WASHINGTON - Virtual visits have begun to decline after an initial peak in mid-April, according to a new analysis from Harvard and health tech company Phreesia analyzing more than 50,000 clinicians.
Telehealth visits made up about 14 percent of visits during the week of April 19, but that number had fallen to 7 percent in mid-June. Researchers emphasized that despite the decline, telehealth use is still substantially higher than it was pre-pandemic.
View article HERE.
LINCOLN — Humanities Nebraska has awarded $429,217 in CARES Act dollars to 73 Nebraska nonprofit organizations that focus on the humanities as of late June.
Funding has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act economic stabilization plan. The funds were intended to help Nebraska museums, historic sites, and other cultural nonprofit organizations that are in need of general operating support in order to continue humanities activities during the COVID-19 crisis.
View article HERE.
KEARNEY — The University of Nebraska at Kearney announced more than a dozen staff positions had been cut. This is the first step in overcoming a $2.8 million budget deficit outlined and affirmed by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.
A total of 15 state-funded salary positions were eliminated Wednesday. Those positions added up to $800,000 in state-funded salary and benefit savings.
UNK Chancellor Doug Kristensen said in a press release, “There are few things that are more difficult than sharing the news with colleagues that we can no longer afford their position.”
View article HERE.
LINCOLN - Bryan Health continues to see a steady decline in the number of patients in its hospitals with COVID-19. The health system said Monday that only four people with COVID-19 were hospitalized, and only one patient was on a ventilator. That's the lowest number of ventilated patients since April 13 and the lowest number of overall patients since April 19.
Additionally, Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department Director Pat Lopez said that the decline in hospitalizations is due to an increase in infections of people under 40.
View article HERE.
OMAHA – Omaha Public Schools is busy working in an effort to resume classes this fall. OPS has a strategy that “aims to address student and staff health needs, bolster academic instruction from the spring and pay heed to students’ emotional health.
Superintendent Cheryl Logan said, “It is really important for us to be back in school.” However, OPS won’t be able to bring all students back to class on the same days, given the coronavirus threat, crowded buildings and the district’s large population of 54,000 students. Instead, the district will reduce the number of students in the classroom by half by using a combination of in-class instruction on certain days and remote learning on others.
Such accommodations show the need for flexibility — and for further adjustments to meet ever-changing conditions.
View article HERE.
LINCOLN – State Sen. Mike Moser represents District 22 that encompasses Platte and parts of Colfax and Stanton counties. Sen. Moser was doing fine until he tested positive for COVID-19. Sen. Moser was admitted to the emergency room at Columbus Community Hospital.
Sen. Moser stated, “At first the symptoms weren’t all that severe, but I suddenly got really winded and couldn’t get my breath back.” On Mother’s Day, Moser was taken to Nebraska Medicine in Omaha, where he spent five weeks under medical care until getting released on June 13. Since then, he’s been back at his Columbus home doing his best to rebound as quickly as possible. But, as he said, it’s a process.
Moser praised the medical teams in Columbus and Omaha for their top-notch service, noting they were all “on the ball” and provided “first-class care."
View article HERE.
LINCOLN – On Wednesday, high school contact sports will have the ok to resume workouts. Nebraska School Activities Association assistant director, Nate Neuhaus, said that these next few weeks will be especially telling.
NSAA executive director Jay Bellar said the board may have to add a meeting before the next scheduled one in August to address the reopening of NSAA activities. Spring sports were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
As for fan attendance this fall, no plans have been made.
View article HERE.
OMAHA – Researchers have been collecting rainwater since April with the intention of developing a method to detect signs of the novel coronavirus. This may give public health officials a leg up on responding to the coronavirus if the research is successful.
Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, stated that “This might be able to help predict what’s coming and direct where to put testing centers or where to put (other) resources.”
Wastewater monitoring already is catching on in other countries and in parts of the United States. Researchers in the Netherlands, Australia, and now the United States have demonstrated that testing can pick up on the virus about a week before the first clinical case.
