Iowa news
Reynolds names aide to lead Iowa’s Medicaid program
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has hired her health policy adviser as the state’s Medicaid director. Gov. Reynolds praised Elizabeth Matney as a health policy expert and “dynamic member of my team” in announcing she would lead the program, which oversees care for more than 700,000 poor and disabled Iowans. Matney replaces Mike Randol, who left as Medicaid director last August. Matney holds a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from Drake University and a bachelor’s in psychology and philosophy from Texas State University. She will begin work as director on June 1. (KCCI)
Opinion: I won’t change your mind. But help me understand not getting vaccinated.
I won’t change your mind. If you’ve decided not to get the vaccine. Just help me understand. As kids my generation got vaccinated. The alternative was being sick. Those shots helped create the herd immunity to childhood diseases we have today. Now we’re working on herd immunity against this virus. (The Des Moines Register)
Student loan debt is costing recent grads much more than just money
President Joe Biden promised to forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt during his 2020 campaign. Now, a few months into his presidency, over 415 organizations have urged him to use his executive authority to cancel all federal student loan debt. The Conversation assembled a panel of academics to talk about the effects student loans have on recent graduates. (Iowa Capital Dispatch)
National news
Cancer software security breach hits 40 health systems
Yale New Haven Health is the latest health system of among at least 40 affected by a cybersecurity breach on cancer care software company Elekta. The health system said it has communicated with patients about treatment interruptions as a result of the incident and expects to be operational April 26. At least 40 health systems across the US have been affected by the breach and Elekta’s subsequent software issues. Providence, Rhode Island-based Lifespan and New Bedford, Massachusetts-based Southcoast Health also rescheduled radiation treatment appointments for some of their cancer patients this month because of the incident. (Becker’s Hospital Review)
Throughout the more than yearlong pandemic, data on kids and the coronavirus has been murky. Although it’s clear that children can become sick, they generally fare better than adults. Often, they may feel no or minimal symptoms, according to doctors, which carries its own risk as their infections go undiagnosed. But cases of COVID-19 in kids have shown some spikes and have increased recently, experts said. COVID-19 vaccines have been approved only for adults or older teens. Until vaccines are authorized and widely administered to young people, their undiscovered infections may pose a hurdle to breaking through the pandemic, they said. (Des Moines Register)
People who maintain 60 feet of distance from others indoors are no more protected than if they socially distanced by 6 feet, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America. Cambridge-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Martin Bazant and John Bush, PhD, developed a model to calculate indoor exposure risk to COVID-19 by factoring in the amount of time spent inside, air filtration and circulation, immunization, variant strains, mask use, and respiratory activity such as breathing, eating or talking. (Becker’s Hospital Review)