First Edition: Oct. 21, 2020

KHN: Despite Pandemic Threat, Gubernatorial Hopefuls Avoid COVID Nitty-Gritty
Just 15 days ahead of the election, Montana Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney laid out his ideas on how he’d handle the COVID-19 pandemic if elected governor. Details were few, but the Democrat’s plan became one of only a handful being offered by candidates in the 11 U.S. governor’s races about how they’ll approach what’s certain to be the dominant issue of their terms, should they win. While much of the nation’s focus is on who will be president come January, voters who are deciding the next occupant of their governor’s mansion are also effectively choosing the next leader of their state’s COVID-19 response. The virus has made governors’ power highly visible to voters. As the states’ top executives, they decide whether to issue mask mandates, close businesses and order people to stay home. (Houghton and Volz, 10/21)

KHN: Bridging The Miles — And The Pandemic — Teledentistry Makes Some Dentists Wince 
Donella Pogue has trouble finding dentists in her rural area willing to accommodate her 21-year-old son, Justin, who is 6 feet, 8 inches tall, is on the autism spectrum and has difficulty sitting still when touched. And this summer, he had a cavity and his face swelled. Pogue, of Bristol, New York, reached out to the Eastman Institute for Oral Health in Rochester, which offers teledentistry. (Berger, 10/21)

KHN: ‘All You Want Is To Be Believed’: The Impacts Of Unconscious Bias In Health Care 
In mid-March, Karla Monterroso flew home to Alameda, California, after a hiking trip in Utah’s Zion National Park. Four days later, she began to develop a bad, dry cough. Her lungs felt sticky. The fevers that persisted for the next nine weeks grew so high — 100.4, 101.2, 101.7, 102.3 — that, on the worst night, she was in the shower on all fours, ice-cold water running down her back, willing her temperature to go down. ... But what happened in the emergency room at Alameda Hospital only confirmed her worst fears. (Dembosky, 10/21)

The New York Times: The Pandemic’s Real Toll? 300,000 Deaths, And It’s Not Just From The Coronavirus 
The coronavirus pandemic caused nearly 300,000 deaths in the United States through early October, federal researchers said on Tuesday. The new tally includes not only deaths known to have been directly caused by the coronavirus, but also roughly 100,000 fatalities that are indirectly related and would not have occurred if not for the virus. The study, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is an attempt to measure “excess deaths” — deaths from all causes that statistically exceed those normally occurring in a certain time period. The total included deaths from Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, that were misclassified or missed altogether. (Rabin, 10/20)

The Washington Post: The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Caused Nearly 300,000 More Deaths Than Expected In A Typical Year 
The CDC said the novel coronavirus, which causes covid-19, has taken a disproportionate toll on Latinos and Blacks, as previous analyses have noted. But the CDC also found, surprisingly, that it has struck 25- to 44-year-olds very hard: Their “excess death” rate is up 26.5 percent over previous years, the largest change for any age group. It is not clear whether that spike is caused by the shift in covid-19 deaths toward younger people between May and August or deaths from other causes, the CDC said. (Bernstein, 10/20)

The Hill: CDC Reports 300K More Deaths Than Expected This Year, Likely Due To COVID-19 
Nearly 300,000 more people have died so far this year than would be expected in a normal year, likely due to COVID-19 or the pandemic’s indirect impacts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Deaths of people in the 25-44 age group was 25.6 percent higher than expected when compared to similar time periods in previous years, the highest increase for any age group, according to a report published Tuesday. Along racial and ethnic lines, Hispanic or Latino people saw the highest percentage increase in numbers of deaths compared with previous years at 54 percent. (Hellmann, 10/20)

The New York Times: ‘It Has Hit Us With a Vengeance’: Virus Surges Again Across the United States
In Ohio, more people are hospitalized with the coronavirus than at any other time during the pandemic. North Dakota, which is leading the nation in coronavirus cases per capita, reported more than 1,000 cases on Tuesday, the state’s worst daily total yet. And as of Monday, 16 states had added more cases in the prior week than in any other seven-day stretch. After weeks of spread and warnings in certain areas, a third surge of coronavirus infections has now firmly taken hold across much of the United States. (Mervosh and Tompkins, 10/21)

