After at least 3 deaths in 7 months, weekly in small Western Ky. county alerts its readers to the dangers and details of fentanyl

Most of this week's front page; click it to enlarge.
Photo illustration is based on a DEA image. 

Kentucky Health News

After three fentanyl overdoses since June in Crittenden County, the first recorded in the county of 9,000 people, and another death in which fentanyl could have been a contributing factor, the local editor-publisher thought it was time to alert his readers to the danger.

"Considered by some as the grim reaper of recreational drugs, fentanyl has hit Crittenden County like a reaper’s scythe over last the few months," Chris Evans of The Crittenden Press began his story, which reported the deaths without the victims' names, noted that the county normally has about three overdoses of any drug in a year, then gave a rationale for the story and made it an implicit example to follow: "Observers say small communities like Marion should raise awareness or prepare to see more deaths in their neighborhoods."

Evans quotes local and state officials and writes, "Fentanyl is approximately 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. Illegal manufacturers often lack understanding, ability and precision to make fentanyl. It’s not a forgiving drug. One minuscule mistake is irreversibly deadly."

Dr. Christopher Kiefer of the state medical examiner’s office told him, “High-school-age kids might be swapping pills. That’s not uncommon. They might think they’re getting a mild painkiller pressed in a lab. They might think it’s Oxycodone or Lortab, but it ends up being fentanyl. You don’t have to be using a needle to die of an overdose. . . . It is a dangerous time right now because people don’t know what they’re getting,”

Crittenden County (Wikipedia map)

Evans adds, "The doctor further explains that fentanyl made and distributed on the black market can be dressed or disguised as just about anything. Someone may think they’re getting a pill from a friend’s mom’s medicine cabinet when it’s something far more sinister and deadly." He quotes Marion Police Chief Bobby West as saying that families and friends of drug users can be the best preventers of overdoses, and “Conversations need to be had about this drug and how it can kill you.”

Evans concludes, "The stark reality of this drug is that it can creep undected into any corner of society and become an instant killer. Now, it’s in Marion." His package also includes sidebars about synthetic opioids (fentanyl is one) and a quick-look box giving strete names for the drug, how it is used, what it does and what an overdose can look like: "Stupor, changes in pupil size, clammy skin, cyanosis, coma, and respiratory failure."

Evans has made this week's issue available online, here.

Do you appreciate Kentucky Health News? Here's a chance to help make it even better, and get your gift matched!

By Al Cross, Publisher, Kentucky Health News

Director emeritus, Institute for Rural Journalism, University of Kentucky

For more than a dozen years, Kentucky Health News has provided news you can use, to help keep you and your family healthy, or get healthier. We have also kept Kentuckians up to date on their health-care system and things that affect it, including government actions.

Melissa Patrick and Al Cross of Kentucky Health News

We hope you appreciate our work, which is done mainly by a part-time reporter, Melissa Patrick, and funded by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. Now we have a way for you to show your appreciation and expand our efforts, with a contribution that will be matched — for a limited time.

Kentucky Health News has joined NewsMatch, the largest collaborative fundraising campaign to support independent, nonprofit journalism in the United States. Its annual matching-gift campaign runs through Dec. 31.

Through the end of the year, NewsMatch will double your donation to Kentucky Health News, up to $1,000 and a total match of up to $13,000. That amount would increase our budget by almost 30 percent and enable us to do more of our important work, such as covering health issues in the legislature.

No one covers health issues in Kentucky like we do, and the news coverage is badly needed, because Kentucky is a state with poor health status. One key to raising that status is reliable information, especially at a time when some health topics have become polluted with misinformation, even disinformation. You can count on us to bring you the facts, plus the opinions of qualified experts. We keep our opinions out of our news stories, which are republished by news outlets all over the state.

Please help us expand our work. Donate today by clicking here. All donations to the Institute for Rural Journalism's enrichment fund through Dec. 31 will go to support Kentucky Health News. If you or your organization would like to discuss how you might provide continuing support, email al.cross@uky.edu.

A Covid-19 reporter gets the disease, and learns some lessons

Sarah Ladd took this photo of herself as she suffered from Covid-19.

By Sarah Ladd
Kentucky Lantern

For more than three years, I’ve written about Covid-19. The people who caught it and those who kept it longer than they should have. The people who bought into misinformation. And, worst of all, those who died from it.

Finally, I tested positive myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had several Covid-19 scares over the last few years. In early 2020, before tests were available to young and healthy people, my doctor at the time believed me to have it. But she couldn’t spare a test for me, so we never knew for sure. Since then, I’ve had several flu-like bouts, but always got “negative” back from Covid-19 tests.

That changed on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023. And now that I have hard confirmation of a Covid-19 infection, I see that nothing I experienced before compared to this. Does that mean this is my first true bout with the disease? Maybe I’ll never know.

Here’s what I do know. I’ve come to understand Covid-19 during my time in isolation in a way I never did before.

There’s a sick sort of forced independence in this illness. No one can rub your back when you ache or hold a cool rag to your fevered head. Getting a comforting hug? Out of the question.

While lying on my back in air that felt heavier than it ever had before, I thought to myself: No wonder Covid-19 is so divisive. We deal with it alone. Without seeing a smile or feeling a pat on the back. Without humanity.

Similar isolation is true for other illnesses, but this was all new to me.

All these things I knew — in theory. I’ve sat through enough press conferences with infectious disease specialists to know Covid-19’s symptoms backwards and forwards. But I think I fell into the age-old trap of never expecting a thing that affects other people to affect me as bad or the same. And my idea of a Covid-19 infection was, I realize now, very clinical. Distanced.

I’d been renovating my house the day I tested positive. All day long, I scraped old paint from 100-year-old wooden door frames. Too busy to check in with myself, I never stopped to question why I kept having to sit down because I felt like I might pass out.

By the end of the work day, my throat burned and the air was heavy around me. I gasped for air, but thought maybe I was just tired from a day of physical labor. Better take a test just to be safe, I thought. My nose burned and throbbed when I stuck the cotton swab up one nostril, then the next.

My 15-minute timer wasn’t two minutes in when a deep red dash popped on the second line of the at-home test. A “positive” indicator. Oh well, the instructions say not to read the test before 15 minutes. So, I left the bathroom and came back at the 15-minute mark. Two bright red lines. Positive.

I had a few thoughts in quick succession: I just unknowingly exposed my friend to the virus the night before and needed to let her know. I’d have to miss another friend’s birthday party over the weekend. And, finally, well, I’m young and healthy. This will run right through me.

