Archives for June 2021

Ohio Lottery announces 2nd Vax-a-Million incentive winners

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio residents who were recently vaccinated may want to answer their phone on Vax-A-Million days, even if the number isn’t familiar. It might be Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on the other end.

The Ohio Lottery announced the next winners of the state’s Vax-a-Million vaccination incentive prizes Wednesday at the end of the lottery’s Cash Explosion TV show.

Jonathan Carlyle, of Toledo, won the $1 million prize and Zoie Vincent, of Mayfield Village in Cuyahoga County, won the college scholarship.

More than 3.2 million Ohioans entered their names for a shot at the $1 million, up from the 2.8 million who had registered for last week’s drawing. More than 133,000 children entered their names for the scholarship, up from just over 104,000 last week.

Wednesday is also the day that the last statewide orders meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus expire.

The only virus-related restrictions that will remain in place after Wednesday are those involving nursing homes and assisted living facilities. But businesses and schools will still be able to require masks and social distancing, if they choose to do so.

DeWine continues to urge people to get the COVID-19 vaccine and to wear masks if not vaccinated.

Abbigail Bugenske, last week’s winner of $1 million, learned of her good fortune just minutes before her name was drawn when DeWine called as she was driving to her parents’ home in suburban Cleveland.

The mom of Joseph Costello, the first college scholarship winner, was leaving work when the governor called and had to sit down, she was so shocked.

The names were actually drawn Monday using a random number generator, to leave time to confirm recipients’ eligibility. Vax-a-Million is open to permanent Ohio residents who have received either the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine or their first part of the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccination.

After Wednesday night, three more $1 million and college scholarship winners will be announced each Wednesday for the next three weeks.

DeWine, a Republican, announced the program May 12 to boost lagging vaccination rates.

Participants must register to enter by phone or via the Vax-a-Million website. Teens can register themselves, but parents or legal guardians must verify their eligibility. The names of entrants who don’t win will be carried over week to week. The deadline for new registrations is just before midnight on Sunday.

More than 5.3 million people in Ohio had at least started the vaccination process as of this week, or about 45% of the state. About 4.7 million people are done getting vaccinated, or about 40% of the state. Nationally, more than 168 million Americans have started the vaccination process, or about 51% of the population. More than 135 million are fully vaccinated, or about 41%.

DeWine’s proposal inspired similar vaccine-incentive lotteries in Colorado, Maryland, New Mexico,New York state and Oregon.

Vaccinated residents in New Mexico who register on the state’s new “Vax 2 the Max” portal can win from a $10 million prize pool including a $5 million grand prize, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Tuesday.

Also Wednesday, DeWine signed into law a bill delivering federal pandemic relief to help schools and to bolster the state’s efforts to fight the coronavirus.

Specifically, it provides more than $787 million to Ohio’s public and private schools, $173 million to the state Health Department for COVID-19 testing and vaccine distribution and $7 million to the Ohio National Guard to further support its coronavirus response.

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Associated Press writer Julie Carr Smyth contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.

UK hits vaccine milestone, warns of ‘deadly’ misinformation

LONDON (AP) — Three-quarters of Britain’s adult population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, the government said Wednesday, as it warned that “deadly” misinformation was undermining the global inoculation effort.

The Department of Health said that 75.2% of people 18 and over in the U.K. have received a shot, and 49.5% are fully vaccinated after two doses.

Britain is racing to vaccinate all adults and curb a more contagious delta variant of the virus, which was first identified in India and is spreading rapidly in the U.K.

The U.K. has recorded almost 128,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe. A mass vaccination campaign that started in December has brought new infections and deaths down sharply, but confirmed cases are once again rising, though daily deaths remain low.

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock called the 75% milestone a big step forward, but he warned that “a worldwide pandemic of misinformation” threatened the vaccination campaign.

“The speed of misinformation is a deadly threat,” Hancock said at an international meeting organized by Britain to encourage vaccine uptake.

