News of the Month — June 2020
NUHW was one of only three unions listed by Fox Business News under the title, “What are the Top Healthcare Unions.”
NUHW Vice President Ken Rogers was quoted in this story by Capital & Mainand interviewed in this podcast about the pandemic’s impact on mental health care.
Throughout American history, Black people have endured a medical system that has been simultaneously exploitative and dismissive. The pandemic has made the biases present in our medical system impossible to ignore. Recent data shows that the COVID-19 mortality rate for Black Americans is about 2.4 times higher than for whites. Black people have also been less likely to be referred for Covid-19 testing and medical care.
California will begin receiving shipments of much-needed N95 masks from Chinese automaker BYD in the coming days after federal regulators approved the company’s respirators, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday. The masks are part of a $1-billion deal Newsom struck with BYD in April, which had been delayed after the carmaker had difficulty certifying the effectiveness of their masks.
As nursing homes remain the pandemic’s epicenter, the federal government is failing to ensure these facilities have all the PPE needed to prevent the spread of the virus, according to interviews with administrators and federal data.
A new analysis of 172 studies, funded by the World Health Organization, confirms what scientists have said for months: N95 and other respirator masks are far superior to surgical or cloth masks in protecting essential medical workers against the coronavirus. The results, published on Monday in The Lancet, make it clear that the W.H.O. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should recommend that essential workers like nurses and emergency responders wear N95 masks, not just surgical masks, experts said.