Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Covid Infections Ticking Up Before Childhood Vaccines Arrive
USA Today: Pediatric Vaccines May Come To The Rescue Just As Infections In U.S. Start To Rise
The timing [of covid shots for children] couldn't be better, considering the pace of new virus cases in the U.S. has risen 5.4% in the last week, a worrying sign suggesting the delta variant-driven wave hasn't ended. There were 523,194 new cases nationwide in the week ending Monday, after dropping to a recent low point of 495,194 the previous week, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. At the current pace, 52 new infections are recorded every minute. (Miller, Ortiz and Schnell, 11/2)
San Francisco Chronicle: Entire Bay Area Is Back In CDC's Orange And Red Tiers For COVID Spread
The entire Bay Area has returned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s orange “substantial” and red “high” categories of coronavirus transmission — a step backward for some counties, like Marin and San Francisco, where transmission was previously classified as yellow, or “moderate.” This comes after Marin County lifted its indoor mask mandate on Monday after reaching key COVID-19 benchmarks agreed upon by eight Bay Area counties. However, the mandate is unlikely to be immediately reinstated; the county’s health officer Matt Willis said last week that an increase in cases alone will not determine whether masks come back; rather he will watch hospitalization numbers, which as of Friday were at a four-month low. (Hwang, 11/2)
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Clark County Returns To ‘High’ Risk Of COVID-19 Transmission
Clark County returned to the “high” risk of COVID-19 transmission on Tuesday, a day after it dropped into the “substantial” category on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s classification system. Updated figures posted on the CDC’s COVID data tracker website showed the county’s seven-day moving average of new cases of the disease at 119.91 per 100,000 residents, a substantial jump from the 92.69 cases per 100,000 reported on Monday. A rating of 100 cases per 100,000 individuals or higher places a county in the high-transmission risk category, while 50 through 99.99 per 100,000 is considered a substantial risk under the CDC framework. (Brunker, 11/2)
In other news about the spread of the coronavirus —
Charleston Gazette Mail: Report: Inspection Of Three Jails Indicates Officials Using Practices That "Needlessly Expose" Inmates To COVID-19
Inmates in three West Virginia jails have reported that they aren’t being medically isolated and some have stopped reporting symptoms of COVID-19 to staff while being crowded into booking and suicide-watch pens, according to a report filed in a federal court case last month. Dr. Homer Venters said he witnessed people sleeping on cement floors “inches from each other” in booking pens, while nearby jail cells were unused in three jails he inspected in September, part of an attempt to get an injunction to compel corrections officials to update, and more strictly adhere to, COVID-19 policies. (Pierson, 11/2)
AP: Idaho's COVID Numbers Drop Slightly, Crisis Standards Remain
The rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations and newly confirmed coronavirus cases has been dropping in Idaho, but the numbers are still high enough to leave hospitals overtaxed, Idaho Division of Public Health Administrator Elke Shaw-Tulloch said Tuesday. That means hospitals will remain under a “crisis standards of care” designation for now, giving them the ability to ration health care as needed to deal with high numbers of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units and hospital beds. (Boone, 11/2)
Mississippi Clarion Ledger: New COVID-19 Cases In Mississippi Schools Decrease
Of 699 schools reporting from 73 of Mississippi's 82 counties, there were 314 new COVID-19 cases in Mississippi students statewide from Oct. 25-29, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health's report Tuesday. Fifty-seven teachers and staff tested positive for the virus. Over 1,500 students, staff and teachers were quarantined due to possible exposure to COVID-19. Since the beginning of the school year, more than 23,000 Mississippi students have tested positive for the coronavirus and there have been over 1,000 outbreaks at schools. As defined by the state health department, an outbreak occurs in a school setting where three or more people are diagnosed with the virus in the same group within a 14-day period. (Haselhorst, 11/2)
Dallas Morning News: ‘We Need Trump People And Biden People’ To Get Vaxxed, Says Former Surgeon General
Dr. Jerome Adams, the U.S. surgeon general during the Trump administration, went to an Indianapolis Colts football game on Sunday for the first time in four years. He posted several images from the event, including a Colts touchdown celebration. And he took a selfie wearing a KN-95 face mask, which he said is shown to be more effective in stopping the delta variant of the coronavirus. Although Adams is vaccinated, it’s still valuable to wear a mask at big gatherings, he said. He often compares it to carrying an umbrella even though you may be wearing a raincoat. It’s another layer of protection. (Schnurman, 11/2)
NBC News: The New Faces Of Covid Deaths
Younger, Southern, rural and white.Those are increasingly the kinds of people who are dying of Covid-19, as the demographics of those hit hardest by the coronavirus have shifted since the pandemic first hit the United States. The country’s most recent, devastating Covid wave, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant, showed the strength of the virus even in the face of mounting vaccinations, with more than 100,000 deaths reported in the past three months. Many of those deaths were reported in places — and in populations — that had been largely spared the worst effects of the disease until now. (Chow, Murphy, Wu and Dans, 11/2)
