First Edition: Sept. 17, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Urban Hospitals Of Last Resort Cling To Life In Time Of COVID  
Victor Coronado felt lightheaded one morning last month when he stood up to grab an iced tea. The right side of his body suddenly felt heavy. He heard himself slur his words. “That’s when I knew I was going to have a stroke,” he said. Coronado was rushed to Mercy Hospital & Medical Center, the hospital nearest his home on Chicago’s South Side. Doctors there pumped medicine into his veins to break up the clot that had traveled to his brain. Coronado may outlive the hospital that saved him. Founded 168 years ago as the city’s first hospital, Mercy survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 but is succumbing to modern economics, which have underfinanced the hospitals serving the poor. In July, the 412-bed hospital informed state regulators it planned to shutter all inpatient services as soon as February. (Rau and Huetteman, 9/17)

Kaiser Health News: Black Women Turn To Midwives To Avoid COVID And ‘Feel Cared For’ 
From the moment she learned she was pregnant late last year, TaNefer Camara knew she didn’t want to have her baby in a hospital bed. Already a mother of three and a part-time lactation consultant at Highland Hospital in Oakland, Camara knew a bit about childbirth. She wanted to deliver at home, surrounded by her family, into the hands of an experienced female birth worker, as her female ancestors once did. And she wanted a Black midwife. It took the COVID-19 pandemic to get her husband on board. “Up until then, he was like, ‘You’re crazy. We’re going to the hospital,’” she said. (Scheier, 9/17)

Kaiser Health News: Students’ Mass Migration Back To College Gets A Failing Grade
Who thought it would be a good idea to move thousands of teenagers and young adults across the country to college campuses, where, unencumbered by parental supervision, many college kids did what college kids do? Actually, Nigel Goldenfeld and Sergei Maslov, two University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign physics researchers, thought they had it figured out. They created a predictive model for the campus, which showed that with a robust, twice-a-week testing program for students, faculty and staff who are regularly on campus, a mask mandate and an app for contact tracing, COVID-19 cases could be kept below 500 people for the whole semester. They even accounted for close interactions among college students. (Knight, 9/17)

USA Today: Trump Says CDC Director Robert Redfield 'Confused' About Coronavirus Vaccine, Mask Efficacy. Redfield Responded.
Dr. Robert Redfield told a Senate panel on Wednesday that a limited supply of coronavirus vaccine may be available between November and December, but that it was unlikely to be available to the general public until the summer or fall of next year. His remarks contradicted Trump, who has said a vaccine could be available by the end of the year, perhaps by the Nov. 3 election. Redfield also testified that wearing a face mask might offer more protection against the spread of coronavirus than a vaccine. (Collins and Jackson, 9/16)

NPR: Contradicting The CDC, Trump Says COVID-19 Vaccine Could Be Ready By End Of Year
When asked why his message on a vaccine timeline and the efficacy of masks differed so profoundly from the CDC director's, Trump said that Redfield had "made a mistake" and "misunderstood" the questions. "He's contradicting himself," Trump said of Redfield. "I think he misunderstood the questions. ... But I'm telling you, here's the bottom line: Distribution is going to be very rapid. He may not know that. Maybe he's not aware of that. And maybe he's not dealing with the military, etc., like I do. Distribution is going to be very rapid, and the vaccine's going to be very powerful." (9/16)

The New York Times: Trump Scorns His Own Scientists Over Virus Data
The sharply divergent messages further undercut any effort to forge a coherent response to the virus that the United Nations secretary general on Wednesday called the “No. 1 global security threat in our world today.” With Mr. Trump saying one thing and his health advisers saying another, many Americans have been left to figure out on their own whom to believe, with past polls showing that they have more faith in the experts than their president. The public scolding of Dr. Redfield was only the latest but perhaps the starkest instance when the president has rejected not just the policy advice of his public health officials but the facts and information that they provided. Public health officials are in strong agreement about the value of masks even as Mr. Trump generally refuses to wear one, mocks his opponent for doing so and twice in the past two days questioned their utility based on the advice of restaurant waiters. (Baker, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Ten Days: After An Early Coronavirus Warning, Trump Is Distracted As He Downplays Threat 
In explaining why he repeatedly misled the American public about the early dangers posed by the novel coronavirus, President Trump has argued that he did not want to engender panic — and suggested that his actions showed he took the looming pandemic seriously. But a detailed review of the 10-day period from late January, when Trump was first warned about the scale of the threat, and early February — when he acknowledged to author Bob Woodward the extent of the danger the virus posed — reveals a president who took relatively few serious measures to ready the nation for its arrival. (Parker, Dawsey and Abutaleb, 9/16)

