First Edition: Oct. 30, 2020

KHN: Why State Mask Stockpiling Orders Are Hurting Nursing Homes, Small Providers
Nursing homes, small physician offices and rural clinics are being left behind in the rush for N95 masks and other protective gear, exposing some of the country’s most vulnerable populations and their caregivers to COVID-19 while larger, wealthier health care facilities build equipment stockpiles. Take Rhonda Bergeron, who owns three health clinics in rural southern Louisiana. She said she’s been desperate for personal protective equipment since her clinics became COVID testing sites. Her plight didn’t impress national suppliers puzzled by her lack of buying history when she asked for 500 gowns. And one supply company allows her only one box of 200 gloves per 30 days for her three clinics. Right now, she doesn’t have any large gloves on-site. (Weber, 10/30)

KHN: A $200 Debit Card Won’t Do Much For Seniors’ Drug Costs
If they’ve been listening to President Donald Trump, seniors may be expecting a $200 debit card in the mail any day now to help them pay for prescription drugs. He promised as much this month, saying his administration soon will mail the drug cards to more than 35 million Medicare beneficiaries. But the cards — if they are ever sent — would be of little help. Policy experts say that what Medicare beneficiaries really need, as well as younger Americans, are sweeping federal changes to close the gap between what their health insurance pays and what drugs cost them. (Meyer, 10/30)

KHN: ‘It’s Science, Stupid’: A School Subject Emerges As A Hot-Button Political Issue
At the top of Dr. Hiral Tipirneni’s to-do list if she wins her congressional race: work with other elected officials to encourage mask mandates and to beef up COVID-19 testing and contact tracing. Those choices are backed up by science, said Tipirneni, an emergency room physician running for Arizona’s 6th Congressional District. On the campaign trail, she has called on her opponent, Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), to denounce President Donald Trump’s gathering of thousands for a rally in Arizona and his comments about slowing down COVID-19 testing. (Knight, 10/30)

KHN: If They Sweep On Election Day, Dems Still Face A Challenge Meeting Health Promises 
Democrats are favored to win both chambers of Congress after years of campaign-trail promises about health care. But with a pandemic, a more conservative Supreme Court and lingering disagreements between progressives and moderates, it could be difficult for Democrats to turn those promises into law. In the final days of the campaign, COVID-19 and the threat posed to the Affordable Care Act and Roe v. Wade by the court’s bolstered conservative majority are consuming congressional Democrats — right down to keeping them in Washington well after they would usually go home to campaign. (Huetteman, 10/30)

KHN: Democrats Link GOP Challengers To Trump’s COVID Record, Efforts To Undo Obamacare 
In a tweet to his 78,000 followers Sunday, U.S. Rep. Harley Rouda, a Democrat from Orange County, California, described his Republican opponent Michelle Steel’s attendance at an indoor fundraiser without a mask as “sickening.” Democratic U.S. Rep. Gil Cisneros also blasted his Republican opponent, Young Kim, on Twitter for attending the “superspreader fundraiser,” calling it a “slap in the face to frontline workers” and his constituents in southern Los Angeles County and northern Orange County. (Young, 10/30)

KHN: KHN On The Air This Week
KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed the current surge in COVID-19 cases, health policy in the election and the Affordable Care Act case before the Supreme Court with NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Sunday and WBUR’s “On Point.” (10/30)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: As Cases Spike, White House Declares Pandemic Over
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said this week that “we’re not going to control the pandemic,” effectively conceding that the administration has pivoted from prevention to treatment. But COVID-19 cases are rising rapidly in most of the nation, and the issue is playing large in the presidential campaign. President Donald Trump is complaining about the constant news reports about the virus, prompting former President Barack Obama to say Trump is “jealous of COVID’s media coverage.” (10/29)

KHN and Politifact: A $10,000 Obamacare Penalty? Doubtful. 
A viral Facebook post claims that former President Barack Obama’s health insurance law penalized a family a large amount of money for not buying health insurance and that President Donald Trump was responsible for stopping the practice. The post features writing on the back of a car windshield that says, “Because our family couldn’t afford health insurance, Obama/Biden penalized us about $10,000, then took that $10,000 and used it to pay for others’ free Obamacare. Trump ended that theft.” (Knight, 10/29)

