First Edition: April 28, 2021

KHN: You Don’t Have To Suffer To Benefit From Covid Vaccination — But Some Prefer It 
If you think vaccination is an ordeal now, consider the 18th-century version. After having pus from a smallpox boil scratched into your arm, you would be subject to three weeks of fever, sweats, chills, bleeding and purging with dangerous medicines, accompanied by hymns, prayers and hell-fire sermons by dour preachers. That was smallpox vaccination, back then. The process generally worked and was preferred to enduring “natural” smallpox, which killed around a third of those who got it. Patients were often grateful for trial-by-immunization — once it was over, anyway. (Allen, 4/28)

KHN: Doctors More Likely To Prescribe Opioids To Covid ‘Long Haulers,’ Raising Addiction Fears
Covid survivors are at risk from a possible second pandemic, this time of opioid addiction, given the high rate of painkillers being prescribed to these patients, health experts say. A new study in Nature found alarmingly high rates of opioid use among covid survivors with lingering symptoms at Veterans Health Administration facilities. About 10% of covid survivors develop “long covid,” struggling with often disabling health problems even six months or longer after a diagnosis. (Szabo, 4/28)

KHN: Ohio’s Amish Suffered A Lot From Covid, But Vaccines Are Still A Hard Sell 
The Amish communities of northeastern Ohio engage in textbook communal living. Families eat, work and go to church together, and through the pandemic, mask-wearing and physical distancing have been spotty. That has meant that these communities bore a high rate of infection and death. Despite this, health officials are struggling to encourage residents to get vaccinated against covid-19. Holmes County, where half the population is Amish, has the lowest vaccination rate in Ohio, with just 10% of the population fully vaccinated. (Huntsman, 4/28)

KHN: Watch: What Happens When Car And Health Insurance Collide
“CBS This Morning,” in collaboration with KHN and NPR, tells the story of Mark Gottlieb, a marketing consultant in Little Ferry, New Jersey, who faced more than $700,000 in medical bills after surgery on his spine. Gottlieb was injured in a car accident, and, despite having the maximum amount of personal injury protection in his car insurance policy, his medical bills exceeded it. His health insurance could not help much, because his surgeon was out-of-network. In an interview with Anthony Mason of CBS, KHN Editor-in-Chief Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal describes some of the pitfalls accident victims can try to avoid as they seek care. (4/27)

USA Today: CDC Guidelines Say Vaccinated People Don't Need To Wear Masks Outside
Fully vaccinated Americans don’t need to wear a mask outside, except in crowded settings, under new guidelines released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During a White House briefing, public health officials said fully vaccinated individuals can unmask while walking, running, hiking, or biking outdoors alone or with members of their household. (Rodriguez, 4/27)

NPR: Fully Vaccinated People Don't Need To Wear Masks Outdoors Unless In A Crowd
"If you are vaccinated, things are much safer for you," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday at a White House briefing. "If you are fully vaccinated and want to attend a small outdoor gathering — with people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated — or dine at an outdoor restaurant with friends from multiple households, the science shows you can do so safely, unmasked." (Aubrey, 4/27)

AP: Outdoor Mask Guidance Echoes What Many Americans Already Do
In the small Nebraska town of Oxford, the school district dropped its mask mandate last month in what was a fairly straight-forward decision: Cases were down dramatically, and it didn’t bother local officials that their move flouted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Those federal mask guidelines just didn’t seem to fit local conditions well in the town of about 800 people where hardly anyone wears a mask. “We haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to what is going on at the federal level — mainly what is coming out through the state,” Southern Valley Superintendent Bryce Jorgensen said. “You just can’t compare Chicago to Oxford, Nebraska. Things are just different.” (Johnson, Funk and Stobbe, 4/28)

CNN: 15 Of The Safest Activities For Fully Vaccinated People 
Are you one of the growing numbers of Americans who are fully vaccinated? If so, you can now get more of your pre-Covid life back, according to new guidelines released Tuesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Remember: You're not considered "fully vaccinated" until two weeks after you got a single-dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. (LaMotte, 4/28)

CNN: Six-Foot Social Distancing Rule Misses Bigger Risks, MIT Experts Say 
When it comes to being indoors, the six feet rule of social distancing misses the bigger point of how coronavirus spreads, according to two Massachusetts Institute of Technology experts. While staying six feet apart can help prevent the spread of large droplets of saliva or mucus that carry coronavirus and other germs, that distance does nothing to protect people from tiny airborne particles of virus called aerosols, MIT engineer Martin Bazant and mathematician John Bush write in a report published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Fox, 4/27)

