1. "A French study found 1 in 10 diabetic patients with Covid-19 died within a week of being hospitalized."
"One in 10 diabetic patients with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, died within a week of being hospitalized, according to a study published on Thursday by French researchers in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.
Another 20 percent were put on ventilators to assist with breathing by the end of their first week in the hospital. Just 18 percent were discharged within a week.
“I don’t want to scare people, but what is true is we did not expect to see such high mortality, with 10 percent of people admitted dying in the first seven days,” said Dr. Samy Hadjadj, a professor of endocrinology at the University of Nantes in France and one of the authors of the paper.
A majority of patients in the study had Type 2 diabetes. Many people with diabetes also have cardiovascular disease, which raises the risk of death in Covid-19 patients.
Diabetes is common in the United States: 34.2 million Americans, or 10.5 percent of the population, had diabetes in 2018, according to the American Diabetes Association.
But the new study, which included 1,317 patients at 53 French hospitals, found that microvascular injuries — involving tiny blood vessels supplying the eyes, kidneys and peripheral nerves — were also linked to a higher risk of death."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/us/coronavirus-news-usa.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
2. "Higher Death Rates Found Among Cancer Patients With Covid-19
Study finds 13% of patients who had cancer that was either active or in remission died within 30 days of their coronavirus diagnoses
"In the study, conducted by an international group of researchers and published online by the Lancet, researchers looked at data on 928 Covid-19 patients in the U.S., Canada and Spain who had cancer that was either active or in remission. Thirteen percent of those patients died within 30 days of their Covid-19 diagnosis, according to the study. In contrast, the case fatality of Covid-19 patients in the U.S. is 5.9%, according to global coronavirus data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Cancer doctors have expressed worry about their patients during the pandemic, noting that these patients are generally sicker than others. Their immune systems might be weaker due to treatments or the cancers themselves, clinicians say, which can put them at increased risk for complications and death from infections.
The study also excluded patients with noninvasive cancers.
The higher death rate among cancer patients wasn’t surprising, said Dr. Choueiri.
“These are sicker patients who are also older,” he said, noting that the median age of the patients in the study was 66 years old. Older adults and those with serious underlying medical conditions are at higher risk for severe illness from Covid-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In what some clinicians lauded as an encouraging sign for cancer patients, the study didn’t find that recent cancer therapy or surgery increased one’s risk of dying.
The study also found that patients treated with a combination of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin were at higher risk of dying, but not when they were treated with either one alone.
He noted that it is possible that only the sickest patients ended up getting both drugs, which could have contributed to the higher risk of death.
Certain cancer patients were at higher risk of dying than others, according to the study. Those who were more debilitated and had active cancers—those not in remission—were more likely to die, along with patients who were older and had concurrent health issues like diabetes and hypertension. Male cancer patients with Covid-19 were also more at risk of dying than females, which has also been found in other studies of patients with the new coronavirus.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/higher-death-rates-found-among-cancer-patients-with-covid-19-11590697230?tesla=y
3. "Atlanta airport manager: Full recovery could be 5 years away
The head of Atlanta's airport says that it could be years before revenue rebounds from the lows seen during the coronavirus pandemic."
"Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport General Manager John Selden [says] that it could be two to five years before a return to pre-coronavirus levels.
Read in The Hill: https://apple.news/AoC9IyDj6QUCEaMvYdpa3Cg
4. "Coronavirus superspreaders may be responsible for a huge number of new infections
A small percentage of people — called superspreaders — may be responsible for a large number of COVID-19 infections, research is starting to indicate."
"The latest: Three recent studies by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Tel Aviv University and the Institute for Disease Modeling in Washington, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, came to similar conclusions: Roughly 10% of COVID-19 cases appear to have caused around 80% of new infections.
It reflects the law of the "vital few," where a small number (between 5% and 20%) are responsible for the majority of cases, says Eric Topol, executive vice president of Scripps Research, who's also tweeted about it.
Indoor congregations — such as at churches, prisons, meatpacking plants and nursing homes — offer the highest risk, he says.
Topol says research is targeting this phenomenon because "if we knew the genomics or immunologic markers that these people have, maybe there's something we could do."
But Adalja says, "It's less about the biology than it is about the habits and interactions that individuals with the virus have, and what types of events they go to which puts them into contact with many different people in a way that spreads the virus."