It was a mistake to think that. Over the next few days I’d lose my sense of smell and taste. I’d grow weaker until I could barely walk across a room without a break. All of my strength disappeared. I’d go on Paxlovid within days.

Through all this, I abandoned the subconscious idea that people under 30 don’t suffer. But – I still consider myself extremely fortunate to not have ended up in a hospital, like so many have before me.

After testing positive, I withdrew to the attic to isolate away from my dog and spouse for the recommended five days.

In isolation I felt humanity slipping from me. My friends can tell you I am a notorious introvert. But this level of aloneness was new, unwanted. I heard my dog, Ronon, cry for me at the bottom of the stairs. He could not understand why we had to be apart, that he could catch it. I was afraid to touch anything in my bedroom, worried I’d contaminate everything and hyper aware that anything I touched now would need to be sanitized later.

I feel like a walking plague, I texted my friends.

So, I cataloged my very existence. I touched the door handle to the bathroom, my jewelry box. What have I forgotten? What have I breathed on?

With no smell or taste, I laid strong mint toothpaste across my tongue to try and feel. Nothing. Covid-19 is the first illness that ever robbed me of my senses. It was disorienting and depressing. I grasped at sensations but found little to satisfy. The Paxlovid made my eyes burn. So for days, I did little but sleep. Eyes closed. No strength, no scents, no taste — except for the disgusting “Paxlovid mouth.” All this felt like a horrible limbo, like my life had stopped at the door to the upstairs. 

I decided to post on social media about having the virus. I thought little of it, until comments riddled with misinformation about Covid-19 poured into my mentions.

The rhetoric from 2020 and 2021 about vaccines not working, Covid-19 being nothing more than a cold, and more flowed in after I posted about my experience. It was frustrating to hear the debunked myths thrown at me in a moment of vulnerability.

Much of my role as a Covid-19 reporter has been — and still is — unpacking misinformation. But my mentions after posting about my Covid infection told me we have a long way to go in educating people about the virus.

Indeed, three years in, I wonder if we may never fully get there. But I promise to keep trying.

How can we face a pandemic in unity and with compassion when they’re stripped from us when the virus comes for us? I don’t know the full answer to that, but I think it involves putting in a lot of work toward empathy. As we continue to deal with Covid-19 and its fallout, I hope we can try to come together on that one singular point, if nothing more.

As for me, I’ll never again take for granted the smell of a pumpkin candle in the fall, the greasy french fries at my favorite restaurant, or the way it feels so good to move my legs.

My strength is returning a bit more each day, and I’m able to go for walks again and wrestle my dog. I feel my other senses returning, too, despite being a bit slower than I’d like.

Every day, I feel such gratitude to be alive, to breathe.

Sarah Ladd covers health for the Kentucky Lantern. This story was first published Oct. 23.

Amid misinformation, few adults put significant trust in any health institution or media to be accurate about health topics, poll finds

Many falsely believe that a dewormer can treat Covid-19.
(Photo by Dimas Ardian, Bloomberg, via Getty Images)

By Darius Tahir
KFF Health News

Around 3 in 10 Americans still believe ivermectin, a dewormer for animals, is an effective treatment for Covid-19. And few of them place significant trust in any form of news media or official institution to accurately convey information about health topics, from covid treatments and vaccines to reproductive health issues. So says a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent source of health-policy research, polling and journalism.

The confusion about what’s true — and who’s telling the truth — is of critical importance to public health, experts in political science said. “Misinformation leads to lives being lost and health problems not being resolved,” Bob Blendon, a professor emeritus of public health at Harvard University, said in an interview. Blendon was not associated with the survey.

The KFF poll of 2,007 U.S. adults found that nearly a third said ivermectin was definitely or probably an effective treatment for Covid-19. It’s not. Numerous randomized controlled trials have found otherwise. But only 22% in the poll thought ivermectin was definitely ineffective.

A fifth of those polled thought it was definitely or probably true that the Covid-19 vaccine had killed more people than the virus itself. Under half, 47%, thought that claim was definitely false, which it is. And 30% of respondents thought parents should not be required to vaccinate their children against measles, mumps and rubella, which all states do.

The prevalence of vaccine misinformation is “alarming,” said Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College who has spent years studying the transmission of false information.

Lunna Lopes, a senior survey analyst at KFF and one of the poll’s authors, said the results show wide exposure to, but limited uptake of, false claims. “Just because they’re exposed to it doesn’t mean they’re buying into it,” she said. Still, the din of misinformation might leave the populace unsure what to believe. “You might be less trusting, and less likely to outright reject false information.”

The poll also found only grudging trust, at best, for media sources of all kinds and the federal government. The limited trust the survey recorded is colored by wide partisan gaps, noted Nyhan.

KFF Health News graph; for a larger version, click on it.

Respondents did not have “a lot” of trust in the information relayed by any news media institution. Just over a quarter had this high level of trust for local TV news, and that was the highest mark of the news media tested, which ran the ideological and stylistic gamut from MSNBC to The New York Times to Fox News and Newsmax. More people had just “a little” trust in each of these institutions.

For Blendon, the mildness of the trust is a problem. It suggests that “we are short” of trusted sources of news about health.

He said journalists and editors should consider that there’s “something about the way you’re presenting information that’s not seen as credible by viewers.” Seventy percent of those in the poll said news media don't do enough to limit the spread of health misinformation, and 69% said social-media companies weren't doing enough.

Blendon said the public conversation about these topics tends to focus on the often-extreme declarations and wild claims featured on social media and on corporate and government attempts to regulate the medium. 

While the poll shows Americans use social media quite frequently, they have very little faith in the health information they see there. No social media outlet enjoyed a double-digit percentage of respondents saying they had “a lot” of trust in it.

Even so, said Lopes, a significant slice of the public — about a quarter — turn to these platforms for health information and advice. “That stood out to us,” she said. Latinos and the young are especially likely to use the forums.

KFF Health News graph; for a larger version, click on it.

The picture is similarly bleak for official institutions. Around a quarter of respondents said they had “a great deal” of trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations. That dropped to a fifth when it came to the Food and Drug Administration. The Biden administration and Donald Trump lagged behind.

Asked about state and local public-health officials, 13% said they trusted them "a great deal" and 51% said "a fair amount, ranking their overall trust just behind the FDA and the CDC.

