Viewpoints: What’s With Another Slow White House Response To COVID?; Lessons On Mutating Viruses, Vaccines

The Washington Post: A Fall Coronavirus Disaster Is Already Here. We Can’t Wait Until Inauguration Day To Act.
The last days have brought some good news in the United States’ fight against the coronavirus. President-elect Joe Biden is engaging experts likely to produce improved plans. Pfizer announced evidence that its vaccine is effective. The Trump administration may soon authorize emergency use of this vaccine. These achievements will be too late. (Richard Danzig, James Lawler and Thomas P. Bossert, 11/11)

USA Today: For COVID-19, Vaccine Offers Light At The End Of A Dark Winter
The next few months in the United States are going to be excruciating: Thousands of Americans will die each week from COVID-19, even as a vaccine begins to get rolled out. During this agonizing period, says Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s public health school, “We all need to keep two seemingly contradictory facts in mind: 1. We are entering the hardest days of the pandemic. The next two months will see a lot of infections and deaths. 2. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Today, that light got a bit brighter.” Jha was referring to Monday's report that a new vaccine, being developed by Pfizer Inc. and the German firm BioNTech, is showing a better than expected 90% success rate for preventing COVID-19. (11/11)

Bloomberg: Covid-19 Mutations In Denmark’s Mink Is Danger Sign For Vaccines
The fight against Covid-19 got a big boost this week, with the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine showing much better-than-expected effectiveness in preventing disease in its first readout and Eli Lilly & Co.’s therapeutic antibody getting an Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Other vaccines and treatments are likely to follow with similarly positive data. So far so good. But exactly how jubilant should we be? Answering this question depends in large measure on how quickly the virus mutates and finds a way to bypass vaccines and other approved therapies. How quickly it mutates, in turn, depends on our ability to slow the spread through responsible mitigation measures. (Sam Fazeli, 11/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Case For Mask Mandate Rests On Bad Data
The top scientific journal Nature Medicine published a study on Oct. 23 with an astounding claim: By simply wearing masks at higher rates, Americans could prevent as many as 130,000 Covid-19 fatalities by the end of February 2021. Produced by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics Evaluation, or IHME, the study garnered immediate acclaim. Unfortunately, the IHME modelers’ findings contained an error that even minimal scrutiny should have caught. The projected number of lives saved, and the implied case for a mask mandate, are based on a faulty statistic. (Phillip W. Magness, 11/11)

NBC News: Trump's Covid Misinformation Is Now Mainstream. And Winter Is Coming.
Disinformation and misinformation are now the biggest factors in our pandemic response. For a physician and a public health worker like me, one of the most heartbreaking figures to circulate after last week's election was the poll that said almost half of U.S. voters think the pandemic is somewhat or mostly under control. The United States has officially entered what is likely to be the worst surge of Covid-19 it has seen to date. (Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, 11/11)

Stat: Developmental Disorders Heighten The Risk Of Dying From Covid-19 
Some underlying medical conditions put Covid-19 patients at higher risk of severe outcomes, including death. But much remains unknown about exactly which conditions are involved and how much they increase risk. (Robin Gelburd, 11/11)

Los Angeles Times: COVID-19 Lesson: Diseases Can Be Ideal Biological Weapons
Here’s what leaders of nations considering biological weapons could be learning. Weaponizing disease could allow them to infiltrate military assets and infect the highest-level leaders of powerful nations. They could cripple economies in a matter of months. They could drive significant disinformation and confusion if countries have to worry that every new outbreak could be an intentional attack. Unfortunately, the current pandemic shows that easily transmissible diseases may be ideal biological weapons if the aim is to infect as many people as possible, even if that approach endangers the aggressors’ own population. (Christine Parthemore and Andy Weber, 11/12)

The New York Times: New York City Must Hit Pause On Indoor Dining
New York residents and officials, it’s time to face some cold, hard facts. The city is on the cusp of its second wave of the coronavirus. As such, restrictions need to be brought back, as economically and socially painful as they might be. Indoor dining at city restaurants should end. Gyms and some other nonessential businesses ought to be closed again. Religious leaders should tell their congregants to stay home, for safety’s sake, until the current surge is brought to heel. Holiday plans must be limited. Companies should again tell their staffs to work from home whenever possible. All New Yorkers need to recommit to wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding unnecessary exposure risks whenever possible. Taking these steps will help keep children in the city’s classrooms, which should be a priority. (11/11)

New York Post: Cuomo’s New COVID Rules Will $Queeze New York Dry
Here we go again: On Wednesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo slapped new restrictions on businesses and social gatherings amid an uptick in COVID cases. Is a full-blown lockdown far off? Private gatherings will now be limited to 10 people, and restaurants, bars and gyms must close by 10 p.m. Tougher measures may be around the corner, Cuomo warned. ...The moves have little to do with science — or common sense: Science shows kids aren’t at high risk of catching or spreading COVID. Plus, the virus is getting less deadly, and a vaccine is on the horizon. Of course, Cuomo wants to block New Yorkers from getting that vaccine until Joe Biden takes office. (11/11)

USA Today: As California Wildfires Raged, Incarcerated Exploited For Labor
While everyone knows California fought more than 600 fires this season, very few people are aware that each year, thousands of incarcerated men, women and teenagers join one of 192 inmate fire crews. They earn as little as $2.90 a day, work in brutal 24-hour shifts, battle out-of-control blazes and risk their lives in unbelievably dangerous conditions, just to get a shot at having their criminal records erased. And they do all of this after just two weeks of training. (Jared A. Brock, 11/11)

Stat: Philanthropy Should Help Fund Exceptional Young Scientists 
Even as governments around the world have responded to the Covid-19 crisis by making unprecedented commitments of billions of dollars toward vaccine and therapeutic development and trillions more for economic stimulus, this pandemic may be stifling our ability to respond to the next ones that are certain to come. Below the radar are large-scale hiring freezes, job cuts, and uncertainty for younger researchers and faculty members who represent the future of science. (Gary Michelson and Wayne C. Koff, 11/12)