The one-day Vaccine Confidence Summit, attended virtually by diplomats, politicians and academics who included U.S. coronavirus response chief Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers of Disease Control.

Heidi Larson, a professor of anthropology who leads the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the pandemic had heightened issues around vaccine misgivings that had “been brewing for a while.”

“COVID has laid bare a lot of underlying issues of trust and distrust” Larson said, At the same time, the digital revolution sped information and misinformation around the world.

She said when European nations flip-flopped on administering AstraZeneca shots — which has been withdrawn or limited in some countries because of a link to rare blood clots — it “shook the confidence of a number of African countries” in the vaccine.

“That global knock-on effect is another phenomenon we’re seeing in a different light,” said Larson, who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting.

She said the best thing governments could do was to bridge “the massive divide in access to vaccines” around the world.

Wealthy countries have scooped up hundreds of millions of doses, while supply problems and reluctance by nations, including Britain, to share doses before their own populations are fully inoculated has slowed a United Nations-backed effort to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.

Vaccine supplies will be high on the agenda when Hancock meets Thursday with health ministers from the Group of Seven rich nations at Oxford University, where the AstraZeneca vaccine was developed. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to host U.S. President Joe Biden and the other G-7 leaders at a summit in southwest England next week.

Britain’s government has faced strong criticism for missteps in handling the pandemic, including hesitation about putting the country into lockdown in March 2020 and testing failures that saw people with the virus released from hospitals to nursing homes, where thousands of residents died.

But its vaccination campaign has been widely praised. Britain secured early contracts for multiple vaccines — four of which have been approved for use — and has used medics, soldiers and volunteers to give more than 65 million doses at thousands of sites.

Hancock said Britain had bolstered vaccine confidence by using “trusted voices” — including naturalist David Attenborough and Queen Elizabeth II — to disclose that they had received a shot and to deliver a pro-vaccine message.

He said another key factor was ensuring the process was fair, by giving vaccines first to the elderly and those at most risk, then moving down the age groups in an orderly way.

“We Brits love queuing,” Hancock said. “And there’s nothing more upsetting than someone jumping the queue.”

Report: Oversight lapses at impaired pathologist’s hospital

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas veterans hospital’s poor oversight caused it to miss the errors made by a pathologist who was fired for being impaired on duty and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, according to an inspector general’s report released Wednesday.

The report by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general criticized the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks, where Robert Morris Levy worked, for not having a “culture of accountability” that would have encouraged others to report his mistakes without fear of reprisals.

Under an agreement with federal prosecutors, Levy pleaded guilty last year to one count of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a patient he misdiagnosed. The IG’s report said lapses in the Fayetteville facility’s quality management processes contributed to thousands of Levy’s errors.

“Any one of these breakdowns could cause harmful results,” the report said. “Occurring together and over an extended period of time, the consequences were devastating, tragic, and deadly.”

Levy pleaded guilty to misdiagnosing a patient with small cell carcinoma who died after being treated for a type of cancer he didn’t have. Levy falsified the patient’s medical record to state that a second pathologist agreed with his diagnosis, according to the agreement.

Levy also pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud for receiving 2-methyl-2-butanol, a chemical that he used to intoxicate himself but that standard drug and alcohol screenings don’t test for.

Levy was originally indicted on three counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of patients prosecutors said he misdiagnosed. He was also indicted on multiple charges of fraud and making false statements for his alleged attempts to conceal his substance abuse and incorrect diagnoses.

Levy was fired from the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks in Fayetteville in April 2018.

The hospital said it is addressing many of the inspector general’s recommendations, including exploring the possibility of a mandatory alcohol testing policy and creating a quality analyst position dedicated to pathology and laboratory medicine service.

“The Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks (VHSO) and the Department of Veterans Affairs is truly saddened at the pain victims and families endured at the hands of this pathologist,” the hospital said in a statement. “The Department assures Veterans that we are fully committed to improving our processes and systems moving forward to prevent a situation like this from happening again.”