CNN: US Is Nearing 'Rapid Acceleration' Of Covid-19 Cases, Expert Warns, As Daily Infections Top 60,000
A leading health expert says US Covid-19 cases will begin to rapidly accelerate in a week as the country topped 60,000 new infections Tuesday -- triple what the daily average was back in June, when restrictions had begun to ease. The prediction comes after several state leaders reimposed some measures to help curb the spread of the virus, fueled by small gatherings increasingly moving indoors with the colder weather, as well as other factors such as college and school reopenings. (Maxouris, 10/21)

CNBC: Coronavirus Hospitalizations Are Growing In 37 States As Fauci Warns The World Not ‘On The Road’ To Ending Pandemic Yet
Covid-19 hospitalizations were growing by 5% or more in 37 states as of Sunday, according to a CNBC analysis of data collected by the Covid Tracking Project, an increase from 36 states a week earlier. Figures are based on a weekly averages to smooth out daily reporting. Alaska, Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and West Virginia all hit record highs in the average of hospitalizations, the Covid Tracking Project data shows. The District of Columbia and Hawaii are the only two places where hospitalizations are declining, according to the data. (Lovelace, 10/19)

NPR: COVID-19 Death Rates Are Going Down, And Not Just Among The Young And Healthy 
Two new peer-reviewed studies are showing a sharp drop in mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The drop is seen in all groups, including older patients and those with underlying conditions, suggesting that physicians are getting better at helping patients survive their illness. "We find that the death rate has gone down substantially," says Leora Horwitz, a doctor who studies population health at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine and an author on one of the studies, which looked at thousands of patients from March to August. (Brumfiel, 10/20)

Politico: White House Looks At Cutting Covid Funds, Newborn Screenings In ‘Anarchist’ Cities
The White House is considering slashing millions of dollars for coronavirus relief, HIV treatment, screenings for newborns and other programs in Democratic-led cities that President Donald Trump has deemed “anarchist jurisdictions,” according to documents obtained by POLITICO. New York, Portland, Ore., Washington, D.C., and Seattle could lose funding for a wide swath of programs that serve their poorest, sickest residents after the president moved last month to restrict funding, escalating his political battle against liberal cities he’s sought to use as a campaign foil. (Ehley and Roubein, 10/20)

The Hill: NIH Chief: Trump Has Not Met With White House COVID-19 Task Force In 'Quite Some Time' 
President Trump has not met with the White House coronavirus task force in "quite some time," the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said Tuesday. NIH Director Francis Collins told NPR's "Morning Edition" that Trump instead gets his information from Vice President Pence and task force member Scott Atlas, neither of whom are infectious disease experts. (Weixel, 10/20)

Stat: Trump Leans On Health Care Agencies To Aid His Campaign
Amid mounting desperation about his reelection odds, President Trump has increasingly come to rely on an unorthodox campaign tool: the Department of Health and Human Services. As the Nov. 3 election draws closer, HHS and the agencies within it have rolled out several initiatives clearly motivated as much by the election as by policy considerations. Most notably, the administration has announced plans to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on seemingly political projects like a mass marketing campaign to “inspire hope” about Covid-19 and a pending plan to mail $200 pharmacy gift certificates to millions of seniors. (Facher, 10/21)

The New York Times: How The F.D.A. Stood Up To The President 
In what might be the final months of the Trump administration, and close enough to the election to make his firing unlikely, Dr. [Stephen M.] Hahn seems to be trying to save the F.D.A. from the fate of its sister agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose scientists have been stripped of much of their authority and independence in responding to the pandemic. “It’s better late than never, but I do think we can see a lot of damage has been done,” said Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, the F.D.A.’s chief scientist from 2009 to 2014. “And I don’t think they are out of the woods yet.” (Kaplan, LaFraniere, Weiland and Haberman, 10/20)

Stat: Will This Be The Most-Watched FDA Meeting Ever? 
The FDA’s panel of outside vaccine experts will meet Thursday to discuss approval standards for an eventual Covid-19 vaccine. These meetings are typically attended only by the nerdiest biotech investors and FDA lawyers, but this one is expected to attract so much attention that the FDA is setting up a Youtube stream for the event instead of its typical (often rage-inducing) internal streaming service. (Florko, 10/20)

