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    Here is the horrible reason why nursing homes are being unnecessarily overrun by the Trump pandemic

    Sarah Okeson, DCReport @ RawStory
    April 22, 2020

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Sarah Okeson, DCReport @ RawStory

    Former Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson, a Democrat but the CEO of a nursing home industry group, wrote Trump after the 2016 election seeking a “collaborative approach” to regulation, much like the one the Federal Aviation Administration has had with the aircraft industry.


    Team Trump acquiesced, rolling back fines and proposing to weaken rules for infection prevention employees. That collaborative approach has failed, much as it did with the FAA , the agency that enabled failures in the design of the Boeing 737 Max.

    Shoddy federal oversight of planes helped kill 346 people. The death toll from the pandemic, where health officials Seema Verma and Alex Azar helped turn our nation’s nursing homes into Trump death traps, is more than 46,000.

    “Nursing homes are incubators of epidemics,” said Betsy McCaughey, the chair of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.

    So far, more than 7,000 residents or people connected to nursing homes have died. That number includes 12 residents at the Milford Center in Delaware owned by Genesis HealthCare which has an executive, Michael Wylie, who previously chaired the American Health Care Association board.

    Parkinson was paid about $3.3 million in 2017 by the association which represents more than 14,000 nursing homes. The association had 45 lobbyists in 2019, including Brian Ballard, the former chairman of Trump’s fundraising committee.

    Especially Vulnerable

    Nursing home residents are especially vulnerable to infections spread among groups such as the flu and norovirus.  In a normal year, almost 388,000 of our nation’s elderly and disabled die of infections they got in nursing homes.

    Under Obama, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services created a new position for nursing homes to try to help prevent infections from spreading. The employees, infection preventionists, are supposed to make sure nursing home staff properly clean their hands, disinfect surfaces and other measures to prevent illnesses in residents and staff.

    The requirement was part of a 2016 rule that was the first major update to requirements for long-term care providers since 1991. The rule also included protections against abuse, neglect and exploitation of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.

    In 2016, a fifth of skilled nursing facilities were cited for actual harm or jeopardy to residents. Only 6.5% had no deficiencies in 2016.

    Fines Drop

    Under Trump, fines for nursing homes that injured or endangered residents dropped to an average of $28,405 compared to $41,260 during the last year of Obama’s administration. In 2017, CMS put an 18-month moratorium on fines and other penalties for some of the tougher regulations, saying it would use the time to “educate surveyors and the providers.”

    Now, Verma and Azar want to weaken the infection preventionist position, changing the position from at least part-time to spending “sufficient time” at the facility. Nursing home inspectors started focusing exclusively on infection control after the pandemic started.

    Knock 'Em Out

    More than 1,500 people or organizations commented on the proposed changes, many of them from the nursing home industry. The cutbacks, which also include weakening a resident’s right to file a grievance and allowing nursing homes to medicate residents with antipsychotic drugs indefinitely, are expected to save nursing home operators more than $600 million a year.

    Some of the nursing home executives who asked federal regulators to weaken the standards for infection preventionists have had coronavirus outbreaks in their facilities.

    Deb Fournier, the chief operations officer for Maine Veterans’ Homes, said in September that she supported the proposed Trump changes in employees charged with preventing infections.

    “This will allow LTC facilities to use workforce resources in a manner that best meets the needs of their organizations,” she wrote.

    Two people have died at the veterans’ home in Scarborough, Maine, and 38 people have gotten sick.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

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    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

    We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.

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    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.

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    Should Trump be allowed back on social media?

    Anti-maskers freak out over Florida school mandate: ‘Give them back their childhood!’

    Travis Gettys
    April 22, 2021

    Anti-masker parents are already gearing up to fight coronavirus mandates for the next school year, which doesn't start for nearly four months.

    Palm Beach County school officials have no plans to drop their mask requirements in spite of a letter from the state's education commissioner urging districts to drop their mandates for the upcoming school year, and unhappy parents picketed against the decision, reported WPTV-TV.

    "Why are we doing this to our children, why?" said one parent. "Give them back their childhood."

    Education commissioner Richard Corcoran wrote that broad mask mandates "serve no remaining good at this point," despite reporting that shows 21 percent of new COVID-19 cases are among children under 16, who are not yet approved for the vaccines.

