Cerberus Capital Management has agreed to sell control of community hospital group Steward Health Care back to the company, as first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by Axios.
Why it matters: This would make Steward one of the country's largest physician-owned and operated companies. It also marks the end of a 10-year ownership period for Cerberus, which was most recently marked by threats to shutter a Pennsylvania hospital in March, despite the pandemic, if the facility didn't receive state bailout funds.
Protests against police brutality have prompted the closure of coronavirus test sites across the country, including in Pennsylvania, Florida, California and Illinois, Politico reports.
Why it matters: This adds to concerns that the protests themselves create an environment in which the virus can easily spread, particularly if and when protesters aren't wearing masks or social distancing.
The structural issues that have plagued U.S. nursing homes for years will make it difficult for them to prevent coronavirus infections and deaths, even though we now understand the high-risk nature of the facilities.
Driving the news: Within the 80% of nursing homes that have reported coronavirus data to the federal government, nearly 26,000 residents died, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced yesterday.
Federal health officials have received reports of almost 26,000 deaths from the coronavirus in nursing homes, AP reports, citing materials prepared for the nation's governors.
Why it matters: That figure makes up approximately one-quarter of all U.S. deaths thus far from COVID-19. Information obtained by AP only consists of reports from about 80% of the nation's 15,400 nursing homes.
There are concerns over a coming surge of coronavirus infections in the coming weeks, as states reopen and thousands protest across the U.S. Dan digs in with Axios' Sam Baker.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with Stat News that his meetings with President Trump about the coronavirus have "dramatically decreased."
The big picture: Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease doctor and a key member of the White House's coronavirus task force, said he "was meeting with [the president] four times a week back, a month or so ago."
We are nowhere near finished with the coronavirus, but the next phases of our response will — if we do it right — be more targeted and risk-based than the sweeping national lockdown we’re now emerging from.
Why it matters: Our experience battling this new virus has taught us a lot about what does and doesn’t work. We’ll have to apply those lessons rigorously, and keep adapting, if we have any hope of containing the virus and limiting the number of deaths from here on out.
The CEOs of 179 health care companies took home almost $2.5 billion in 2019, a majority of which came from cashing out stock, according to an Axios analysis of financial filings.
The big picture: That amount is four times what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had to study and prepare for all "emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases" last year, right before the novel coronavirus outbreak turned into a global pandemic.