Read in Axios: https://apple.news/Ad4cxkFNrRJG0icGREKc1AQ
5. "Is risk of coronavirus transmission lower outside? What to know before going outdoors
The weather is getting warmer. The days are getting longer. Some stores are reopening. And California is slowly easing up on the sheltering restrictions placed on us during this pandemic. In other words, we’re getting out of our homes a little more after weeks of a statewide shutdown."
"Q: What are the transmission rates for people who are outside? Are they higher than being inside?
A: Outside exercise lowers the chance of spreading the virus by a magnitude of 10 compared with the same level of exertion indoors, said Dr. Gary Green, medical director of infection control at Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital. The main danger is in exercising outdoors with others because the tendency is to pile into a car to get to the trailhead and then bunch up once you are there: “People are used to congregating before and after exercising and you want to be careful.”
It is not the setting that matters, it is the crowding. When the sun is out people tend to set up umbrellas for shade and crowd under them. That is to be avoided. The coronavirus “likes cold weather more than it likes hot weather, and it likes low altitude more than it likes high altitude,” said Chin-Hong. “But it likes people more than it likes hot or cold.”
Q: How long does the virus live on grass or trees? Is it safe to sit on grass at a park?
A: Unless you immediately occupy a patch of grass that someone else has been sitting on or touch the exact same spot on a tree that someone else touched, it is highly unlikely that the living virus is there. Guardrails and public restrooms are much more dangerous.
The virus “doesn’t love grass or trees or clothing,” Chin-Hong said. “I would rate these as low-risk surfaces.”
Q: Will the sunlight cleanse a surface that has the virus on it?
A: Yes. “On a warm day in the outside air the virus will only survive for minutes under sunlight,” Green said. “The warmer the day, the quicker the virus dries out.”
Q: Does a runner exhaling while exercising potentially spread the virus greater than someone who is simply walking? And should we be worried about people running past us on sidewalks or trails?
A: There are no scientific data to suggest that a runner has more viral spread than a walker, according to Green. “If everyone is wearing a mask, and practicing social distancing, the brief time a runner goes by a walker is a minimal risk of exposure.”
Singing and loud talking, however, have emerged as activities that could produce significantly more exhalations of viral droplets than normal activity and thus spread the virus. So watch for the noisy walkers, not the silent runners.
Q: Does sweat make it easier to transfer the virus? If you bump into a sweaty person, is that cause for concern?
A: Not really because COVID-19 is caused by a respiratory virus. “We are really only interested in mouth secretions and nose secretions,” Green said.
“The risk of random sweat vaporizing on you is very small,” Chin-Hong said, “unless the person runs around you in circles and creates a COVID sauna.”
Q: Does the wind affect transmission of the virus? Can it blow the virus onto me?
A: Wind is your friend in defending against the virus. “It disperses the virus much more rapidly and thins it out, which lowers the risk of infection,” Chin-Hong said. “The virus is trying to jump from someone who is infected, the wind creates turbulence and disrupts the path of the virus,” he added.
Q: Does chlorine kill the virus in a swimming pool?
A: “Disinfectant is a good thing for the virus in general and chlorine is a disinfectant, so that is good,” Chin-Hong said. “You don’t need to wear a mask while swimming. Just maintain 6 feet of distance and if you are doing laps with others, swim in alternate lanes.” Keeping your distance in locker rooms is more the problem."
[There's other good info in this article.]
Read in San Francisco Chronicle: https://apple.news/A7fHu6Kk8TWKdZmTNxqKn-w
6. "Latin America now accounts for 40% of daily coronavirus deaths
In March, when Covid-19 was stamping out lives across the globe, Latin America looked like it might escape relatively unharmed. Its governments chose vastly different approaches to confronting the pandemic, from severe lockdown in El Salvador and Peru to relative laxness in Brazil and Mexico."
"But as May heads into June, the news could hardly be more dire for the highly urbanized region of 600 million inhabitants -- or about 8% of the world’s population. It is, without question, the new epicenter of coronavirus, representing about 40% of daily deaths globally now.
The statistics are chilling: Brazil has more cases than any country except the U.S. and some models forecast that deaths, currently at 25,000, could more than quadruple in coming months. Mexico had its largest single increase in both cases and deaths this week and a top health official said about 30,000 people may die. Peru, Chile and Colombia have all set daily records in the past week.
