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Saturday, January 1, 2022

United, Spirit offer higher pay to on board staff during January

 United Airlines and Spirit Airlines Inc are bumping up pay for on board staff as they scramble to keep schedules intact after U.S. airlines were hammered by a week of mass cancellations.

While Spirit's flight attendants are receiving double pay on any work through Jan. 4, according to their union, United is offering triple time for pilots who pick up extra trips during January, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

The holiday season has been marred by delayed or canceled flights, causing chaos at most U.S. airports as sick staff and fear of contracting COVID-19 grow. Coupled with the prospect of dealing with unruly passengers, many pilots and cabin crew are even forgoing overtime incentives.

That hesitancy, combined with bad weather and tight staffing, has led to over 8,000 flight cancellations over the past eight days, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.

"All flight attendants, regardless of how you have obtained your pairing, will be receiving 200% pay for any pairing that touches Dec. 28 through Jan. 4," the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said in a statement. The union represents about 4,000 flight attendants at Spirit Airlines, according to the carrier's latest annual filing.

Earlier this year, Florida-based Spirit Airlines was forced to cancel nearly 3,000 flights due to bad weather and staffing shortages.

JetBlue Airways Corp said in a customer note on Thursday that 75% of its crew is based in the U.S. Northeast, a region that has been hit hard by COVID-19 infections. The carrier has already cut https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/jetblue-cuts-about-1280-flights-through-mid-january-omicron-hurdles-2021-12-30/#:~:text=Dec%2030%20%20-%20JetBlue,airline%20told%20Reuters%20on%20Thursday its schedule through Jan. 13 by about 1,280 flights.

Alaska Air Group Inc said while the pandemic had hit its operations, the vast majority of cancellations and delays were due to bad weather.

The airline last week agreed to offer some benefits such as instituting pay protections in case of any reassignments on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day, the AFA said.

Hawaiian Airlines said it had not offered new incentives to its crew for working during the holiday period.

SkyWest Airlines said its operations continued to be hit due to weather and the Omicron variant, which is spreading rapidly and causing record-breaking cases across the United States.

CNBC first reported United's pay plans.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/UNITED-AIRLINES-HOLDINGS-45899617/news/United-Spirit-offer-higher-pay-to-on-board-staff-during-January-37447552/

Big Nurses Group Opposes CDC’s Shorter Covid Isolation Guidelines

 The American Nurses Association said it opposes new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that “shortens the time for isolation and quarantine for health care workers infected with or exposed to Covid-19.” 

In the CDC’s new guidance, asymptomatic patients only need to isolate for five days rather than 10. These asymptomatic individuals do, however, need to continue wearing a mask for another five days when around others.

But the ANA, which says it represents more than 4 million registered nurses, on Wednesday said the CDC  is premature and tips toward economic needs as opposed to the health of nurses.” Though the Omicron variant is spreading in the U.S., the ANA says not enough is known about its impact.

The nurses association said it is concerned such “return-to-work guidance for all health care personnel under the updated mitigation strategies will endanger the health and safety of health care workers and those they encounter.”

“While staffing shortages are challenging for facilities experiencing a surge in cases, we must prioritize health care workers’ and patients’ health and safety, including allowing for sufficient time off for health care employees,”  ANA President Ernest J. Grant said. “I urge the CDC to reconsider these guidelines and for policymakers to aggressively pursue other strategies to bolster the health care system. We support the (Biden) administration’s steps to call up more surge teams and use the Defense Production Act to increase access to testing while continuing to use every strategy to increase the number of Americans who are fully vaccinated and boosted.”

The CDC, which issued the new guidance earlier this week, said the change is “motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after.”

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the updated guidance ensure people can “safely continue their daily lives.”

“The Omicron variant is spreading quickly and has the potential to impact all facets of our society,” Walensky said earlier this week.

“CDC’s updated recommendations for isolation and quarantine balance what we know about the spread of the virus and the protection provided by vaccination and booster doses,” she added. “These updates ensure people can safely continue their daily lives. Prevention is our best option: get vaccinated, get boosted, wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial and high community transmission, and take a test before you gather.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2021/12/29/big-nurses-group-opposes-cdcs-new-covid-isolation-guidelines/

NYC allows pot smokers to light up at quarantine hotels

 New York City’s COVID-19 quarantine hotels are dope.

Anyone staying — at taxpayer expense — at one of the city’s quarantine hotels is welcome to bring their weed, which an on-staff nurse will bag, weigh and distribute for sanctioned smoke breaks. Cigarettes are also allowed.

