Three U.S. senators are calling on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to start collecting and reporting data about the number of coronavirus cases in residential facilities, including those serving people with disabilities. Currently, CMS requires nursing homes to report COVID-19 cases to federal officials and notify residents and their families, but no similar mandate exists for other settings, such as group homes.
A new study co-authored by UD Assistant Professor Lindsay Naylor suggests that in neonatal intensive care units, combining medical and nonmedical interventions, such as breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact between mother and child, can lead to better health outcomes for the child. Infants in the NICU are often at risk of developmental delay or other health conditions.
Delaware is averaging 11 new hospitalizations due to Covid-19 per day and the number of individuals hospitalized has remained over 100 for nearly two weeks. A low hospitalization rate is one of the criteria for reopening schools to full-time in-person attendance; Delaware’s recent rise in daily cases moved it from “green” in that category – meaning it met requirements for a full-time return to school – to “yellow,” which means schools can only use hybrid or fully remote attendance.
While many schools have students split time between remote and in-person learning to reduce the danger of Covid-19 transmission while preserving face-time with educators, epidemiologists and early survey data from schools using hybrid attendance policies suggest this may actually cause an increase in coronavirus spread.
Fatimah Conley has been named UD’s interim chief diversity officer, coming to the position after serving as an associate general counsel for UD as well as interim director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion and Title IX coordinator. One of Conley’s first tasks will be to organize diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across campus into a single structure governed by her office.