Latin American countries reported more than 1,900 deaths on Wednesday, a record, accounting for 37% worldwide. Brazil, Peru, Chile and Mexico have each reported more than 10,000 new cases in the past five days, making them four of the top seven countries globally in that period.
“Many of the region’s largest cities are still several weeks away from their peaks,” said James Bosworth, author of the weekly newsletter Latin America Risk Report. “Hospitals will run at capacity for a long time, straining the healthcare systems. Even those cities and countries that do peak will see a multi-week plateau and a gradual descent rather than a sharp drop in cases.”
The region is expected to contract 5.2% this year, the deepest recession in 50 years, according to the International Monetary Fund. About 40% of jobs are in the informal economy, the IMF said in a report last month."
Read in Bloomberg: https://apple.news/A186Uv97xS0eTQ71olNNEnQ
7. "Why New York suffered when other cities were spared by COVID-19
The mayor, the CDC and a New York disease expert weigh in"
"As of this week, at least 21,000 New Yorkers are dead from Covid-19, with a few dozen added to the city’s count every day. More than 3,000 have perished in nursing homes, many more in hospitals. Some died at home. The most brutal toll came among those who were old, poor and in the outer boroughs.
The city’s deaths are 10 times those of Los Angeles County’s. They’ve surpassed the 16,000 lives lost in Italy’s hard-hit Lombardy region. In the U.K., eight times as populous as New York City, about 37,500 have died.
Here’s what they said about the major factors that led to New York’s outbreak.
1. Close the Front Door, Leave the Back Open
Outbreaks can’t start without a spark. The U.S. shut down most travel from China on Feb. 2, when there were at least 14,000 cases there. But it left open travel from most of Europe until March 13. During that time, Italy went from two known infections to more than 15,000.
In the week ended March 13, 274,000 people arrived at New York-area airports from Europe, and another 174,000 came from the U.K. and Ireland, according to U. S. Customs and Border Protection’s New York field office.
2. “Ride the Subway, Take the Bus”
Wash your hands and cover your cough: That was the main advice given to New Yorkers early in the outbreak to prevent the virus’s spread.
“We want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives, ride the subway, take the bus, go see your neighbors,” New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said on March 2.
The mayor gave the same guidance. “From what we do understand, you cannot contract it through casual contact, so the subway is not the issue,” de Blasio said March 3. Days later, he said, “It has to go from someone who is infected to another person directly into their mouth, their nose, or their eyes.”
3. Perfect Environment
With the virus’s easy transmission, New York’s shared spaces were a perfect vector to bring the infection from one family to another.
Subways and buses, concert halls, elevators, offices, crowded bars, apartment towers — while other U.S. urban areas have natural social distancing built into their structure through the prevalence of cars and less-dense buildings, New York is defined by crowding.
4. Slow to Close
For all of New York City’s risk, its leaders moved late on shutting down the city.
Cuomo and de Blasio — who have had a long-running, often public feud — disagreed for days over how and when to act. The city closed the schools on March 15. Two days later, de Blasio raised the possibility of a stay-at-home order. Cuomo disagreed, saying it was the state’s decision and that he had “no interest whatsoever or plan whatsoever to contain New York City.” On March 20, he announced that the state would shut all non-essential businesses, and told people to stay home.
5. Nursing Homes
As the virus swept through nursing homes — and the city was in an urgent search for hospital beds — the question arose of what to do with elderly patients who recovered.
On March 25, the state made what now appears to be an ill-fated decision to send those people back to nursing homes once they were well enough to leave the hospital. Two months later, Cuomo said the state had followed the federal government’s guidance, and made the rules when the state was scrambling for hospital bed space.
Read in Bloomberg: https://apple.news/AfnMvtq_CSc-KjXhk-0hFVg
8. "No Pool? Stock Tanks Are the Cool New Alternative
With public pools closed, small steel tanks meant for cattle have become the Instagram-friendly way to take a dip. How to add one to your backyard."
"Across the U.S., homebound Americans are making a modest stock tank the focus of a backyard oasis. Ryan Stanton, who runs stocktankpool.net to help DIYers purchase and convert tubs and to design outdoor setups, reported a 10-fold increase in traffic this spring.