The lodging is meant to give New Yorkers a place to recuperate from the coronavirus without sickening family or roommates or to stay safe from infection. The city started the program at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to help stop the spread of the virus by keeping people apart.

When The Post visited the LaGuardia Plaza Hotel in East Elmhurst Thursday, one of the guests was just outside the hotel entrance puffing on a bong as staff kept an eye on him from inside the lobby.

Jonathan Martin, 21, who held the orange, traffic cone-shaped bong, said he was asked if he had any pot when he arrived at the hotel on Christmas Day. He said staff put his stash in a plastic bag and took it from him, handing it back to smoke during three designated 15-minute outdoor breaks in the day.

“They allow you to bring marijuana to quarantine with you, but they don’t let you bring alcohol,” said Martin, 21, a coffee shop manager who is from Astoria and at the hotel so as not to infect his roommates.

LaGuardia Plaza Hotel
The city is paying to put people infected with COVID-19 up in the LaGuardia Plaza Hotel.
J.C.Rice

He said a staffer scrutinized his bottle of pomegranate juice to make sure it was sealed and didn’t contain booze.

Martin said he was grateful he could still smoke.

“It’s nice to relax when I’m stuck in a room … by myself for five days,” he said.

The East Elmhurst hotel is run by the city’s Test & Trace Corps, which is part of the public Health + Hospitals system. The city could not immediately provide the cost of the program.

The city once considered serving drinks to guests who were alcoholics so they would not reject the free housing.

An insider said about 65 percent of the 420 or so guests at the hotel, and at a nearby Holiday Inn, were pot smokers.

The source said nurses had to weigh the pot after some guests claimed their weed was stolen from the holding area, which is monitored by nurses and site directors. The nurses also have to accompany smokers outside on breaks.

“I think it’s a shame. Nurses go into the field to care for patients, this is not care. Rather than offer patients help for addictions, it’s being supported,” the insider said. “Nurses are told it’s part of the job when they attempt to refuse to accompany patients to smoke marijuana or cigarettes.”

Jonathan Martin
“It’s nice to relax when I’m stuck in a room … by myself for five days,” Martin said.
J.C.Rice

There were 732 calls to 911 for the LaGuardia Plaza from Jan. 1 through Thursday including 694 for an ambulance; 14 for disputes; and 10 for larcenies.

The city offers the free accommodations at the hotels for up to 10 days and also provides transportation in car services or taxis to get there and three meals a day.

Nurses at the hotel check the temperatures and oxygen saturation levels of guests during the day.

One recent LaGuardia Plaza guest said the city gave her food that contained gluten, that she couldn’t eat, and sent her home in a car with another recovering COVID-19 patient who refused to wear his mask properly and still seemed to have symptoms, according to a copy of a complaint she wrote which was obtained by The Post.

The woman said she did not leave her room for fresh air breaks during her stay because the elevators were always crowded with other patients.

“It really felt more like Corona jail than a healthcare facility,” she wrote.

A spokesman for the Test & Trace Corps. would not address the woman’s complaints or the marijuana use other than to say that clinical assessments were done for guests to determine what support they needed.

“We are proud that our hotels have provided a safe place to isolate or quarantine for nearly 30,000 New Yorkers to date, and will continue to offer this critical tool for as long as the pandemic continues,” said spokesman Adam Shrier.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/01/nyc-allows-pot-smokers-to-light-up-at-quarantine-hotels/

NYC admits prioritizing race in distributing COVID tests: leaked emails

 New York City health officials have been using race to help decide how to allocate precious coronavirus testing resources, leaked emails from the agency show.

In a conversation with reps for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, City Councilman Joe Borelli’s office said constituents on Staten Island’s South Shore were having trouble getting tested at city facilities.

“Our office has been receiving calls regarding the mobile NYC H+H testing sites such as Wolfes Pond Park. It appears many are waiting with delays, and are being turned away after waiting for hours,” wrote Borelli staffer Briana Nasti in a Dec. 22 email.

The agency responded the same day and informed Nasti that they would prioritize neighborhoods flagged by the city’s Taskforce on Racial Inclusion & Equity.

The task force, created by the de Blasio administration in 2020, identified 31 underserved neighborhoods to receive “priority” attention from the city.

The task force said nabes were picked based a DOHMH’s analysis of “health status, living conditions, social inequities, occupation, and COVID-19 Wave 1 impact” — though the methodology has never been released.

People scramble for free COVID-19 tests on Dec. 24.
People scramble for free COVID-19 tests on Dec. 24.
Lev Radin/Sipa USA

Staten Island’s mostly white, middle-class South Shore — despite one of the highest COVID rates in the city during December — is not one of the priority neighborhoods. The borough has 13 city testing sites, all on the more diverse North Shore.