AP: The Latest: WHO Calls For Consistent Message On Virus
The emergencies chief of the World Health Organization says scientific disagreements over COVID-19 interventions — like masks and vaccines — shouldn’t be treated as “some kind of political football,” but acknowledged that “it isn’t easy for everyone to be on message all the time.”Asked to respond to the open disagreements between U.S. President Donald Trump and the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the effectiveness of masks and when a coronavirus vaccine might be available, Dr. Michael Ryan said “it is important that we have consistent messaging from all levels.” (9/17)

The Washington Post: Top Trump Health Appointee Taking Medical Leave After Insurrection Remarks
The Department of Health and Human Services’ top communications official is going on medical leave, three days after urging President Trump’s supporters to prepare for an armed insurrection and accusing scientists in his own agency of “sedition,” HHS announced Wednesday. Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS, leveled the accusations and promoted other conspiracy theories in a Facebook Live event on Sunday. (Abutaleb, Dawsey and Sun, 9/16)

NPR: HHS Spokesperson Takes Leave of Absence After Disparaging Government Scientists
The leave of absence effectively removes Caputo from government operations through November's election. The statement also announced that Paul Alexander, whom Caputo had brought in as a scientific adviser, would be leaving the department altogether. Last week, Caputo came under fire after reports that he and Alexander sought to edit and delay public health reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emails from Alexander obtained by Politico complained to CDC Director Robert Redfield that the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report "hurt the President," and described data-based publications on the risk of the coronavirus in children as "hit pieces on the administration" that undermined Trump's school reopening plan. (Huang, 9/16)

Politico: How Michael Caputo Shook Up Health And Human Services
After it became clear in mid-April that his administration’s response to Covid-19 was threatening his re-election, President Donald Trump considered a leadership shake-up within a health department whose rivalries and battles with the White House had hampered efforts to contain the virus.Instead, Trump made a different move: He personally intervened to place his campaign aide Michael Caputo — a confidant of disgraced operative Roger Stone who had himself come under scrutiny for his ties to top Russian officials — as assistant Health and Human Services secretary for public affairs. Trump — not HHS Secretary Alex Azar — approached Caputo about the job, and Caputo has repeatedly emphasized that he works for the president, health officials told POLITICO. (Diamond, Cancryn and Owermohle, 9/16)

Politico: Trump Admin Unveils Plan For Distributing Coronavirus Vaccines
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is requiring states and jurisdictions to submit plans on how they’d administer and distribute a vaccine by Oct. 16. They’re facing a host of challenges, such as how to store a vaccine that’s expected to need to be kept in specialized freezers. ... Doses may be available as early as November to limited groups, but that supply may increase substantially in 2021. Final decisions on who will be first in line to get the shots will be made later. (Roubein and Owermohle, 9/16)

CIDRAP: Feds Unveil COVID Vaccine Distribution Plans Amid HHS Shakeup 
In today's statement, CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD, said the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will play a vital role in deciding how initial limited doses will be allocated, looking at a goal of having more than 100 million doses by January. As part of a three-phase plan, the first doses would go to healthcare workers in high-risk settings, then to other essential workers and those at higher risk of severe disease, such as people age 65 and older. HHS added that McKesson will use the CDC's guidance, with logistical support from the DOD, to ship products to vaccine administration sites. (Schnirring, 9/16)

The Hill: McEnany Tells CNN Reporter To Come Work At The White House For Details On Health Care Plan 
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday would not divulge details of a health care plan President Trump has been promising for months, telling a reporter she should take a job in the White House to learn more about the proposal. Administration officials faced questions a day after Trump said during an ABC News town hall that the vague health care plan he's been promising will be rolled out dating back to last year is "all ready." But three administration health officials have testified that they were not involved in crafting the plan, and McEnany would not specify who has worked on the proposal. (Samuels, 9/16)

