Of the 912,000 single-family homes completed in 2020:
- 870,000 had air-conditioning.
- 90,000 had two bedrooms or less and 401,000 had four bedrooms or more.
- 29,000 had one and one-half bathrooms or less and 309,000 homes had three or more bathrooms.
- 353,000 had a heat pump. Of these, 344,000 were air-source and 9,000 were ground-source.
- 831,000 were framed in wood and 75,000 were framed using concrete.
- 306,000 had a patio and a porch, while 71,000 had no outdoor features.
The median size of a completed single-family house was 2,261 square feet.
Of the 375,000 multifamily units completed in 2020:
- 164,000 had one bedroom and 38,000 had three bedrooms or more.
- 372,000 were conventional apartments and 3,000 were townhouses.
- 216,000 were in buildings with four floors or more.
- 334,000 had individual laundry facilities and 24,000 had shared laundry facilities.
- 263,000 were in buildings framed in wood and 38,000 were in buildings framed in steel.
The median size of multifamily units built for rent was 1,075 square feet, while the median of those built for sale was 1,306 square feet.
Of the 14,000 multifamily buildings completed in 2020:
- 3,000 had 4 floors or more.
- 2,000 had 50 units or more.
- 6,000 were heated by a heat pump.
- 12,000 had wood framing.
Of the 822,000 single-family homes sold in 2020:
- 739,000 were detached homes and 83,000 were attached homes.
- 348,000 had three bedrooms.
- 495,000 were heated using gas.
- 570,000 were purchased using conventional financing and 37,000 were purchased using cash.
- 250,000 had stucco as the primary exterior wall material.
- 742,000 had wood framing.
The median sales price of new single-family homes sold in 2020 was $336,900, while the average sales price was $391,900.
The median size of a new single-family home sold in 2020 was 2,333 square feet.
123,000 contractor-built single-family homes were started in 2020.
The median contract price was $298,500.
Note: the estimates shown here are based on sample surveys and are subject to sampling variability as well as non-sampling error.
Jo Freeman Reviews Mazie’s Hirono’s Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter’s Story
Review of
By Mazie K. Hirono
Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter’s Story
New York: Viking, 2021
xvi + 397 pages with a section of personal photographs
Department Of Justice Announces Coordinated Law Enforcement Action to Combat Health Care Fraud Related to COVID-19
The Department of Justice today announced criminal charges against 14 defendants, including 11 newly-charged defendants and three who were charged in superseding indictments, in seven federal districts across the United States for their alleged participation in various health care fraud schemes that exploited the COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in over $143 million in false billings.
“The multiple health care fraud schemes charged today describe theft from American taxpayers through the exploitation of the national emergency,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “These medical professionals, corporate executives, and others allegedly took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to line their own pockets instead of providing needed health care services during this unprecedented time in our country. We are committed to protecting the American people and the critical health care benefits programs created to assist them during this national emergency, and we are determined to hold those who exploit such programs accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Additionally, the Center for Program Integrity, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CPI/CMS) separately announced today that it took adverse administrative actions against over 50 medical providers for their involvement in health care fraud schemes relating to COVID-19 or abuse of CMS programs that were designed to encourage access to medical care during the pandemic.
“Medical providers have been the unsung heroes for the American public throughout the pandemic,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “It’s disheartening that some have abused their authorities and committed COVID-19 related fraud against trusting citizens. The FBI, along with our federal law enforcement and private sector partners, are committed to continuing to combat healthcare fraud and protect the American people.”
The defendants in the cases announced today are alleged to have engaged in various health care fraud schemes designed to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, multiple defendants offered COVID-19 tests to Medicare beneficiaries at senior living facilities, drive-through COVID-19 testing sites, and medical offices to induce the beneficiaries to provide their personal identifying information and a saliva or blood sample. The defendants are alleged to have then misused the information and samples to submit claims to Medicare for unrelated, medically unnecessary, and far more expensive laboratory tests, including cancer genetic testing, allergy testing, and respiratory pathogen panel tests. In some cases, and as alleged, the COVID-19 test results were not provided to the beneficiaries in a timely fashion or were not reliable, risking the further spread of the disease, and the genetic, allergy, and respiratory pathogen testing was medically unnecessary, and, in many cases, the results were not provided to the patients or their actual primary care doctors. The proceeds of the fraudulent schemes were allegedly laundered through shell corporations and used to purchase exotic automobiles and luxury real estate.