The Washington Post: U.S. Reports Nearly 90,000 New Cases Amid Surges In Every Swing State 
Nearly 90,000 new coronavirus infections were reported in the United States on Thursday, a record, as cases surge in every swing state that will be crucial to next week’s presidential election. The total number of infections reported nationwide since February is virtually guaranteed to reach 9 million on Friday, just 15 days after the tally hit 8 million. At least 228,000 deaths have been linked to the coronavirus. (Noori Farzan, 10/30)

The New York Times: U.S. Coronavirus Cases Surpass 9 Million With No End In Sight
More than 2,000 new coronavirus cases in Colorado. More than 6,400 new cases in Illinois. And more than 1,000 new cases in New Mexico. All record-breaking numbers for those states — and all on a day when the United States as a nation reached two grim new highs. On Thursday, the country recorded at least 90,000 new cases (that’s the equivalent of more than one per second) and crossed the threshold of nine million cases since the start of the pandemic. (10/30)

USA Today: 'There's No Way To Sugarcoat It': COVID-19 Cases Are Surging; One American Dies Every 107 Seconds
The U.S. set a record this week for new coronavirus cases over a seven-day period with more than 500,000 infections. An American is testing positive every 1.2 seconds. Daily deaths are also climbing – one of us is dying every 107 seconds, according to Johns Hopkins data. And daily hospitalizations have been rising steadily for more than a month, from 28,608 on Sept. 20 to more than 44,000 on Tuesday. (Bacon, 10/29)

The Atlantic: The Pandemic Is in Uncharted Territory
The United States set a new record for reported cases this week, breaking 500,000 for the first time in the pandemic as the third surge continued to build across nearly every state in the country. Today, the country recorded 88,452 new cases of COVID-19, its highest single-day total since the pandemic began. Over the past two weeks, 25 states have set a new record for cases in the past two weeks, including 17 states with record highs since last Wednesday. (10/29)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Cases Are Surging In Swing States That Will Decide The Presidential Election 
Coronavirus cases are surging in every competitive state before Election Day, offering irrefutable evidence against President Trump’s closing argument that the pandemic is nearly over and restrictions are no longer necessary. In the 13 states deemed competitive by the Cook Political Report, the weekly average of new cases reported daily has jumped 45 percent over the past two weeks, from fewer than 21,000 on Oct. 14 to more than 30,000 on Oct. 28. (Stevens, 10/29)

USA Today: Wisconsin Is On Track To Run Short Of ICU Beds In Two To Six Weeks
Wisconsin is on track to run out of beds in the intensive care unit and, more importantly, the nurses to staff them, in as little as two weeks if the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 does not drop. On Tuesday, when the state reported a record 5,200 positive cases, only 187 of the state's 1,469 intensive care unit beds were available. Of the patients in ICUs, 319 were being treated for COVID-19. Given the trajectory of new cases, the number of COVID-19 patients being treated could double in two to six weeks, said Bill Melms, chief medical officer for Marshfield Clinic Health System. (Boulton, 10/29)

The Hill: Winter COVID-19 Wave Poses Threat To Nation's Hospitals
Coronavirus hospitalizations are rising in the United States as a wave builds ahead of winter, threatening to overwhelm hospitals in some areas. Several major European countries currently have even worse outbreaks than the U.S., but former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned Wednesday that the U.S. is on a trajectory to match them in about three weeks. (Sullivan, 10/29)

NPR: Internal Documents Reveal COVID-19 Hospitalization Data The Government Keeps Hidden
As coronavirus cases rise swiftly around the country, surpassing both the spring and summer surges, health officials brace for a coming wave of hospitalization and deaths. Knowing which hospitals in which communities are reaching capacity could be key to an effective response to the growing crisis. That information is gathered by the federal government — but not shared openly with the public. NPR has obtained documents that give a snapshot of data the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services collects and analyzes daily. The documents — reports sent to agency staffers — highlight trends in hospitalizations and pinpoint cities nearing full hospital capacity and facilities under stress. They paint a granular picture of the strain on hospitals across the country that could help local citizens decide when to take extra precautions against COVID-19. (Huang and Simmons-Duffin, 10/30)

Reuters: Task Force Sees 'Unrelenting' COVID-19 Spread; Daily U.S. Cases Up By Record 91,000 
The White House coronavirus task force warned that much of the country is in the grips of an “unrelenting” surge in COVID-19 cases and urged tough countermeasures, as the number of U.S. infections reported on Thursday hit a new daily record of more than 91,000. The hardest-hit regions in the West and Midwest encompass a number of battleground states expected to play a pivotal role in Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election contest between Republican incumbent Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. “We are on a very difficult trajectory. We’re going in the wrong direction,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading task force member and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (Chiacu and Michalska, 10/29)

