Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Covid Shot Strategy Shifting To Now Include Primary Care Doctors
Politico: White House, State Officials Scramble To Get Docs’ Help With Lagging Vaccination Effort
The Biden administration and state health officials are rushing to overcome logistical hurdles to get more Covid-19 shots into doctors’ offices, believing that physicians who have largely been excluded from the inoculation effort so far could be key to boosting vaccination rates. For months, doctors have lobbied the White House and states to ship them doses, but officials instead focused their efforts on mass vaccination sites and other places that could quickly immunize hundreds or even thousands of people daily. With demand for shots now slipping faster than health experts expected, officials are now trying to steer doses to smaller, local sites like doctor offices that can make targeted efforts to reach people who are hesitant to get vaccinated or have faced other obstacles like lack of transportation. (Roubein and Goldberg, 5/9)
Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Vaccines In Primary Care Could Reduce Hesitancy
From offers for free beer to cash incentives, states are taking new approaches to encourage more people to vaccinate against COVID-19. The moves are a stark indicator of how demand for the vaccine has significantly decreased in recent weeks. While the incentives have generated attention, the interest could be short-lived. Healthcare stakeholders say a more substantial and sustainable approach would be to shift the focus of current vaccination strategies from mass vaccination sites to increasing access within primary and outpatient care. (Ross Johnson, 5/7)
In other vaccination news —
NPR: COVID Vaccines May Not Be Protective For Organ Transplant Recipients
For most people, COVID-19 vaccines promise a return to something akin to normal life. But for the hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. who have a transplanted organ, it's a different story. That includes Burns, who got a double lung transplant nearly five years ago. New research published this week in the medical journal JAMA suggests many transplant recipients may not get protection from vaccination, even after two doses. "Forty-six percent of transplant patients have had no evidence whatsoever that they had an antibody response to the vaccine" after two doses, Dr. Dorry Segev says. He's a transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins and one of the authors of the study, which looked at the antibody response after full vaccination with the Moderna and Pfizer shots in more than 650 transplant recipients, including Burns. (Godoy, 5/7)
The Atlantic: The J&J Rescue Mission Starts With A Choice
As vaccine supply starts to exceed demand in the U.S., researchers and health workers across the country are steeling themselves for what could be a rough rescue mission. A vaccine that’s thought of as “shitty,” experts told me, has little chance at being seen as truly equitable, and some of them worry that J&J’s product has already been snared in that trap. “I think it’s going to be hard to dig our way out,” Abraar Karan, an internal-medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told me. (Wu, 5/7)
Axios: Majority Back Vaccine Proof Requirements For Travel, Schools And Work
Most Americans support requiring proof they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 before traveling, going to school or going to work, a recent survey by Verywell found. The idea of vaccine "passports" emerged early as a potential tool to reopen economies. But they've turned into a political flashpoint in several Republican-led states — and raised plenty of logistical challenges. (Reed, 5/7)
AP: Vax Live Concert Raises $302 Million, Exceeds Vaccine Goal
The Global Citizen fundraising concert advocating the importance of vaccine equity has pulled in $302 million, exceeding the goal for the organization’s campaign. Global Citizen announced Saturday that the funds raised helped procure more than 26 million doses at the “Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World.” The organization said money was garnered through several philanthropic and corporate commitments. (5/9)