USA Today: Trump Blames Blue States For COVID-19 Death Rates
President Donald Trump blamed "blue states" for increasing the nation's death rate from coronavirus, suggesting that if "you take the blue states out" of the equation the United States would be far more competitive with other countries. Trump has long blamed Democratic leaders for a variety of ills, including "Democrat-run" cities where protests against police have occasionally turned violent. But his remarks Wednesday were his most explicit politicization yet of the handling of COVID-19. (Fritze and Jackson, 9/16)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Opens Investigation Into Claims Of Forced Hysterectomies On Detained Migrants 
The complaint, filed by Dawn Wooten, a nurse employed at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga., along with several civil-rights organizations, alleges that “high rates of hysterectomies” were performed on immigrant women who didn’t need them and weren’t fully aware they were going to be performed. The complaint cites several detained immigrants as witnesses, though many of the accounts are secondhand. Ms. Wooten also appears not to have witnessed the hysterectomies, though she testified in the complaint to speaking with several women who underwent them. “I’ve had several inmates tell me that they’ve been to see the doctor and they’ve had hysterectomies and they don’t know why they went or why they’re going,” she said in the complaint. (Andrews and Hackman, 9/16)

NPR: ICE Almost Deported Immigrant Woman Who Says She Got Unwanted Surgery While Detained 
As explosive allegations were coming to light about immigrant women who say they've been subjected to unwanted hysterectomies and other gynecological procedures, one of those detainees was put on a plane back to her home country. Pauline Binam was nearly deported Wednesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Cameroon, a country she left when she was 2 years old. Binam, now 30, was on the tarmac when members of Congress say they intervened. (Rose, 9/16)

The New York Times: Inquiry Ordered Into Claims Immigrants Had Unwanted Gynecology Procedures 
The woman, who like the others was not identified because she feared retaliation from immigration authorities, said she was transported this year to Irwin County Hospital for a procedure but was given three different explanations of what it would be, ranging from having her womb removed entirely to instead having a small amount of tissue scraped away. Ultimately, the complaint says, the hospital declined to operate on the woman because she tested positive for antibodies to the novel coronavirus. But the woman said the experience left her “feeling scared and frustrated, saying it ‘felt like they were trying to mess with my body,’” the complaint said. (Dickerson, 9/16)

NPR: Whistleblower Alleges 'Medical Neglect,' Questionable Hysterectomies Of ICE Detainees 
Top congressional Democrats are calling for a federal investigation after a nurse who worked at an immigration detention center in Georgia filed a whistleblower complaint alleging a lack of medical care and unsafe work practices that facilitated the spread of COVID-19. She also says that immigrant women received questionable hysterectomies, an allegation that lawmakers seized on in statements issued Tuesday. (Treisman, 9/16)

Vox: The Outcry Over ICE And Hysterectomies At A Georgia Immigrant Detention Center, Explained 
Many of the details of the allegations against the Georgia facility are still emerging, and both ICE and the private operator of the facility have called for skepticism of the complaint, which relies on secondhand accounts of the hysterectomies that were allegedly performed. Attorneys have since come forward with firsthand accounts of such procedures, but it is not clear to what extent ICE and the medical staff involved sought the detainees’ consent to perform those procedures or whether they were medically necessary.But the accusations, which echo of the ugly history of coercive sterilization in the US, have sparked widespread outrage — including calls for formal investigations. But this is far from the first time that ICE, the federal agency charged with enforcing immigration law in the US, has been accused of neglecting immigrants’ health and safety, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Narea, 9/16)

Slate: Unpacking Allegations Of Forced Hysterectomies At Immigrant Detention Centers.
The complaint was first reported by LawandCrime.com, a website run by attorney and television personality Dan Abrams. That report is entirely sourced from the filed complaint and mostly focuses on the lack of proper COVID-19 protocols, but the LawandCrime.com headline focused on the alleged sterilizations—“ ‘Like an Experimental Concentration Camp’: Whistleblower Complaint Alleges Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Detention Center.” The story was widely shared on Monday night, and as of Tuesday, multiple other news outlets covered the allegations. Thus far, no one has obtained direct corroboration from women who allege they were forced into a hysterectomy. On Tuesday night, the Intercept published a story on the allegations around the hysterectomies that quoted several anonymous women staying at ICDC who shared stories about how they felt they had been pressured into having a hysterectomy, and who noted that they were frequently forced to go without an interpreter, but it was unclear if they had gone through with the procedure. (Lithwick, 9/15)