Federal Reserve’s Lael Brainard: Private Money and Central Bank Money as Payments Go Digital: an Update on CBDCs
Private Money and Central Bank Money as Payments Go Digital: an Update on CBDCs
At the Consensus by CoinDesk 2021 Conference, Washington, D.C. (via webcast)
Technology is driving dramatic change in the US payments system, which is a vital infrastructure that touches everyone.1 The pandemic accelerated the migration to contactless transactions and highlighted the importance of access to safe, timely, and low-cost payments for all. With technology platforms introducing digital private money into the US payments system, and foreign authorities exploring the potential for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in cross-border payments, the Federal Reserve is stepping up its research and public engagement on CBDCs. As Chair Powell discussed last week, an important early step on public engagement is a plan to publish a discussion paper this summer to lay out the Federal Reserve Board’s current thinking on digital payments, with a particular focus on the benefits and risks associated with CBDC in the US context.2
Sharpening the Focus on CBDCs
Four developments — about financial exclusion —are sharpening the focus on CBDCs.
First, some technology platforms are developing stablecoins for use in payments networks.3 (Editor’s Note: Bolding the following is my choice) A stablecoin is a type of digital asset whose value is tied in some way to traditional stores of value, such as government-issued, or fiat, currencies or gold. Stablecoins vary widely in the assets they are linked to, the ability of users to redeem the stablecoin claims for the reference assets, whether they allow unhosted wallets, and the extent to which a central issuer is liable for making good on redemption rights. Unlike central bank fiat currencies, stablecoins do not have legal tender status. Depending on underlying arrangements, some may expose consumers and businesses to risk. If widely adopted, stablecoins could serve as the basis of an alternative payments system oriented around new private forms of money.
Given the network externalities associated with achieving scale in payments, there is a risk that the widespread use of private monies for consumer payments could fragment parts of the US payment system in ways that impose burdens and raise costs for households and businesses. A predominance of private monies may introduce consumer protection and financial stability risks because of their potential volatility and the risk of run-like behavior. Indeed, the period in the nineteenth century when there was active competition among issuers of private paper banknotes in the United States is now notorious for inefficiency, fraud, and instability in the payments system.4 It led to the need for a uniform form of money backed by the national government.
Second, the pandemic accelerated the migration to digital payments. Even before the pandemic, some countries, like Sweden, were seeing a pronounced migration from cash to digital payments.5 To the extent that digital payments crowd out the use of cash, this raises questions about how to ensure that consumers retain access to a form of safe central bank money. In the United States, the pandemic led to an acceleration of the migration to digital payments as well as increased demand for cash. While the use of cash spiked at certain times, there was a pronounced shift by consumers and businesses to contactless transactions facilitated by electronic payments.6 The Federal Reserve remains committed to ensuring that the public has access to safe, reliable, and secure means of payment, including cash. As part of this commitment, we must explore — and try to anticipate — the extent to which households’ and businesses’ needs and preferences may migrate further to digital payments over time.
Third, some foreign countries have chosen to develop and, in some cases, deploy their own CBDC. Although each country will decide whether to issue a CBDC based on its unique domestic conditions, the issuance of a CBDC in one jurisdiction, along with its prominent use in cross-border payments, could have significant effects across the globe. Given the potential for CBDCs to gain prominence in cross-border payments and the reserve currency role of the dollar, it is vital for the United States to be at the table in the development of cross-border standards.
Finally, the pandemic underscored the importance of access to timely, safe, efficient, and affordable payments for all Americans and the high cost associated with being unbanked and underbanked. While the large majority of pandemic relief payments moved quickly via direct deposits to bank accounts, it took weeks to distribute relief payments in the form of prepaid debit cards and checks to households who did not have up-to-date bank account information with the Internal Revenue Service. The challenges of getting relief payments to these households highlighted the benefits of delivering payments more quickly, cheaply, and seamlessly through digital means.
Policy Considerations
In any assessment of a CBDC, it is important to be clear about what benefits a CBDC would offer over and above current and emerging payments options, what costs and risks a CBDC might entail, and how it might affect broader policy objectives. I will briefly discuss several of the most prominent considerations.
