"America's political future will be shaped by aging, journal indicates," The Gerontological Society of America, EurekAlert, June 25, 2020
"The latest issue of the journal Public Policy & Aging Report (PP&AR) from The Gerontological Society of America shows how aging is reshaping politics today in unprecedented ways, and how it will continue to do so for years to come. Titled "Building Momentum for a New Future in Politics and Aging," the journal highlights existing studies as well as recommended areas for further research.

"Here, we see how equal amounts of policy progress and stagnation, as well as changing cultural views on aging, are fueling social, economic, and political changes in ways both expected and not," wrote PP&AR Associate Editor Michael Lepore, Ph.D., in his introduction. "Some of these societal changes raise concerns about limitations in current and future generations' abilities to live well into old age, at younger ages with disabilities, and as caregivers, whereas other shifts, like evolving cultural views on aging, nurture a more intergenerationally just society."

Among the seven articles that follow, the journal offers insight into major trends in the politics of aging; how generational political divides are influencing aging-related policies; the impact of aging on the economy; political impediments to aging in place; the importance of support for family caregivers; the longevity and health of U.S. presidential candidates; and how to build momentum through the frames we use to describe aging."
Go here -> https://academic.oup.com/ppar/issue/30/2


"Disruption, denial and the urge to ignore the pandemic-How do we put this thing behind us?" By Ruth Conniff, Wisconsin Examiner, July 6, 2020
On Wisconsin.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has been going on for way too long, and with case numbers going up again, it doesn’t look like it’s about to end any time soon.

So you can’t really blame people for getting impatient, even despairing, about getting back to work, school and life as it was. There is a powerful pull to deny the whole thing.

In a front-page story in The New York Times, Texans who were packing restaurant tables, maskless, even as COVID cases soar across their state, said simply, “We’re done with all that.”

Following President Donald Trump’s lead, a lot of people have decided that maybe the whole pandemic will just “disappear,” and have started taking a skeptical view of public-health warnings.

It’s not so much a political position — although people seem weirdly committed to viewing the effort to curb the virus as a Democratic plot against Republicans, the economy and “freedom.” It’s more of an impulse to stop worrying about something that seems beyond our control. "
Go here -> https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2020/07/06/disruption-denial-and-the-urge-to-ignore-the-pandemic/


"Despite Being ‘America’s Dairyland,’ Wisconsin Missing Out on Millions From Food-Farm Program," Written By Julian Emerson, Up North News, July 6, 2020
On Wisconsin. Ask your Congressman about what's going on.  
"Wisconsin continues to receive relatively little funding that would help farmers struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic and people in need of food, state officials and food bank operators said. 

The Farmers to Families Food Box Program, overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recently announced $200 million in contracts to new providers. However none of that money went to Wisconsin contractors, state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection Secretary Randy Romanski told UpNorthNews Thursday.

That action follows revelations last month that Wisconsin had received less than 1 percent, or $9 million, of program disbursements as of early June despite being known as “American’s Dairyland.”
Go here -> https://upnorthnewswi.com/2020/07/06/despite-being-americans-dairyland-wisconsin-missing-out-on-millions-from-food-farm-program/


"A Pandemic Lockdown Just for Older People? No!-What's wrong with targeting Americans who are 65+" By Chris Farrell, Next Avenue, July 3, 2020
There are so many things wrong with the superficially attractive idea. Good discussion topic.  Apply it to other groups.
"An idea is gaining traction among some economists and scholars to deal with the pandemic in America: Isolate and lockdown older Americans, possibly until there is a vaccine. Everyone else gets to go back to work and regain something resembling normalcy.

Some proponents call it “shielding” the eldest, usually defined as those 65 and older. Others prefer terms like “targeting” or “cocooning.” One Georgia freeway sign said: “Isolate the Elderly.”  I’d label this pandemic proposal wrong, deeply wrong.

