Dispensed: Approaching New York's peak, the path back to 'normal,' and the economic realities of the pandemic for healthcare
Hello,
Welcome to Dispensed, Business Insider's weekly healthcare newsletter. In Brooklyn, things are starting to look up. Anecdotally, there are fewer sirens interrupting my thoughts and phone calls. Birds are chirping, and we've set up patio furniture to increase our square footage as we continue to get used to this new normal.
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This week, I've started getting more used to wearing face masks when I sparingly leave the house. Lucky for me, Yeji Lee spoke to experts to help with the basics, like how to properly put on and remove masks. Certainly guilty of not covering my nose on one or two occasions.
There's early signs we might be flattening the curve here in New York, Jeremy Berke reports. Jeremy's been tuning into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's now-famous daily press briefings, and that was one optimistic note that came out of Wednesday's session: "We are flattening the curve," Cuomo said.
Even so, coronavirus death counts might still be going up for some time. The logic is relatively straightforward, even though it'll mean seeing hard headlines for a while yet. The deaths are occurring in patients who have been in the hospital for a few weeks now, when admission rates were skyrocketing.
The front lines are still a tense place
For weeks, we've been discussing the challenges overwhelmed doctors and nurses are facing as they treat the influx of coronavirus patients, from a lack of protective gear to not getting tested themselves.
Now, hospitals are suspending healthcare workers who speak out about conditions, Allana Akhtar reports. She had the scoop on a leaked memo from HCA Healthcare, the largest hospital system in the country.
With that in mind - healthcare workers, we do indeed want to hear from you and what conditions are like at the work place. We can keep your identity anonymous. You can reach out to me at lramsey@businessinsider.com or the entire healthcare team at healthcare@businessinsider.com.
Allana also had a great story detailing what it's like to be a nurse treating COVID-19 patients at New York-Presbyterian Hospital here in NYC. She describes language barriers, overwhelming shifts, and headaches from wearing the protective gear. The work makes it clear why some experts are suggesting instituting hazard pay for nurses.
You can read the full story here.
Healthcare workers are going through great lengths as well to keep their families safe. Yeji reports on how one nurse in Manhattan is staying in her attic to avoid any exposure to her family.
And if you're looking for a good account of what it's been like to tackle the coronavirus outbreak here in NYC, I highly recommend the daily updates penned by Dr. Craig Smith, chairman of the Department of Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian's Columbia University Irving Medical Center. I compiled some of the best snippets here.
Inside the hospital, doctors are having to rethink how they're treating patients as we learn more about the virus.
It's leading some to delay putting people on ventilators, which can come with a whole host of complications, in favor of other less invasive ways to get oxygen, as well as decisions to place patients on their stomachs.
I spoke to folks on the ground as well as those who set the guidelines to get a sense of how care for the sickest COVID-19 patients is evolving.
You can read the full story here:
Coronavirus patients are dying on ventilators. It's leading to a debate over the best way to get oxygen into their damaged lungs.
Finding a way back to 'normal'
As our time spent social distancing carries on, the question of "When will we get back to normal?" is becoming an increasingly common refrain. What I wouldn't give to out to dinner at a packed restaurant or spend a summer night at an outdoor concert in the park.
While we might never get back to the "normal life" we knew before the pandemic, getting out from under lockdown-like conditions will certainly hinge greatly on whether a vaccine can come online, and if we can get treatments that are effective in treating COVID-19.
Andrew Dunn for months has been detailing the developments on both of those fronts for months. He's now compiled handy cheat sheets on what all we know on both topics. (Considering bookmarking them for future reference).
This week's big updates:
- Inovio's vaccine, funded by Bill Gates, started trials in Philadelphia and Kansas City in healthy volunteers.
- Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline joined the race to develop a vaccine, partnering with Vir Biotechnology.
- Roche on Monday started enrolling patients in its trial of an arthritis drug to treat COVID-19. Results are expected by this summer, Andrew reports.
- And Verily, Alphabet's life sciences arm might chip in and help connect patients with trials, Blake Dodge reports.
Testing, too, will be key, especially as a way to better understand who has already contracted the virus.
Blake reports on the work that's being done on blood tests that could help send sidelined healthcare workers back to work and lift some of the social distancing measures in place today.
In particular, there are a number of companies working to make this happen.
You can read the full roundup here:
Tests that can tell if you're immune to the coronavirus are on the way. Here are the companies racing to bring them to the US healthcare system.
The economic consequences of the pandemic are hitting the healthcare industry
I wrote a bit last week about how it seems like healthcare isn't recession-proof this time around.
As the economy grinds virtually to a halt, it's leaving the healthcare industry in a vulnerable spot, especially small biotech companies in the early stages of developing new treatments whose clinical trials have been put on hold as patients stay home. Andrew spoke to Flagship Pioneering CEO Noubar Afeyan about what he's telling the companies he works with.
"Anybody who continues to try to thrive and hope to God that they survive in the process is not going to do enough to ensure that survival is assured," Afeyan told Andrew.
Kimberly Leonard did some more digging into the hardships healthcare workers are facing.
Layoffs, furloughs, and pay cuts have caught them by surprise, especially because the pandemic is a healthcare crisis, as one nurse told Kimberly.
You can read the full story here:
Pay cuts, furloughs, and layoffs for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers are mounting as the coronavirus pandemic hits hospitals
I'll send you off with some news-you-can-use. I caught up this week with Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former US surgeon general. We last spoke onstage at an event in Palm Springs what feels like a lifetime ago but was actually just seven editions of "Dispensed" ago.
Murthy's been focused on the topic of loneliness for some time now, a topic that under the current circumstances takes on new meaning. If we're not careful, our actions to keep one another safe by staying at home might leave us lonelier than where we were in February. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Murthy suggested spending 15 minutes a day talking on the phone or writing to loved ones without distraction. Building those connections, he told me, could leave us in a better spot than we were before even. Here's hoping we are.
Read more about his tips for combating loneliness here.
I hope for those who are celebrating holidays around now have found some way to keep the celebration going, even in the absence of frequent grocery store runs and time spent in-person with family. I'm trying to figure out what an Easter brunch might look like with what I have left in my pantry - maybe some new traditions will be cemented this year. See you next week.
- Lydia
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