The Washington Post: Social Distancing Indoors May Provide ‘False Sense Of Security,’ Covid Transmission Study Finds
The common six-foot social distancing guidance on its own may not be enough to protect people from contracting the coronavirus while spending time indoors, according to a report that examined the virus’s airborne transmission risk. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argued that not all indoor settings are the same, varying by size, ventilation, air filtration, occupancy and the nature of the activity. While the core premise of the study isn’t new, the research offers more details (and a handy online risk-assessment calculator) to help people better understand what factors in a given indoor setting may increase their risk for catching the coronavirus. (Bellware, 4/27)

Bloomberg: Biden Talks Up Benefits of Vaccines After New Mask Guidance
President Joe Biden urged Americans hesitant to be vaccinated against Covid-19 to reconsider, pointing to new U.S. guidance that inoculated people can socialize outdoors without masks. “Beginning today, gathering with a group of friends in a park, going for a picnic, as long as you are vaccinated and outdoors, you can do it without a mask,” Biden said Tuesday at the White House. “If you’re vaccinated, you can do more things, more safely, both outdoors as well as indoors.” (Rutherford, Chen and Fabian, 4/27)

CBS News: Biden Urges All Americans To "Go Get The Shot" As CDC Relaxes Mask Guidance 
President Biden urged all Americans to "go get the shot" on Tuesday, citing new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that said individuals who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can resume some outdoor activities without wearing masks. All U.S. residents 16 and older are now eligible for the vaccine, and the president has set July 4 as a target date for resuming some version of life as normal. (Watson and Quinn, 4/27)

CBS News: CDC Reiterates Guidance On Safety Of COVID-19 Vaccines For Pregnant People 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday there is "growing evidence" about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy, and it reiterated its guidance on vaccinations for pregnant people, after it was asked to clarify a remark the CDC director made Friday about the recommendation. "If facing decisions about whether to receive a COVID-19 vaccine while pregnant, people should consider risk of exposure to COVID-19, the increased risk of severe infection while pregnant, the known benefits of vaccination, and the limited but growing evidence about the safety of COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy," a CDC spokesperson said in a statement emailed to CBS News. (Smith, 4/27)

Politico: HHS Secretary: ‘A Lot Of Folks Would Listen’ If Trump Made Vaccine PSA 
President Joe Biden’s top health official on Tuesday encouraged former President Donald Trump to make a public service announcement promoting coronavirus vaccines to his supporters — many of whom remain skeptical of the shots at a critical moment in the U.S. vaccination effort. “Any time someone who you trust tells you something will work, you pay more attention. And so we would love all those who have the respect of the constituencies out there in America to get out there and help us,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told MSNBC. (Forgey, 4/27)

Stat: Biden Administration Will Let Nearly All Providers To Prescribe Buprenorphine
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced it would move forward with a dramatic deregulation of addiction medicine first proposed by the Trump administration in January. The change would allow almost any prescriber to treat patients using the drug buprenorphine, the most effective medication for opioid addiction. Currently, doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners must undergo a separate training and apply for a waiver before they’re allowed to prescribe the drug to patients. (Facher, 4/27)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Waives Provider Training Requirements For Buprenorphine Prescribing
HHS announced Tuesday it will make it easier for providers to prescribe buprenorphine, potentially expanding access to the addiction treatment and better integrating it with primary care. Under new practice guidelines, several types of providers, including physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and others, will no longer have to complete an eight-hour training before prescribing buprenorphine for opioid use disorder to up to 30 patients. (Hellmann, 4/27)

NPR: National Institute On Drug Abuse Director On Biden's Opioid Treatment Guidelines
More medical practitioners are being allowed to prescribe buprenorphine under new guidelines from the Biden administration. The change means that the drug shown to reduce opioid relapses and overdose deaths can be more widely prescribed. It comes after a year of overdose deaths spiking across the United States. Early estimates indicate about 90,000 people died of drug overdoses in the 12 months ending in September, higher than has ever been recorded. It's about an increase of 20,000 deaths from the previous 12-month period. The majority of drug overdose deaths involved opioids. (Cornish, 4/27)