View article HERE.
WASHINGTON - Republican Sen. Joni Ernst's Democratic challenger is hammering her in tweets and a new radio spot for her votes to confirm EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, who she says has undermined the federal biofuels program by issuing dozens of exemptions to the Renewable Fuel Standard, Pro's Eric Wolff reports.
Businesswoman Theresa Greenfield, the Democrat trying to unseat Ernst, launched the radio ad Wednesday as part of a statewide buy slamming Ernst for backing Wheeler, who she referred to as a "fossil fuel lobbyist" because of his past work. The attacks followed tweets in which she called for Wheeler to resign and asked Ernst to join her demand.
While Ernst did vote to confirm Wheeler twice, she has a long record of vocally advocating for the RFS, including holding up the confirmation of former EPA assistant administrator Bill Wehrum over what she viewed as the agency's weak support for biofuels.
View article HERE.
LINCOLN - Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson and the others sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to ensure police officer safety as Democrats demand changes in police tactics and accountability.
The lawyers say a few bad officers don't warrant calls to “defund the police.” The attorneys general also pointed to the 2016 attacks that left officers dead in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as evidence of the dangers that police face.
Peterson joined attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Carolina and Texas.
View article HERE.
GRAND ISLAND - The momentum for property tax relief still has a chance at funding, despite estimates announced last week that Nebraska will see a quarter-billion-dollar loss in state tax revenue from federal tax changes enacted because of the coronavirus.
The state can avert this loss of revenue by “decoupling.” Decoupling means protecting the relevant parts of Nebraska’s tax code from the changes in the federal tax code, in most cases by remaining linked to federal law as it existed prior to the change. The Nebraska Legislature has in the past voted to decouple, or not follow, federal tax changes. Most recently, that happened following the last recession, when lawmakers moved to decouple to avoid state tax increases on Nebraskans.
When the Nebraska legislative session was suspended in March, a property tax relief proposal still lacked the 33 votes needed for passage. Despite the estimated loss of state revenue, a property tax relief measure can still be passed. With roughly $10 billion in federal stimulus spending coming into the state, there is some money left for property tax relief. The problem is the unknown speed of how the recovery will take place and how quickly unemployment claims will get back to pre-COVID levels and we open up for business.
View article HERE.
LINCOLN - The state needs a new prison to help remedy inmate overcrowding, Department of Corrections Director Scott Frakes said Thursday. A state law that requires the governor to declare an overcrowding emergency if the population exceeds 140% goes into effect July 1 and continues until the prisons are at 125% capacity. Frakes and Gov. Pete Ricketts interpret that law to mean they are allowed to work on it in earnest, but not required to do a mass release of prisoners.
The prisons have been over the 140% capacity since 2009, and in any of those years, the governor could have declared an emergency but hasn't. The law was changed in recent years to require the emergency declaration by July 1, 2020, if it existed.
View article HERE.
OMAHA - Law enforcement officers from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission will spread out across the state over the Fourth of July holiday to try to curb drinking and boating.
The national initiative, dubbed Operation Dry Water, operates year-round. There is an increased emphasis during the summer, especially July 3-5. “The commission encourages boaters to enjoy the boating season with friends and family, and we also encourage them to do it in a safe and responsible way,” said Craig Stover, the administrator for the law enforcement division.
View article HERE.
LINCOLN - A petition drive targeting exorbitant payday loan rates turned in more than 120,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office Thursday.
That’s well above the number of signatures required to qualify for the November ballot. Nebraskans for Responsible Lending need about 85,200 valid signatures to get their proposal before voters.
Aubrey Mancuso, one of the group’s leaders, said petition circulators found Nebraskans eager to sign in support of a 36% annual interest rate cap on payday loans.
Backers of the Nebraska petition drive spent nearly $1.5 million on the effort through late May, according to reports filed with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. The bulk of the money came from the American Civil Liberties Union, $712, 317, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, $355,000.
View article HERE.