The New York Times: Military Police Considered Using Heat Ray On D.C. Protesters, Whistle-Blower Says 
Hours before law enforcement officers violently cleared protesters from a square outside the White House in June, a top military police officer sought out weaponry like powerful sound cannons and a device that “causes targets to feel an unbearable heating sensation,” an Army National Guard major told lawmakers in written testimony. The major, Adam DeMarco, an Iraq war veteran who serves in the District of Columbia National Guard and was called in to enforce the crackdown on protesters, told House lawmakers last month that he had received an email from a top law enforcement official at the Defense Department asking if the Guard was equipped with sound cannons or a nonlethal heat ray, known as the Active Denial System, or A.D.S. (Edmondson, 9/17)

NPR: Military Police Considered Using Controversial Heat Ray Against D.C. Protesters 
In written responses to the House Committee on Natural Resources obtained by NPR, Major Adam DeMarco of the D.C. National Guard said he was copied on an email from the Provost Marshal of Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region. He was looking for two things: a long range acoustic device, a kind of sound cannon known as an LRAD, and a device called the Active Denial System, or ADS. The ADS was developed by the military some twenty years ago as a way to disperse crowds. There have been questions about whether it worked, or should be deployed in the first place. It uses millimeter wave technology to essentially heat the skin of people targeted by its invisible ray. (Temple-Raston, 9/16)

The Washington Post: White House Protests: Feds Stockpiled Munitions, Sought 'Heat Ray' Device Before Clearing Lafayette Square, Whistleblower Says 
D.C. National Guard Maj. Adam D. DeMarco's account contradicts the administration’s claims that protesters were violent, tear gas was never used and demonstrators were given ample warning to disperse — a legal requirement before police move to clear a crowd. His testimony also offers a glimpse into the equipment and weaponry federal forces had — and others that they sought — during the early days of protests that have continued for more than 100 days in the nation’s capital. DeMarco, who provided his account as a whistleblower, was the senior-most D.C. National Guard officer on the ground that day and served as a liaison between the National Guard and U.S. Park Police. (Lang, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Calls To Declare Racism A Public Health Crisis Grow Louder Amid Pandemic, Police Brutality 
The push to highlight racism as a public health threat, one that shortens lives and reduces quality of life in a manner similar to smoking or obesity, gained even more momentum in the summer. The coronavirus pandemic and police brutality have emerged in recent months as inescapable crises that have killed non-White people at disproportionately higher rates. (Bellware, 9/15)

Politico: On Coronavirus Vaccines, Biden Says He'll Trust Scientists, Not Trump
Democratic nominee Joe Biden sharply questioned the Trump administration's process for approving a coronavirus vaccine while expressing broad confidence in vaccines and the scientists who create, study, and vet them."I trust vaccines, I trust the scientists, but I don't trust Donald Trump," he said at a press conference Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware following a nearly two-hour briefing from his team of health experts. (Miranda Ollstein, 9/16)

The New York Times: Biden, Seizing On Worries Of A Rushed Vaccine, Warns Trump Can’t Be Trusted 
With deaths from the coronavirus nearing 200,000 in the United States, Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday assailed President Trump for playing politics with a potential coronavirus vaccine, saying he did not trust Mr. Trump to determine when a vaccine was ready for Americans. “Let me be clear: I trust vaccines,” Mr. Biden said. “I trust scientists. But I don’t trust Donald Trump, and at this moment, the American people can’t either.” (Ember, 9/16)