Simply put, Orwellian age-based segregation will undermine the economy’s vitality, betray society’s values, and won’t contain the virus."
Go here -> https://www.nextavenue.org/a-pandemic-lockdown-for-older-people/


"As Economy Reopens, Guidance Must Consider Older Adults' Living Situations," Jennifer Molinsky,  Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, June 22, 2020
"Rates of severe illness and mortality from COVID-19 have been highest among older people. As the nation’s stay-at-home orders gradually lift, most strategies for reopening endorse a staged approach and recommend that those most vulnerable to illness continue to shelter in place. Yet many older adults, and others with preexisting conditions, live in households or buildings with people who may increasingly be out in the world, at work, shops, schools, and daycares, or social events. Those who live in close contact with others—either in multifamily buildings or multigenerational households—are disproportionately people of color, and indeed, rates of severe illness are higher among older adults who are Black and Hispanic than among those who are white."
Go here -> https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/as-economy-reopens-guidance-must-consider-older-adults-living-situations/


"High Proximity Jobs and Household Vulnerabilities," Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, June 8, 2020
"In about a third of all households—and in at least 40 percent of black and Hispanic households—at least one person works in a job that requires them be close to other people, which could increase their risk of catching COVID-19. These include about 5.4 million households that are especially vulnerable because they are multigenerational with older adults and/or are living in overcrowded conditions.

Why might overcrowded or multigenerational households be associated with greater vulnerability to the spread of COVID-19? Overcrowded households have more than one person per room. If a household member is exposed to COVID-19, there is typically not sufficient space in the home to properly self-isolate. Older adults are also more susceptible to the virus. In multigenerational households, there are often complex care arrangements between older adults, their children, and sometimes their grandchildren. In multigenerational households with a high-contact worker, it could also be difficult to maintain this care without exposing older adults to the virus."
Go here -> https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/high-proximity-jobs-and-household-vulnerabilities/


"How To Reopen An Economy During A Pandemic," Teresa Ghilarducci, Forbes, June 30, 2020
"We can reopen and kill people, but that would be a dumb reopening. We can reopen and not kill people and that would be a smart reopening—but very few leaders are describing how. Plenty of governors, convinced a quick reopening would rapidly heal the economy, have gotten it wrong.

Economic policy related to the novel coronavirus will be different than in other recessions because of the danger that reopening can trigger a second wave of disease. The complicated models economists produce have a simple goal: how to get as much economic activity with as little illness as possible. Using data on how individuals and employers act and how government mask mandates function, we can model what strategies are dumb (lots of infections with very little boost to GDP) and what strategies are smart (lots of economic activity little loss of life). The virus doesn’t make that choice. Politicians do."
Go here -> https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2020/06/30/how-to-reopen-an-economy-during-a-pandemic/#29e52252c14a


"To save lives, get partisanship out of public health science," By Brian C. Castrucci, STAT, July 4, 2020
"Despite troubling reports of harassment and threats targeted at public health officials over the past few months, public confidence in the science community has remained strong for several decades. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 79% of Americans said they had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the best interests of the public, while only 25% said the same about elected officials.

If we respect and trust scientists, why do we give politicians more power for decision-making about issues that directly affect our health?

As the U.S. approaches 130,000 deaths from Covid-19, we should be able to look to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), arguably the world’s leading public health institution, for unfiltered and unbiased analysis and guidance. Yet instead of leading the response, the CDC’s repeated early warnings of Covid-19’s potential for devastating impact were ignored; the White House prevented it from sharing comprehensive, science-based messaging the public desperately needed, and its guidelines for safe economic reopening were softened by the White House."
Go here -> https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/04/get-partisanship-out-of-public-health-science/


"How Mis- And Disinformation Campaigns Online Kneecap Coronavirus Response," By Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News, June 29, 2020
"Since the start of the pandemic, the public has been barraged by conflicting messages in part because the country is dealing with a new and still poorly understood virus and in part because politicians and scientists deliver conflicting advice. But rumors, misinformation, and outright falsehoods — some intentionally propagated — have also flourished in that cauldron of confusion.

