TASK DEFINITION: Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: The American Civil Liberties Union’s Rhode Island chapter announced Friday it filed a federal class action lawsuit with Disability Rights Rhode Island and the ACLU’s National Prison Project, alleging constitutional violations of the rights of prisoners with serious mental illness. The suit was filed on behalf of inmates. Corrections Department spokesman J.R. Ventura says they’ve trained staff on best practices and partnered across state agencies to guarantee high-quality mental health care. He says they “strongly dispute” the ACLU’s claims. The suit accuses the department of subjecting people with serious and persistent mental illness to prolonged solitary confinement, despite knowing the serious risk of harm these conditions pose. It seeks changes to how inmates are housed. Claim: Lawsuit filed over treatment of inmates with mental illness.

SOLUTION: Civil liberties advocates are suing the Rhode Island prisons department over its treatment of inmates with mental illness.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: A bill that would allow trained pharmacists to administer the influenza vaccine to children 12 years and older cleared the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee in a 17-7 vote this year, but it later died on the Senate calendar due to inaction. Bill supporter, Nathan Tinker, CEO of the Connecticut Pharmacists Association, said his organization doesn’t plan to push hard for it again in the next regular legislative session because he is worried the debate over the General Assembly’s efforts to scrap a religious exemption for some vaccines will ultimately spill over into discussions about the flu shot and likely doom the bill in the short, three-month session. “There is a community of people who are concerned about the impact or potential impact, whether real or perceived, about vaccines,” Tinker said. “And they get a lot of attention from legislators and that can make it difficult.” When the new legislative session opens in February, lawmakers are expected to consider ending the state’s longstanding religious exemption after newly released data showed a continued decline in immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella among kindergarteners. That proposal has already met resistance and some of the concerns raised are like the ones voiced during this year’s discussion of the flu vaccine bill. Legislators were flooded with testimony earlier this year from parents with concerns about whether making the vaccine more convenient could lead to injuries that pharmacists might not be trained recognize. Others questioned the motives of the pharmaceutical industry and necessity of flu shots. Dr. Sandra Carbonari, a primary care pediatrician in Waterbury and the medical director of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, also opposed the bill, but for different reasons. She questioned whether state regulations for providing the flu vaccine to children who receive Medicaid benefits might ultimately make the shot too expensive, and whether DPH’s vaccine program can handle a large increase in the number of providers. She also noted that immunizing a child can be complicated. “Determining the appropriate vaccine for a pediatric age patient is not simple and requires accurate information about the medical history and current state of health,” she said in written testimony. Supporters of the flu shot bill argue that allowing parents to drop by a pharmacy, rather than make an appointment with a pediatrician, would ultimately lead to higher flu immunization rates. The bill had the support of the state’s Department of Public Health, which noted three children in Connecticut died from flu-related complications during the 2017-18 flu season. Pharmacists in Connecticut are currently allowed to vaccinate people 18 years or older. According to DPH, individuals under 18 can be administered the flu vaccine by advanced practice registered nurses at retail locations, such as a CVS MinuteClinic. Sen. Heather Somers, of Groton, the top Senate Republican on the Public Health Committee who co-sponsored this year’s bill, stressed that the legislation is voluntary and requires the consent of a parent or guardian. Somers contends the legislature just ran out of time to act on the bill earlier this year, and she plans to resurrect it when lawmakers convene again in February for the 2020 session. “This is something that saves lives,” said Somers, who helped to organize a mobile flu clinic in her district last year. “I think accessibility is key in our health care system.” Claim: Bill allowing pharmacists to give kids the flu shot at risk.

SOLUTION: The contentious debate about whether Connecticut lawmakers should scrap a religious exemption for certain childhood vaccinations could inadvertently end up sinking efforts to make the flu vaccine more accessible to children.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The study, which underscored the importance of social distancing to fight the coronavirus outbreak, looked at 243 cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, reported in Singapore between January 23 and March 16. It identified seven “clusters” where pre-symptomatic transmission was likely, and in four such groups, where the date of exposure could be determined, pre-symptomatic transmission occurred one-to-three days before symptoms appeared in the source patient. Of the cases in Singapore, 157 were locally acquired and 10 of these were likely transmitted before symptoms started to show. The fast-spreading virus has claimed over 43,000 lives globally, with nearly 4,000 in the United States. The findings suggest that it might not be enough for people showing symptoms to limit their contact to control the pandemic, the researchers wrote in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published online on Wednesday. The findings increase the challenges of containment measures, the researchers wrote, but said the magnitude of the impact depends on the extent and duration of transmissibility while a patient is pre-symptomatic and that has so far not been clearly established. The study authors suggested that public health officials conducting contact tracing should strongly consider including a period before symptom onset to account for the possibility of this type of transmission. Transmissions might take place through respiratory droplets or even speech and other vocal activities such as singing, with the rate of emission corresponding to voice loudness, according to the researchers. While the cases were carefully investigated, the CDC said it was possible an unknown source might have caused the clusters. And, the findings could also be affected by incorrect reporting of cases, especially if people had only mild symptoms. With the focus currently on testing only people who show symptoms, the researchers expect asymptomatic illness to be under-detected. Still, the CDC data adds to previous reports of individual cases in China that indicated the virus could spread before symptoms start to appear. Claim: Coronavirus can spread one to three days before symptoms appear: CDC study.

SOLUTION:
People infected with the novel coronavirus can transmit the infection one-to-three days before symptoms start to appear, according to a study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).