Preserve general access to safe central bank money
Central bank money is important for payment systems because it represents a safe settlement asset, allowing users to exchange central bank liabilities without concern about liquidity and credit risk. Consumers and businesses don’t generally consider whether the money they are using is a liability of the central bank, as with cash, or of a commercial bank, as with bank deposits. This is largely because the two are seamlessly interchangeable for most purposes owing to the provision of federal deposit insurance and banking supervision, which provide protection for consumers and businesses alike. It is not obvious that new forms of private money that reference fiat currency, like stablecoins, can carry the same level of protection as bank deposits or fiat currency. Although various federal and state laws establish protections for users, nonbank issuers of private money are not regulated to the same extent as banks, the value stored in these systems is not insured directly by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and consumers may be at risk that the issuer will not be able to honor its liabilities. New forms of private money may introduce counterparty risk into the payments system in new ways that could lead to consumer protection threats or, at large scale, broader financial stability risks.
Press Briefing by White House COVID-19 Response Team and Public Health Officials: Dating Sites Like Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid, BLK, Chispa, Plenty of Fish, and Badoo Anouncing Features to Encourage Vaccinations
(Editor’s Note: We looked up Consumer Reports article on online dating for a balance; having been married for over half a century, we’re a bit behind on the subject: https://www.consumerreports.org/dating-relationships/online-dating-guide-match-me-if-you-can/ )
Right, A Map of The Open Country of Woman’s Heart, Smithsonian Institute
MAY 21, 2021 • PRESS BRIEFINGS
Via Teleconference
11:03 A.M. EDT
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Good morning. Today, Dr. Walensky will provide an update on the state of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci will provide an update on the latest science, and Dr. Murthy will provide an update on our efforts to build vaccine confidence.
Here’s how I want to start though: I want to discuss what some businesses who cater to young people are doing to assist with the vaccination efforts.
Scores of businesses and organizations have responded to the President’s call to action to volunteer their services and help the American people to get vaccinated.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting a number of outside initiatives to provide incentives for people to get vaccinated. We believe that it’s particularly important to reach young people where they are in the effort to get them vaccinated.
We do know that in addition to schooling, financial loss, stress levels, the pandemic has also had a negative impact on young people’s social lives.
Social distancing and dating were always a bit of a challenging combination. So today, dating sites like Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid, BLK, Chispa, Plenty of Fish, and Badoo are announcing a series of features to encourage vaccinations and help people with that univer- — help people meet people who have that universally attractive quality: They’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19.
These sites cater to over 50 million people in the U.S. and are some of the world’s biggest nongaming apps.
Here’s one for you: According to one of the sites, OKCupid, the people who display their vaccination status are 14 percent more likely to get a match. We have finally found the one thing that makes us all more attractive: a vaccination.
These dating apps will now allow vaccinated people to display badges which show their vaccination status, filter specifically to see only people who are vaccinated, and offer premium content — details of which I cannot get into, but apparently, they include things like boosts and super swipes. The apps will also help people locate places to get vaccinated.
Alright, got through that.
Today also happens to be our “Digital Day of Action.” The White House and others, including Michelle Obama, will be highlighting the Vaccines.gov website and 438829 text line throughout the day.
Now it’s been four months since President Biden’s first full day of office. Things are substantially better than they were four months ago when we were losing thousands of Americans each day and people were waiting weeks or more to get vaccinated, usually not even knowing where or when it would happen.
Today, more than 125 million Americans are fully vaccinated. Those Americans who have been vaccinated are at much lower risk and have more of their lives back. They’re able to do most things mask free and with less reason to socially distance. Tens of millions more, adding up to more than 60 percent of the adult population, are at least partially vaccinated.
The impact has been everything we could have hoped for, given the power of vaccines. Across the country, cases of COVID-19, serious illness, and loss of life are all down dramatically from when we arrived. And they can be brought down even further, and the risk of a future wave in your community significantly reduced, if we keep up the pace of vaccinations.
Many Americans have still not gotten vaccinated — most of them younger, many of them not opposed to vaccination; they simply haven’t prioritized it. It has never been easier.
Starting Monday, when you text to 438829, not only will you instantly see where vaccines near you are available, you will also be offered a free ride there and back, more employers are offering paid time off to get vaccinated, and, as we discussed today, there are clear benefits to your social life.
Most importantly, you’ll be protected from a virus which is still racing around the world.
I will now hand it over to Dr. Walensky.
DR. WALENSKY: Thank you. Good morning. I’m pleased to be back with you today. Let’s begin with an overview of the data.