Some retailers are selling out, adjusting to urbane customers who seek vessels more durable—and less gauche—than the aboveground pools that come wrapped in polyester or resin and held together with PVC pipe. “It’s funny to think that when we started selling stock tanks years ago, we assumed that our customers would have cows and horses and things like that,” said Bill Vasel, president of Tank and Barrel.
As a result, more coastal dwellers are investing: This summer, Hastings Equity Manufacturing has plans to ship tanks to customers hundreds of miles from any ranch supply store. Most bathers opt for tanks roughly 8 feet across and 2 feet deep (from $800, tankandbarrel.com)—which hold about 700 gallons of water. Beyond the tank, you need only a flat patch of ground to get your feet wet."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-pool-stock-tanks-are-the-cool-new-alternative-11590660092?mod=mhp
9. "After the Covid Apocalypse
Coronavirus lesson #1: The U.S. is willing to shut down for three months, but that’s about it."
"The past week’s events have revealed one rule of thumb: Whether the order comes from political leaders, epidemiologists or the media, you can get away with forcing the U.S. to shut down for about three months, but that’s it. Then the tides of human nature will push past the voices of authority. For better or worse, that’s just the way it is.
In New York, total deaths are 29,730. In Missouri, they are 697. For all the attention California and Gov. Gavin Newsom have received, its death rate per 100,000 population is 10, one more than Vermont’s.
Despite the national media scorn dumped on Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s less restrictive lockdown orders, the fatality rate there is also 10 per 100,000. In Texas it is 5, one ahead of Idaho."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-the-covid-apocalypse-11590618090?mod=mhp
10. "The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus"
"The coronavirus still has a long way to go. That’s the message from a crop of new studies across the world that are trying to quantify how many people have been infected.
Official case counts often substantially underestimate the number of coronavirus infections. But even in results from a new set of studies that test the population more broadly to estimate everyone who has been infected, the percentage of people who have been infected so far is still in the single digits. The numbers are a fraction of the threshold known as herd immunity, at which the virus can no longer spread widely. The precise herd immunity threshold for the novel coronavirus is not yet clear; but several experts said they believed it would be higher than 60 percent.
Herd immunity estimate
At least 60% of population
New York City May 2
19.9% have antibodies
London May 21
17.5% have antibodies
Madrid May 13
11.3% have antibodies
Wuhan (returning workers) April 20
10% have antibodies
Boston May 15
9.9% have antibodies
StockholmMay 20
7.3% have antibodies
Barcelona May 13
7.1% have antibodies
Even in some of the hardest-hit cities in the world, the studies suggest, the vast majority of people still remain vulnerable to the virus.
Some countries – notably Sweden, and briefly Britain – have experimented with limited lockdowns in an effort to build up immunity in their populations. But even in these places, recent studies indicate that no more than 7 to 17 percent of people have been infected so far."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/28/upshot/coronavirus-herd-immunity.html
11. "1 in 4 American workers have filed for unemployment benefits during the pandemic
More than 40 million Americans have filed for first-time unemployment benefits since the coronavirus pandemic forced the US economy to shut down in March. One in four American workers has filed for unemployment insurance."
"The number of people claiming regular unemployment benefits for consecutive weeks fell to 21.1 million. It was the first decline in continued claims since the start of the pandemic. Economists will keep a close eye on this number in the coming weeks. If it continues to decline, the US labor market may have turned a corner."
Read in CNN Business: https://apple.news/ARAnl4y3RRXuXzVallsj1bQ
12. "Warnings of overrun hospitals put nursing homes at risk, health official says
“There needs to be some accountability for all of these people that were making these fantastic estimates,” Mark Parkinson said."
"Warnings of overrun hospitals were "an error" that resulted in the spread of coronavirus in nursing homes, and those who issued them should face "some accountability," AHCA President and CEO Mark Parkinson said Sunday.
"The country was too concerned with hospitals being overrun, and there were consequences to that," Parkinson, a former Kansas governor and the current president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "One of the consequences is that nursing homes were left out. Our residents weren't a high priority for testing. We weren't given the equipment that we needed."
"There needs to be some accountability for all of these people that were making these fantastic estimates that the entire hospital system across the country was going to be overrun. It wasn't, and there are consequences and, unfortunately, nursing home residents are one of the consequences," he said.
Nursing homes have struggled to obtain protective gear, even as they emerged as deadly hot spots.