The New York Times: A Viral Theory Cited By Health Officials Draws Fire From Scientists
As the coronavirus pandemic erupted this spring, two Stanford University professors — Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Scott W. Altas — bonded over a shared concern that lockdowns were creating economic and societal devastation. Now Dr. Atlas is President Trump’s pandemic adviser, a powerful voice inside the White House. And Dr. Bhattacharya is one of three authors of the so-called Great Barrington Declaration, a scientific treatise that calls for allowing the coronavirus to spread naturally in order to achieve herd immunity — the point at which enough people have been infected to stall transmission of the pathogen in the community. While Dr. Atlas and administration officials have denied advocating this approach, they have praised the ideas in the declaration. (Mandavilli and Gay Stolberg, 10/19)

The New York Times: Voters Prefer Biden Over Trump On Almost All Major Issues, Poll Shows 
Mr. Biden, if he wins, will find consensus on some of his policy priorities. Two in three voters supported allowing people to buy a health insurance plan through the federal government, a so-called public option, and the same supermajority backed Mr. Biden’s $2 trillion plan to increase the use of renewable energy and build energy-efficient infrastructure. (Burns and Martin, 10/20)

Politico: Lawmakers Press HHS For Documents On Trump’s Drug-Card Plan 
Senior Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the health department turn over internal documents on President Donald Trump's plan to give seniors $200 discount cards to buy prescription drugs, following a POLITICO report that the department's top lawyer warned the plan could violate election law. The media reports "appear to confirm our concerns that the Trump Administration is relying on dubious legal authority to justify a blatant political gambit by the President that would be paid for using taxpayer dollars," Reps. Frank Pallone and Richard Neal and Sen. Ron Wyden wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, demanding the documents by Monday. (Diamond, 10/20)

USA Today: McConnell Urges White House Against Stimulus Deal
The Kentucky Republican, who has blasted Democrats in negotiations, voiced concerns there would not be enough GOP votes to back a package and worries that voting on such legislation could negatively affect the timing on Judge Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation vote to the Supreme Court, the source said. Republicans disagree about the size and details of an aid bill. Some Republicans rejected Democratic offers they said are too costly and will add to the federal deficit, though President Donald Trump has pushed for Republicans to offer even more than Democrats. (Wu and Hayes, 10/20)

The Washington Post: McConnell Warns White House Against Making Stimulus Deal As Pelosi And Mnuchin Inch Closer 
Prospects for an economic relief package in the next two weeks dimmed markedly on Tuesday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) revealed that he has warned the White House not to strike an agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the Nov. 3 election. In remarks at a closed-door Senate GOP lunch, McConnell told his colleagues that Pelosi (D-Calif.) is not negotiating in good faith with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and that any deal they reach could disrupt the Senate’s plans to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court next week. Republicans have voiced concerns that a stimulus deal could splinter the party and exacerbate divisions at a time when they are trying to rally behind the Supreme Court nominee. The comments were confirmed by three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss them. (Stein and Werner, 10/20)

The New York Times: McConnell Moves To Head Off Stimulus Deal As Pelosi Reports Progress
Mr. McConnell’s remarks, confirmed by four Republicans familiar with them, threw cold water on Mr. Trump’s increasingly urgent push to enact a new round of pandemic aid before Election Day. They came just as Ms. Pelosi offered an upbeat assessment of her negotiations with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, telling Democrats that their latest conversation had yielded “common ground as we move closer to an agreement.” (Cochrane and Fandos, 10/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Several Lawmakers Denied Access To Postal Facilities 
Efforts by some members of Congress to observe firsthand how mail is being processed at large facilities in the final weeks of the election have been blocked—a policy departure by the U.S. Postal Service for visits that were once routinely approved, the lawmakers said. It’s unclear how many lawmakers have sought access to postal plants, but at least five, all Democrats, said they’d received inconsistent explanations for the denials. (Smith, 10/20)