Yesterday, CDC reported a little over 27,850 new cases of COVID-19. Our seven-day average is about 27,700 cases per day. This represents yet another decrease of more than 19 percent from the prior seven-day average and also marks the second day in a row where our seven-day average is less than 30,000 cases per day. The last time the seven-day average of cases per day was this low was June 18th, 2020.
The seven-day average of hospital admissions is slightly over 3,400, a decrease of almost 15 percent from the previous seven-day period and another positive trend.
And the seven-day average of daily deaths has also declined to a new low of 498 per day.
At the start of each briefing over the past few weeks, I’ve shared with you a snapshot of the data and, more recently, the encouraging decreases in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. As each week passes and as we continue to see progress, these data give me hope.
I also know that these snapshots are hard to put into the context after 16 months of reviewing them. In isolation, each data point does not tell the full story of what we are seeing across the country.
Today, I’d like to give you a bit of a deeper dive into the data and to share with you ways you can understand the progress your community is making.
Each day, CDC, in collaboration with partners across the government, releases a Community Profile Report, and updates our county-level data on COVID Data Tracker.
When we look at COVID case incidents at county level, we see major decreases. As I mentioned at the start of my remarks, we have seen a 20 percent decrease in the seven-day average of cases across the country, and we have seen some counties across the country have had an even greater decrease, including decreases of 25 percent in more — or more in just the past week.
Each week, we also see a release of an assessment of county-level transmission risk, taking into account rate — COVID rates and COVID-19 test characteristics. And we have used this transmission risk for many of our CDC guidance materials — for example, our school guidance.
Importantly, over the past month, there has been a steady decline in the number of counties in the United States with a high risk of community transmission. And more and more counties are moving to low or moderate transmission categories.
We now have 307 counties, or 10 percent of the entire U.S., in which we would characterize having low transmission. And there are 1,183 counties, or 37 percent of all U.S. counties, in the moderate transmission category, which we define as less than 50 cases per 100,000 in the last seven days.
Now, if you look at this new slide up, I want to show you two maps of our country: one from January and one from this week.
CDC uses data on cases and county transmission to help us understand areas across the country where we may have concern for emerging or sustained outbreaks and where things have markedly improved, and also to understand the burden of infection at the local level, because we recognize that these decisions have to be made locally.
When we look across the country, our areas of high or moderate burden — indicated by red and pink respectively — are shrinking. And areas with low burden of disease — indicated by light green — are markedly increasing. Many of the areas where previous high and moderate burden are now resolving and are highlighted on blue in this map.
The map on the right demonstrates our national landscape that things are improving. And we are seeing this week after week and with more and more green over time.
These data are telling us a story: As more and more people roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated, the number of cases and the level of community risk is decreasing.
I want to thank everyone who has done their part to bring us where we are today, with more than 60 percent of Americans 18 and older having received at least one dose and being on their way to full vaccination, and 126.6 million Americans who are fully vaccinated.
The progress in these data are so encouraging to me and, I hope, encouraging to you.
And I know our work here is not done. We still have many more people to get vaccinated. I encourage everyone who is not yet fully vaccinated to visit Vaccine.gov and find a location to get your first or second shot.
Thank you. I’ll now turn things over to Dr. Fauci.
DR. FAUCI: Thank you very much, Dr. Walensky. I’d like to spend the next couple of minutes just underscoring and emphasizing the reasons why Dr. Walensky was able to show you such promising data, and that is the real-world effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine. And bringing you up to date on some of the data that confirms the things that we’ve been telling you over the last several press briefings.
Next slide.
This is an MMWR from the CDC, which is looking both at the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna vaccine among healthcare personnel at 33 sites in the United States.
Again, if you look at the effectiveness in the real-world setting — again, right at the point that we saw with the clinical trials — usually real-world settings have less of an efficacy than in the trials, as I’ve mentioned many times. Not so here — 94 percent against symptomatic disease.
Next slide.
If you look at a very interesting study that came out two days ago in the New England Journal of Medicine looking at the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in nursing home residents in those who are either vaccinated or unvaccinated, we see a very interesting phenomenon.
Among the 13,000 residents who were vaccinated who received two doses, there was a 1 percent infection within 0 to 14 days of the second dose, and practically no infections — namely, 0.3 percent — after 14 days.
Note that 80 percent of the cases were asymptomatic among vaccinated individuals — something that we have seen in other situations.
Next slide.