Those numbers, combined with the partisan gaps in trust, were especially discouraging for Nyhan. “They will be essential sources of information in future pandemics despite their errors and misjudgments during the pandemic,” he said of public-health institutions.

By far the most highly trusted source of health information? One’s own doctor. Forty-eight percent of respondents had a great deal of trust in their recommendations.

The survey, the KFF Health Misinformation Tracking Poll Pilot, was conducted May 23 through June 12, online and by telephone among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults in English and Spanish.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF.

'Addiction and the media: Stigmatizing language and best practices' virtual meeting May 17; free, but registration required

National Institute on Drug Abuse image

The HEALing Communities Study Learning Collaborative at the University of Kentucky is will offering an online session titled "Addiction and the media: Stigmatizing language and best practices" at 11 a.m. ET May 17.

The event is open to journalists, journalism students, community members, health-care professionals and interested coalition members, but requires registration. Click here to register. 

The featured speaker will be Carol Krause, senior advisor consultant to the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institutes of Health. Following her presentation, there will be a roundtable discussion with Terry DeMio, opioid-epidemic reporter with the Cincinnati Enquirer; Brittany Hurley, peer support specialist with Ramey Estep Regroup; and Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, assistant professor with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

The panelists will discuss best practices in reporting on addiction and the media's response to reducing stigma. One continuing education credit will be offered for registered nurses, advanced practice nurses, pharmacists, physicians, social workers and licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselors who attend.

The session resembles one held in Ashland in November 2019 at "Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery: A Workshop for Journalists," sponsored by Oak Ridge Associated Universities and the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of Kentucky Health News.

"Nobody has the power to change language like us," Bishop Nash said at the workshop. A former health reporter at the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, W.Va., a city that has been called the epicenter of the opioid epidemic, Nash said that once he understood the science of addiction and why it was important to not use stigmatizing language, it has been an easy switch. "It really requires a change of heart," he said. "When you get your heart wrapped around this issue, you really don't have to think about it."

The HEALing (Helping End Addiction Long Term) Communities Study is a four-year, $87 million study to see how tools for preventing and treating opioid misuse and opioid-use disorder are most effective locally. 

Findings from the study will establish best practices for integrating prevention and treatment strategies that can be replicated by communities nationwide. The goal of the study is to reduce opioid-related overdose deaths by 40 percent. Kentucky is one of four states chosen for the study.

Craft says empty chair at table was a 'close family member' who 'was able to overcome the addiction and move on with their life'

A Kelly Craft campaign ad shows tables with an empty chair. After this scene, she says, “As a mother, this is personal to me, because I have experienced that empty chair at my table. This has to stop.”

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

For 10 days, Kentuckians have seen and heard this message from Kelly Craft, one of the Republican candidates for governor:

“All across Kentucky, an empty chair. A place missing at the table. Families suffering because fentanyl and other dangerous drugs have stolen our loved ones away. As a mother, this is personal to me, because I have experienced that empty chair at my table. This has to stop. We need leadership. And as your governor, I’ll back up our police and stop drugs at our border. So there’s no spot missing at the family table.”

The 30-second television commercial has left some viewers wondering who formerly occupied that empty chair, when, and what happened to them.

In an interview with Mark Vanderhoff of Louisville's WLKY last week, Craft declined to identify the person and said the ad refers to “a family member that has had an addiction.” Then, in an impromptu interview, Craft told Ricky Sayer of Lexington's WLEX that the family member is living.  

In a statement Sunday to Kentucky Health News, Craft's campaign identified the person as "a close family member" who lived in her household, "battled addiction and went to rehab. By the grace of God, that family member was able to overcome the addiction and move on with their life, but we all know the struggle never ends for a family and remains ongoing."

The statement added, "An empty chair represents a long road of pain, whether caused by the passing of a loved one or years away from the table. It’s insensitive and malicious to think an empty chair implies only death, and shows that those implying such don’t understand the pain caused by the drug epidemic."

That last line could be taken as a reply to Nick Storm of Kentucky Fried Politics, an online newsletter that said Craft's explanation that the family member is still living showed that the ad "is hyperbole," which Webster's Dictionary defines as "extravagant exaggeration." The Oxford Languages Dictionary, which Google uses, calls it "exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally." The ad makes no specific claim.

Craft, a former ambassador to Canada and the United Nations, told WLKY, “It was very painful at first to be able to open myself up. It's very emotional. But after traveling throughout the state of Kentucky, my pain is minuscule compared to what I'm hearing and that's because we have a crisis in this state.”

In 2021, Kentucky documented a record 2,250 drug-overdose deaths, 15 percent more than 2020, which had 54% more than 2019. Toxicology reports showed that fentanyl was involved in 73%, or 1,639. That was 16% more than the 1,413 overdose deaths involving fentanyl in 2020.

"Ambassador Craft is really putting her finger on one of the most important issues in Kentucky," Kentucky Public Radio Frankfort reporter Ryland Barton told "Kentucky Edition" host Renee Shaw on Jan. 18. "There was some question there, you know, who exactly was she talking about, you know, how close actually is she to this issue?"

That was the central question asked by Kentucky Health News. The written reply from Craft's campaign began, "As a mother, Kelly knows that the pain caused by the drug epidemic affects almost every family in Kentucky. Kelly has dealt with the chaos addiction causes, first hand. She knows what it means to miss a close family member at the dinner table. Kelly knows the pain that is felt as a family member misses holidays, family dinners, church, school, work, and family events as they confront an addiction ravaging their life."

In interviews, Craft has criticized Gov. Andy Beshear for not mentioning the drug problem in his State of the Commonwealth speech to the legislature on Jan. 5. Her latest ad says Beshear and President Biden are "ignoring the border crisis," which she connects with the importation of fentanyl.

Beshear began his weekly press conference Thursday, Jan. 19, by inviting Kentucky communities to apply for "Recovery Ready" certification, which measures their prevention, treatment and recovery support to residents seeking help for drug or alcohol addiction.

Thursday night in London, Craft called drugs the No. 1 issue in Kentucky and possibly in the U.S. That was the first clip from her in Sayer's three-and-a-half minute report on WLEX, which began by saying that Craft was "choosing to keep private part of a story she made public."

University of Kentucky political-science professor Stephen Voss told WLEX, "I think most people seeing the ad likely inferred that she's saying that a family member died, but that's really sort of on the audience. It doesn't say that. She says there's an absent family member. She doesn't say why they're absent. The important thing for the electorate is, she's claiming a special understanding of the policy issue."