VA officials said in 2019 that outside pathologists reviewed nearly 34,000 cases handled by Levy and found more than 3,000 errors or missed diagnoses dating back to 2005. The inspector general’s report said 589 of those were “major diagnostic discrepancies.”

The hospital’s chief of staff received a complaint in 2014 that Levy smelled of alcohol but didn’t take any action after he didn’t smell any on the pathologist’s breath, according to the report.

In September 2015, the report said, staff said Levy had an odor of alcohol, “red” eyes, and hand tremors when reviewing biopsy slides. Fact-finders reviewing the incident the following month said the pathologist “smelled of mouthwash, had red glassy eyes, and exhibited hand tremors,” the report said.

U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, whose district includes Fayetteville, said the report showed multiple failures that allowed Levy’s misconduct.

“The report details an abject failure of leadership that led to the misdiagnosis and subsequent harm to hundreds of veterans who rely on the VA health system for care,” Womack said in a statement. “It is unacceptable to limit accountability to the criminal conduct of Dr. Levy.”

The inspector general’s recommendations also called for the hospital to review its “psychological safety climate” to ensure patients, staff and the public feel they can report unsafe care without fear of reprisals.

Kentucky AG sues CVS Health over state’s opioid problems

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s attorney general on Wednesday sued CVS Health, accusing its pharmacy chain of flooding the state with prescription opioids that contributed to the state’s addiction woes.

Attorney General Daniel Cameron filed the lawsuit in Franklin County Circuit Court in Kentucky’s capital city. Cameron says the health care company played a role in “fueling the crisis” by inundating the state with millions of doses of powerful prescription painkillers. The state is seeking civil penalties and punitive damages in the suit.

“As both distributor and pharmacy, CVS was in a unique position to monitor and stop the peddling of these highly-addictive drugs from their stores, yet they ignored their own safeguard systems,” Cameron said in a news release.

It’s the state’s latest legal action against companies it blames for supplying a massive pipeline of prescription pills into Kentucky. In 2015, drug overdoses accounted for about 60% of Kentucky’s statewide accidental deaths, Cameron said. The Republican attorney general is pressing lawsuits against several opioid manufacturers and distributors. Many of those suits were filed by Cameron’s predecessor, Democrat Andy Beshear, who is now Kentucky’s governor.

CVS Health, which operates one of the nation’s largest drugstore chains, said it’s prepared to defend itself against the state’s allegations.

“Opioids are made and marketed by drug manufacturers, not pharmacies,” the company said. “Pharmacists dispense opioid prescriptions written by licensed physicians for a legitimate medical need. Pharmacists do not — and cannot — write prescriptions. Nor do they — or can they — examine patients, conduct tests, diagnose medical conditions or determine medical treatment. That is the role of physicians, who have the responsibility to write appropriate prescriptions.”

The new Kentucky lawsuit says CVS Health used unlawful business practices and failed to guard against the diversion of the powerful opioids.

To highlight the massive supply, Cameron said one CVS store in Perry County purchased more than 6.8 million dosage units of oxycodone and hydrocodone from 2006 to 2014 — enough opioids for each resident of the Appalachian county to have more than 26 pills every year during the same period. In western Kentucky, a CVS store in Crittenden County bought more than 2.8 million dosage units of the drugs, enough to supply everyone in the county with at least 34 pills every year, he said.

Since CVS had a dual role in the opioid supply chain as a distributor and pharmacy, the lawsuit says the company’s compliance with the law “was vital to safeguard consumers and control the rate of addiction, abuse and diversion of opioids.”

Despite supplying “staggering quantities” of opioids in Kentucky, CVS reported zero suspicious orders for its Kentucky stores from 2007 to 2014, Cameron said. Even during the height of the opioid epidemic, CVS helped promote opioid products, he said.

CVS said Wednesday that it has been involved in the fight against prescription opioid abuse. The company developed educational programs for patients and providers, created thousands of safe medication disposal sites and expanded access to life-saving overdose reversal drugs, it said.