Asked about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision in March to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance to direct nursing homes not to turn away Covid-19 patients, Parkinson called the prediction that hospitals would be overrun "an error."
Cuomo "was being told by the epidemiologist that his hospitals were going to be overrun with Covid patients," Parkinson said. "In hindsight, we now know that that was not the case. There was actually the capacity there; they didn't need to be discharged to nursing homes. In hindsight, it was an error, and to Governor Cuomo's credit, he has now reversed that policy."
"Fortunately, we were able to convince most of the other governors across the country to not institute that policy, and I think that's part of the reason we're starting to see recovery."
Read in POLITICO: https://apple.news/ACExWJTJsQsG21_snmZKEOA
13. "NIH director: ‘No way of knowing’ if coronavirus escaped from Wuhan lab
"Nature created this virus, and has proven once again to be the most effective bioterrorist."
"National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said the coronavirus is “absolutely not" manmade but he could not rule out the idea that it escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, where the first known cases emerged.
“Whether [the coronavirus] could have been in some way isolated and studied in this laboratory in Wuhan, we have no way of knowing,” he told POLITICO on Wednesday.
What is clear, he said, is that "Nature created this virus, and has proven once again to be the most effective bioterrorist."
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly suggested that the virus might have somehow emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — claims that the center’s director has called “pure fabrication.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed late last month that the government is investigating the pandemic’s origin, but said that there is no reason to believe the coronavirus was manmade or genetically modified.
Read in POLITICO: https://apple.news/AzAsT53THQzem5h8x7H3M7w
14. "Pandemic Dining: Temperature Checks, Time Limits, and Dividers
The experience of eating out in Hong Kong illustrates what it’s like to visit a restaurant right now."
"HONG KONG—On a recent Friday night, a masked, affable hostess at Hong Kong’s Buenos Aires Polo Club was eager to show patrons to their tables. But before they stepped into the Argentinian steak house, they needed to answer a few questions.
“Have you been outside of Hong Kong?”
“Experienced any symptoms commonly associated with the coronavirus?”
“Have you come into ‘direct contact with or the immediate vicinity of anyone’ carrying the coronavirus or who has been outside the city within the last 14 days?”
The health declaration, handed to diners on a hefty but stylish clipboard, comes along with a second temperature check. (The first is done at the main entrance to the tower that houses the restaurant, a requirement to get in.) Only then does the routine of a night out return, briefly, to the familiar “Right this way” and “Enjoy your meal.” Inside, tucked into tufted leather booths surrounded by polo memorabilia and perched on high seats at the marble bar, guests slide their face masks into small paper bags. Tiny bottles of hand sanitizer marked with the restaurant’s logo, a galloping horse ridden by two men, one grasping a mallet, are delivered table side.
The measures adopted by restaurants here in Hong Kong—temperature checks for diners, dividers between tables, reduced seating capacity, time limits for eating, pared-down menus, and support for employees—could provide a look at what restaurant-goers and owners elsewhere will soon experience."
Read in The Atlantic: https://apple.news/AJl3qfoXsRxSVn5ayLnvrJw
15. "The price of a virus lockdown: economic “free fall” in California
California’s strengths — as a hub for commerce, tourism and education in the Pacific Rim — have become liabilities in the pandemic."
"The economic collapse resulting from the coronavirus pandemic “dwarfs any problem the four of us had,” Mr. Davis recalled saying at the meeting, which took place late last month and was convened by Mr. Newsom.
“There’s no playbook,” he said. “There’s no precedent.”
California was the first state to shut down to counter the coronavirus and has avoided the staggeringly high infection and death rates suffered in the Northeast. But the debilitating financial costs are mounting every day. California has an estimated unemployment rate above 20 percent, according to Mr. Newsom — far higher than the 14.7 percent national rate and similar to the estimated rate for New York State, where the virus has hit the hardest.
In Los Angeles, with movie productions shut down, theme parks padlocked and hotels empty, things are even worse: The jobless rate has reached 24 percent, roughly equal to the peak unemployment of the Great Depression, in 1933.
“Economic free fall,” is how Tom Steyer, the former presidential candidate, described it. He is heading the state’s economic recovery task force, a group of business leaders, labor activists, economists and former governors who have begun meeting to plot a way out.