Voss, who was a newspaper reporter in Louisiana before becoming a political scientist, defended the reporters' questions: "Once a candidate brings a family member into the debate and tries to use them to try to establish some kind of expertise or some kind of competence or understanding of an issue, then it's hard for election watchers not to demand, 'Who is this family member? What are you actually saying you experienced with them?'"

Analysis: First TV commercial from anti-abortion group has misleading and inaccurate wording, Herald-Leader writer says

Image from TV ad, provided by Yes for Life

The first television spot from the main group supporting the anti-abortion proposal on Kentucky's Nov. 8 ballot "relies on conservative buzzwords and phrases that are aimed at grabbing viewer attention but are ultimately misleading and inaccurate," writes Alex Acquisto of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The 30-second ad by Yes for Life begins, “Radical, out-of-state activists want to spend your tax dollars on late-term abortions, even up to the moment of birth.”

Taxpayer funding of abortion "is already illegal under Kentucky law and regulated by federal law," Acquisto notes. "The Hyde Amendment bars the use of federal aid programs, like Medicaid, to pay for abortion."

As for “late-term abortions,” the term "typically refers to an abortion at roughly 21 weeks of pregnancy," Acquisto writes. "Rarely, and typically only for medically-necessary reasons, are abortions provided later than that. Late-term abortions 'even up to the moment of birth' is largely a misnomer. In Kentucky last year, 26 of the 4,441 total abortions provided — or about 0.6% — were at 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the state Office of Vital Statistics. There were no other abortions reported at a later stage of pregnancy in 2021. Of the 18,614 total abortions reported in Kentucky since 2017, 13 were at or beyond 22 weeks of pregnancy."

The spot tells viewers that a “yes” vote for Constitutional Amendment No. 2 is a “reasonable, common sense vote.”

The amendment would place in the state constitution a statement saying that the document shall not be construed to "secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion." Its intent is to leave Kentucky abortion law up to the state legislature, and keep state courts from finding in the constitution a right to abortion.

Voters' approval of the amendment would render moot a case the state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Nov.15, a week after the election.

The lawsuit by abortion-rights supporters challenges the "trigger law" that virtually banned abortion in Kentucky when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and another law banning abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. The immediate question before the court is whether to reinstate an injunction blocking those laws passed by the legislature.

The injunction has been blocked by a Court of Appeals judge. It was issued by Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry on grounds that the lawsuit was likely to succeed, based on sections of the state constitution that guarantee religious freedom and say Kentuckians have “the right of seeking and pursuing their safety and happiness” and “Absolute and arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority.” Kentucky courts have found in those words a limited right to privacy, which was the basis for Roe v. Wade and similar decisions in other states.

In a news story, the Courier Journal's Deborah Yetter calls the spot's claims "questionable" and writes, "The new ad brings a new level of rhetoric from amendment supporters."

As FDA moves to ban menthol cigarettes, Enquirer reveals how cigarette makers targeted Blacks in Cincinnati area and Knoxville

Kool's 1960s look

Cigarette makers targeted African Americans in Cincinnati and Knoxville as they pushed menthol brands 50 years ago, The Cincinnati Enquirer revealed Sunday in a story prompted by the Food and Drug Administration's move last month to ban menthol cigarettes, the choice of most Black smokers.

The phenomenon began "after a threat of regulation from the federal government caused tobacco companies to pull out aggressive youth-oriented marketing campaigns," the Enquirer's Brooks Sutherland reports. "The companies shifted to focus to another population. The new targets would become impoverished young Black males in urban cities."

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which now has the bestselling menthol cigarette brand, Newport, targeted cities with new marketing and advertising approaches, including a new brand called Mr. Menthol "to compete with Kool, the dominant brand of menthol cigarettes at the time," Sutherland reports. The test markets were Cincinnati and Knoxville.

Kool, then owned by Louisville's now-defunct Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., "began to focus on popular culture, particularly music, for its advertising," Sutherland reports. In 1975, it started the Kool Jazz Festival in Cincinnati and 11 other cities, with "iconic artists such as the O’Jays, the Isley Brothers (Lincoln Heights’ own), Harold Melvin, the Ohio Players and B.B. King in its first year."

Don Williams (Photo by Mark
Cesare, The Cincinnati Enquirer)

“I went down there and got me a couple packs; I started out smoking Kools,” Don Williams of Maysville told Sutherland. “They had the brand everywhere. They were giving out packs of cigarettes. People would come in, they’d give them a pack and if you don’t smoke, then you don’t take it.”

Williams added, “It got a lot of Black people to smoke.” The festival became the Cincinnati Music Festival in 1986.

Dr. O’dell Owens, interim Cincinnati health commissioner and former Hamilton County coroner, recalled "how smoking was much more than a habit to young Black males, particularly because of advertising and the coordination between tobacco companies and popular culture," Sutherland writes, quoting him: “When the guys would light up their cigarettes, it wasn’t just lighting a cigarette, it was how you did it,” he said. “You had to light your cigarette with style. . . . It was an event to light a cigarette, and so people said ‘Man, that’s cool.’ And young kids wanted to smoke.”

The FDA banned flavors in cigarettes in 2009, except menthols; their heavy use by Blacks has made such a move politically fraught. But the FDA's move "has been praised by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People," Sutherland notes. "According to an Interact for Health adult smoking survey, around 68% of Black smokers in the Cincinnati region smoke menthol cigarettes."

Panel discusses a post-Roe v. Wade America; journalists are encouraged to treat abortion as a health issue, not a political one

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Two days before the leak of a U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion that proposes to overturn abortion rights under its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, a panel of experts participated in a roundtable discussion anticipating such a decision. It was titled "Women's reproductive health in a post-Roe world." 

At the 2022 Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Austin, the experts largely discussed what's happening in Texas -- which has a near-ban on abortions since abortions are now illegal after fetal cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before most women know they are pregnant -- as a way to paint a picture of what it could look like if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe.  

Sonja Miller, interim managing director of Whole Woman's Health Alliance in Austin, a nonprofit abortion provider that has unsuccessfully challenged the new law, talked about how the clinic has had to deny abortion care to the "vast majority of Texans" who come to the clinic since the law took effect. 

"Our staff are constantly in the position of having to look at another human being in the eye and telling them that they can't help them," she said. "We have not seen an abortion ban this inhumane since pre-Roe v. Wade." 

