Ten Lessons from Health Affairs

The esteemed health-policy journal Health Affairs has published its list of "Ten Lessons from COVID-19  Research Published in Health Affairs" (12/30/20). Number 10 shouldn't have surprised me, but it did:

1. Mandating face masks in public is associated with a decline in the daily COVID-19 growth rate.
2. COVID-19 emergency sick leave has reduced confirmed cases.
3. Increased testing and isolation may be the most effective, least costly alternative—in terms of money, economic growth, and human life—for controlling COVID-19.
4. Shelter-in-place orders reduce both daily COVID-19 hospitalizations and mortality growth rates within weeks of enactment.
5. Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to screen positive, be hospitalized, and die due to COVID-19 relative to non-Hispanic Whites.
6. Vaccine implementation, including the pace of vaccination and the percent of the population ultimately vaccinated, will contribute more to the success of vaccination programs than a vaccine’s efficacy determined in clinical trials.
7. Hospitals reinvented patient and staff support systems during the COVID-19 pandemic to better cope with trauma.
8. Expanded Medicaid coverage and insurance reimbursement for telehealth played a pivotal role in the rapidly increased use of these services during the pandemic.
9. The majority of school employees and school-age children live in households including at least one adult with increased risk for severe COVID-19, and about half of all school employees have increased risk themselves.
10. Unionized health care workers in nursing homes were associated with a decrease in COVID-19 mortality rates and greater access to personal protective equipment for workers.

I've been considering my coverage decisions for Health Law next semester, and unionization -- not much of a force in health-care settings in the South and Southwest -- seemed like an easy topic to cut. Now I am reconsidering that decision.