Iowa news
Johnson County working to vaccinate those 16 and older at area high schools
Johnson County Public Health is offering area private and public high schools the option to hold on-site COVID vaccinations for those 16 and older. Johnson County Public Health, Towncrest Pharmacy, Visiting Nurses Association and University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics will administer the vaccines. According to Johnson County, over half of 16- and 17-year-olds and 80,500 people total in Johnson County have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. (KCRG)
County health officials work to get COVID-19 vaccines to homebound residents
The Black Hawk County Health Department and local health care providers are working to give homebound residents COVID-19 vaccines. The county got a list of possible homebound residents from Iowa Medicaid insurance carriers Iowa Total Care and Amerigroup and health care companies, said Nafissa Cisse Egbuonye, director of the Black Hawk County Health Department. Her department then gave those lists to health care providers, who were tasked with contacting homebound residents to schedule vaccinations. (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)
Investment in mental health is a ‘silver lining’ of pandemic
Tanager Place in Cedar Rapids is unveiling a new mental health resource to increase awareness, cultivate resiliency and enhance family and community connections during this mental health month of May. Tanager Place is launching The Meraki Institute of Learning, an online platform to provide free resources, tools and educational experiences to families to increase their ability to respond to mental health needs. One “silver lining” of the COVID-19 pandemic is that more people are talking about mental health in the way they typically talk about physical health, said Jennifer Null, learning development manager and therapist at the Meraki Institute. (The Gazette)
National news
Herd immunity in the US? San Francisco offers reasons for optimism
Herd immunity is about transmission. If enough people can’t catch and spread a virus, particularly in a community that already has few cases, the virus struggles to find new hosts. Eventually, infections would naturally taper off. It’s a simple concept, yet it can be elusive and difficult to define — particularly at the national level. (NBC News)
KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor – April 2021
With eligibility for COVID-19 vaccination now open to all US adults, the latest KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor shows that while the pace of vaccine uptake has continued rapidly over the past month, enthusiasm may be reaching a plateau. The share of adults who say they’ve gotten at least one dose of a vaccine or intend to do so as soon as possible inched up from 61% in March to 64% in April, while the share who want to “wait and see” before getting vaccinated remained about the same in April (15%) compared to March (17%). (KFF.org)
Nurse burnout remains a serious problem, putting patients in danger, experts say
According to a recent Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 3 in 10 health care workers have weighed leaving the profession, and 6 in 10 say the pandemic burned them out. In states hardest hit by the pandemic, nurses took steps to find new jobs when COVID-19 rates peaked. In New York, for example, there was a 400% increase in nurses searching for new jobs on a recruitment website in March and April of last year. (NBC News)