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Patchwork approach to contact tracing hampers national recovery

A patchwork approach to contact tracing across state health departments is making it increasingly difficult to know where people are getting exposed to COVID-19.

While some states like Louisiana and Washington state publicly track detailed data related to COVID-19 cases in bars, camps, daycares, churches, worksites and restaurants, most states do not, creating obstacles to preventing future cases.

The extensive spread of the virus, combined with the country's 50-state approach to pandemic response, has led to a dearth of information about where transmissions are occurring. Those shortcomings are in turn complicating efforts to safely open the economy and to understand the risks associated with certain activities and settings.

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NURSING HOME: Experimental drug used to stop COVID-19 spread

The coronavirus crept into Heartland Health Care Center, a nursing home in Moline, Ill., on the last day of July, when a member of the nursing staff tested positive.

It was an ominous sign: The virus can spread through a nursing home in a flash. Older people — who are often sick and frail and need regular hands-on attention — are uniquely susceptible. Staff members who care for residents are at high risk of infection and of unintentionally spreading the virus.

Although nursing home residents make up just 1.2 percent of the United States population, they account for about 40 percent of Covid-19 deaths.

But this time, the nursing home was not defenseless. Heartland was the first facility to participate in a large clinical trial of a drug that might protect residents from the infection in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

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Trump considering blocking Americans from returning to the U.S. if they’re suspected of having the coronavirus.

 

President Trump is considering new immigration regulations that would allow border officials to temporarily block American citizens and legal permanent residents from returning to the United States from abroad if authorities believe they may be infected with the coronavirus.

In recent months, Mr. Trump has imposed sweeping rules that ban entry by foreigners into the United States, citing the risk of allowing the virus to spread from hot spots abroad. But those rules have exempted two categories of people attempting to return: American citizens and non-citizens who have already established legal residence.

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