The Hill: Biden Says To Trust Scientists On COVID-19 Vaccine, Not Trump 
A COVID-19 vaccine must be developed and distributed transparently by scientists and not politicians, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Wednesday. Biden accused President Trump of politicizing the vaccine approval process and said only experts should be in charge of the distribution of a vaccine. "I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don't trust Donald Trump," Biden said. "At this moment, the American people can't either." (Weixel, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Biden Questions Whether A Vaccine Approved By Trump Would Be Safe 
Joe Biden on Wednesday expressed reservations about whether a coronavirus vaccine approved by the Trump administration would be safe, raising doubts about the president’s ability to put the health of Americans before politics. Biden said Americans should trust a coronavirus vaccine developed under the Trump administration only if the president gives “honest answers” to questions about its safety, effectiveness and equitable distribution. “I trust vaccines. I trust scientists. But I don’t trust Donald Trump,” Biden said. “And at this point, the American people can’t, either.” (Sullivan, 9/16)

Stat: Biden-Aligned Group Outlines Potential Day 1 Drug Pricing Actions 
A leading think tank aligned with the Democratic Party is laying the groundwork for an aggressive slate of efforts to lower drug prices that could be implemented almost immediately, should Joe Biden defeat President Trump in November. In a report published Thursday, the Center for American Progress focuses on two major policy changes: the first-ever use of a controversial monopoly-busting mechanism known as “march-in-rights” to crack down on companies that overcharge for medicines, and the resurrection of an Obama-era proposal to change how Medicare pays for many drugs administered by doctors. (Facher, 9/17)

The Washington Post: Trump Calls For Stimulus Payments And Massive Economic Relief Bill, Upending Republicans’ More Limited Approach 
President Trump on Wednesday called on congressional Republicans to support a massive economic relief bill with “much higher numbers” and stimulus payments for Americans, abruptly proposing an entirely different plan from what the Senate GOP sought to advance in recent days. His Twitter post and subsequent comments at a news conference could reframe talks that have stalled for more than a month, and put new pressure on leaders in both parties. They come at a moment when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is facing a backlash from some House Democrats, including lawmakers in tough reelection races, over congressional inaction on new economic relief. (Werner and Bade, 9/16)

Politico: Senate Republicans Shrug Off Trump’s Call For Larger Covid-19 Relief Measure 
Senate Republicans on Wednesday brushed off calls from President Donald Trump for a bigger coronavirus relief package, casting doubt on whether there is enough GOP support to move forward with additional economic stimulus measures just seven weeks before Election Day. In a tweet Wednesday morning, Trump described Democrats as “heartless,” but told Republicans to “go for the much higher numbers ... it all comes back to the USA anyway” on a coronavirus relief package. (Levine and Bresnahan, 9/16)

The Hill: Exclusive: Internal Documents Show Officials Waved Red Flags Before Trump's Tulsa Rally 
Oklahoma health officials raised red flags before President Trump’s indoor rally in June, warning there could be significant spikes of coronavirus cases and deaths from the event, according to internal state documents. Dozens of emails obtained by The Hill through a state freedom of information request reveal growing angst within the Oklahoma public health department in the days leading up to the June 20 rally. (Cusack, 9/16)

The Hill: GAO Report Finds Brokers Offered False Info On Coverage For Pre-Existing Conditions 
Some health insurance brokers provided misleading or false information to potential customers about whether their plans covered preexisting conditions, according to an undercover audit completed by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The audit, requested by Senate Democrats, sought to determine whether companies selling health plans exempt from Affordable Care Act coverage requirements were being honest about the limitations of the plans, which tend to be cheaper but aren’t comprehensive and typically don’t cover preexisting conditions like cancer or diabetes. (Hellmann, 9/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Smoke From West Coast Fires Spurs Health Advisories 
Wildfires continued raging across a vast swath of the Western U.S. Wednesday, straining states’ resources and sending plumes of smoke out for thousands of miles. Millions of residents across Oregon and California are under advisories to avoid going outside because of particulate matter in the air. Across the country, smoke drifting eastward on the jet stream has created a haze over Washington, D.C., and parts of the Eastern Seaboard. (Lovett, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Washington, Oregon And California Deal With Wildfire Smoke And Its Health Effects 
Every morning for the past few weeks, JoEllen Depakakibo has had a new kind of morning routine. She sets her alarm for 6 and opens the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow site on her phone. Newly fluent in the numbers of the air quality indexes, or the AQI, she checks the pollution levels compulsively throughout the day, waiting to make a difficult decision. If the number passes 150, called “unhealthy” by the EPA, Depakakibo has her employees shut the main door and turn on a medical-grade air purifier inside Pinhole Coffee Shop, the cafe she opened here six years ago. If it passes 200, they close the cafe. She’s had to shut five times in recent weeks because of the smoke that has stubbornly settled over the city. (Kelly and Schmidt, 9/16)

