A year ago, the crises were piling up and Columbus Partnership leader Alex Fischer was worried.
Along with a public health emergency, the coronavirus pandemic was inflicting heavy damage on the central Ohio economy. Then came the issues of social justice and race following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests in Columbus and other cities.
“We had to survive. If you can’t survive, you can’t live to work on a lot of other tough things,” says Fischer, the president and CEO of the Partnership, a nonprofit, public-private economic development group led by 75 area CEOs and executives. “Every time we got the right-hand punch, we got a left-hander coming right at us.”
The city’s organization of CEOs has been more engaged around fighting racism during the past year than at any point in its history. Here’s a glimpse of the conversation.
Health care supply chain shifting to post-pandemic operations
Utilization returning to normal as COVID-19 cases fall
0 324 5 minutes read An elementary school student is tested for COVID-19 using a rapid test made by Becton, Dickinson and Company. (Photo: BD)
This is an excerpt from Medically Necessary, a health care supply chain newsletter.
The transition: The coronavirus pandemic has sent health care distributors on a roller-coaster ride, but now they’re preparing to shift operations into a post-pandemic mode.
In 2020, companies had to quickly scale up activities directly responding to the pandemic, such as supplying personal protective equipment, vaccines and COVID-19 tests. They also had to scale down activities serving other aspects of health care, such as visits to doctors’ offices or elective surgeries.
Four companies that agreed to pay a combined $26 billion to settle claims about their roles in the opioid crisis plan to deduct some of those costs from their taxes and recoup around $1 billion apiece.