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Hi everyone, this is John Mandrola from the Heart.org Medscape Cardiology and this is this week in

Cardiology for January 22nd, 2021.

This week COVID, COVID myocarditis, the poly pill, low value care, and tricuspid valve clipping.

First COVID, my review of the Johns Hopkins site today reveals mostly good news. Cases in the US,

especially in California are in a steep decline. I did notice some problem spots. I mean,

what's going on in Spain and Portugal and Monaco. To my

friends there I hope things turn around soon. The other piece of good news is

vaccines are being rolled out albeit with difficulty here in the U.S.

Now speaking of our rocky vaccine rollouts, one thing I hope gets noticed in the historical

accounts of the pandemic is how the absence of a truly national or even

state-level health system is problematic in public health emergencies.

Our patchwork of private hospitals that compete against each other in communities

is really, really good for transferring wealth to the health care industry, but it's not so good

...