OMAHA - Starting July 1, the state motor fuels tax is slated to hit an all-time record of 33.2 cents per gallon. That’s up 3.9 cents per gallon from the current level, according to an announcement from the Nebraska Department of Revenue. The new rate will be in effect until Dec. 31.
Vicki Kramer, a spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Transportation, said the rate increase is needed to offset the coronavirus-driven loss of revenues for the state’s road-building fund. Gas tax revenues, the largest of the three, dropped by 23% as Gov. Pete Ricketts imposed travel restrictions and pushed for people to stay home to curb the spread of the virus.
Traffic dropped by double-digit percentages between March 15 and June 13, according to Transportation Department officials. At its lowest, during the week of April 12-18, traffic was down 35% from average levels in 2016 through 2018.
View article HERE.
Speaker Jim Scheer has published a memorandum that outlines how the Legislature will reconvene. Among other things, the memorandum states that Senators wishing to speak with lobbyists must exit the Chamber through the back north door and re-enter through the back south door. Further, it states that Senators will want to utilize text messaging, their cellphone (in a phone booth), and their intercom for communications with persons outside the Chamber.
The memorandum can be viewed HERE.
WASHINGTON – Rany Conos, a pulmonologist at NYU Langone Health says, “What we're seeing is that many of them, at least at one month of follow up, are still having significant pulmonary complaints, they're short of breath. They're still having chest pain. A lot of them still have abnormal X-rays. Many of them, up to 40 to 50 percent of them, still have abnormalities in their breathing that we can measure. A lot of them are having symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Some of them have anxiety. Some of them are showing signs of depression. And the lung is not the only organ that was involved in this pandemic. Many of the patients have had neurologic abnormalities. A lot of them have kidney abnormalities. We're going to see that there is a significant health care burden that's going to be associated with the COVID pandemic for a very long time.”
View article HERE.
SCOTTSBLUFF - High school marching bands and show choirs in Nebraska now have a road map for how to hold summer practices and camps. New state guidance released Tuesday strongly recommends that during those activities students practice social distancing and preventive hygiene.
For bands, the guidance recommends that for all drill and on-field formations, students be spaced at least three steps apart, or about 5 1/2 feet. That would mean none of the tight, shoulder-to-shoulder marching formations, at least for now. It also recommends that kids bring their own individual water bottles, no sharing of sheet music, folders or equipment, and no food prepared by band boosters.
Students at show choir camps are advised to keep six feet apart and maintain physical distancing while singing or dancing. That means spacing risers and chairs to ensure social distancing.
View article HERE.
LINCOLN - If you are hoping antibody testing for COVID-19 might be the solution to getting back to normal until there's a vaccine, you're likely to be disappointed.
Dr. Jim Nora, medical director of infection prevention at Bryan Medical Center, said Thursday that antibody tests for the illness are still too unreliable. "COVID-19 serology testing does not work well," Nora said, especially as a diagnostic tool. He said the immune response to the virus is complex and not well understood. For example, many people with COVID-19 are thought to be asymptomatic, Nora said, and those people often don't have a strong immune response to the virus and may produce few or no antibodies. It also takes 10-14 days for those infected with COVID-19 to create antibodies, so if they are tested too early, the test will produce a false negative, he said.
These, among other factors, make the tests unreliable.
View article HERE.
OMAHA - Thousands of people around the world hospitalized with COVID-19 have been treated with what’s known as convalescent plasma donated by people who’ve recovered from the infection.
But a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, biotech firm thinks it has a better alternative to convalescent plasma: A barn full of dairy cattle that are producing human antibodies to COVID-19. The cattle, a Holstein mix, look just like those found on many Midwestern farms. But they’re not your basic bovine. They’ve been genetically modified to have a partially human immune system.
The company then injects them with a noninfectious portion of the novel coronavirus so they produce antibodies to fight it. “We have already shown our antibodies neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the more technical name for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19), and we have already produced a clinical material to be used for our clinical trials,” said Eddie Sullivan, the company’s president and CEO.
View article HERE.