USA Today: Community Health Centers To Get $1 Billion To Become 'State-Of-The-Art' Facilities, Improve Equity
Hundreds of community health centers across the country can begin applying for a share of $1 billion in new funding for major construction and renovation projects, the Biden administration announced Tuesday. The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided the information first to USA TODAY, said the money will help meet President Joe Biden's goal of improving equity in battling COVID-19 and in providing health care services generally. (Groppe, 4/27)

Modern Healthcare: Biden Backs ACA Expansion In Next Relief Package, But No Drug Pricing Reform
In his first joint address to Congress, President Joe Biden will call on lawmakers to make permanent the largest expansion of the Affordable Care Act seen since the law was passed ten years ago. But he won't endorse including action on drug prices in the next economic relief package to be considered by Congress. The American Families Plan—to be unveiled by the president Wednesday night—largely focuses on childcare, education and tax issues, but is not the healthcare-focused package that was expected up until one week ago. (Hellmann, 4/28)

AP: What To Watch During Biden's 1st Big Speech To Congress
President Joe Biden is putting the finishing touches on his first address to a joint session of Congress, a prime-time speech on Wednesday night on the eve of his 100th day in office. Biden will use the speech before lawmakers and a broader viewing audience to talk about what he’s accomplished in the opening months of his presidency, and lay out his other domestic and foreign policy priorities. ... Biden is expected to outline details of his American Families Plan, another big piece of legislation he wants Congress to pass. The plan is expected to focus on so-called human infrastructure — child care, health care, education and other ways to support households. Biden wants to pay for it by hiking taxes on very high-income households. (Superville, 4/28)

Politico: No Designated Survivor For Biden's First Joint Address To Congress
There won’t be a designated survivor for President Joe Biden’s first joint address to Congress Wednesday night, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. Typically, presidents designate a top official to camp out in a secure location in the case of a disaster that kills the president and cabinet officials. But this time, amid the coronavirus pandemic, things are different, with attendance for Biden’s speech limited to 200 lawmakers, Biden administration officials and staff. (Leonard, 4/27)

Politico: Biden’s 100 Days Has Gone Smoothly. Does The Summer Curse Await? 
[Joe] Biden is hoping for a different fate than his most recent predecessors. In his first address to Congress Wednesday, he will tout his accomplishments, largely defined by Covid-19, including a vaccination rollout and the passage of a relief package, the American Rescue Plan. Then he’ll pivot to what’s next: the need to negotiate with Congress on both the American Jobs Plan and American Family Plan — a combined $4 trillion in spending on everything from roads and bridges to pre-kindergarten and childcare that would usher in a government overhaul of the economy. (Anita Kumar, 4/27)

NBC News: At 100 Days, Americans See Biden As More Moderate Than Obama
Americans perceive Joe Biden as more moderate than Barack Obama at the same stage of his presidency, a new survey shows, even as progressive activists say the incumbent is governing to the left of the former president. The perception of Biden as a moderate may be helping him win support from congressional Democrats in competitive parts of the country who might otherwise feel pressure to oppose his agenda. (Kapur, 4/27)

Politico: Biden’s Covid Team Split Over Decision To Send Vaccine Doses Abroad 
The White House’s decision to send millions of doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine overseas has split top Biden administration officials — with many arguing that the government cannot reduce its stockpile of doses on hand given recent disruptions in U.S. vaccine production. The announcement Monday followed a call between President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose nation has been overwhelmed by a second wave of cases. The news sent several top administration officials scrambling to figure out who had determined that the U.S. would not need the AstraZeneca shots over the next several months, according to three senior officials with knowledge of the situation. (Banco and Cancryn, 4/27)

CNBC: Pfizer At-Home Covid Pill Could Be Available By Year-End, CEO Albert Bourla Says
Pfizer’s experimental oral drug to treat Covid-19 at the first sign of illness could be available by the end of the year, CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC on Tuesday. The company, which developed the first authorized Covid-19 vaccine in the U.S. with German drugmaker BioNTech, began in March an early stage clinical trial testing a new antiviral therapy for the disease. The drug is part of a class of medicines called protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme that the virus needs to replicate in human cells. (Lovelace Jr., 4/27)

Fox News: Pfizer CEO Predicts Coronavirus Oral Antiviral Pill Ready ‘By End Of Year’
Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, said Tuesday he hopes the company's coronavirus oral antiviral therapeutic in early-stage trials will be ready by the end of the year. "...If all goes well and we implement the same speed that we did so far and we are and if regulators also do the same and they are, I hope by the end of the year," Bourla told CNBC co-hosts, per a transcript, when questioned over a timeline. Fox News requested confirmation on the timeline from Pfizer this week, though a spokeswoman wouldn’t pinpoint an answer without data in hand. (Rivas, 4/27)