Politico: California Wants Court To Force Republicans To Divulge Ballot Box Details
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is pursuing a court order to wring more information from the California Republican Party about its unofficial ballot collection boxes. Becerra wants the California GOP to share the locations of the boxes and the identity of voters who have used them. In a court filing, Becerra argued that such information is critical to ensuring that votes are counted and that the California Republican Party is abiding by election laws governing how it collects ballots. The filing says the Republican Party has refused to share the information requested. (White, 10/20)

The Washington Post: Rep. Abigail Spanberger And Del. Nick Freitas Debate On Heathcare, Income Inequality, Coronavirus Relief 
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) clashed with Republican Del. Nick Freitas on everything from income inequality to coronavirus relief, as Spanberger pitched herself as a moderate focused on issues affecting rural Americans while Freitas stressed the need for limited government and cutting red tape. ... The candidates are locked in one of the most competitive Congressional races in Virginia, in a district that voted for President Trump by roughly 7 points in 2016 but that political analysts believe leans slightly in Spanberger’s favor. Spanberger, a former CIA officer and Postal Service investigator, flipped the seat blue in 2018. (Flynn, 10/20)

Politico: Federal Appeals Court Won’t Lift North Carolina Ballot-Receipt Extension 
A bitterly divided federal appeals court has denied an attempt by Republicans to block an agreement by North Carolina state officials allowing absentee ballots in next month’s election to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received up to nine days later. (Gerstein, 10/21)

The New York Times: College Students Are Missing From Campus. Will Their Missing Votes Make A Difference? 
The air still became crisper, and the leaves still changed from green to gold. But many college towns looked a lot different this fall, their campuses quiet as universities adopted online instruction to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. With that change came a new political wrinkle: Some House candidates, typically Democrats, can usually count on support from students living on college campuses in their districts — but many of those students are now living back home, tied to their computers for classes. (Gray, 10/20)

The Washington Post: Senators Urge Pentagon To Suspend Implementation Of Army’s New Fitness Test 
Democratic senators appealed Tuesday for support of a legislative proposal that would suspend implementation of the Army’s new fitness test, arguing that the high-profile initiative to improve physical readiness is based on faulty data and could undermine the goal of creating a diverse force. In an Oct. 20 letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the rollout of the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) “premature” and said the exam could damage some soldiers’ professional prospects. (Ryan, 10/20)

The Hill: Democrats Unveil Bill To Reduce Police Violence Against People With Mental Illness 
A group of House Democrats introduced legislation on Tuesday that provides grants to cities to allow trained mental health professionals to respond to 911 calls for a person in a mental health crisis. The proposal is an effort to reduce the number of people killed by police in such situations. (Marcos, 10/20)

Stat: Lawmakers Ask Justice Department To Consider Criminal Charges Against Purdue And The Sacklers
More than three dozen Democratic lawmakers asked the Department of Justice to consider filing criminal charges against Purdue Pharma executives and members of the wealthy Sackler family, which controls the drug maker, for their role in fomenting the opioid crisis. In a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, the lawmakers objected that federal authorities are reportedly nearing a plea agreement that would not require anyone from the company or the family to serve a “single day in prison,” despite having run a “criminal scheme” that caused “millions of unsuspecting people” to become addicted to the OxyContin painkiller. (Silverman, 10/20)

AP: Worsening Opioid Crisis Overshadowed In Presidential Race
Like millions of Americans, Diane Urban watched the first presidential debate last month at home with her family. When it was over, she turned off the television and climbed into the bed her 25-year-old son Jordan used to sleep in. It was where she found Jordan’s lifeless body after he overdosed on the opioid fentanyl one morning in April 2019. After watching President Donald Trump target the son of former Vice President Joe Biden for his history of substance abuse, Urban was reminded again of the shame her son lived with during his own battle with addiction. (Amiri and Mulvihill, 10/21)

CIDRAP: Studies Offer Little Hope For Tocilizumab In Treating COVID 
JAMA Internal Medicine today published a trio of studies on use of the immunosuppressive drug tocilizumab in COVID-19 patients with pneumonia, one of them a large US observational study that suggested some promise and two randomized clinical trials from Italy and France that found no benefit. The first study involved 3,924 adult COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) at 68 hospitals in the United States from Mar 4 to May 10. (Van Beusekom, 10/20)

