Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Cases Of Hospital-Acquired Sepsis Surged In California During Pandemic
Los Angeles Times: While COVID Raged, Another Deadly Threat Was On The Rise
As COVID-19 began to rip through California, hospitals were deluged with sickened patients. Medical staff struggled to manage the onslaught. Amid the new threat of the coronavirus, an old one was also quietly on the rise: More people have suffered severe sepsis in California hospitals in recent years — including a troubling surge in patients who got sepsis inside the hospital itself, state data show. (Alpert Reyes, 2/5)
More on the spread of covid —
CIDRAP: COVID And Flu Markers Continue Downward Trends
After a modest holiday bump for COVID-19 and an early surge for flu, levels of both illnesses continue to fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in separate reports. Proportions of the more transmissible Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant continue to rise, and the CDC estimates that it now makes up 66.4% of new cases, up from about 60% the previous week. The proportion of XBB.1.5 is rising in all parts of the country but is dominant across the eastern seaboard and in the south. All other Omicron lineages are declining, including CH.1, which appears to be partly fueling upward COVID-19 levels in the United Kingdom. (Schnirring, 2/3)
ABC News: 'I Felt Powerless': Black Americans Suffering From Long COVID Say They Have Trouble Accessing Care
Throughout the pandemic, Black Americans have made up a disproportionate share of cases, hospitalizations and deaths compared to any other racial or ethnic group. Now, doctors and advocates are warning the Black community is facing another barrier: access to long COVID care. (Kekatos, 2/6)
In updates on the covid vaccine rollout —
AP: California Won't Require COVID Vaccine To Attend Schools
Children in California won’t have to get the coronavirus vaccine to attend schools, state public health officials confirmed Friday, ending one of the last major restrictions of the pandemic in the nation’s most populous state. Gov. Gavin Newsom first announced the policy in 2021, saying it would eventually apply to all of California’s 6.7 million public and private schoolchildren. (Beam, 2/3)
Reuters: U.S. House Plans Vote To End Foreign Air Traveler COVID Vaccine Mandate
The U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote next week on a bill that would end a requirement that most foreign air travelers be vaccinated against COVID-19, Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on Friday. The Biden administration in June dropped its requirement that people arriving in the country by air must test negative for COVID-19 but has not lifted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccination requirements. (Shepardson, 2/3)
San Francisco Chronicle: U.S. Could Run Out Of Free Vaccines And Treatments By Summer, White House Says
The Biden administration has repeatedly said the federal government would continue to make vaccines and treatments available to Americans at no cost once the COVID-19 public health emergency expires on May 11 — at least while the current supply lasts. But those supplies could run out as early as this summer, the White House’s COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told Dr. Bob Wachter in a webinar hosted by UCSF. (Vaziri, 2/3)
AP: 'Died Suddenly' Posts Twist Tragedies To Push Vaccine Lies
Results from 6-year-old Anastasia Weaver’s autopsy may take weeks. But online anti-vaccine activists needed only hours after her funeral this week to baselessly blame the COVID-19 vaccine. A prolific Twitter account posted Anastasia’s name and smiling dance portrait in a tweet with a syringe emoji. A Facebook user messaged her mother, Jessica Day-Weaver, to call her a “murderer” for having her child vaccinated. In reality, the Ohio kindergartner had experienced lifelong health problems since her premature birth, including epilepsy, asthma and frequent hospitalizations with respiratory viruses. ... But those facts didn’t matter online, where Anastasia was swiftly added to a growing list of hundreds of children, teens, athletes and celebrities whose unexpected deaths and injuries have been incorrectly blamed on COVID-19 shots. Using the hashtag #diedsuddenly, online conspiracy theorists have flooded social media with news reports, obituaries and GoFundMe pages in recent months, leaving grieving families to wrestle with the lies. (Swenson and Fichera, 2/4)
On flu and RSV —
The Denver Post: “Huge Jump” In Pregnant Women Hospitalized With Flu May Be Due To Lagging Vaccinations
Pregnant women may be at higher risk from the flu this season, but it appears to have more to do with falling vaccination rates than with the virus itself. Dr. Michelle Barron, senior director of infection prevention and control at UCHealth, said about half of the system’s female patients between the ages of 18 and 44 have been pregnant so far this year. During the 2019-2020 flu season — the last normal one before the pandemic — only about 17% were, which is more typical, she said. (Wingerter, 2/3)
KHN: A Technicality Could Keep RSV Shots From Kids In Need
After more than five decades of trying, the drug industry is on the verge of providing effective immunizations against the respiratory syncytial virus, which has put an estimated 90,000 U.S. infants and small children in the hospital since the start of October. But only one of the shots is designed to be given to babies, and a glitch in congressional language may make it difficult to allow children from low-income families to get it as readily as the well-insured. (Allen, 2/6)