The New York Times: How Pfizer Makes Its Covid-19 Vaccine 
Inside this facility in Chesterfield, Missouri, trillions of bacteria are producing tiny loops of DNA containing coronavirus genes — the raw material for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It’s the start of a complex manufacturing and testing process that takes 60 days and involves Pfizer facilities in three states. The result will be millions of doses of the vaccine, frozen and ready to ship. (4/28)

ABC News: Children As Young As 6 Months Old Now In COVID-19 Vaccine Trials
As nearly 140 million American adults have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and we inch closer to herd immunity, vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna have moved on to the next phase of the fight against the virus: studying to see if the vaccine will be safe and effective for children. “Children under 18 make up 85 million people in [the] U.S. – about 20% of the population,” Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, professor of pediatrics, epidemiology and population health at Stanford University, told ABC News. “Getting them vaccinated is a major contribution to reducing transmission of virus.” (Kuang, Delawala and Yang, 4/27)

Fox News: 2 New Clot Cases In Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients Reported, CDC Investigating
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating two new cases of a rare, severe blood clot that occurred alongside low platelets in Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine recipients, bringing the total number of instances to 17. A CDC spokesperson told Fox News that one case of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) under investigation occurred in a male vaccine recipient, and the other in a female, both under age 60. It was not clear if the male patient was the same individual in California who is receiving treatment at the University of California San Francisco medical center. (Hein, 4/27)

CIDRAP: Study: Common Irritable Bowel Drug Blunts COVID-19 Vaccine Response
A UK study yesterday in the journal Gut found that the common inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) drug infliximab blunts COVID-19 vaccine response after one dose. The findings come from the CLARITY study, which assessed COVID-19 infection and vaccination in 6,935 patients who have IBD, including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, from 92 hospitals from September to December 2020. (4/27)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Opens Vaccine Appointments To Walk-Ins As Demand Wanes 
New York state mass-vaccination sites will open to walk-ins beginning Thursday, removing another barrier to vaccination efforts. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said demand for Covid-19 vaccines across the state was waning and people are no longer chasing appointments. About 115,000 New York residents are vaccinated every 24 hours now, down from 175,000, he said Tuesday during a press briefing. (West, 4/27)

AP: U Of Portland, Willamette U To Require COVID-19 Vaccinations
University of Portland officials announced on Tuesday that the school will require proof of COVID-19 vaccinations for all students, faculty and staff when the fall semester starts. The Catholic university said in a news release that employees must provide proof of vaccination by Aug. 1 and students must provide proof by Sept. 1.The news release says more than 100 colleges and universities nationally have announced vaccination requirements for students and/or employees, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. (4/28)

Philadelphia Inquirer: People With Intellectual Disabilities Are Helping Providers Improve The Vaccination Experience
When Natasha Black learned that she was eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccine, she said she was excited — and hopeful that daily life might finally get back to normal .Black, a member of a self-advocacy group for people with intellectual disabilities, had spent the year away from family, friends, and work. Isolated in her group home in the Pennsylvania suburbs, she missed being able to take walks, chat with neighbors, play a game of pickup soccer. “I was staying at home every day — we couldn’t do nothing,” said Black, who knew she needed to be especially careful not to get coronavirus. “I was worried. I was bored. I had some hard times,” she said. (Whelan, 4/28)

NBC News: CDC Director Sees 'A Really Hopeful Decline' As Covid Cases In The U.S. Fall
After a worrisome uptick in Covid-19 cases in the United States in recent weeks, there are encouraging signs that the situation is beginning to stabilize, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a briefing Tuesday that there have been declines across the board, with new cases, hospitalizations and daily deaths all falling over the past seven days. (Chow, 4/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Has Recorded About 1,400 'Breakthrough' Coronavirus Cases In Fully Vaccinated People
This year, California has recorded 1,379 cases of coronavirus infection in people who were fully vaccinated, the state Department of Public Health said Tuesday. These so-called breakthrough cases — recorded from Jan. 1 to April 21 — make up about 0.1% of the roughly 1.4 million cases reported in California in that period. The state had not previously made this data available, though Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news briefing earlier this month that public health officials were tracking breakthrough reports and would release more information to the public. (Allday, 4/27)