USA Today: Arthritis Drug Tocilizumab Shown Effective For Sickest COVID Patients
The list of drugs shown effective for treating COVID-19 got longer Tuesday, even as another well-used drug lost some of its luster. In a large clinical study, tocilizumab, an immune modulator long used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, showed it can save lives if given to critically ill COVID-19 patients within the first two days of being admitted to an intensive care unit. The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, showed just over 27% of ICU patients treated with tocilizumab died within a month, compared with 37% of those just as seriously ill but did not receive the drug.  (Weintraub, 10/20)

The New York Times: Antibody Treatments, Though Promising, Will Be In Short Supply 
Nearly two weeks ago, President Trump told Americans that they would soon be getting an antibody treatment that he had promoted, without evidence, as a “cure” for the coronavirus. This weekend, as the country braced for another major wave of coronavirus infections, Mr. Trump’s health secretary promised such therapies were just around the corner. But these statements are misleading, at best. Even if the drugs are proven to work — still a big if — there’s little chance that they will soon be widely available. A smooth distribution of the antibody treatments will be dependent on the very same factors that have so far bedeviled the country’s response to Covid-19: fast and plentiful testing, coordination between state and federal officials, and equitable access to health care. (Thomas, 10/20)

Stat: Health Experts Push Vaccine Makers To Release Covid-19 Trial Protocols
Amid concerns over a lack of transparency Covid-19 product development, more than two dozen academics and health policy experts are urging federal officials and several vaccine makers to fully disclose all information concerning their clinical trial protocols and agreements. In an open letter, they acknowledged that sharing such details is unusual, but in this instance, such a step would help to ensure accountability, advance scientific understanding, and build public trust, especially at a time when the race to develop a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine has become highly politicized by the Trump administration. (Silverman, 10/20)

CNBC: ‘Long Covid’: These 5 Factors Make It More Likely You’ll Suffer Long-Term From Coronavirus
A new study has identified the main factors that make it more likely that patients will suffer long term from the coronavirus. “Long Covid” is the term given to people who had a confirmed (or suspected) coronavirus case and who recover from the initial infection but continue to suffer from a wide range of symptoms, from shortness of breath and migraines to chronic fatigue. ... The team found that older or overweight people, women, those with asthma and those with a greater number of different symptoms in the first week of their illness were more likely to develop “long Covid.” (Ellyatt, 10/21)

Stat: Covid-19’s Wintry Mix: Dry Indoor Air Helps The Virus Spread 
It’s not just the cold, it’s the humidity. Winter in the northern United States will soon drive even the most diehard outdoor diners and backyard socializers indoors, bringing with them heightened risk for contracting and spreading Covid-19. The worry is not just that people might mingle more closely inside, but that the air they breathe will make the virus more dangerous. Cold, dry air facilitates the spread of the coronavirus, and the social distancing that helped outside won’t be as effective indoors, scientists said. (Cooney, 10/21)

CIDRAP: Experts: Don't Count On Mild Flu Season Amid COVID-19 
The Southern Hemisphere had a very light flu season in 2020, with Australia seeing only 315 cases over its winter, down 99.8% from the 130,000 cases seen in most years. But flu experts say that, while the low numbers could portend a similar scenario in the Northern Hemisphere, it would be a foolhardy not to prepare for high caseloads this winter. Edward Belongia, MD, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Marshfield Research Institute in Wisconsin, said that he doesn't think anyone can predict how severe the flu season will be or how it will co-circulate with COVID-19, because much is still unknown about the novel coronavirus and there is no clear relationship between events in the hemispheres. (Van Beusekom, 10/20)