She added that the Texas law, which also deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an abortion after fetal cardiac activity has been detected, has a chilling effect and has placed everyone who works in abortion "on extreme alert." She said it has resulted in many of their patients seeking care long before they have even missed a period or have any idea that they are pregnant and forced many of their patients who don't "qualify" for an abortion to ask: "Where do I go now? What's next?" 

To meet patients' needs, she said the clinic launched the Abortion Wayfinder Program to help pregnant people travel out of state for an abortion. The health alliance has clinics in Texas, Minnesota, Indiana and Virginia. 

Another challenge is that by the time a woman finds out she's pregnant in Texas, which is often beyond the six-week ban, and is able to make out-of-state travel arrangements -- coordinating transportation, housing, care for existing children, time off work and ensuring they have enough money to pay for the procedure -- they are often in their second trimester, which begins at 14 weeks of pregnancy, said Dr. Crystal Berry-Roberts, an obstetrics and gynecological physician at Austin Regional Clinic. 

This matters, she said, because an abortion provided in the second trimester comes with an increased risk of bleeding and infection.  

Further, she said most offices don't offer new obstetric visits until eight to 10 weeks into a pregnancy, and that the first time a woman can find out if there is something genetically wrong or lack of brain development is around 11 or 12 weeks. 

"We're talking about an unrealistic timeline," Berry-Roberts said, referring to the six-week abortion ban. 

Berry-Roberts, who only provides medically indicated abortions, added that laws that limit abortion and the political discourse around this topic increases stigma, drives pregnant people seeking abortion "into the shadows" and makes it harder for women to talk candidly about their pregnancy with their physicians. "It is unfair, it is unrealistic and it is doing harm," she said about the Texas law

Dr. Lisa Harris, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Michigan, pointed to a long list of things that must be considered beyond the impacts on reproductive health care for pregnant people if Roe is overturned, including: issues of equity; medical providers concerns about whether they are breaking the law if they counsel patients to end their pregnancies; increases in births and maternal deaths; and the implications of restrictive laws on self-managed abortions. 

Further, she said the language is vague in states where abortions would be permitted if the mother's life is at risk. "How much risk does someone need to take on to have an abortion count as life saving?" she asked. 

"For example, there are patients with cardiac disease who we will quote a 25 to 30% chance of dying if they continue the pregnancy and give birth. Is that enough of a risk of dying to have qualified, I guess, to use that word, to qualify for an abortion? Or does it need to be 50% or 100%? How are we to know this?" she asked 

Advice for journalists covering abortion

Image from healthlaw.org

Sophie Novack, an independent journalist who has closely covered reproductive rights for the Texas Observer, encouraged journalists at the conference to cover abortion as a health issue, not a political one. 

"So often coverage of it is siloed from other areas of reproductive health care," she said. 

Novack encouraged journalists to look at abortion through the lens of health-care access, and to offer context around percentages of people who are uninsured, teen pregnancy trends, state funding for family planning services, access to maternal health care, access to public assistance, and information that helps audiences understand how abortion restrictions affect the overall, long-term health of women.

"So thinking about all those kinds of factors together and how they fit together in the context of someone's ability to terminate the pregnancy and hurdles that exist," Novack said.

She also encouraged journalists to use medically accurate language. For example, she said the Texas law is not a "fetal heartbeat law" because an embryo does not have a heart at six weeks of pregnancy. 

The Associated Press has recently updated its Stylebook:

Pregnant people
Phrasing like "pregnant people" or "people who seek an abortion" seeks to include people who have those experiences but do not identify as women, such as some transgender men and some nonbinary people. Such phrasing should be confined to stories that specifically address the experiences of people who do not identify as women. See gender, sex and sexual orientation.

And our long-standing entry on abortion:
Abortion
Use the modifiers anti-abortion or abortion-rights; don't use pro-life, pro-choice or pro-abortion unless they are in quotes or proper names. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions. Instead of pregnant women, use "pregnant people" or "people who seek an abortion" in stories that specifically address the experiences of people who can get pregnant but are not women. Such phrasing seeks to include people who have those experiences but do not identify as women, such as some transgender men and some nonbinary people.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization by the end of June, which will determine the constitutionality of Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban, which raises the issue of whether a state can ban abortion before fetal viability. The court could do that without fully overturning Roe, by setting a stricter standard, but Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a leaked draft opinion that there is no constitutional right to abortion.

'Misinformation is now our leading cause of death,' FDA boss says

FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, M.D., speaks with an
attendee at the event. (AHCJ photo by Paola Rodriguez)

Newly confirmed Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf says "the issue that keeps him up at night . . . is the proliferation of false and misleading health information, particularly online — and the distrust in institutions, data and expertise that it has wrought."

So reports Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico for the Association of Health Care Journalists, from an interview AHCJ patient-safety team leader Kerry Dooley Young conducted with Califf on Friday in Austin at Health Journalism 2022, AHCJ’s annual conference.

“I believe that misinformation is now our leading cause of death,” Califf said, citing resistance to Covid-19 vaccination, the number of people taking the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin, and increasing use of electronic cigarettes.

“Historically, the FDA has been relatively quiet and puts out definitive information through guidance or labels or regulatory actions … that would be transmitted to consumers and patients through trusted intermediaries,” he said. “But the world has changed at this point.”

The shift has fueled the drop in Americans' life expectancy compared to other wealthy nations, Califf said, and he "urged reporters to avoid clickbait, lean into fact checking, make sure the headline matches the copy, and take other steps to responsibly convey news about Covid-19 and other pressing health concerns," Ollstein reports.

Califf said, “People are distracted and misled by the medical information Tower of Babel, but journalists like yourselves play an important role here and your work has a tremendous impact on public trust.”

USA Today reports on its analysis of Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes last winter, with a focus on Trilogy Health Services

Some Trilogy Health Services residents who died of Covid-19 (Photos contributed to USA Today)

USA Today recently published its findings from an in-depth analysis that looked at Covid-19 nursing home deaths during the 2020-21 winter surge, with a focus on one company that had twice the national average of deaths for nursing homes and has as many as 20 facilities in Kentucky. 

The year-long analysis was done by Letitia Stein, Jayme Fraser, Nick Penzenstadler and freelancer Jeff Kelly Lowenstein. It was published mid-March as a series of  stories, titled "Dying for Care."  

USA Today says, "In a first-of-its-kind analysis, they identified nursing-home ownership webs invisible to consumers. They scored the performance of every nursing home in America to probe questions of corporate responsibility left unanswered by government regulators and dozens of research papers on the pandemic's 140,000-plus nursing home deaths."

