Today’s NewsStand

Today’s NewsStand

By Iowa Hospital Association|
|June 2, 2021

Iowa news

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Iowa drop below 100

For the first time in more than a year, fewer than 100 people are hospitalized in Iowa with COVID-19. The latest numbers on the state’s coronavirus tracking site showed 95 hospitalized with the virus in the state. That’s the fewest patients hospitalized at one time since April 3, 2020. In the 24 hours before 10 am Monday, 13 people were hospitalized because of COVID-19. Of the patients hospitalized, 22 were in intensive care and 10 were on ventilators. The site shows more than 371,400 in Iowa have tested positive for the virus since the outbreak began last year, and 6,055 have died from the virus. (Associated Press)

Iowa City VA opening new Burlington outpatient clinic

The Iowa City VA Health Care System is opening a new outpatient clinic in Burlington, the first VA clinic in that region. The clinic is smaller than the Quad Cities clinic location in Davenport, but VA officials say the Burlington location will provide more access to VA health care in the area. The clinic opens Monday, June 7. (WQAD)

UnityPoint deploys ‘VAX van’ making COVID-19 vaccines more accessible to the Cedar Valley

UnityPoint Health is hosting pop-up clinics using a mobile “VAX van.” Nurses are making their way into neighborhoods to give the vaccine, making the shots even more accessible. Demand for the shot against COVID-19 has gone down, and UnityPoint Health is trying to change that. Each day the mobile VAX van sets up the clinic, and more Iowans roll up their sleeves. (KWWL)

National news

Despite vaccines, nursing homes still struggle with COVID-19 outbreaks, deaths

COVID-19 vaccines have allowed US nursing homes to make dramatic progress since the dark days of the pandemic, but senior care facilities are still experiencing scattered outbreaks largely blamed on unvaccinated staff members. The outbreaks and ensuing shutdowns have jolted family members who were just starting to enjoy in-person visits with loved ones for the first time in a year. Although the outbreaks inside nursing homes now are much smaller, less frequent and less severe than during the height of the pandemic, there continue to be hundreds of deaths each week attributed to the coronavirus. According to federal data, 472 nursing home deaths were related to COVID-19 in the first two weeks of May, down from 10,675 in the first two weeks of January. (NBC News)

Advancing diversity and inclusion in the workplace requires a common language, knowledge

Despite a growing momentum for initiatives aimed at creating more diverse and inclusive work spaces, several barriers still exist that limit the success of these efforts. To implement meaningful change, a team of researchers says a holistic and systematic approach is needed to ensure practitioners, educators and researchers are working from the same playbook. In a paper published by the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, the team examines the role of marketing in fostering diversity and inclusion in the marketplace and provides several recommendations to advance diversity-and-inclusion-engaged marketing. (Iowa State News)

The ‘grief pandemic’ will torment Americans for years

With nearly 600,000 in the US lost to COVID-19 — now a leading cause of death — researchers estimate that more than 5 million Americans are in mourning, including more than 43,000 children who have lost a parent. The pandemic — and the political battles and economic devastation that have accompanied it — have inflicted unique forms of torment on mourners, making it harder to move ahead with their lives than with a typical loss, said sociologist Holly Prigerson, co-director of the Cornell Center for Research on End-of-Life Care. (Patch.com)

 

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