As the nation reopens for business and retreats from protective stay-at-home orders, those widely circulating lies could prove deadly.
NewsGuard, a startup by two former journalists that vets the internet for misinformation, has identified 217 websites in Europe and the United States that publish “materially false” information about COVID-19. The volume is so great that NewsGuard, which was launched to check political fabrications, has pivoted to full-time COVID-19 fact-checking."
Go here -> https://khn.org/news/conflicting-covid-messages-create-cloud-of-confusion-around-public-health-and-prevention/


"Caregivers on the front lines in nursing homes risk health, safety during pandemic," By Shawn Mulcahy, Areeba Shah, and Joel Jacobs, Washington Post, June 29, 2020
"In the parking lot of an assisted-living center in southern Illinois, Shalla McBride sat in a Buick stocked with hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes and prayed for her mother to watch over her.

Her mother had reassured the family, McBride recalled, every time she went to work at a nursing home an hour’s drive north, hoping to help stave off the novel coronavirus that was sickening elderly residents. “I’ll be fine,” her mother had said, even as her throat began to hurt, her chest tightened and she lost her sense of taste and smell. The 65-year-old registered nurse died May 2 of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus."
Go here -> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/29/caregivers-front-lines-nursing-homes-risk-health-safety-during-pandemic/


"When You Are Paid 13 Hours for a 24-Hour Shift-America’s neglect of older people extends to the people who care for them at home," E. Tammy Kim, New York Times, June 30, 2020
"Even as states reopen, Covid-19 continues to lay waste to the elderly and those who care for them. This country has a long tradition of banishing ailing seniors, and this neglect extends to the workers who help them eat and dress and nourish their minds and souls.

The home health aides and certified nursing assistants who work in long-term care facilities and private homes are usually paid no more than the minimum wage and given few, if any, benefits. Their salaries are drawn from public Medicaid funds, through a labyrinthine arrangement of state-by-state block grants, health insurers, and private contractors. Medicare, despite its association with seniors, does not cover long-term care."
Go here -> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/opinion/coronavirus-nursing-homes.html


"Why Essential Workers Deserve Covid-19 Hazard Pay," Teresa Ghilarducci, Forbes, June 29, 2020
Why not in Wisconsin?
"As the nation moves into an uncertain and wobbly relationship with the Covid-19 virus, it would be both just and smart to pay more to essential workers for risking their lives in the field. Hazard pay is fair because essential workers’ jobs got worse. It makes economic sense because their jobs just got more valuable.

Hazard pay, sometimes called hardship pay, is not a new idea. The father of modern economics Adam Smith predicted that in truly free markets, where workers competed with employers no more powerful than they, dangerous jobs would pay more than an equivalent safe job."
Go here -> https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2020/06/28/essential-workers-need-hazard-pay--hike-pay-by-2900-per-month/#4e500dc1ce31


"Unaffordable, Inadequate, and Dangerous-Housing Disparities for People with Disabilities in the U.S." Kartik Trivedi, Tatjana Meschede, and Finn Gardiner, Community Living Policy Center, April 2020
"Housing security is vital for the health, wellbeing, and community integration of people with—and without—disabilities. Secure housing allows
people to focus on strengthening their relationships, maintaining their health and recuperating from illness, and participating in the
community, rather than focusing on mitigating the ill-effects that inadequate housing can exert on them. These include financial stress, disrupted
routines, the risk of contracting new illnesses or exacerbating existing ones, and other stressors that can be reduced or eliminated by improving
the quality of their housing. Unfortunately, people with disabilities are less likely to have secure housing than their non-disabled counterparts."
Go here -> https://heller.brandeis.edu/community-living-policy/images/pdfpublications/2020aprilhousingbrief.pdf


"Beyond nursing homes," Kim Hart, Axios, July 2, 2020
"Nursing homes have been the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, prompting more urgent discussions about alternative housing situations for elderly Americans.

Why it matters: Deaths in nursing homes and residential care facilities account for 45% of COVID-19 related deaths, per the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity — but there are few other viable housing options for seniors.