The New York Times: Hundreds Rescued As Floods From Hurricane Sally Hit Florida And Alabama 
Floodwaters rushed through parts of Alabama and Florida on Wednesday, turning roads into rivers, submerging cars and sending several out-of-control construction barges into waters along the Florida Panhandle as Hurricane Sally dumped a torrent of rain. The surging water reached higher than five feet in Pensacola, Fla., and slammed a barge into a section of the Pensacola Bay Bridge that was under construction, destroying part of it, Sheriff David Morgan of Escambia County said. (9/16)

Politico: Summer Wave Of Dementia Deaths Adds Thousands To Pandemic's Deadly Toll 
Deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia rose to more than 20 percent above normal over the summer, a staggering figure that won’t factor into the official count of coronavirus deaths but is unmistakably linked to the pandemic’s true toll. Increased isolation and stress during lockdown, lapses in nursing home care and missed Covid-19 diagnoses are all likely contributing factors to the unusually high dementia death toll, adding to the devastation the virus has brought to U.S. nursing homes. (Doherty, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Dementia Patients Are Dying From Isolation Amid Coronavirus Pandemic 
Beyond the staggering U.S. deaths caused directly by the novel coronavirus, more than 134,200 people have died from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia since March. That is 13,200 more U.S. deaths caused by dementia than expected, compared with previous years, according to an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post. (Wan, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Because Of Pandemic, Supreme Court Will Begin New Term With Teleconference Arguments 
The Supreme Court’s first oral arguments in its new term will be held by remote teleconference because of the continued threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic, the justices announced Wednesday. The court is scheduled to hear arguments over five days next month, starting Oct. 5.“ The court building remains open for official business only and closed to the public until further notice,” spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said in a news release. “The court will continue to closely monitor public health guidance in determining plans for the November and December argument sessions.” (Barnes, 9/16)

CIDRAP: Contagious SARS-CoV-2 Isolated From Air In Hospital Patients' Room
Live SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was isolated from air samples collected 2 to 4.8 meters (6.6 to 15.7 feet) away from two coronavirus patients—one recently released and one newly admitted—in a single hospital room, according to a study published yesterday in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. Aiming to add to the discussion about whether aerosols can contain infectious coronavirus, University of Florida at Gainesville researchers used new air samplers with a gentle collection process that is less likely than commonly used samplers to inactivate viruses. They were able to detect SARS-CoV-2 only when using the samplers without a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter on the inlet tube. (9/16)

CIDRAP: The Winning Ways Of Shareable COVID Public Health Tweets 
Twitter users were most likely to retweet public health agency tweets that contained practical information on the medical effects of COVID-19, how to mitigate those effects, and the status of the pandemic, according to a study published today in PLOS One. Led by researchers at the State University of New York in Albany and the University of California at Irvine, the study involved analyzing 149,335 tweets from 690 Twitter accounts of public health, emergency management, and elected officials across the United States from Feb 1 to Apr 30. (Van Beusekom, 9/16)

Stat: Lilly’s Covid-19 Antibody Helps Patients Rid Their Systems Of Virus Sooner
A drug being developed by Eli Lilly helped sick patients rid their systems of the virus that causes Covid-19 sooner and may have prevented them from landing in the hospital, according to newly released data. The drug is what is known as a monoclonal antibody, which experts view as being among the most likely technologies to help treat Covid-19. It’s a manufactured version of the antibodies that the body uses as part of its response to a virus. (Herper and Garde, 9/16)