The series opens with pictures of people who died in nursing homes of Trilogy Health Services, found to have the "highest death rates reported by any large nursing home chain at the height of the pandemic."  

The analysis found that residents in Trilogy's 115 homes died of Covid-19 last winter at twice the national average for nursing homes, based on figures facilities must file weekly with the federal government. 

After being presented with USA Today's findings, the company told the newspaper that it had mistakenly reported hundreds of deaths during the surge and offered a revised tally that reduced the count by more than 40 percent, but it declined to provide documentation of those claims. It has since "filed new numbers with the federal government and hired a consultant to help it review its death count," the newspaper reports. 

But even with those lower numbers, the paper found Trilogy's Covid-19 death rates were "well above the national average" during the winter surge. 

The paper's analysis found that the deaths were not driven by residents who were older or more fragile, and could not be explained solely by the company's presence in states hard-hit by the virus. An unusual distinction was that Trilogy had been acquired by a company specializing in real estate in a test of a business model new to large nursing-home chains. 

The analysis found that "millions of dollars continued to flow from Trilogy to a California-based real estate venture busy preparing its next investment pitch – a stock listing expected to launch this year." 

The story digs into the business model behind these nursing homes and their efforts to increase profits, including staff cuts. It says Trilogy "went further than any other major chain in shrinking care hours delivered to residents before the pandemic," that "half of its facilities were cited by health inspectors for violating Covid-19 safety rules in 2020" and that "Trilogy's poor Covid outcomes stood out by measure after measure." 

The company divided its facilities "into red, yellow and green zones to limit exposure to the virus," the story says, but "Eyewitness interviews and the reports filed by health inspectors indicate this safety regimen was often a charade." The story also includes interviews with families of those who died. 

The series also includes short stories about some of the Trilogy residents who died and another includes a video of families reflecting on their loss. In addition, there is a link to share the story of how you lost a loved one in a nursing home due to Covid-19. 

Also in the USA Today "Dying for Care" series: 

The reporters break down their findings into four key things to know about their investigation into nursing home failures during Covid-19, including why Trilogy stood out, impact of staffing on care, impact of ignoring safety lapses pointed out in inspections, and impacts from the real-estate business model. 

In response to the story, federal nursing home regulators have said they need to collect better information about real estate ownership model's like Trilogy's, they report. Further, President Joe Biden  proposed reforms in February that would track problem owners across states  and shed light on Wall Street profits from nursing homes. 

The analysis revealed ownership webs invisible to consumers and said "problems across chains eluded federal officials overseeing nursing homes, who were focused on individual facilities during the pandemic." 

A story by Fraser walks through the details of how they did the analysis. She writes that USA Today took a closer look at nursing-home performance in the winter surge from October 2020 to February 2021 because half the nation's 140,000 Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes happened during that period, "months after best practices were established and federal aid issued for coping with the coronavirus." 

Another story, written by Penzenstadler, offers a guide to choosing the right nursing home for a loved on in three steps. 

Penzenstadler also explores the question, "When does a nursing home Covid-19 death count?" 

There is also a section that allows you to look up nursing-home ratings from the analysis and see how they fared during the pandemic's winter surge, 2021-21. 

There are no Kentucky data in the spreadsheet; USA Today reports there are 13 Trilogy Health Services facilities in Kentucky, but its website lists 20: Cooper Trail Senior Living in Bardstown; Cedar Ridge Health Campus in Cynthiana; Walker's Trail Senior Living in Danville; The Willows at Harrodsburg; The Springs at Oldham Reserve in La Grange; The Willows at Citation in Lexington; The Willows at Fritz Farm in Lexington; The Willows at Hamburg in Lexington; Forest Springs Health Campus in Louisville; Franciscan Health Care Center in Louisville; Glen River Health Campus in Louisville; Park Terrace Health Campus in Louisville; The Legacy at English Station in Louisville; The Springs at Stony Brook in Louisville; The Willows at Springhurst in Louisville; Westport Place Health Campus in Louisville; Sanders Ridge Health Campus in Mt. Washington; Calumet Trace Senior Living in Owensboro; Shelby Farms Senior Living in Shelbyville; and Boonesboro Trail Senior Living in Winchester. 

Social media data show Americans pay little attention to Omicron variant even though it's one of most contagious viruses ever found

Graphs by Axios; to enlarge, click on the image.

"New data shows that the Omicron variant is not jumpstarting Americans' engagement in Covid news, despite indications that it may be one of the fastest-spreading variants to date," Sara Fischer and Neil Rothschild report for Axios. That matters because "a lack of widespread appreciation of the threat could hamper the response."

Americans' social-media interactions on news articles about the coronavirus have fallen from an average of 1,171 per article in March 2020 to 326 in December 2020, to 108 over the past three weeks. Engagement spiked when the Delta variant was first identified, but that hasn't happened with the Omicron variant yet, Fischer and Rothschild report.

The decline in news interactions likely stems from pandemic fatigue, and a perception that Omicron is no more dangerous than previous variants, University of New Haven political science professor Chris Haynes told Axios.

The reasons for not paying attention vary: Vaccinated people may believe there's not much more they can do or need to learn, while unvaccinated people may believe the coronavirus isn't a threat or is inevitable, Annenberg Public Policy Center director Kathleen Hall Jamieson told Axios.

But, Fischer and Rothschild note, "as the Omicron variant spreads, interest in Covid news could start to spike in coming weeks, especially as it pertains to holiday travel."

Sen. Rand Paul's false claim that masks don't work against the coronavirus gets Four Pinocchios from The Washington Post

By Salvador Rizzo

The Washington Post

“When you talk about the peer-reviewed studies of masks, there was one done in Denmark, showed that it didn’t work. When you look at all of Sweden — 1.8 million children have not been wearing masks for the last two years, they’ve had zero covid deaths. And you say, ‘Well, have the teachers been infected?’ Well, it turns out the teachers are infected at the same rate as the rest of the public. So, they’ve had no masks for a year, year and a half. And it has worked. And that’s a whole country.” — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in an interview on Fox News, Nov. 29, 2021

When Paul talks about “the peer-reviewed studies of masks,” he is referring to only one study, from Denmark, and he’s twisting what it says. In reality, multiple peer-reviewed studies show that wearing face coverings mitigates the spread of the coronavirus.

