Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Making Vaccine Distribution Equitable; Lessons Learned For The Next Pandemic
The Washington Post: With Poor Nations Only 5 Percent Vaccinated, Wealthy Nations Need To Look In The Mirror
What began as a hopeful attempt to vaccinate the poorest nations against the coronavirus has struggled mightily. In high-income and upper-middle-income nations, 73 percent of eligible people have gotten at least one shot, while only 41 percent have in lower-middle-income and a paltry 5 percent have in low-income countries. The United States and other wealthy nations should look in the mirror and strive to keep this from happening next time. (11/21)
Dallas Morning News: The Tiny Upside To COVID-19 Is That Humanity Is Ready For An Even Deadlier Epidemic
There is no consolation to the victims of COVID-19. Data means nothing to the grieving. Yet, if there is such thing as an upside to COVID, it is that humans are now armed for a pandemic. So we can take a deep breath and, at last, walk tall and with optimism. Mankind, emerging from 20 months of solitude and stress, is now set for the big one. The scientists did it right. It took tremors to prepare us for a quake to come. (Michael Badowski, 11/22)
CNN: Yogi Berra's Wisdom On Covid
"It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future." Different versions of that saying have been attributed to physicist Niels Bohr, movie producer Samuel Goldwyn and baseball great Yogi Berra, among others. Whoever first said it captured the plight we currently face. As Covid-19 has rampaged around the world for the past two years, the disease has defied simple forecasting. The latest mysteries: Why is it surging in highly vaccinated nations like Germany? Is the US in for another, and perhaps final, "winter wave" -- or will vaccinations and immunity from past infections limit a significant rise in cases? (Richard Galant, 11/21)
The Boston Globe: As Younger Children Get Vaccinated, It’s Time To Plan For Lifting The School Mask Mandate
Last month, over the resistance of some pockets of the state, Massachusetts Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley extended the state’s mask mandate for public schools to at least Jan. 15, 2022. It was a wise decision. COVID-19 vaccine approval for 5- to 11-year-olds was just around the corner, and the extension would give families time to get shots for their children. It would also give public health officials a chance to see, in the early part of next year, if a Christmas COVID spike was materializing. (11/22)
Bloomberg: Thanksgiving Covid Tips: Four Ways To Minimize Harm
Thanksgiving 2021 should be the reward for abstaining from 2020 celebrations until Covid-19 vaccines rolled out. Why not? The virus is still very much around, but times really have changed. Remember those 11th-hour pleas from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to cancel last year’s gatherings as a big fall surge was building? They were reasonable, then: Big holiday celebrations pose some of the worst risks of viral transmission, with lots of people mixing in badly ventilated houses for long periods of time. (Faye Flam, 11/20)
CNN: The Most Important Way Of Stopping Another Covid Surge
This past summer's Covid-19 surge, which burned through large swaths of the country, peaked in early September after reaching about 160,000 cases per day. The subsequent decline in cases was steep, but after two months, infections in the United States are rising again. We have tools to blunt the escalation of new cases, but we must act now with a sense of urgency -- and that means intensifying efforts to increase vaccination rates in all age groups, using a range of strategies including broad vaccine mandates such as the Biden Administration's requirement for businesses employing more than 100 workers to have employees get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. (Jonathan Reiner, 11/20)
