Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Other Countries' Covid Surges Could Teach Us About Winter; Insurers Should Pay For Powering Home Medical Gear
San Francisco Chronicle: A Winter COVID Surge Is Coming. How Other Countries Can Teach The Bay Area To Prepare
The Bay Area’s recent wave of COVID infections, driven by the delta variant, is well into its decline. Cases are down by over 75% since their peak in early August, hospitalizations have waned, and we’re entering the “moderate” transmission category, where the CDC no longer recommends universal indoor masking. All of this is great news. Yet, having gone through a summer in which many of us thought COVID wouldn’t surge again, followed by another surge in cases anyway, people are wondering what comes next. Now is a good time to look back at what we learned from delta and to study best practices from around the world in both preventing future hospitalizations and deaths, and getting our society back to normal. (Tracy Beth Hoeg and Scott Balsitis, 10/23)
Stat: Insurers Should Cover Electricity Costs For Home Medical Equipment
Some Americans working from home during the pandemic noticed sizable increases in their monthly electric bills from increased energy use. But for patients like ours with advanced lung disease — and those living with other chronic conditions — who depend on medical equipment, large electric bills represent a monthly cost to simply stay alive. (Christopher M. Worsham and Peter A. Kahn, 10/19)
Dallas Morning News: Positive Report About D-FW Mental Health Is Encouraging But Not The End Of The Issue
There was good news about mental health during the pandemic last week: a survey of U.S. adults with surprisingly positive results. According to Barna Research, 74% of Americans say the pandemic has not adversely affected their mental health. And even better news: Respondents in Dallas-Fort Worth say they are faring better than the rest of the nation in almost every category on the survey. (10/25)
The Atlantic: My Daily Life Is A Game Of Roulette
A pair of realities: This week, Colin Powell, the former secretary of state whose service under President George W. Bush is most prominently associated with the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, died at 84 due to complications from COVID-19, despite having been fully vaccinated. And: There are conditions under which any generally healthy person would most likely have a seizure. These facts, as strange as they seem in juxtaposition, are related—neither describes events at all out of the ordinary, and yet both arrive as a kind of shock, with the sense that something must be amiss. They share this: They’re matters of probability, and probability is a fact of life in medicine, and a chaos agent in discourse. (Elizabeth Bruenig, 10/21)
Chicago Tribune: Op-Ed: Who Will Answer The Call From First Responders Who Always Answer The Call?
Make no mistake, Chicago’s first responders and many other essential workers across our country are under siege. Hyperbole? I assure you it is not. And some of the individuals leading this attack are the ones who routinely pay lip service to working families in their political campaigns and hold themselves out as champions of first responders’ mental health and collective bargaining rights. (Robert Tebbens, 10/21)
Stat: Counterfeit Vaccines And Medicines Spell Trouble For Controlling Covid-19
Anotable rallying cry that emerged early during the Covid-19 pandemic was “flatten the curve.” It reflected the reality that hospitals lacked the resources, knowledge, and therapies to accommodate everyone in need. Nearly 18 months later, the situation around the globe is different. Clinicians have a better understanding of how to prevent Covid-19, and how treat people with severe cases of it. Vaccines have brought much-needed relief. But the picture is now being complicated by the emergence of substandard and falsified Covid-19 vaccines and medical products, which are becoming increasingly pervasive. (Muhammad H. Zaman, Ravi Sundaram and Walter Gabriel , 10/25)
The Boston Globe: Children’s Vaccines Are Coming. So Is An Even Fiercer Debate About Mandates
The news Friday that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective in children raises hopes that by Christmas, kids as young as 5 could be receiving their shots and the pandemic could be another big step closer to the end. Unfortunately, it also sets the stage for even more emotional and divisive battles ahead over whether to make those shots mandatory for children. Much depends on the course of the pandemic as well as the regulatory process. But if and when federal regulators fully approve COVID shots for children, it would make sense to add them to the list of mandatory vaccinations children must receive to attend school safely. (10/25)