CNN: Flu Shot Effectiveness: Get Good Sleep To Increase Its Power, Experts Say 
We all know how much better we feel after a good night's sleep. It turns out that sleep may be vital to arm us in the fight against influenza and Covid-19. Medical professionals are recommending that people make sure to get their flu shots this year, in part because some Covid-19 and flu symptoms are similar. A flu shot reduces the likelihood that your symptoms (if you get sick) are from the flu. (Lyons and Lamotte, 10/21)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Double-Digit Drops In Mammography Worry Experts About Deaths To Come
Though more women are getting back on their mammogram schedules through the pandemic, alarmed cancer experts said Ohio and the nation now are caught in an unprecedented experiment with dangerous consequences. The pandemic has nearly undone decades of effort – pink-ribbon 5K runs to raise research money, awareness campaigns anchored in October since 1985, ultimately better insurance coverage of mammography – to persuade women not to forget about the one tool that finds breast tumors early, when they are most treatable and survivable. (Saker, 10/19)

The Washington Post: Rush Limbaugh Says His Lung Cancer Is Terminal 
Conservative talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh told his listeners Monday that the advanced lung cancer he announced this year is terminal. Limbaugh, whose program is nationally syndicated, said he received lung scans last week that showed “some progression of the cancer” after it was previously reduced to a manageable level. He described his illness as a roller coaster with many ups and downs. (Iati, 10/20)

USA Today: COVID Deaths Of Native Americans Linked To Underfunded Health Care
Melvina Musket stared at her dying father through the cellphone screen. His mouth hung open, his eyes were clamped shut and a beard covered his chin. She heard nurses crying in the background. “Jesus is waiting for you,” she told him. Musket, 52, had never seen her father with facial hair. Benjamin Musket, 80, was a former Marine, a retired machinery mechanic, a basketball coach and a board member at their church. He didn’t do beards. (Wagner and Grantham-Philips, 10/20)

USA Today: Pandemic Shows Importance Of Early Intervention Programs For Families
For once, being a biracial, low income, Medicaid patient didn't work against Selina Martinez. In 2015, two weeks after giving birth at a Manhattan hospital, Martinez arrived at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx where she was diagnosed with salmonella. During a monthlong stay, hospital staff members learned times were tough for the new mom. She'd been getting psychiatric care since the stillbirth of her last child, her husband was recovering at home from pancreatic cancer treatment and a neighbor was caring for her infant son, Blake.  (O'Donnell, 10/20)

AP: Man Gets Prison For Sabotage That Caused PPE Delivery Delay
A former vice president of a medical device packaging company has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for sabotaging his former employer’s electronic shipping records, which prosecutors said delayed the delivery of personal protective equipment to health care providers. Christopher Dobbins, 41, received his last paycheck from Stradis Healthcare on March 26, and three days later used a fake user account he had created while working there to access the company’s computer systems, prosecutors in Atlanta said. He then created a second fake user account and used that to edit 115,581 records and delete 2,371 records before deactivating both fake accounts and logging out, prosecutors said. (10/20)

Los Angeles Times: Disneyland, California Theme Parks Get Path To Reopening 
It might be many months before major parks are allowed to welcome guests again. Based on an Orange County official’s projections, Disneyland probably won’t open before summer — news that incensed park executives and local officials. The protocols announced Tuesday require large parks to wait longer than smaller ones. A large park, defined as one with a capacity of more than 15,000 visitors, can reopen once coronavirus transmission in its home county has fallen enough for the county to reach Tier 4 — the state’s least-restrictive designation. A small park, meanwhile, can welcome guests once its home county reaches Tier 3, the second-least-restrictive level. (Martin, 10/20)

CNN: University Of Michigan Students Given Immediate Stay-At-Home Order Amid A Spike In Covid-19 Cases 
All University of Michigan undergraduate students are now under an emergency stay-in-place order, after data shows that Covid-19 cases among Michigan students represents more than 60% of all local cases. The order came from the Washtenaw County Health Department on Tuesday, and is set to continue until November 3. (Asmelash, 10/20)

AP: California School Fined For Violating Court COVID-19 Order
A California private school has been ordered to pay $15,000 for defying a judge’s order to close classrooms and stop in-person teaching, in what may be the first judgment of its kind against a California school for violating health orders aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus. Tuesday’s decision in the Fresno County Superior Court ends a nearly three-month legal battle between Immanuel Schools, a private K-12 Christian school in California’s Central Valley, and county and state officials. (Gecker, 10/21)