NPR: 'No Pandemic Exception To The Constitution': Court Rejects Minn. Ballot Extension
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with Minnesota Republicans in a dispute on mail-in ballots, deeming that absentee votes received by mail after 8 p.m. and in person after 3 p.m. should be separated from other ballots. The move means that the fate of those later-received ballots will likely fall in the lap of another court, which could eventually declare the votes invalid. This ruling reverses an extension by Secretary of State Steve Simon to accommodate voters who may have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. (Wise, 10/29)

The Washington Post: Appeals Court Panel Rules Minnesota Must Set Aside Ballots Received After Election Day In Case They Are Invalidated 
Under a federal appeals court panel decision issued Thursday evening, Minnesotans must return mail-in ballots by Tuesday to ensure they are counted, upending plans the state had advertised to keep counting absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day for another week. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit said a Republican lawmaker and GOP activist could challenge the state’s plans to keep counting ballots after the election — and predicted those received after Election Day could ultimately be invalidated, sending Democrats scrambling to warn voters. (Davis, 10/29)

Politico: Federal Appeals Court Suggests Late-Arriving Minnesota Ballots May Be Tossed 
A panel of federal appellate judges ruled Thursday that ballots that arrive after polls close in Minnesota on Election Day must be segregated from ballots that arrive earlier, suggesting that future rulings could invalidate the late-arriving ballots. In Minnesota, ballots are typically required to be returned to election officials by mail by the time polls close in order to count. But for the 2020 election, a consent decree agreed to by Secretary of State Steve Simon mandated that ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received within seven days would count. (Montellaro, 10/29)

NPR: Polling Places Are Closing Due To COVID-19. It Could Tip Races In 1 Swing State
The New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Waterloo. The senior high school in Fort Dodge. The Masonic Temple in Council Bluffs. Iowa voters won't be able to cast their ballot at any of those polling places this Election Day because of hundreds of closures and consolidations that have rippled across the state due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Payne, Rebala, Levine and Talbot, 10/29)

The Washington Post: Options Dwindle For Voters Diagnosed With Covid-19 As Election Day Draws Near 
Hundreds of thousands of Americans will test positive for the novel coronavirus between now and Election Day, leaving many scrambling for alternatives to in-person voting and injecting another dimension of uncertainty into an election already shadowed by the pandemic. Those voters will need to navigate an unfamiliar and varied landscape to cast their ballots. Some will be required to get doctor’s notes or enlist family members to help. Others, in isolation, will need to have a witness present while they vote. Planned accommodations — such as officials hand-delivering ballots — may prove inadequate or could be strained beyond limits. (Satija, 10/29)

The New York Times: No Selfies Or Hugs, But Biden Is Sneaking In Meet And Greets 
Though he is not quite kissing babies or walking a rope line, Mr. Biden has quietly continued chit-chatting and snapping photographs with supporters behind the scenes. Most of the encounters are not public, and they often happen far from the watchful eyes of reporters. Participants have been instructed not to take their own pictures of their interactions and to put away their cellphones before meeting Mr. Biden — a protocol that the campaign has instituted for sanitation reasons but that means there are few records of the interactions on personal social media accounts or otherwise, if there are any at all. (Ember, 10/29)

AP: As Virus Surges, Trump Rallies Keep Packing In Thousands
There are no crowds at Disneyland, still shut down by the coronavirus. Fewer fans attended the World Series this year than at any time in the past century. Big concerts are canceled. But it’s a different story in Trumpland. Thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters regularly cram together at campaign rallies around the country — masks optional and social distancing frowned upon. (Riechmann, 10/30)

The Hill: Two People Who Attended Trump's North Carolina Rally Test Positive For COVID-19 
Two people who attended President Trump's rally at an airport in Gaston County in North Carolina last week have tested positive for COVID-19, the county health department said Thursday. The Gaston County Department of Health and Human Services said the cases are not thought to be an indication of spread from the rally, but rather two independent cases among individuals who were in attendance. (Weixel, 10/29)