AP: Young Boy Dies With COVID-19 After Family Travels To Hawaii
A child who traveled to Hawaii with his vaccinated parents has died after contracting COVID-19.The Hawaii Department of Health said Tuesday the boy is under 11 and had a known underlying condition. It was the first coronavirus-related death of a child in that age range in Hawaii. ... The child’s parents were fully vaccinated and were tested for COVID-19 before traveling to Hawaii. (Jones, 4/28)

Bloomberg: Covid Risk Greater If Passengers Board Plane Back To Front
Boarding passengers seated at the back of the aircraft first -- a Covid-era change by Delta Air Lines Inc. and others to cut the risk of infection -- actually increases the chance of catching the virus by 50%, a scientific study showed. So-called back-to-front boarding is also twice as risky as letting passengers on at random, even though it does reduce exposure between seated passengers and those walking down the plane, according to the study published Wednesday in the Royal Society Open Science journal. The higher risk comes from closer contact between passengers in the same rows clustering in the aisle as they stow their luggage. (Whitley, 4/28)

CIDRAP: Shift Work May Increase Risk Of COVID-19
People who work irregular or permanent shifts were associated with double the risk of COVID-19, according to findings from a Thorax study published yesterday. .. The researchers reported that shift workers experienced increased risk for COVID-19 diagnosis regardless of job type (nonessential, essential, healthcare) and physical proximity to coworkers and the public. Instead, they write, the disparity may be driven by the amount of people in the workspace within a 24-hour period, reduced cleaning time, fatigue leading to less mitigation adherence, and the possibility that shift work may alter immune response. (4/27)

Modern Healthcare: Humana Pays $5.7 Billion For Remaining Share Of Kindred At Home, Could Take Business Public
Humana will pay $5.7 billion to buy the remaining shares of Kindred at Home, bringing its total investment in the nation's largest home care and hospice provider to $8.1 billion. While the proposed acquisition covers the totality of Kindred's business, Humana eventually plans to integrate just the home health side into its Home Solutions business line, with the aim that it will eventually provide care to those insured outside Humana, and be rebranded to CenterWell Home Health, taking on the name of Humana's recently-launched healthcare services company. (Tepper, 4/27)

Stat: How One Major Distributor Is Prioritizing Scarce Pipette Tips 
Scientists across the spectrum — at universities, at public health labs, at biotechs — are facing a global shortage of pipette tips that threatens to upend their work. Adding insult to that injury: Many of them don’t actually understand their distributors’ process for determining which orders will be filled first, or how much of their order they’ll actually get. (Sheridan, 4/28)

Stat: Eli Lilly’s Earnings Fall Short After Company's Dramatic Run 
Eli Lilly posted earnings Tuesday that surprised and disappointed investors, as both sales and profit figures fell below Wall Street expectations. The company also cut its forecasts for earnings for the year. The company reported first-quarter sales of $6.81 billion, compared to $7 billion forecast by analysts. Earnings per share excluding one-time items, used by analysts to track business performance, were $1.87, compared to a consensus forecast of $2.12. Earnings this year, the company said, will also be below what analysts expect. (Herper, 4/27)

The New York Times: John C. Martin, 69, Dies; Led Drugmaker In Breakthroughs
John C. Martin, who became a billionaire by developing and marketing a daily single-dose pill that transformed H.I.V. into a manageable disease and who popularized another drug that cures hepatitis C, died on March 30 in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 69. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Gilead Sciences, based in Foster City, Calif., where he was chief executive from 1996 to 2016 and executive chairman from 2016 until he retired two years later. The cause was head injuries suffered the day before, when he fell on a sidewalk while walking home in Old Palo Alto, according to the Santa Clara County medical examiner. (Roberts, 4/27)

Modern Healthcare: Inpatient Pay Rule Would Give Hospitals $2.5 Billion Boost
CMS on Tuesday proposed eliminating its plan for providers to disclose their contract terms with Medicare Advantage insurers, one of a slew of high ticket changes in its Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System rule. In the proposed rule, CMS said hospitals would no longer be expected to report the median payer-specific negotiated charge with MA insurers on its Medicare cost reports retroactive to Jan. 1, 2021. The change would eliminate more than 63,000 burden hours for providers. Hospitals have long challenged the agency's attempts to impose price transparency requirements, maintaining they wouldn't help consumers or lower healthcare costs. (Brady, 4/27)