Stat: Cost Of Gilead's HIV Prevention Pill Thwarted Widespread Use, Study Finds
The escalating cost of the only HIV prevention pill may have been a key factor hindering widespread use in recent years, according to a new analysis by U.S. government researchers, underscoring long-standing concerns over the ability to eradicate the virus. From 2014 to 2018, total payments made by government programs, commercial insurers, and patients for Truvada, which was approved to prevent HIV in 2012, jumped from $114 million to nearly $2.1 billion. Yet the number of people who were given prescriptions in 2018 was just 204,700, which amounted to less than 20% of those estimated to have benefited from the medication. (Silverman, 9/16)

Fox News: Coronavirus 'Sexual Distancing,' Decrease In STD Testing Sees Drop In Reported Cases During Pandemic
During the coronavirus pandemic, sexually transmitted disease cases dropped due to individuals "sexually distancing" and decreased testing and reporting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said during the STD Prevention Conference this week. The CDC said in a roundtable discussion Monday that it estimated that tens of thousands of cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea and thousands of syphilis cases have gone undetected due to the lack of testing. (McGorry, 9/16)

Stat: Fears About Covid-19 Are Complicating Care For Patients With Sickle Cell
Last November, just as the novel coronavirus was beginning its deadly trajectory through China, the sickle cell community in the U.S. was celebrating. Two potentially transformative drugs for sickle cell had just been approved by the FDA and clinical trials involving cutting-edge gene therapies were well underway. (McFarling, 9/17)

NPR: Scientists Discover How Drugs Like Ketamine Induce An Altered State Of Mind 
Out-of-body experiences are all about rhythm, a team reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.In mice and one person, scientists were able to reproduce the altered state often associated with ketamine by inducing certain brain cells to fire together in a slow-rhythmic fashion. "There was a rhythm that appeared and it was an oscillation that appeared only when the patient was dissociating," says Dr. Karl Deisseroth, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Stanford University. (Hamilton, 9/16)

Stat: In Research On Pigs, Scientists Test A New Way To Heal Heart Damage
Scientists have developed a new strategy that uses exosomes — tiny, RNA-loaded packets that cells spit out — to regenerate cardiac cells after damage from a heart attack. The heart muscles are made of specialized cells that work continuously to pump blood to our entire body. When one of the heart’s blood vessels gets blocked, it can cause a heart attack, which often leads to tissue damage and scars. Scientists have previously explored whether cell transplants could speed recovery after heart attacks, but the cells often failed to graft, and experts worried about the health risks of such a procedure. (Gopalakrishna, 9/16)

Stat: A New Type Of Patient-Consumer Is Fueling Remote Monitoring's Rapid Growth
A cardiac patient in Carlsbad sends their doctor in San Francisco a readout of their heart rate, courtesy of an Apple Watch. A New Yorker with hypertension texts with an Alabama health coach about data from their smart blood pressure cuffs. A person with diabetes snaps a photo of their dinner and uses an app to predict how it will impact their blood sugar. Health care is undergoing a monumental shift toward remote patient monitoring — and a new class of patient-consumer is leading the charge, according to a new STAT report. (Brodwin, 9/16)

Stat: With Grail In Its Sights, Illumina Pursues Its Grand Vision
Illumina, the dominant maker of machines to sequence DNA, is in talks to purchase Grail, a developer of a blood test to detect cancer that uses Illumina’s technology. The discussions were first reported by Bloomberg News, and confirmed to STAT by a person with knowledge of the talks. The discussions could still fall apart at any time. (Herper, 9/16)

Anchorage Daily News: Anchorage Dentist Who Defrauded Medicaid And Extracted Patient Tooth While Riding Hoverboard Sentenced To Prison
An Anchorage dentist who extracted a patient’s tooth while on a hoverboard was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison for dozens of charges including Medicaid fraud. Seth Lookhart was captured on video extracting the tooth from the unconscious patient. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Michael Wolverton said Monday that Lookhart nearly killed several patients by frequently sedating them for extended periods of time. “In reviewing all this over and over again, I have this visceral response — you darn near killed some people,” he said. (Williams, 9/16)

CIDRAP: Fears Of A 'Perfect Storm' As Flu Season Nears 
Ask an infectious diseases expert about the upcoming flu season, and how it may affect, or be affected, by COVID-19, and the word you're likely to hear is "uncertain." For starters, flu is always unpredictable, they'll say. Flu activity and severity largely depend on the strains of virus circulating, and how well the vaccine strains, which are selected in advance of each flu season, match up with the circulating strains. (Dall, 9/16)

