Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Covid Took A Heavy Toll On Nurses' Mental Health; Should You Get a Fourth Covid Shot?
Los Angeles Times: My Nurse Friend Was Pushed To The Brink During The Pandemic
My friend is a healthcare worker. My friend is the healthcare worker you would want at your bedside in a medical crisis. A registered nurse at a community health center, she has spent the last two years connecting underserved patients with therapeutics for COVID, driving unhoused COVID-positive patients to the infusion center for monoclonal antibody treatments to prevent worsening infection. (Dipti S. Barot, 4/2)
CNN: Why I'm Getting A Second Booster Shot
On Tuesday, the US Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to Americans 50 and older to receive an additional Covid-19 booster shot. In the coming days, weeks and months, as those eligible for this extra dose decide whether to roll up their sleeves, we can expect the public chatter to take all the varied tones we've heard over the past two years: indignation that our health authorities dare to suggest yet another vaccine dose, delight that another vaccine dose will boost waning immunity and everything in between. Though it's clear that the FDA is being tip-toe cautious, I love their decision. Let's face it: Every time we have thought the coast was clear on Covid, we have been wrong. (Kent Sepkowitz, 4/3)
Los Angeles Times: While We Line Up For A Fourth Shot, The World’s Poor Haven’t Gotten Their First
Go ahead — line up for your second booster shot, Americans. But as you do, take a moment to consider how lucky you are to live in a part of the world where the healthcare system, for all its flaws, puts protection from COVID-19 within reach. Because it’s not that way everywhere. (Nicholas Goldberg, 4/3)
Stat: Should Race Be Included In Allocation Algorithms For Covid Therapies?
When the Omicron surge threatened to overwhelm hospitals and the number of infections greatly exceeded the quantities of anti-Covid therapies that might help keep people out of the hospital, the need to prioritize individuals at the highest risk was clear. Yet controversy quickly arose around what attributes — including race — might be used to evaluate risk and prioritize access to scarce resources. “The left is now rationing life-saving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating, just denigrating, white people to determine who lives and who dies,” former President Trump declared at a rally in Arizona on Jan. 15. “If you’re white you have to go to the back of the line to get medical help!” (David M. Kent, Keren Ladin and O. Kenrik Duru, 4/4)
Kansas City Star: MO Gov. Mike Parson Says COVID Emergency He Downplayed Over
On Wednesday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declared an end to the COVID-19 emergency. “The COVID-19 crisis is over in the state of Missouri, and we are moving on,” the governor said in a prepared statement. Thursday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said her state would treat the disease as endemic, which means it’s no longer considered an existential threat. The rest of us must be more cautious. For the people diagnosed with COVID-19 Wednesday, or for those in the hospital battling the disease, it isn’t over. For victims of long COVID, it’s not over. (4/4)
Kansas City Star: KS Sens. Moran, Marshall, Help End COVID Pandemic Worldwide
On March 15, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions advanced the PREVENT Pandemics Act with strong bipartisan support, including from Kansas Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall. Despite the bill having important provisions for public health response and preparedness, it lacks one key factor: preventing the emergence of new COVID-19 variants to end the current pandemic. Bipartisan conversations around a new COVID-19 budget supplemental have begun. Still, they lack Republican support for global pandemic relief. Sens. Moran and Marshall’s failure to intervene and support new funding to vaccinate the world is not only utterly morally unacceptable and enormously ineffective, but it will also continue the COVID-19 crisis. (Pranav Savanur, 4/4)