On the other side of the coin are those in the same study who are unvaccinated. If you look at the infection rate of those individuals within 0 to 14 days after the first clinic, they were 4.3 percent compared to the very small 1 percent in the previous slide, and they’re 0.3 percent if you waited more than 42 days. This is a reflection of what is likely a mini version, within the nursing home setting, of herd immunity.
Next slide.
And then another multi-state Mayo Clinic Health System study where you look at adenovirus vector, namely the J&J. I’ve been speaking to you up to now about the mRNAs. So, after at least two weeks of follow-up, the vaccine effectiveness, again, was even greater in the United States here than we originally reported, with the 72 percent.
Next slide.
Again, more data. This was a J&J paper that I showed to this group a few weeks ago, looking at the safety and the efficacy of the single-dose Ad26. As you can see, the efficacy was 74 percent in the United States.
But now take a look at this a little bit more closely.
Next slide.
If you look at the hospitalizations and compare the placebo, in red, with the J&J, in blue, 14 days postvaccination, you see there’s 93 percent vaccine efficacy. But if you wait at least 28 days postvaccination, it’s 100 percent with regard to hospitalizations.
Next slide.
And then when you look at deaths, there were no COVID-19 related deaths in the vaccine group, and five COVID-related deaths in the placebo group.
And on the final slide, what does this tell us? That vaccines protect you. They protect your family. And they interrupt the chain of transmission of the virus.
So, the bottom line, as we’re all saying: Get vaccinated.
Passing it over to you, Dr. Murthy.
DR. MURTHY: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Fauci. And it’s good to be with all of you again this morning. I’d like, today, to share some numbers with you concerning people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated.
The recent data from the CDC, involving a survey of over 14,000 people, showed that more than 70 percent of Americans are vaccinated, planning to get vaccinated, or likely to vaccinated.
And while a portion of the unvaccinated population do have questions about the vaccine, and while we are going to continue to mobilize trusted messengers through our COVID-19 Community Corps to help answer these questions, the truth is that, overall, vaccine confidence in the country remains high. That is good news.
The data continues to point, though, to access barriers being an important additional concern among people who are unvaccinated. There’s a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey which looked at pe- — those who are unvaccinated, but who wanted to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
What it found was that more than a third of people in this group said that they have not gotten vaccinated because they didn’t have enough time due to work hours or other schedule conflicts or because they just hadn’t gotten around to it. About 7 percent of people said that they didn’t have information about how to get vaccinated. Eight percent said they weren’t sure if they were eligible or had the right documentation.
These numbers may seem small, but they actually represent millions of people, and they are crucial to reach with vaccines if you want cases to come down and stay down.
Now, when we look at another part of the unvaccinated population — those who do not want to get vaccinated as soon as possible — it turns out here, too, access is an issue. Among those who are employed, 28 percent say that they would be more likely to get vaccinated if they receive time off to receive and recover from the vaccine. Another 20 percent say they would be more likely if their shot was administered in their workplace.
So, employers not only have an opportunity to increase vaccination rates, but if you look at one more piece of data, it turns out that they can also help to close the equity gap in vaccinations. This is so important because we’ve said from the beginning that success is not just determined by how many people we get vaccinated, but by how equitably and fairly we vaccinate our population. And workplaces, it turns out, can play a role in that.
Because among the unvaccinated, 64 percent of Hispanic adults and 55 percent of Black adults have concerns about missing work to recover from vaccinations compared to 41 percent of white adults.
And that’s why the recently announced tax credits for businesses and nonprofit organizations with fewer than 500 employees are so important — because they provide financial support for businesses providing time off for employees to actually get the vaccine and recover from temporary side effects. We want people to know about this. We want businesses to take advantage of it.
This next phase of the vaccination campaign was — will be driven, more than anything, by the people and organizations and communities who help to vaccinate their families, their friends, and others in their neighborhoods. It’s why we’ve been saying that addressing access, motivation, and vaccine confidence requires an all-hands-on-deck approach.
But, thankfully, people all across America are stepping up to meet this moment. Businesses like Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que are giving workers time off if they get vaccinated, and The Feeding Zoo is administering vaccines on site to visitors, volunteers, and employees. Young Invincibles — a young adult advocacy group and a member of our COVID-19 Community Corps — recently launched “Don’t miss out, LA,” a campaign that trains young people to spread the word about the vaccine on all fronts: peer-to-peer texting, phone banking, social media, QR code stickers placed in popular LA spots, and, of course, the good old-fashioned, in-person conversation.