That’s especially true for recently infected people who don masks when they go outside the home. They may not be showing symptoms, but they are carrying a high viral load. The face covering works as a stopper, capturing many infectious airborne particles before they can reach another person.

Although Sweden has seen a very low rate of child mortality from Covid-19, Paul’s statement that no Swedish children have died of the disease also is inaccurate.

The Facts

From April to June 2020, researchers tracked 6,024 participants for a study in Denmark, which did not recommend mask-wearing in public at the time. Cafes and restaurants were closed during most of this period; public health authorities were recommending quarantine for those with the coronavirus, as well as social distancing and limiting face-to-face encounters.

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last year, found that the group wearing surgical masks was less likely to catch the virus than the unmasked group, but there was not enough evidence to reach a statistically significant conclusion.

“Our results suggest that the recommendation to wear a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mask wearers in a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect, mask recommendations were not among those measures, and community use of masks was uncommon,” the researchers wrote. “Yet, the findings were inconclusive and cannot definitively exclude a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection of mask wearers in such a setting. It is important to emphasize that this trial did not address the effects of masks as source control or as protection in settings where social distancing and other public health measures are not in effect.”

Paul claimed on Fox News that this study showed that masks don’t work, but in fact the study says masks could reduce coronavirus cases by up to 46 percent in circumstances like Denmark’s — or increase infections by up to 23 percent. A spokeswoman for the senator referred us to the Danish study but did not respond to our questions.

“Measures to impede transmission in health care and community settings are essential,” the same study adds. “The virus is transmitted person-to-person, primarily through the mouth, nose, or eyes via respiratory droplets, aerosols, or fomites. … Face masks are a plausible means to reduce transmission of respiratory viruses by minimizing the risk that respiratory droplets will reach wearers’ nasal or oral mucosa.” (Somehow this passage did not make it into Paul’s summary of the study.)

Other studies have found that mask-wearing in the community reduces the incidence of covid-19. Paul didn’t mention them on Fox News.

“During the pandemic, the scientific evidence has increased,” according to a study this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). “Compelling data now demonstrate that community mask-wearing is an effective nonpharmacologic intervention to reduce the spread of this infection, especially as source control to prevent spread from infected persons, but also as protection to reduce wearers’ exposure to infection.”

In the British Medical Journal last month, a review of six scientific studies found a 53 percent reduction in covid-19 incidence from mask-wearing. It added that the “results of additional studies that assessed mask-wearing (not included in the meta-analysis because of substantial differences in the assessed outcomes) indicate a reduction in Covid-19 incidence, SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and covid-19 mortality. Specifically, a natural experiment across 200 countries showed 45.7% fewer Covid-19 related mortality in countries where mask-wearing was mandatory.”

Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in January found “evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission.”

“Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period post-infection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms; nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission,” the survey says.

The lead author, Jeremy Howard, said the Danish research Paul was referring to “showed that low-quality masks such as cloth masks do not have a very large protective effect to the wearer.”

“This was expected — respiratory particles quickly evaporate and become too small for a cloth mask to stop,” Howard said. “However, cloth masks are protective for those around an infected wearer.” Some research, he added, shows “it is far better to use higher-quality masks, or alternatively add a mask fitter.”

The first large, randomized trial to test mask efficacy in a real-world setting recently was completed in Bangladesh, where nearly 350,000 people in rural parts of the country were tracked. The study has not completed the peer-review process, but the authors report that “when surgical masks were employed, 1 in 3 symptomatic infections were avoided for individuals 60+ years old, the age group that faces the highest risk of death following infection.”

The results for cloth masks were less conclusive. A separate study sent to us by Paul spokeswoman Kelsey Cooper — from 2015, before the coronavirus pandemic — found that cloth masks should not be recommended for health-care workers, particularly in high-risk situations, because “moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.” The findings do not apply to surgical masks or high-quality masks.

The same researchers posted an update after the coronavirus pandemic began: “Health workers are asking us if they should wear no mask at all if cloth masks are the only option. Our research does not condone health workers working unprotected. We recommend that health workers should not work during the Covid-19 pandemic without respiratory protection as a matter of work health and safety. … If health workers choose to work using cloth masks, we suggest that they have at least two and cycle them, so that each one can be washed and dried after daily use.”

How does a mask stop coronavirus particles?

Imagine an infected person who is breathing, talking, singing, exercising, coughing or sneezing in a crowded room. Several studies have found that face masks are able to capture the airborne infectious particles that can spread the coronavirus. That’s what scientists refer to as “source control,” and that’s why public health authorities recommend masks in some indoor settings along with vaccinations, social distancing and other measures.

“There is laboratory-based evidence that household masks have filtration capacity in the relevant particle size range, as well as efficacy in blocking aerosols and droplets from the wearer,” the PNAS study says. “That is, these masks help people keep their emissions to themselves. A consideration is that face masks with valves do not capture respiratory particles as efficiently, bypassing the filtration mechanism, and therefore offer less source control.”

As the JAMA study says: “Exposure is greater the closer a person is to the source of exhalations. Larger droplets fall out of the air rapidly, but small droplets and the dried particles formed from them (i.e., droplet nuclei) can remain suspended in the air. In circumstances with poor ventilation, typically indoor enclosed spaces where an infected person is present for an extended period, the concentrations of these small droplets and particles can build sufficiently to transmit infection.”

This study found that community masking reduces coronavirus transmission rates in two ways — first, by blocking the virus-laden droplets being exhaled (source control) and second, by protecting uninfected wearers, although masks were found to be less effective for this group.

“Masks form a barrier to large respiratory droplets that could land on exposed mucous membranes of the eye, nose, and mouth,” the study says. “Masks can also partially filter out small droplets and particles from inhaled air. Multiple layers of fabric and fabrics with higher thread counts improve filtration. However, the observed effectiveness of cloth masks to protect the wearer is lower than their effectiveness for source control, and the filtration capacity of cloth masks can be highly dependent on design, fit, and materials used.”

‘1.8 million children … zero covid deaths’

Paul also brought up Sweden in this interview, arguing that the country, which had no mask requirement for schools, did not see worse coronavirus transmission or mortality rates. He said zero children had died of covid-19, but the official Swedish figures show that 14 people ages 0-19 had died of the disease as of the most recent update.

A study published in August in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health found that Norway, a neighbor to Sweden that imposed stricter coronavirus lockdown measures, had lower mortality rates. “The Covid-19-associated mortality rates per 100,000 person-weeks during the first wave of the pandemic were 0.3 in Norway and 2.9 in Sweden,” it says.