USA Today: Poll: Most Americans Disapprove Of Trump's Decision To Hold Massive Campaign Rallies During COVID-19 Pandemic
It's the most stark stylistic difference between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden: The incumbent has surrounded himself with thousands of supporters at dozens of rallies while the Democratic challenger is literally keeping his distance. But as Trump and Biden embrace strikingly different approaches to campaigning during the coronavirus pandemic, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll finds that nearly two-thirds of likely voters prefer Biden’s low-key strategy to Trump's raucous fanfare. (Fritze, Jansen and Bowling, 10/30)

The Atlantic: Why Many White Men Love Trump’s Coronavirus Response
Kurtis, a young accountant in McKinney, Texas, likes the thing that many people hate about Donald Trump: that the president has left the pandemic response almost entirely up to local officials. “He left it up to each state to make their own decision on how they wanted to proceed,” Kurtis told me recently. Most experts think the absence of a national strategy for tackling the coronavirus has been a disaster. But Kurtis argues that North Dakota, for example, shouldn’t have to follow the same rules as New York City. Kurtis voted for Trump in 2016, and he plans to do so again this year. (Khazan, 10/29)

AP: On Virus, Trump And Health Advisers Go Their Separate Ways
A multi-state coronavirus surge in the countdown to Election Day has exposed a clear split between President Donald Trump’s bullish embrace of a return to normalcy and urgent public warnings from the government’s top health officials. It’s the opposite of what usually happens in a public health crisis, because political leaders tend to repeat and amplify the recommendations of their health experts, not short-circuit them. “It’s extremely unusual for there to be simultaneous contrary messaging,” said John Auerbach, who heads the nonpartisan Trust for America’s Health. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/30)

AP: Trump Rule Says Health Plans Must Disclose Costs Up Front
Trying to pull back the veil on health care costs to encourage competition, the Trump administration on Thursday finalized a requirement for insurers to tell consumers up front the actual prices for common tests and procedures .A major health insurance industry group said the regulation would have the opposite effect, raising premiums. The late-innings policy play ahead of Election Day comes as President Donald Trump has been hammered on health care by Democratic challenger Joe Biden for the administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its unrelenting efforts to overturn “Obamacare,” the 2010 law providing coverage to more than 20 million people. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/29)

Stat: New Trump Rule Forces Insurers To Disclose Prices, Including For Drugs
The move represents a dramatic change to the health care marketplace, and likely will result in significant added transparency between competing industry groups and, to an extent, for patients. (Facher, 10/29)

Politico: ‘Helping The President’: HHS Official Sought To Rebrand Coronavirus Campaign 
The Trump appointee who steered a $300 million taxpayer-funded ad campaign to "defeat despair" about the coronavirus privately pitched a different theme last month: "Helping the President will Help the Country." That proposal, which came in a meeting between Trump administration officials and campaign contractors, is among documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee that further illustrate how political considerations shaped the massive campaign as officials rushed to get public service announcements on the air before Election Day. The committee shared the documents with POLITICO, which first detailed the campaign in a series of reports last month. (Diamond, 10/29)

The New York Times: Celebrity Vetting And ‘Helping The President’ To Defeat Coronavirus Despair 
A $265 million public campaign to “defeat despair” around the coronavirus was planned partly around the politically tinged theme that “helping the president will help the country,” according to documents released on Thursday by House investigators. Michael R. Caputo, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, and others involved envisioned a star-studded campaign to lift American spirits, but the lawmakers said they sought to exclude celebrities who had supported gay rights or same-sex marriage or who had publicly disparaged President Trump. The actor Zach Galifianakis, for instance, was apparently passed over because he had declined to have Mr. Trump on his talk show “Between Two Ferns.” (Weiland and LaFraniere, 10/29)

The Washington Post: As Pandemic Raged And Thousands Died, Government Regulators Cleared Most Nursing Homes Of Infection-Control Violations
Government inspectors deployed by [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] during the first six months of the crisis cleared nearly 8 in 10 nursing homes of any infection-control violations even as the deadliest pandemic to strike the United States in a century sickened and killed thousands, a Washington Post investigation found. Those cleared included homes with mounting coronavirus outbreaks before or during the inspections, as well as those that saw cases and deaths spiral upward after inspectors reported no violations had been found, in some cases multiple times. All told, homes that received a clean bill of health earlier this year had about 290,000 coronavirus cases and 43,000 deaths among residents and staff, state and federal data shows. (Cenziper, Jacobs and Mulcahy, 10/29)