“I think we are clearly not on their racial and ethnic rubric priority list,” Borelli told The Post. “There was no problem pointing fingers at the South Shore of Staten Island when it came to sending enforcement goons.”

He was referring to small business owners on the island who say they have been victimized by strict enforcement of mask mandates and vax-card rules.

Queens Councilman Robert Holden said his district is still without a city testing site weeks into the Omicron surge.

New Yorkers line up for free COVID-19 tests.
New Yorkers line up for free COVID-19 tests.
Lev Radin/Sipa USA

“COVID-19 does not discriminate by politics and neither should lame duck de Blasio. We need testing sites and home test kits immediately,” Holden said. “Bill de Blasio sees districts of middle-class taxpayers who didn’t vote for him as people who don’t deserve protection from COVID-19. His administration only enters districts like ours to fine small businesses and use them as cash machines.”

A few blocks of his district lie within Woodhaven, a task-force-selected neighborhood.

A Health Department rep claimed that minority communities had “borne the brunt of this pandemic due to structural racism,” and that the tests were being distributed through community-based organizations in the selected neighborhoods.

A recent “Request for Proposals” from the DOHMH touted the agency’s commitment to racial equity.

People scramble for a test at a distribution center.
The city is currently operating over 160 coronavirus testing sites with more 100 mobile teams and more than 60 locations.
Lev Radin/Sipa USA

“”The … DOHMH is committed to improving health outcomes for all New Yorkers by explicitly advancing racial equity and social justice. Racial equity does not mean simply treating everyone equally, but rather, allocating resources and services in such a way that explicitly addresses barriers imposed by structural racism (i.e. policies and institutional practices that perpetuate racial inequity) and White privilege,” it read.

The city is currently operating over 160 coronavirus testing sites with more 100 mobile teams and more than 60 brick and mortar locations, said Adam Shrier, an NYC Health & Hospitals rep.

The racial-equity task force didn’t immediately return requests for comment.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/01/nyc-admits-to-prioritizing-race-in-distributing-covid-tests/

NYC will consider race when distributing life-saving COVID treatments

 New York City will take a patient’s race into account when distributing potentially life-saving COVID treatments, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene revealed on their website.

The city will “consider race and ethnicity when assessing individual risk,” reads the agency’s official guidance from Dec. 20, which adds that “longstanding systemic health and social inequities” can contribute to an increased risk of dying from COVID-19.

The guidance applies to both the distribution of monoclonal antibodies and oral antivirals like Paxlovid and Molnupiravir.

“Monoclonal antibody treatments have averted at least 1,100 hospitalizations and at least 500 deaths among people treated in New York City,” the city said in October.

The race-based approach in treatment has already begun to have real-world consequences. One Staten Island doctor said he filled two prescriptions for Paxlovid this week and was asked by the pharmacist to disclose the race of his patients before the treatment was authorized.

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's guidance applies to both the distribution of monoclonal antibodies and oral antivirals like Paxlovid and Molnupiravir.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s guidance applies to both the distribution of monoclonal antibodies and oral antivirals like Paxlovid and Molnupiravir.
via REUTERS

“In my 30 years of being a physician I have never been asked that question when I have prescribed any treatment,” said the doctor, who requested anonymity. “The mere fact of having to ask this question is a slippery slope.”

Both patients, who are white, were ultimately granted their prescriptions.

A recent “Request for Proposals,” form on behalf of the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene stressed the agency’s commitment to “racial equity.”

“The … DOHMH is committed to improving health outcomes for all New Yorkers by explicitly advancing racial equity and social justice. Racial equity does not mean simply treating everyone equally, but rather, allocating resources and services in such a way that explicitly addresses barriers imposed by structural racism (i.e. policies and institutional practices that perpetuate racial inequity) and White privilege,” it read.

It is unclear if the new “race” guidance has yet to exclude whites from getting treatment, but observers and doctors fear that a system is being created that could lead to racial exclusions in the future during a drug shortage or case surge.

“We are collecting demographic data on COVID antivirals at the request of the city for anonymized data reporting purposes only, as is commonly done with COVID tests and vaccines,” Michael Krueger, a pharmacy rep said. For now, the city is participating exclusively with Alto Pharmacy to distribute the new drugs.

Medical experts said it is correct for COVID treatment to be allocated based who is at the highest risk, but stressed that race was not a biological risk factor.

“I have not seen [race] as one of the risk factors for severe disease and death,” Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard epidemiologist and professor, told The Post. “The reason that a lot of African Americans have died in New York — which is true — is because the rich people and more affluent were working from home while the working class were exposed.”