Connecticut Health I-Team: Pandemic Deals Another Blow To Nursing Homes: Plummeting Occupancy
While the deadly coronavirus seems to be subsiding in Connecticut for now, its impact on nursing homes has not. More than 6,700 beds are empty, and it may take many months of financial struggle before occupancy climbs back to pre-pandemic levels. (Jaffe, 9/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Factory Workers Stay Home To Watch Their Children
Many factory workers are staying home to watch children who aren’t at day care or school because of the coronavirus pandemic, in another challenge to U.S. manufacturers working to rev up assembly lines. Orders and output for many manufacturers are recovering as factories reopen and consumers buy electronics for remote working and supplies to fix up their homes. But some factories say the challenge of keeping workers on the line is threatening the recovery. U.S. industrial production rose for the fourth consecutive month in August, the Federal Reserve said on Tuesday, but the increase was much slower than earlier in the summer. (Hufford, 9/16)

The New York Times: I Got A Trial Covid-19 Vaccine. Do I Still Have To Wear A Mask? 
My wife and I are participating in a clinical trial for a Covid-19 vaccine. We had no antibodies before we received the vaccine, but we now have a lot of them, according to two independent tests. Presumably we are like millions of others who have recovered from Covid-19 and have these antibodies, and so are immune for some time. At what point can I feel comfortable, ethically, not wearing a mask, being with others who haven’t had Covid, eating at a restaurant, going to a bar, traveling to locations with restrictions on “hot spot” visitors and the like? (Anthony Appiah, 9/15)

USA Today: Pedestrian Safety Emergency: 'Right Of Way' Book Exposes Health Crisis
It's an epidemic of a different kind. The nation is grappling with a pedestrian safety crisis that has worsened in recent years: The number of pedestrians killed in the U.S. hit a 28-year high of 6,283 in 2018, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That figure was up 46% from 2010. While the crisis stems from many factors, a new book brings it into sharper focus. Former Streetsblog USA writer Angie Schmitt's "Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America" is an exposé drawing upon comprehensive reporting to articulate the root causes of a public health crisis. (Bomey, 9/17)

The New York Times: DJ Jaffe, Ad Man Turned Mental Health Crusader, Dies At 65 
While DJ Jaffe was working as an advertising executive on Madison Avenue, he and his wife became the caretakers of his wife’s half sister, who had moved from Milwaukee as a troubled teenager to live with them in their Manhattan apartment. Before long she became catatonic. She was later found to have schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The experience plunged Mr. Jaffe, who died on Aug. 23 at 65, into the world of mental health, which he soon came to see as dysfunctional. (Seelye, 9/16)

Politico: Big Ten Revives Football Season In Trump-Backed Turnaround
Wednesday's revival delivers a victory for President Donald Trump, who has demanded sports resume in an athletic conference that represents several swing states ahead of Election Day. The president has even intervened with calls to the Big Ten's commissioner. Conference presidents and chancellors voted unanimously to resume the football season starting the weekend of Oct. 23. Now the president is setting his sights on the western United States and the Pac-12 Conference, the last major college sports organization to hold out of playing a fall season. (Perez Jr., 9/16)

The Washington Post: As Big Ten Returns, Trump Takes Credit And Safety Questions Linger 
Five weeks after postponing its football season over safety concerns, the Big Ten Conference reversed course Wednesday, saying it would play this fall even as its colleges and surrounding communities struggle to contain the novel coronavirus. The decision was cheered on not only by fans but by President Trump, who has used the conference’s decision to seek an edge in Midwestern battleground states where Big Ten football reigns. But it raised immediate questions, including from students, about the role politics and economics played in changing the minds of university presidents. (Maese, Giambalvo and Strauss, 9/16)

NPR: NCAA Says College Basketball Season Can Start The Day Before Thanksgiving 
Athletes and fans anticipating the start of college basketball will have to wait a little bit longer. The NCAA Division I Council announced on Wednesday that the upcoming men's and women's basketball seasons can begin on Nov. 25, roughly two weeks later than originally planned, in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. (Treisman, 9/16)