🚨BIG NEWS!🚨 A @CDCgov advisory committee was planning to weaken infection control guidance, but has altered its course — thanks to months of tireless nurse advocacy!

Here are the latest updates and why this is such a BFD. 👇🧵 (1/8) In Nov. 2023, the committee sent its draft guidance to @CDCgov for review. To say it was bad is an understatement.

The draft ignored decades of scientific research and nurses' real-life experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. So nurses & our allies sounded the alarm! 🔔 (2/8)

Pssst... @CDCgov is secretly trying to weaken infection control guidance. This means you're more at risk of getting sick if you work in or visit a hospital, clinic, or nursing home.

Any kind of infection: measles, tuberculosis, Covid, influenza. Here's what's going on. 🧵 (1/7) A @CDCgov advisory committee plans to vote next week to roll back measures that prevent transmission from infected patients, like ventilation, isolation, and already-too-weak respiratory infection guidance.

They are ignoring decades of scientific research. (2/7)

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: There is no shortage of nurses. The so-called “#NursingShortage” is a crisis of the health care industry’s own making.

Here’s how we got here. 👇🧵 You might be asking, “Why would the health care industry intentionally short staff hospitals?” To make money!

To cut labor costs, and increase profits, the hospital industry deliberately refuses to staff our nation’s hospitals with enough nurses to care for patients.

In the past few weeks, the U.S. has seen an increase in pediatric respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections and hospitalizations. Why? These are four truths about RSV that we know right now. 🧵👇 Many children have been exposed to RSV throughout the pandemic. Yes, even with masking & stay-at-home orders.

In fact, positivity rates were higher in 2021 than they are now. But RSV infections only provide partial immunity, which means people can be infected again.

Today, we join @AFLCIO, @AFTunion, @AFSCME, @nynurses, and @PennaNurses to petition a federal court to order @OSHA_DOL to issue a permanent standard that requires employers to #ProtectNurses and other health care workers against Covid-19. nationalnursesunited.org/press/afl-cio-… The @USDOL has failed to make permanent the emergency temporary standard on Covid-19 that took effect June 21, 2021.

Without the protections of a permanent standard, the health and well-being of nurses, other health care workers, patients, and the public is in grave danger.

Covid-19 laid bare the failures of our health care system.

We can ease the burden for millions if we #ExpandMedicare by:
⬇️ Lowering the eligibility age
👓 Including dental, vision, & hearing
💊 Allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices

Here's what that would mean.
A🧵 Nurses are sick and tired of watching as our patients who can't seek care for financial reasons have simple health issues become life-threatening later on.

These stories are a glimpse into why we MUST #ExpandMedicare now.

#InternationalWorkersDay honors the immigrant organizers unfairly convicted of conspiracy for participating in a wave of worker protests known as the Great Upheaval throughout the 1800s.

But #MayDay's history reaches back farther, and its demands are yet to be fully met.

1/13 Agricultural workers throughout Europe (pagan peasants) have celebrated #MayDay as a day too holy to work since at least the 4th century; which is when #Beltane, as some called it, was first mentioned in Irish literature.

2/13

WATCH LIVE: Pascaline Muhindura, RN brings her experience as a frontline nurse to the @EdLaborCmte Workforce Protections Subcommittee hearing "Clearing the Air: Science-Based Strategies to Protect Workers from #Covid19 Infections."

#ProtectNurses
NNU member Pascaline Muhindura, RN to the subcommittee:

1️⃣ My employer has failed to #ProtectNurses.
2️⃣ @CDCgov and @OSHA_DOL have also failed to protect us.
3️⃣ The CDC and OSHA must take 💥immediate💥 steps to ensure that nurses and other workers get the protections we need.

In just a few minutes, we’ll be starting our February #MedicareForAll National Strategy Call.

We’ll be live tweeting along, so stay tuned to
@NationalNurses!

There's still time to RSVP --> bit.ly/MFACallFeb2020 We’ve got a couple thousand people RSVP’d for tonight’s #MedicareForAll call!

If you’re already on the line, thanks for joining us! We’re going to give everyone a few minutes to join before we start, so just sit back and relax…