Modern Healthcare: Mental Health Staff Shortages 'Single Biggest Headwind' To UHS' Volume Recovery
Staff shortages across Universal Health Services' behavioral health hospitals are the "single biggest headwind" the company faces to returning to pre-pandemic volumes, its finance chief said Tuesday. The King of Prussia, Pa.-based acute-care and behavioral health provider simply can't pay enough to get sufficient personnel into some of its hospitals, Chief Financial Officer Steve Filton said on the company's first-quarter earnings call. "It's certainly the single biggest focus of our operators as we turn our attention to what we need to do to both recruit and retain the proper amount of nurses," he said. (Bannow, 4/27)

Modern Healthcare: Henry Ford, Google Cloud Launch Tech Competition To Tackle Health Disparities
Henry Ford Health System is seeking out new ways to address health disparities with digital technology, including a focus on the digital divide, the Detroit-based system said Tuesday. The system's Henry Ford Innovations arm on Tuesday unveiled the digital inclusion challenge, a competition it's hosting in partnership with Google Cloud and Novi, Mich.-based information-technology firm Miracle Software Systems. Entrepreneurs and engineers from across the globe are encouraged to propose ideas for how to use digital technologies to reduce racial, gender and other health disparities. (Kim Cohen, 4/27)

Stat: Flagship-Backed Fertility Company Ohana Biosciences Shutters
Flagship Pioneering-backed fertility company Ohana Biosciences is winding down. Employees were told Tuesday during an all-hands Zoom town hall meeting that the Cambridge, Mass.-based company’s board had decided to lay off most of Ohana’s staff, according to a former employee. The company had more than 50 employees, according to LinkedIn. (Sheridan, 4/27)

Fox News: Study On Unexpected Infant Deaths Finds Soft Bedding Still A Leading Factor
A study of nearly 5,000 sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUID) found that soft bedding is still to blame for a majority of fatalities. In the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-tracked data, which included deaths that occurred in children under age 1 from 2011-2017, 72% of cases involved "unsafe bedding." The study, which was published in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal, Pediatrics, May edition, found that only 1-2% of SUID noted no unsafe sleep factors. The study also noted that there hasn’t been a significant decline in SUID since the 1990s, despite increased messaging and guidelines about safe sleeping habits for infants. (Hein, 4/27)

The Washington Post: Athletes With Long-Haul Covid Struggle To Return From The Sidelines
Justin Foster might get the urge to pick up the pace in the grocery store and whisk from aisle to aisle, but his body will force him to slow down. The chest pains will hit. He’ll have difficulty breathing. And before he has purchased his items, Foster either will have to find a seat or leave altogether, unable to complete what was once a simple task. A little more than a year ago, Foster was a star defensive end at Clemson, terrorizing LSU in the College Football Playoff championship game. And yet 10 months after he tested positive for the coronavirus, menial activities have the potential to level him. (Lee, 4/19)

Bloomberg: Heading Back To The Office? Ask For Air Filters, Not Bleach
More than a year into the pandemic, scientists are increasingly focusing on airborne transmission as the biggest culprit. For the office-bound, that raises the importance of better ventilation and air filtration, and undercuts the rationale for the ceaseless scrubbing of surfaces with disinfectants that many employers have adopted. “I don’t want to hear about your surface cleaning procedures, because that is a waste of time and money,” said Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech who studies the interaction of viruses with the atmosphere. “But tell me about your ventilation. How often is the air changing out in the space? And tell me about your filtration.” (Loh, 4/28)

The Washington Post: Poll: A Quarter Of Women Say They Are Financially Worse Off A Year Into Pandemic 
Women and people of color are the most likely to say they are financially worse off today than before the pandemic began, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, underscoring the struggles many Americans are still facing even as the broader economy shows signs of improvement. A quarter of women say their family’s financial situation is worse today than before the coronavirus-related shutdowns began in March 2020, compared to 18 percent of men, the poll finds. And 27 percent of non-Whites say they are worse off now vs. 18 percent of Whites. (Long and Guskin, 4/27)

AP: Advocates Detail 'Shadow Pandemic' Of Violence Against Women
Cases of domestic violence against Indigenous women and children and instances of sexual assault increased over the past year as nonprofit groups and social workers scrambled to meet the added challenges that stemmed from the coronavirus pandemic, advocates said Tuesday. Their testimony came in the opening session of a two-day summit focused on ending violence against Indigenous women and children. Native American leaders from pueblos throughout New Mexico and from the Navajo Nation gathered virtually for the event. (Bryan, 4/28)