The Washington Post: Donald Trump Jr. Says Covid-19 Deaths Are At ‘Almost Nothing’ On A Day When More Than 1,000 Americans Died 
Donald Trump Jr. declared on Thursday night that coronavirus deaths had dropped to “almost nothing,” questioning the seriousness of the pandemic on a record-breaking day for new cases in which more than 1,000 Americans died of the virus. “I went through the CDC data, because I kept hearing about new infections, but I was like, ‘Why aren’t they talking about this?’” Trump Jr. said. “Oh, because the number is almost nothing. Because we’ve gotten control of this thing, we understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this.“ (Bella, 10/30)

Politico: Pelosi Signals Covid Deal Possible Before January 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she’s still hoping to clinch a massive coronavirus relief deal with the White House before the end of the year, despite predicting a sweeping Joe Biden victory next week that could deliver Democrats control of Washington in January. “I feel very confident that Joe Biden will be elected president on Tuesday,” Pelosi told reporters at her last weekly press conference before the Nov. 3 election. “We want to have as clean a slate as possible going into January.” (Caygle and Ferris, 10/29)

AP: Pelosi, Trump Administration Trade Blame Over Virus Aid
The major players in Washington’s COVID-19 relief blame game lobbed familiar volleys on Thursday, marking time in the days before an election that promises to change the landscape for talks that have dragged on for months without producing results. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a scolding assessment, blaming Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for failing to produce answers to her demands for Democratic priorities as part of the approximately $2 trillion aid package. President Donald Trump again promised “a very big package as soon as the election is over” and faulted Pelosi for the pre-election standoff that has rattled markets and shows, at least for now, no signs of easing. (Taylor, 10/30)

The Washington Post: Pelosi And Mnuchin, Once Washington’s Odd Couple, Publicly Disavow Economic Relief Talks - And Each Other
The once-promising relationship between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin flamed out publicly Thursday just days before the election, as the two disavowed economic relief talks -- and each other. `It started before dawn when Pelosi (D-Calif.) dispatched a letter to Mnuchin detailing multiple outstanding issues in their on-again, off-again talks around a $2 trillion stimulus bill. Mnuchin was offended that the first he saw of the letter was in the media, when Politico’s morning newsletter Playbook published it shortly after 6 a.m. -- although Pelosi aides said they’d sent it to the Treasury secretary shortly after midnight. (Werner, 10/29)

Politico: Jobless Americans Face Debt Crunch Without More Federal Aid As Bills Come Due
A new phase of the economic crisis is looming for the winner of Tuesday’s presidential election: potentially massive defaults by jobless Americans on consumer loans as the chances for more federal relief this year diminish. (Guida, 10/29)

AP: Pelosi Wants 'Big' Health Care, Infrastructure Push In 2021
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is preparing a 2021 legislative agenda with two “great, big initiatives” — expanding health care access and rebuilding American infrastructure — that are longtime Democratic priorities aligned with Joe Biden’s platform and taking on fresh urgency in the COVID-19 crisis. Pelosi said the bills, from the party’s own top 10-list of legislation that has already passed the Democratic House this session of Congress, “fit comfortably” with what Biden is proposing in his “Build Back Better” platform. They are bills that “we will pass again in a new Congress,” she said. (Mascaro, 10/29)

The Washington Post: States Say They Lack Federal Funds To Distribute Coronavirus Vaccine As CDC Tells Them To Be Ready By Nov. 15 
State health officials are expressing frustration about a lack of federal financial support as they face orders to prepare to receive and distribute the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine by Nov. 15, even though one is not likely to be approved until later this year. The officials say they don’t have enough money to pay for the enormous and complicated undertaking. State officials have been planning in earnest in recent weeks to get shots into arms even though no one knows which vaccine will be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, what special storage and handling may be required and how many doses each state will receive. (Sun, 10/29)

USA Today: Black Americans Are The Most Hesitant To Get A COVID-19 Vaccine
Black Americans distrust the government so much they're not participating in large numbers in COVID-19 clinical trials, and many say they won't get a COVID-19 vaccine – at least not until many others get it. Although the first two large clinical trials of candidate vaccines have managed to include about 3,000 Black participants each, it hasn't been easy. And later trials might have even more trouble.  (Weintraub, 10/29)

The New York Times: Gilead’s Covid-19 Drug Is Mediocre. It Will Be A Blockbuster Anyway. 
The United States reached a milestone, of sorts, when last week the Food and Drug Administration approved the first treatment for Covid-19. The drug is called Veklury, although most people know it by its scientific name, remdesivir. ... But the F.D.A.’s decision to grant the drug full approval — which means the company can now begin broadly marketing it to doctors and patients — has puzzled several outside experts, who say that it may not deserve the agency’s stamp of approval because it is, at best, a mediocre treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. (Thomas, 10/29)