COVID-19 illness severity and mortality rates have been highest among older adults — a fast-growing segment of the U.S. population as Baby Boomers age."
Go here -> https://www.axios.com/nursing-home-alternatives-coronavirus-b5d8d54d-578e-4279-8e5f-2c35653e6a02.html


"Nursing Homes & Assisted Living Facilities Account for 45% of COVID-19 Deaths-A startling statistic has profound implications for the way we’ve managed the coronavirus pandemic," Gregg Girvan, Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, May 6, 2020
"Based on a new analysis of state-by-state COVID-19 fatality reports, it is clear that the most underappreciated aspect of the novel coronavirus pandemic is its effect on a specific population of Americans: those living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
The disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 affects the elderly far more severely, on average, than younger individuals.
But it turns out that among those who are elderly, deaths are concentrated even further among those living in long term care facilities. This has implications for both those who live in such facilities and those who don’t."
Go here -> https://freopp.org/the-covid-19-nursing-home-crisis-by-the-numbers-3a47433c3f70


"Adult Protective Services: On the Front Line Against Elder Abuse-Whether and how to respond to elder abuse is not always obvious. Learn more about the role of Wisconsin's APS agencies in providing expert, compassionate services when elder abuse allegedly has taken place," Alice K. Page, Wisconsin Lawyer, June 3, 2020
On Wisconsin.  Alice works in BADR.
"In Wisconsin and across the nation, adult protective services agencies (hereinafter APS) play a vital role in combatting elder abuse and abuse of younger adults with disabilities. APS often is the first responder when abuse is suspected. APS receives and investigates reports of abuse, neglect, self-neglect, and financial exploitation. Frontline staff work closely with a wide variety of partners, such as law enforcement agencies, elder abuse prosecutors, long-term care facility ombudsmen, advocates for persons with disabilities, managed care organizations, financial institutions, and other state and local governmental agencies, to promote the safety, independence, and quality of life for adults who are, or are at risk of, being harmed and are unable to protect themselves."
Go here -> https://www.wisbar.org/NewsPublications/WisconsinLawyer/Pages/Article.aspx?Volume=93&Issue=6&ArticleID=27785


"Elder abuse appears to be climbing during the pandemic, experts say," Grace Birnstengel, Nation/PBS Newshour, June 23, 2020 
"Duke Han, who researches elder abuse at the University of Southern California, noted a “massive increase in reports of elder abuse during the pandemic,” in a paper released in April — based on anecdotal reports of surges. He describes this uptick as unsurprising.

The National Center on Elder Abuse says social isolation is one of the greatest risk factors for elder abuse and since it is reported far and wide, the coronavirus pandemic is a breeding ground for social isolation."
Go here -> https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/elder-abuse-appears-to-be-climbing-during-the-pandemic-experts-say


‘I Couldn’t Let Her Be Alone’: A Peaceful Death Amid the COVID Scourge," By JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Health News, July 6, 2020
"As her mother lay dying in a Southern California hospital in early May, Elishia Breed was home in Oregon, 800 miles away, separated not only by the distance, but also by the cruelty of the coronavirus.

Because of the pandemic, it wasn’t safe to visit her mom, Patti Breed-Rabitoy, who had entered a hospital alone, days earlier, with a high fever and other symptoms that were confirmed to be caused by COVID-19.

Breed-Rabitoy, 69, had suffered from lung and kidney disease for years but remained a vital, bubbly presence in the lives of her husband, Dan Rabitoy, and three grown children. She was a longtime church deacon and youth leader in Reseda, California, a fan of garage sales, bingo games and antique dolls. Then came COVID-19, likely contracted in late April following one of her thrice-weekly dialysis sessions. Now she lay sedated and on a ventilator, her life ebbing, with no family by her side."
Go here -> https://khn.org/news/palliative-care-during-covid-peaceful-death/


"New Internet Radio Station Helps Seniors Share Their Favorite Music," Ari Shapiro and Mary Louise Kelly, All Things Considered, NPR, June 30, 2020
"A new internet radio station called Radio Recliner has started during the coronavirus pandemic. It gives residents in senior living facilities a chance to share some of their favorite music."
Go here -> https://www.npr.org/2020/06/30/885659569/new-internet-radio-station-helps-seniors-share-their-favorite-music