And ParentsTogether — another one of our COVID-19 Community Corps members, which is a parent-led and parent-powered organization which provides trusted information to families — they have engaged hundreds of thousands of patients — of parents online about their questions about vaccines, any concerns they may have, and stories about their vaccinations.
So, today, we are asking everyone to help spread the word about getting vaccinated as part of our “Digital Day of Action.” And we are encouraging communities to visit Vaccine.gov; to text their ZIP Code to 438829, which spells get “GETVAX,” or to 882862, which spells “VACUNA,” and you can find available vaccines near you.
So please reach out to your family and friends. Please share this with the members of your organization, whether it’s your employees or your volunteers. Remind people the vaccine is free of charge. It’s now easier to get than ever before. And remind people also that the vaccine remains our single-best pathway out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thank you so much, and I’ll turn it back to Andy.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Thank you, Dr. Murthy.
Okay, we’ll take some questions.
MODERATOR: Thanks, Andy, and happy Friday. Let’s go to Victoria Knight at Kaiser.
Q Hey, thanks for taking my question. My question is for Dr. Walensky. Will the CDC be updating their dashboard daily with state-by-state race and ethnicity data? And also, what is the CDC planning to do about the high percentage of missing data on race and ethnicity, which is close to about 40 percent?
DR. WALENSKY: Thank you for that question, Victoria. We have been updating our website. I can’t say that it’s daily; I believe that it’s weekly. And we actually have a new — new feature, just in the last week, looking at how we are doing for vaccine distribution in a two-week rolling basis.
We are working actively with states’ public health and localities to try and get more access to race and ethnicity data and have actually made some progress in that regard, and we’re continuing to do so.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Next question.
MODERATOR: Steve Portnoy, CBS.
Q Hi, thanks for taking my question. All of the data that the doctors have laid out this morning is extremely encouraging, but some people saw the crowd of close to 70 — presumably, fully vaccinated — people in the East Room at the White House yesterday. And some said on social media that the sight made them nervous.
So, to the doctors, what do you say to those people who may have spent the last 15 months following your advice to strictly avoid crowds, who might not be psychologically ready to do what you now know to be safe if they’ve been vaccinated? Dr. Fauci, are these lingering fears irrational? And to Dr. Walensky, what does it say about the response to the CDC’s communications over the last week if people do continue to have that fear?
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR SLAVITT: Dr. Fauci, do you want to begin?
DR. FAUCI: Well, I would say that fears like that are not irrational. I mean — I mean, people — it’s understandable when you’re used to a certain type of behavior, and then, when the science says that you can actually turn around, that — as we’ve said with the recent CDC guidelines that say we can feel comfortable; that if you’re fully vaccinated, that you are safe from being infected, be it outdoors or indoors — you can understand that when people have been following a certain trend for a considerable period of time, that it may take time for them to adjust. So I would not say that that’s irrational; I’d say that’s understandable.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to Grads: Love Is the World’s Oldest Medicine
Dr. Vivek Murthy’s first swearing in as 19th Surgeon General with then Vice President Joe Biden at Ft. Myer,in Conmy Hall on the Fort Myer portion of Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall,
On May 16, 2021, Vice Admiral Dr. Vivek Murthy gave a heartfelt and humble commencement address to the 331 graduate students and 208 undergraduate students who make up the UC Berkeley School of Public Health class of 2021.
Murthy, who is both the 19th and 21st surgeon general of the United States, is a passionate believer in the power of public health to change lives and communities. He’s devoted his career to tackling some of the nation’s most urgent health issues, including addiction, the lack of safe and walkable communities, and the loneliness epidemic.
He is also the vice admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, where he commands a uniformed service of 6,600 public health officers, serving the most underserved and vulnerable populations in over 800 locations domestically and abroad. This public health corps has protected the nation from Ebola and Zika and responded to the Flint water crisis, major hurricanes, and frequent health care shortages in rural communities.
At the Berkeley Public Health commencement ceremony, Murthy addressed a virtual crowd of thousands, and told the graduates that their biggest superpower as public health heroes is their love of humanity.
“I know you didn’t expect your education in public health to be disrupted by, by all things, a public health emergency,” Murthy began.