The Hill: DeVos Says It Isn't Department Of Education's Job To Track Schools' Coronavirus Reopening Plans 
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Tuesday it is not the job of her department to track school districts’ reopening plans or the number of coronavirus cases they are grappling with as districts look for guidance as to how to conduct classes safely during the pandemic. “Well I'm not sure there's a role for the Department of Education to compile and conduct that research,” DeVos said Tuesday at an event hosted by the Milken Institute in response to a question about the role of the federal government to boost confidence regarding in-person schooling. (Axelrod, 10/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Some California Hospitals Refused Covid-19 Transfers For Financial Reasons, State Emails Show 
Several large Southern California hospital systems improperly refused or delayed accepting Covid-19 patients based on their insurance status, according to internal emails among local and state government, hospital and emergency-response officials, leaving severely ill patients waiting for care and adding strain on hospitals overrun by the pandemic. Disaster-response experts said the refusals and delays exposed ways that some hospitals have put finances ahead of pandemic relief. Some instances might have violated a federal law that protects access to emergency care, while in other instances the actions ran counter to medical ethics, the experts said. (Evans, Berzon and Hernandez, 10/19)

The Washington Post: Maryland Coronavirus Plan Says 14 Percent Of Residents Eligible For Early Vaccine When Available 
Fourteen percent of Maryland residents will be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine when one is available, according to a draft of the state’s vaccine distribution plan that was made public Tuesday. The plan was due to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, part of a requirement that all states followed to give the federal government a glimpse of how officials would distribute a vaccine when one becomes available. (Fadulu, 10/20)

AP: DC Debuts Smartphone-Based COVID-19 Exposure Alert System
The nation’s capital has become one of the first jurisdictions in the country to employ a new COVID-19 notification system, a joint Google-Apple venture that delivers alerts to people’s phones, notifying them that they may have been exposed to the coronavirus. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Tuesday urged all residents with Apple or Android smartphones to opt in to the new DC COVID Alert Notice system, or DC CAN. Bowser called it “a quick and easy way to know if you might have been exposed to COVID-19. Opting in is one more way you can protect yourself, your friends and family, and our entire community.” (Khalil, 10/20)

AP: Tennessee Launches New Website For COVID-19 Info
The Tennessee Department of Health has launched a new website to keep the public up to speed on the COVID-19 pandemic. The department says COVID19.tn.gov is designed to simplify some of the most frequently requested coronavirus data for desktop and mobile users. (10/21)

Reuters: Five South Koreans Die After Getting Flu Shots, Sparking Vaccine Fears
Five people have died after getting flu shots in South Korea in the past week, authorities said, raising concerns over the vaccine’s safety just as the seasonal inoculation programme is expanded to head off potential COVID-19 complications. Authorities said there was no reason to believe the deaths were linked to the vaccine but an investigation, including post mortems, was underway. (10/21)

Reuters: Chinese City To Offer COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate As Emergency Use Expands 
A city in China’s Zhejiang province will offer experimental coronavirus vaccines to its residents, as China broadens an emergency use programme to people in non-priority groups. Residents aged between 18 and 59 in the city of Shaoxing, who are not in priority groups, can apply online for inoculation, the city’s health commission said on Tuesday on its WeChat account. It did not name the vaccine, say when inoculation would start or how many doses would be offered. (10/21)

AP: Chinese Drugmaker Setting Up Vaccine Production Lines
A state-owned Chinese drugmaker is setting up production lines to supply 1 billion doses of two possible coronavirus vaccines that are being tested on 50,000 people in 10 countries, the company chairman said Tuesday. Testing by SinoPharm Group is “in the last kilometer of a long march,” chairman Liu Jingzhen said at a news conference. He gave no indication when results are expected. (10/20)

AP: Mexico: Wedding Resulted In 100 Infected With Coronavirus
More than 100 people are believed to have been infected by the coronavirus at a wedding early this month in the northern Mexico border city of Mexicali, authorities said. About 300 people attended the Oct. 3 nuptials of a soap opera actor and the daughter of a businessman, Alonso Oscar Pérez Rico, the health secretary of Baja California state said Monday. (10/20)