Drug overdose deaths spiked nationally and in Kentucky during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Kentucky, overdose deaths rose by 50% from September 2019 to September 2020, compared with the previous 12 months, according to preliminary figures released in April by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Courier Journal reported. Addiction experts say the pandemic left people stressed and isolated, disrupted treatment and recovery programs, and contributed to an increasingly dangerous illicit drug supply.

Pay raise: Added gloom at the top?

While most federal workers are probably happy-to-overjoyed at the prospect of a hassle free, January pay raise, workers at the top of the GS-15 scale are not! And they have a good reason for not breaking out the champagne because of the pay ceiling which limits the top salary in the top grade, to $172,500.

Each time there has been a pay raise in the past, more and more workers, in an increasing number of cities, have had no pay raises, or only partial increases because of the pay cap. The ceiling or cap affects more and more workers each time there is an increase for rank-and-file employees.

And because of the pay cap, more and more workers in more steps of the GS-15 pay grade are being left out of pay raises.

For example:

Whether the 2022 raise is 2.7% as proposed by the White House, or 3.2% as proposed by House Democrats, thousands of workers at the GS-15 level, from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Los Angeles and New York City, might not get any increase. Some have been frozen at the top of their pay scale for years. Many are being paid thousands of dollars per year less than called for by their grade. In addition to affecting their take-home pay now, it also will have a major impact on their retirement annuity, which is based on length-of-service and salary. And the problem, once confined to high wage locality rates, is now starting to threaten the pay of workers in lower wage cities.

Because GS pay can’t exceed $172,500, many at the middle to upper steps of GS-15 won’t be getting the projected pay raises. Some that do will get only a portion of the 2022 adjustment. Unless Congress raises that ceiling by increasing executive level pay.

The biggest group of capped GS-15 workers are in the D.C. metro area. Here the cap covers steps 9 and 10 of the GS scale. The same applies to Philadelphia, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dallas. While the metro region has the most feds, and the most GS-15s, the pay scale here is lower than New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and a number of other cities. But the ceiling impacts the most people in the D.C. locality because it is the headquarters for most agencies and departments, hence the most high grade workers.

GS-15 feds in the San Francisco/San Jose area are hardest hit by the $172,500 cap. That covers pay area civil servants in steps 5,6,7,8,9 and 10. Nobody can make more than $172,500 in any of those steps.

In the New York City local pay area, the ceiling extends down to step 6. In Chicago steps 8, 9 and 10 bump up against the ceiling. In Denver the pay cap hits steps 8, 9 and 10.

The pay cap was once confined to feds in big, high cost cities. But with each pay raise for white collar federal workers, the ceiling gets lower. Soon it will impact GS-15 workers in Huntsville, Alabama — a major federal center — where top GS-15 pay is now $172,102. Unless the ceiling is raised, feds in Huntsville, Columbus, Richmond, Lorado and many other locality pay areas will get partial or zero raises.

Greg Stanford, of the Federal Managers Association, says he heard from members across the country who are at or closing in on the pay ceiling. Here’s what he had to say:

I don’t have hard numbers on how many people are capped right now, or how many are about to hit that ceiling.

While federal employees in areas such as San Francisco, New York City, and Washington D.C. have been impacted for many years, employees in North Carolina, Georgia, Oregon and elsewhere across the country are feeling the effects as well, and the problem grows every year. This issue can and will play a role in recruitment and retention to the federal workforce, which already has hiring issues. If an employee is offered a promotion at a higher level, with more responsibilities, but no corresponding salary increase, will they take on the new role? Technology employees who are now capped may be tempted to leave the government for the private sector, where there is no pay cap. The time is now to address the problem, before it grows exponentially.

So what’s the pay situation where you live and work? How far down is the cap compressed pay? And how does your salary compare to someone doing the exact same job at the same grade level elsewhere? For the official picture, click here.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Alazar Moges

The Equator passes through 13 countries: Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati.

Source: Public Broadcasting Service

Archives for June 2021

Nearly Useless Factoid

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