“When you got your Berkeley blue acceptance folder and made the decision to enroll in the program,” he said. “I’m guessing there were some relatives, some friends, who said, ‘Oh a degree in public health, so what are you going to do with that?’ But I think it’s safe to say now those friends and relatives understand what public health is. After more than a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, never have more people understood terms like herd immunity or R0 values or epidemiology.”
The Conservancy and the Gardens: Facilitating the Restoration of Samuel Untermyer’s Gardens in Yonkers, New York
Tam Martinides Gray’s Editors Note: My late father was born in Yonkers but in spite of living in various New York state locations, including Garden City on Long Island and across the Hudson River in a small New Jersey town named Demarest, we never visited, to my knowledge, these famed gardens. Perhaps some day we will come from our California perch to stroll through the Untermyer Gardens. In the meantime, we hope you might.
More garden pictures: https://www.untermyergardens.org/photos.html
In 1899 Samuel Untermyer purchased Greystone, the former estate of Samuel Tilden. In the forty one years Untermyer owned Greystone, he transformed the gardens and greenhouses into some of the most celebrated gardens in America. After expanding the estate through property purchases to the north and east of the original estate, he hired Beaux Arts architect Welles Bosworth to design the gardens in 1916. These gardens sprawled over 150 acres overlooking the Hudson River and were maintained by 60 gardeners and supplied by 60 greenhouses. It was open to the public on a weekly basis during the 1920’s and ’30’s and for special events, including displays of his famous chrysanthemums and tulips. Thirty-thousand people visited it on one day in 1939.
Upon his death, the gardens were left in limbo while the estate was settled and a plan to care for the gardens determined. A core part of the gardens was acquired by the City of Yonkers in 1946 . In the 1990’s, another parcel was acquired, bringing the total today to 43 acres. While the core is intact, some of the gardens are in ruin.
In partnership with the Yonkers Parks Department and input from Marco Polo Stufano, Founding Director of Horticulture at Wave Hill, Head Gardener Timothy Tilghman has led an ambitious restoration, which is dazzling the garden-loving public with its brilliant design.
Funds raised by the Conservancy are used to employ horticulturists and restore the gardens. Timothy Tilghman has been working full time in the gardens since June, 2011, and is joined by six other gardeners.
The Gardens
Julia Sneden Wrote: On Becoming Eponymous*
The family tree of Sigmund Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil-Trauchburg; Wikipedia
by Julia Sneden
I still can’t believe it. They named her Julia. It’s a name with an honorable, 200-year history in my family, but I’m nonetheless astounded to have a child named after me.
I was named for my Great Aunt Julia, my grandfather’s only sister, a person my mother admired even though she didn’t particularly care for the name itself. She solved that by calling me Judy. I suppose Judy fit me for the woefully brief period when I was small and dimpled and adorable.
Come to think of it, the female names from my mother’s family were preferable to those in my father’s. By rights, I should have been Harriet or Prudence, there having been one of each in alternate generations for too far back to count. Harriets named their daughters Prudence, and Prudences named their daughters Harriet, until the Prudence who was my great-great grandmother asserted her independence and named her daughter Carra.
Carra, however, started the whole mess over again by naming her daughter Prudence. That was my grandmother, Prudence Brown. She produced a son, my father, but no daughters. As the next female child after that generational skip, I think I was lucky to escape being named Prudence Harriet or Harriet Prudence. No wonder I learned to count my blessings and live with Julia.
By high school, I had dropped the Judy as too cute, and opted for Julie, which I considered a bit more dignified than Judy, but not as formidable as Julia.
I finally came to terms with being Julia in my mid-30’s, when I started feeling like a grownup. I’ve actually become rather fond of my name.
However, when my daughter-in-law announced that if their expected child were female, they’d name her Julia, I was caught completely unprepared. I think I stammered an ungracious “…uh…are you sure you want to do that to her?”ven worse, I may have followed that with: “Oh, you don’t have to do that!” Whatever I said, I’m sure it was the wrong thing, because of course I should have said something conveying gratitude and love and the fact that I was thrilled and honored. Alas, I am almost never eloquent on short notice.
Julia’s mother really likes the name. I hope that will make a difference, so that Julia won’t grow up as conflicted about it as I was. Her wise parents aren’t giving her an artificial, substitute name (but she does have a nickname: they sometimes refer to her as “The Jooge”). I must say, I think Julia suits her better than it did me. At 22 months, she’s a powerful personality. I am delighted to share my name with her.