CNN: About 20% Of Grocery Store Workers Had Covid-19, And Most Didn't Have Symptoms, Study Found 
Grocery store work puts employees at serious risk for infection, a new study found, particularly those who have to interact with customers. These workers likely became a "significant transmission source" for Covid-19 without even knowing it because most in the study were asymptomatic. (Christensen, 10/29)

CIDRAP: COVID-19 Antibodies Last At Least 5 Months In Mild-To-Moderate Cases
A study yesterday in Science reports that the vast majority of patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 have stable levels of antibodies for at least 5 months. Of 30,082 COVID-19 patients in New York City's Mount Sinai Health System, 27,849 (92.6%) had moderate-to-high antibody titer levels (1:320 and up), which an assay test showed would cause at least 90% of the sera to exhibit neutralizing activity for the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Researchers conducted approximate 3-month and 5-month follow-ups with 121 people, where they saw a drop of 764 geometric mean titer to 690 and then to 404 at the last time of testing. (10/29)

The New York Times: Death Rates Have Dropped For Seriously Ill Covid Patients 
The coronavirus struck the United States earlier this year with devastating force. In April, it killed more than 10,000 people in New York City. By early May, nearly 50,000 nursing home residents and their caregivers across the country had died. But as the virus continued its rampage over the summer and fall, infecting nearly 8.5 million Americans, survival rates, even of seriously ill patients, appeared to be improving. At one New York hospital system where 30 percent of coronavirus patients died in March, the death rate had dropped to 3 percent by the end of June. (Rabin, 10/29)

AP: Utah Epidemiologist's Home Address Leaked Online For Protest
Anti-mask protesters stood in front of the home of Utah Epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn on Thursday evening after her personal information was leaked online. Dunn said it was “scary and wrong” that anyone would feel comfortable sharing her personal information and protesting outside her home. “It’s taken a really big toll on my family and myself,” Dunn said when asked about the protest during the governor’s weekly COVID-19 briefing. “I think it’s really unfortunate we live in a state where people feel that it is OK to harass civil servants.” (Eppolito, 10/30)

Stat: Biden Could Spell Trouble For Biotech, But CEOs Are Backing Him Anyway
From a policy perspective, Joe Biden should be biotech’s worst nightmare. He’s promised to increase the corporate tax rate, dramatically rein in money in politics, and allow Medicare to negotiate over the price of drugs. But that isn’t stopping major biotech CEOs and investors from personally backing Biden this election cycle. (Florko and Sheridan, 10/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Crispr Gene Editing Can Lead To Big Mistakes In Human Embryos 
Scientists using the Crispr gene-editing technology in human embryos to try to repair a gene that causes hereditary blindness found it made unintended and unwanted changes, frequently eliminating an entire chromosome or large sections of it. The study published Thursday in the journal Cell comes as the international scientific community continues to grapple with the potential use of Crispr for editing human embryos that would be intended for creating a pregnancy and birth. (Dockser Marcus, 10/29)

AP: Lab Tests Show Risks Of Using CRISPR Gene Editing On Embryos
A lab experiment aimed at fixing defective DNA in human embryos shows what can go wrong with this type of gene editing and why leading scientists say it’s too unsafe to try. In more than half of the cases, the editing caused unintended changes, such as loss of an entire chromosome or big chunks of it. Columbia University researchers describe their work Thursday in the journal Cell. They used CRISPR-cas9, the same chemical tool that a Chinese scientist used on embryos in 2018 to help make the world’s first gene-edited babies, which landed him in prison and drew international scorn. (Marchione, 10/29)

Stat: Training The Innate Immune System To Thwart Cancer Could Aid Therapy
Until now, immunotherapy has relied on revving up just one arm of the immune system against tumors. But scientists reported Thursday that in animal experiments, they trained a different arm to beat back cancer, pointing to a new potential treatment pathway. (Cooney, 10/29)

Reuters: AstraZeneca Sells Right To Heart Failure, Blood Pressure Drugs For $400 Million
British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc AZN.L said on Friday it would sell commercial rights for two of its heart failure and blood pressure medicines to German pharmaceutical company Cheplapharm Arzneimittel GmbH for $400 million. Cheplapharm, which already holds the European rights for Atacand and Atacand Plus since 2018, can sell now them in around 70 countries under the deal. (10/30)