AP: Burning Man Cancels 2021 Festival In Northern Nevada Desert
Burning Man organizers announced Tuesday they are canceling this summer’s annual counter-culture festival in the Nevada desert for the second year in a row because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The San Francisco-based group posted a video on its website that said there are too many uncertainties to resolve in time to hold the event as scheduled Aug. 26 to Sept. 3 in the Black Rock Desert 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Reno. (Sonner, 4/27)

AP: Largest Firefighting Plane May Be Sold For COVID-19 Response 
As Western states prepare for this year’s wildfire season, the world’s largest firefighting plane has been grounded and could be converted to help fight against another crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. After investing tens of millions into upgrading the Global SuperTanker and its technology, the revenue coming mostly from contracts with the U.S. government and California did not produce enough profit for the company to continue the funding the tanker, said Roger Miller, managing director at Alterna Capital Partners LLC, the investment company that owns the plane. (Nieberg, 4/27)

AP: Arizona Governor Signs Abortion Ban For Genetic Issues
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday signed a sweeping anti-abortion bill that bans the procedure if the woman is seeking it solely because a fetus has a genetic abnormality such as Down syndrome. Doctors who perform an abortion solely because the child has a survivable genetic issue can face felony charges. The proposal also contains a raft of other provisions sought by abortion opponents. (Christie, 4/28)

CNN: Tennessee Governor Declares That Covid-19 Is No Longer A Health Emergency With Only 25% Of State's Residents Fully Vaccinated 
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signaled Tuesday that he will not renew any public health orders, saying "Covid-19 is no longer a health emergency in our state," though only 25% of the state's population is fully vaccinated. "A widely available vaccine changes everything and it's a new season in Tennessee," Lee said in a tweet. (Waldrop and Lemos, 4/27)

The Boston Globe: Baker Relaxes Outdoor Mask Mandate In Mass., Announces Timeline For Reopening Bars, Other Businesses
More than 13 months after COVID-19 first gripped Massachusetts, Governor Charlie Baker on Tuesday mapped a return to something resembling normal life, saying he will ease the state’s outdoor mask mandate by week’s ends, allow bars and street festivals to return by Memorial Day, and potentially release businesses from all pandemic-era restrictions by mid-summer. Baker’s timeline to lift limits on gatherings and daily life by Aug. 1 will rely heavily on the state avoiding another surge in cases. The second-term Republican — who was scheduled to receive his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine Tuesday — also said the state must keep up the robust vaccination rate that’s made it a national pace-setter across several metrics. (Stout, Chesto and Freyer, 4/27)

The Advocate: Louisiana Lifts Statewide Mask Mandate; Schools, Hospitals, Local Governments Can Still Require
With coronavirus vaccines now widely available, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Tuesday the end to Louisiana's statewide mask mandate, returning power to businesses and local governments to set their own face covering restrictions. Masks will still be required at K-12 schools, early childhood education centers, colleges and universities, hospitals, nursing homes, on public transit and at some state government buildings, according to an order issued by the Louisiana Department of Health. (Paterson, 4/27)

AP: Walz To Consider Scaling Back More COVID-19 Restrictions
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday that new federal guidance allowing vaccinated people to go mask-free in many outdoor settings is a sign of progress and could help result in scaling back more COVID-19 restrictions next week. “Masks coupled with vaccines is really the path out of this thing,” said Walz, who hoped that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announcement would convince more people to get shots and encourage them to wear masks when necessary. (4/27)

Detroit Free Press: Michigan GOP Leader Shares Misinformation On Mask Effectiveness
A leader of the Michigan Republican Party shared an inaccurate message on social media early Tuesday that suggested masks do not keep people safe and employees should sue their bosses at workplaces where masks are required. The retweet from MIGOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock comes as Michigan remains one of the worst COVID-19 hot spots in the country amid some Republican skepticism about masks, vaccines and other mitigation efforts. (Boucher, 4/27)

AP: West Virginia To Get $393K From Feds For Hepatitis Detection
West Virginia will receive $393,100 from the federal government to detect the spread of hepatitis. The funding comes as the state deals with one of the nation’s highest spikes in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use. Nearly $78,700 of the total funding is devoted to infectious diseases stemming from opioid use. The state has had the nation’s highest rate of opioid drug addictions and drug overdose deaths. (4/28)