Coronavirus Pandemic – How are the US Veterans Cared for?

 

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Today is Veterans Day -- a day when America salutes its veterans. Since 2020 has been an unusual year with Covid-19 encircling our lives, it's good to determine if the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) -- the agency tasked with providing medical care and services of the veterans -- has risen to the occasion. 

Considering that the comparative stats are also available for the other three non-states, i.e., US Military, Federal Prison, and Navajo Nation, let's also loosely compare their services with the VA's.

Veterans Affairs: With the help of its 1,000+ medical facilities, the VA takes care of nearly nine million enrolled veterans each year. Since the VA owns and operates its facilities, it has been caring for its coronavirus victims. 

As of now, it has a total caseload of roughly 85K. To put things in proper perspective, its current caseload is more extensive than the caseloads of many mainland states, including CT (84.7K), ID (75.4K), NM (57.5K), ND (57.4K), SD (57.3K), and OR (52.8K). Though its active cases have come down to 9,147 (11%), it has been registering a high death rate of 5.00%, which is significantly higher than the national average of 2.31%. Likewise, its positivity rate of 9.30% is also much higher than the national average of 6.61%.

US Military: Given the US Military's very aggressive and proactive medical services, its death rate of 0.12% has been the lowest among all state and non-state entities. Again, it has a slightly higher caseload of 92K than the VA's and mainland states, as indicated before. Of course, its active caseload remains higher than the VA's but is in line with the national average. Though its testing credentials are unknown, it can safely be assumed that it's one of the highest in the world, leading to a higher active rate.  

Federal Prisons: The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has 138,954 federal inmates in BOP-managed institutions and an additional 11,518 in community-based facilities. Unfortunately, nearly 15% of the federal inmate population has already been infected. Though the death rate is still low, The positivity rate has been exorbitantly high. Therefore, absent better mitigation measures, the high infection rate may lead to more criticality and fatality.

Navajo Nation: It comprises roughly 357K population, located primarily in the country's southwestern part. Its caseload of nearly 13K is more extensive than the three mainland states: NH, ME, and VT. The fact that it has a high death and positivity rate, along with recently-surging death tolls, calls for more on-site testing and stricter mitigation restrictions. Its better access to treatment has lowered the active rate. 

So, here are some of the issues to ponder:

Despite having a dedicated agency for the veterans

1. Why is the death rate among veterans so high?

2. Why is the population testing rate only 10% (900K out of 9M)?

3. Why is the active rate only 11%, whereas it's 34% for the active duty and 36% for the nation as a whole? Isn't it conspicuously low?

It's about time that Medicare wraps around all veterans, taking control of the VA.

#MedicareForAllVeterans

Stay safe!

-Sid Som

homequant@gmail.com

Data Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/