California faces a daunting budget deficit of $54 billion, which could force painful cuts to schools, social programs, health care and road building. And the state was the first to borrow from the federal government to finance its $13 billion in unemployment claims."
Read in The New York Times: https://apple.news/A45FMvSLrS0uhZisrqYn_zw
15. "From Camping To Dining Out: Here's How Experts Rate The Risks Of 14 Summer Activities
The weather is warming up and public spaces are starting to reopen. How do you decide what's safe to do? We have guidance to help you compare and evaluate the risks."
[Read, if interested.]
"2. Eating indoors at a restaurant: medium to high risk
Indoor dining "is still amongst the riskier things you can do," Landon warns. The trouble is, says Miller, "people tend to linger in restaurants. So even if spacing is OK, the duration of exposure is longer." Also, he says, talking "appears to lead to some release of the virus."
5. An outdoor celebration such as a wedding with more than 10 guests: medium to high risk
6. Using a public restroom: low to medium risk [This surprises me, and is not what others have said.]
Restrooms have been designed to prevent disease transmission, says Landon:
What alters risk: Miller says the main risk comes from restrooms that are small, busy and poorly ventilated — like "those restrooms in a gas station off the highway where the restroom is outside."
Family-oriented celebrations are usually a summer tradition, but they come with a lot of risk right now. Many weddings have been postponed, with good reason."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/A3sFInt-HTmarQIjgatkd_w
16. "Hotel check-in will never be the same again
Be prepared for temperature checks, face masks, plastic screens and digital check-ins. COVID-19 has changed how we travel for good."
"Globally, Marriott is rolling out electrostatic sprayers with hospital-grade disinfectant, and UV technology to sanitise items such as keys and devices. I have no idea what that means but it sounds reassuringly hi-tech.
Dining will be a challenge. Hoteliers are almost unanimous in their belief the buffet is dead but, beyond that near-certainty, it’s very much watch these spaces.
IN ROOMS AND AMENITIES
In rooms, magazines and compendiums will go. All hotel information will be stored on smart TVs; remotes may be wrapped in plastic after disinfection. Sanitiser wipes will come as standard.
Other major chains have canvassed removing minibars, superfluous decorations and even cutting back on the cascades of cushions now standard on all the best beds.
Gyms and spas might cease operating, at least in the short term. But miniature toiletries are back with a vengeance. As Mahaffy says: “Sustainability seems to have gone out the window in favour of health and wellbeing.”
“Anything that has the potential for someone else to touch will be eliminated,” he assures me. On arrival at Lancemore hotels, guests will have temperatures checked and be asked to sign health declarations.
“We’ll try and make it feel as non-hospitalised as we can, while still having all the cleanliness and procedures we need,” Julian says.
“But we will have zero tolerance for any flu-like symptoms.”
Other ideas being floated within the industry include staggered check-in and check-out times to avoid crowded foyers. Bars, restaurants and gyms will be reconfigured to enforce physical distancing. And hotel cleanliness will become a crucial selling point,"
Read in Escape: https://apple.news/A14ABAST9Rgqb9hK-zP4gPA
17. "Should the Child Care Industry Get a Bailout?
Democrats propose $50 billion for a business that is in danger of widespread failure — and that many parents need before they can return to work."
"It has become agonizingly clear to parents of young children that the economy cannot fully reopen without child care. Yet a significant number of child care providers have not been able to survive the lockdown.
The sector was already fragile: Unlike public education, the child care industry operates almost entirely on private tuition payments, and most providers are barely profitable. With closings because of the coronavirus, many cannot continue to pay landlords or teachers.
Now that more states are allowing child care centers to reopen, those that survived face higher expenses because of additional rules about sanitation and new limits, like no more than 10 children per classroom. In some cases, enrollment is down because parents can no longer afford to pay or they’re worried about the health risks.
Certain Democrats have long argued that the country should guarantee care and education for children ages 0 to 5 just as it does for those 5 to 18. Now some members of Congress are proposing giving child care the treatment afforded other industries: a bailout.
Now, half the child care supply in the United States is potentially at risk of closing permanently, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress. It combined the center’s data on child care availability with a March survey of 6,000 providers by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Seventeen percent said they could not survive any closure without government support; 30 percent said they could not survive more than two weeks; and 16 percent said they could not survive more than a month."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/upshot/virus-childcare-bailout-democrats.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