But being eponymous does feel strange. When I visit my son’s house, and someone calls: “Julia!” I tend to respond before I realize they’re speaking to the baby (this in a house where I am called “Mom” or “Grandma”; sometimes I am a slow learner).
I really like my eponymity. That word isn’t in my dictionary, but I’m going to back-form it: after all, anonymous/anonymity, why not eponymous/eponymity? It affirms in me things that I didn’t know needed affirming.
I just hope I can live up to her.
©Julia Sneden for SeniorWomen.com
National Institutes of Health: Tailored, Earlier Cardiac Rehab Program Shows Physical, Emotional Benefits for Heart Failure Patients
NIH-funded clinical trial improved frailty, depression and overall quality of life.
An innovative cardiac rehabilitation intervention started earlier and more custom-tailored to the individual improved physical function, frailty, quality-of-life, and depression in hospitalized heart failure patients, compared to traditional rehabilitation programs. Supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National institutes of Health, these new study results were published May 16 in the New England Journal of Medicine and also presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 70th Annual Scientific Session.
“Designing earlier and more personalized individual-specific approaches to heart failure rehab shows great promise for improving outcomes for this common but complex condition that is one of the leading causes of hospitalization for older adults,” said NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. “These results mark encouraging progress on a path to better overall quality of life and physical function for the millions of older Americans who develop heart failure each year.”
For this new study, a research team led by Dalane W. Kitzman, M.D., professor of cardiovascular medicine and geriatrics/gerontology at Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, followed 349 clinical trial participants with heart failure enrolled in “A Trial of Rehabilitation Therapy in Older Acute Heart Failure Patients” (REHAB-HF). Participants had an average of five comorbidities — diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, lung disease or kidney disease — that also contributed to loss of physical function.
In an earlier pilot study, Kitzman and his colleagues at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, and the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, found striking deficits in strength, mobility and balance, along with the expected loss of endurance in older patients with acute heart failure, the vast majority of whom were categorized as frail or pre-frail. The team decided to focus on improving patients’ physical function, which already weakened by chronic heart failure and age, was worsened by the traditional cardiac hospital experience featuring lots of bedrest and resulting in loss of functions that tended to persist after discharge.
The REHAB-HF team designed earlier and more customized exercise programs that emphasized improving balance, strength, mobility and endurance. They also began REHAB-HF during a patient’s hospital stay when feasible instead of waiting until the traditional six weeks after discharge. After release from the hospital, the study participants shifted to outpatient sessions three times per week for three months.
Compared to a control group that received usual cardiac rehab care, REHAB-HF participants showed marked gains in measures of physical functioning and overall quality of life, including significant progress in Short Physical Performance Battery, a series of tests to evaluate lower extremity function and mobility, and a six-minute walk test. They also had notable improvements in self-perception of their health status and depression surveys compared to pre-trial baselines. More than 80 percent of REHAB-HF participants reported they were still doing their exercises six months after completing their participation in the study.
“These findings will inform choices of heart failure rehabilitation strategies that could lead to better physical and emotional outcomes,” said Evan Hadley, M.D., director of NIA’s Division of Geriatrics and Clinical Gerontology. “Tailored interventions like REHAB-HF that target heart failure’s related decline in physical abilities can result in real overall benefits for patients.”
The study did not show significant differences in related clinical events including rates of hospital readmission for any reason or for heart-failure related rehospitalizations. The research team plans to further explore that and other issues through future expansions of REHAB-HF into larger and longer-term trials with broader participant subgroups.
This was funded in part by NIH grants R01AG045551, R01AG18915, P30AG021332, P30AG028716, and U24AG059624.
About the National Institute on Aging (NIA): NIA leads the U.S. federal government effort to conduct and support research on aging and the health and well-being of older people. Learn more about age-related cognitive change and neurodegenerative diseases via NIA’s Alzheimer’s and related Dementias Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center website. Visit the main NIA website for information about a range of aging topics, in English and Spanish, and stay connected.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®
Reference
Kitzman et al. Rehabilitation Intervention in Older Patients with Acute Heart Failure with Preserved versus Reduced Ejection Fraction. New England Journal of Medicine. 2021 May 16 doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2026141
Congressional Policy Institute Weekly US Legislative Update, May 17, 2021: Education & Labor; Civil Rights, Education and Labor, Family Support, Expanding Opportunities and Protections for Women and Girls
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