    "I'm tired of people believing a lie that masks help you," said one mother, who apparently agrees with the education commissioner.

    But school board member Dr. Debra Robinson told The Palm Beach Post it's premature to drop the mask mandates, even with efforts inside school buildings to limit social contacts among students, faculty and staff.

    "The points [Corcoran] makes about inhibiting person-to-person interaction are true, but we are still in a pandemic," said Robinson, a retired physician. "We have more contagious variants exploding. We have some variants that show resistance to vaccines. I just said last week, 'We cannot let our guard down.'

    The district will continue to follow guidelines for now, and 69 percent of the county's teachers favor keeping the mask mandate, according to their union, although 57 percent would like the option to allow fully vaccinated teachers to remove their masks while delivering instructions from a safe distance.

    Despite the protests, school officials say it's much too early to make decisions for the 2021/2022 school year, which is scheduled to begin the second week in August.

    "I would hope the viral load will have subsided in the community to such a degree I would feel comfortable," Robinson said. "But it's way too early to have that conversation -- way too early."


    ‘They’re sending cops to prison!’ Minneapolis ex-officer flips out over ‘sacrificial lamb’ Chauvin conviction

    Brad Reed
    April 22, 2021

    Derek Chauvin was convicted this week of murdering George Floyd -- and at least one of his fellow former Minneapolis police officers believes it's a "tragedy" that he's going to jail.

    In an interview with Insider, the unnamed former Minneapolis cop complained how unfair he believes it is that Chauvin is going to prison after he was caught on video kneeling on the back of Floyd's neck until Floyd stopped breathing.

    He also said that political pressure from mass protests made it impossible for Chauvin to get a fair trial.

    "[The jury] was under tremendous pressure to 'make it right' for George Floyd," he told Insider. "When they came back that quick, I knew he was screwed. I knew it. I've never seen, in all my years of work, a jury come back that quick on such serious charges. Never."

    The former officer also described Chauvin as a "sacrificial lamb" and said that "the whole thing is a tragedy."

    He also worried about the message that the Chauvin conviction would send to other police around the country.

    "It's the new trend now," he said. "They're sending cops to prison."

    In first, Perseverance Mars rover makes oxygen on another planet

    Agence France-Presse
    April 22, 2021

    NASA's Perseverance rover keeps making history.

    The six-wheeled robot has converted some carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into oxygen, the first time this has happened on another planet, the space agency said Wednesday.

    "This is a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's space technology mission directorate.

    The technology demonstration took place on April 20, and it's hoped future versions of the experimental instrument that was used could pave the way for future human exploration.

    Not only can the process produce oxygen for future astronauts to breathe, but it could make hauling vast amounts of oxygen over from Earth to use as rocket propellant for the return journey unnecessary.

    The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment -- or MOXIE -- is a golden box the size of a car battery, and is located inside the front right side of the rover.

    Dubbed a "mechanical tree," it uses electricity and chemistry to split carbon dioxide molecules, which are made up of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms.

    It also produces carbon monoxide as a byproduct.

    In its first run, MOXIE produced 5 grams of oxygen, equivalent to about 10 minutes of breathable oxygen for an astronaut carrying out normal activity.

    MOXIE's engineers will now run more tests and try to step up its output. It is designed to be able to generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour.

    Designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MOXIE was built with heat-resistant materials like nickel alloy and designed to tolerate the searing temperatures of 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit (800 Celsius) required for it to run.

    A thin gold coating ensures it doesn't radiate its heat and harm the rover.

    MIT engineer Michael Hecht said a one ton version of MOXIE could produce the approximately 55,000 pounds (25 tons) of oxygen needed for a rocket to blast off from Mars.

    Producing oxygen from Mars' 96 percent carbon dioxide atmosphere might be a more feasible option than extracting ice from under its surface then electrolyzing it to make oxygen.

    Perseverance landed on the Red Planet on February 18 on a mission to search for signs for microbial life.

    Its mini helicopter Ingenuity made history this week by achieving the first powered flight on another planet.

    The rover itself has also directly recorded the sounds of Mars for the first time.

     
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