NPR: Why Some Memories Seem Like Movies: 'Time Cells' Discovered In Human Brains
If you fall off a bike, you'll probably end up with a cinematic memory of the experience: the wind in your hair, the pebble on the road, then the pain. That's known as an episodic memory. And now researchers have identified cells in the human brain that make this sort of memory possible, a team reports in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The cells are called time cells, and they place a sort of time stamp on memories as they are being formed. That allows us to recall sequences of events or experiences in the right order. (Hamilton, 10/29)

The Washington Post: Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence Tests Positive For Coronavirus 
Clemson star Trevor Lawrence tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the school announced Thursday evening. The junior quarterback, a leading candidate to go No. 1 in next year’s NFL draft, is set to miss the top-ranked Tigers’ game Saturday against Boston College. “Trevor has authorized us this evening to announce that he has tested positive for the coronavirus and is now in isolation,” Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney said in a statement. “He is doing well with mild symptoms but will not be available for this week’s game against Boston College." (Bieler, 10/29)

AP: NASCAR Pit Crew Benched For Positive COVID Tests
The pit crew for NASCAR driver William Byron has been benched because of multiple positive tests for COVID-19. The regular Hendrick Motorsports crew for the No. 24 did not participate in Wednesday night’s race at Texas Motor Speedway and will also miss Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway. (10/29)

AP: JetBlue Is The Latest Airline To Retreat From Blocking Seats
The days of airlines blocking seats to make passengers feel safer about flying during the pandemic are coming closer to an end. JetBlue is the latest to indicate it is rethinking the issue. A spokesman for the carrier said Thursday that JetBlue will reduce the number of seats it blocks after Dec. 1 to accommodate families traveling together over the holidays. (Koenig, 10/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Testing Vs. Quarantines For International Flights: Airlines And U.S. Transportation Officials Spar With CDC
U.S. transportation officials and airlines are at odds with public-health officials over whether people who test negative for coronavirus before they travel should still have to quarantine when they arrive in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter. The rift has emerged as U.S. officials have also been looking to strike deals with their foreign counterparts to establish safe-travel corridors between major American and international cities. (Sider, Hackman and Tangel, 10/29)

The New York Times: 40 Dead, Now 40 Laid Off: Inside A Nursing Home In Crisis 
On a recent morning in Staten Island, the quiet at Clove Lakes Health Care and Rehabilitation Center was unsettling. Employees in sanitary gowns and face masks moved through a brightly decorated front area devoid of residents or chatter. Six months ago, the nursing home was one of the deadliest places in the city, with 40 residents dying in the course of a month. Now the workers who cared for them, sometimes holding their hands as they died, face a second crisis: The home recently laid off more than 40 employees, and others fear they will be next. (Leland, 10/29)

AP: Fatal Drug Overdose Deaths In Rhode Island Are On The Rise
The number of accidental drug overdose deaths in Rhode Island is on the rise, and the coronavirus pandemic could be partially to blame, state health officials say. There were 233 accidental drug overdose deaths in the first seven months of this year, compared to 185 during the same period last year, the state Department of Health said in a statement Wednesday. While all drug fatal overdoses increased 26%, opioid-involved fatal overdoses increased 33%. (10/29)

The Washington Post: Ice-Cream Store With Special-Needs Employees Overcomes Pandemic’s Business Obstacles
[Tom] Landis’s store became one of Texas’s top employers of special-needs workers, and his hope was that Howdy’s success would change the way companies thought about hiring people with special needs. But when the pandemic sparked an unemployment crisis, Landis saw his cause pushed to the back of the line. ... Landis was undeterred. He remains proud of five years in business with zero employee turnover and knows his employees with Down syndrome and autism have a place in the economy, in any industry.

The New York Times: Travis Roy, Who Inspired Millions After A Hockey Tragedy, Dies At 45 
Travis Roy, who suffered a paralyzing injury just 11 seconds into his first hockey game for Boston University in 1995 and, as a philanthropist and motivational speaker, was revered by the sports world as an example of determination and courage, died on Thursday in a hospital outside Burlington, Vt. He was 45. The cause was complications of surgery he needed after two and a half decades of being in a wheelchair, Keith VanOrden, his brother-in-law, said. (Paybarah, 10/30)