If you thought efforts to consolidate local government had slowed down in the recent legislative session, you would be wrong. The legislators stopped their progress and made consolidation harder.‘Nightmare’ medical scenario
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week sounded a new warning about drug-resistant bacterial infections.
The CDC is seeing an increase in infections untreatable not only by standard antibiotics but also by carbapenems, a kind of super-antibiotic that is the drug of last resort for E. coli and some other infections.
The CDC’s director called them “nightmare bacteria” that have a death rate of up to 50 percent if they enter the bloodstream.
So far, the bacteria appear limited to hospitals, with the most infections occurring in the Northeast. But they’ve been reported in 42 states.
Officials advised health professionals to emphasize clean surfaces and clean hands, and told patients and their loved ones to remind their health care providers to wash up.