Some observers and doctors fear that a system is being created that could lead to racial exclusions in the future during a drug shortage or case surge.
Some observers and doctors fear that a system is being created that could lead to racial exclusions in the future during a drug shortage or case surge.
Getty Images

“The lockdowns have discriminated against minorities. Basically they have discriminated against the working class, and minorities are a bigger proportion of the working class.” Kulldorff added.

In a public notice, the state Department of Health said last week that “Non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor” — putting it in a class with other COVID risk factors like age and obesity.

“There are severe supply shortages for all COVID-19 outpatient therapeutics,” warns city health officials, who urge providers to follow the state guidelines.

Some observers and doctors fear that a system is being created that could lead to racial exclusions in the future during a drug shortage or case surge.
The DOHMH said it is “committed to improving health outcomes for all New Yorkers by explicitly advancing racial equity and social justice.”
Getty Images

The directives follow a slew of new laws signed by Gov. Hochul aimed at “address[ing] discrimination and racial injustice.” One of the new edicts formally declares racism to be a public health crisis.

“It’s just absurd and it shows this is not about public health. This has not been about the health of New Yorkers from the get-go,” Andrew Giuliani, a GOP candidate for governor. told The Post. “Politics before the health and safety of New Yorkers. It continues from the Cuomo administration to the Hochul administration with these new laws.”

“New Yorkers of color have borne the brunt of this pandemic due to structural racism and the legacy of disinvestment in many minority communities,” Michael Lanza, a city Health Department spokesman, told The Post. “Doctors are advised to consider the disproportionate impact felt by these communities in addition to systemic health disparities when prescribing treatments for people who are at highest risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes.”

Lanza added the data was only being collected “to assess equitable distribution” and that race would never be used as a reason to deny treatment.

Antiviral treatment for coronavirus infection represents the cutting edge of treatment for the virus. Interest in the therapeutics has peaked with the arrival of the new Omicron variant and its widespread ability to evade the vaccine.

On Dec. 22, the federal Food and Drug Administration approved an emergency use authorization for Paxlovid “for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease” for anyone 12 and older. Molnupiravir received its emergency use authorization a week later.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/01/nyc-considering-race-in-distributing-life-saving-covid-treatment/

Fitbit patent targets depression and bipolar detection

 Google unit Fitbit has been increasingly focused on mental health, and it seems it’s investigating further ways to track your psychological wellbeing.

The company has filed a new patent for technology that can study mental wellbeing from physiological data. And it seems that Fitbit is targeting those with clinical mental health issues

The patent is vague about the mental health issue it’s targeting, but mentions depression and bipolar specifically.And it has outlined a device that can “screen for and predict mental health issues and cognitive states.”

Fitbit talks about using resting heart rate and sleep data, and how that can be interpreted by Fitbit to assess mental health. This is already part of its Stress Management feature, but the patent augments this with some pretty future-looking metrics.

And curiously, gamification plays a large part in the patent.

fitbit game mental health

The patent outlines how games are currently used to assess mental health, and there seems to be an element of this in technology. Fig 1A and 1D show games on the Fitbit wearable itself, which presumably would used in conjunction with sensor data to assess cognitive states.

And there seems to be other ideas about how data could be captured, which could be more controversial.

The patent abstract also talks about using the microphone to examine user’s voice – which could reveal signals about mental health. Fitbit notes this would require users to opt in.

Fitbit also notes that vocal data has already been studied as part of bipolar diagnosis, but this would require an “extended analytical period" on the device.

fitbit range

Fitbit devices already track stress

Fitbit says this technology would feed into "predicting, modelling and correlating with mental health episodes and disorders." The patent talks about "machine learning trained algorithms and individual event predictions", which we assume means correlating with existing known mental health disorders.

The patent names Conor Heneghan, who is Fitbit’s (and Google’s) Senior Staff Research Scientist – and has been at the forefront of developing many of its sleep-related features.

It seems Fitbit wants to move beyond the stress and EDA-based data and start to look at more serious, clinical mental health issues.

https://www.wareable.com/fitbit/new-fitbit-patent-targets-depression-and-bipolar-detection-8666



Sandoz launches generic Narcan Nasal Spray in US to help reverse opioid overdose

 

  • Opioid overdoses accounted for more than 73,000 deaths in US in one year (through April 2021) based on Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest provisional data1
  • Opioid overdose deaths increased almost 40 percent during COVID-19 pandemic (June 2019 vs May 2020),2 highlighting need for more people to have access to overdose-reversing medicine during evolving national crisis