“All-cause mortality in Norway was lower during the pandemic, whereas the all-cause mortality among elderly people in Sweden increased substantially,” the researchers found. “In previous years, both countries have seen a decreasing trend in all-cause mortality. It remains to be seen whether the observed excess deaths in Sweden during the pandemic may, in part, be explained by mortality displacement and whether the Covid-19 pandemic and mitigation measures are associated with other harms or benefits.”

Paul’s spokeswoman said he was referring to a letter published by a Swedish researcher in February in the New England Journal of Medicine. “Despite Sweden’s having kept schools and preschools open, we found a low incidence of severe Covid-19 among schoolchildren and children of preschool age during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic,” it says, adding that from March to June 2020, “no child with Covid-19 died.”

That’s a few months, not the year or year and a half Paul mentioned. The letter, now outdated, was peer-reviewed by some academics and criticized by others, who said it ignored school outbreaks of Covid-19, among other issues.

The Pinocchio Test

Paul said the scientific research on wearing masks shows they don’t mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. But the only study he relies on for support was inconclusive at best.

In fact, most of the peer-reviewed research shows that wearing masks outside the home, especially surgical or high-quality masks, reduces the incidence of covid-19 cases.

The senator’s misleading talk of “peer-reviewed studies” goes far beyond the usual spin and merits Four Pinocchios.

Salvador Rizzo is a reporter for The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" column, where this was first published. The Fact Checker is a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network code of principles.

Anchorman Sam Dick retires at Lexington's WKYT-TV; he went public with his prostate cancer, surely saving the lives of others

Sam Dick goes public with his cancer. (WKYT-TV image Tuesday, from broadcast several years ago)

Sam Dick, a familiar face to millions of Kentuckians over a record 34 years as evening anchor on Lexington television, did his last newscast Wednesday night. Thousands of Kentuckians remembered him as the man who used his own case of prostate cancer as a teachable moment that surely saved lives.

The story began with “Three words from my doctor that changed my life,” Dick said. “We found something.” Soon, he shared his journey, through surgery, follow-up tests and, after the cancer returned, radiation treatments.

“The first few times, I was pretty anxious and a little nervous about it,” Dick said in a story by Garrett Wymer, broadcast Tuesday evening on WKYT-TV. “I definitely said some prayers. But after about five or six days of the radiation, I got more comfortable, and actually, I try to take a nap.”

Wymer reports, “He used his platform to open up a dialogue, talking about the importance of annual prostate exams and early detection. . . . It was personal to Sam even before his own diagnosis. His father, David, passed away after a 17-year fight against prostate cancer. He pushed Sam to get annual exams, starting in his 40s.” David Dick was a former CBS News correspondent who directed the University of Kentucky journalism school.

Going public with his story made Sam Dick a resource for other men battling prostate cancer.

Rusty Parsons told Wymer, “Sam’s response was: ‘This is my phone number. Call me.’ We talked and we talked, and I cried. and he said the words that came out of his mouth was: ‘I’ve been through everything you’re going through. You are normal. There is nothing wrong with you.’”

Kentucky's coronavirus positive-test rate goes above 7%; lack of home tests will make Thanksgiving riskier than it should be

New York Times map, adapted by Ky. Health News; click it to enlarge or here for interactive version.

By Al Cross

Kentucky Health News

The pandemic in Kentucky mostly plateaued Wednesday as the nation began a long holiday weekend offering many more opportunities for the coronavirus to spread, especially among the unvaccinated. And the untested.

"Thanksgiving is bound to cause a spike in America’s covid infections," says a headline on The Economist's website. The subhead on the story: "Blame resistance to getting jabbed and a lack of home testing," which could have made Thanksgiving gatherings safer.

"We need to flood the system with testing," Dr. Anthony Fauci told CBS News.

The Economist reports, "These kits are still hard to come by in local pharmacies, and they are costly. The Quidel QuickVue test is priced at $23.99 on Amazon, and the On/Go one at $34.99—and even then they are not available until after the holiday. A family of four would need to spend about $100 or more. By contrast, in Britain the National Health Service allows each person, every day, to order a pack of seven rapid tests free."

“In other countries, we see it’s become the norm for friends and family to get tested before a party, before dinner, before celebrations,” Leana Wen, former health commissioner of Baltimore, told The Economist. “We need to get to that point in this country.” She said the Food and Drug Administration is "letting perfect be the enemy of the good" with an approval process that is too stringent. 

On Wednesday the percentage of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the last seven days hit 7.05%, the first time it exceeded 7% in five weeks. It hit a low of 4.98% on Oct 31; the high was 14.16% on Sept. 8.

The state reported 2,144 new cases of the virus, two more than Tuesday but lowering the seven-day rolling average by 7, to 1,733 per day. Almost 26 percent of the new cases were in Kentuckians 18 and younger.

The state's seven-day infection rate ticked up slightly, from an average of 32.49 daily cases per 100,000 residents on Tuesday to a 32.62 average on Wednesday. Counties with rates more than double that rate were Robertson, 94.9; Powell, 92.5; Carroll, 72.6; Magoffin, 70.5; Harlan, 69.2; and Breckinridge, 67.

Kentucky hospitals reported 818 Covid-19 patients, 17 fewer than Tuesday, with 204 of them in intensive care (down 13) and 107 on mechanical ventilation (up 9). Eight of the 10 hospital regions had more than 80% of their intensive-care beds occupied, led by Lake Cumberland at 96%, with Covid patients in 16%.

The state reported 35 more Covid-19 deaths, raising Kentucky's pandemic death toll to 10,795.

Over the last 14 days, the state's new-case average has gone up 29%, more than the national gain of 25%, but its national ranking has gone down slightly, to 28th, because of steeper increases in other states, mainly to the north, where the weather has been colder and people are spending more time indoors.

So says The New York Times, which has changed its method of calculating averages to eliminate days on which states don't report cases, such as holiday weekends. Kentucky's next report will come Monday.

"The previous method displayed the average of the day and the previous six days of data," the Times explains. "In the new method, if the seven-day window includes days with no data reported, the period is extended to older days until it includes seven days of reported data."

UPDATE: Gov. Andy Beshear said on Facebook, "As we sit down at our Thanksgiving meals tomorrow, remember there are folks across the commonwealth with empty seats at the table because of this virus. Tonight, let's show compassion and light our homes green. We must never forget we're in this together."