Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Time To Prioritize Reopening Schools (Not Bars), Doing Medical Research (Treatments, Vaccines, Please)
The New York Times: Focus On Opening Schools, Not Bars
The way states lifted social distancing restrictions imposed to fight the coronavirus sadly demonstrates our priorities. Officials let bars, restaurants and gyms open, despite warnings from public health experts that these environments pose the greatest risk for spreading the disease. Yet political leaders seem to have paid scant attention to safely reopening schools. The consequences of those backward priorities — Covid-19 rampaging through states that reopened quickly — makes it even more vital that we extensively prepare to reopen classrooms as safely as possible this fall. (Jennifer B. Nuzzo and Joshua M. Sharfstein, 7/1)
Modern Healthcare: Prioritize Medical Research In Wake Of COVID-19
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that medical progress isn't important; it's profoundly important. Lives are at stake. Quality of life is at stake. Productivity is at stake. Economic and fiscal security is at stake. The impact of medical progress on achieving these imperatives does not apply only to this pandemic. (Mary Woolley and Eleanor Dehoney, 6/30)
The Wall Street Journal: An Old Vaccine May Help Against Coronavirus
The Global Virus Network is a collaboration among virology researchers and social scientists to improve pandemic preparedness and response. We know that life must go on while work on a Covid-19 vaccine continues. We believe that as people return to work, their risk of infection can be minimized by applying an old vaccine known to be a potent stimulus of the innate immune system. Whether there will be a Covid-specific vaccine is still unclear. The sequence of the Covid-19 viral genome, published in January by Chinese scientists, can identify proteins to be targeted by a vaccine. But verifying its safety and measuring the duration of its effectiveness, if any, will take at least another year. And what if the virus develops and mutates, as it is already doing? Vaccines against the common flu have been less than 50% reliable against new mutations in recent years. An innate-immunity vaccine can provide nonspecific protection against a range of viruses and become effective in hours, not weeks. (Robert C. Gallo and Daniel J. Arbes, 6/30)
WBUR: What We Can Learn From The AIDS Crisis In The Race For A COVID-19 Vaccine
The U.S. has a multi-billion dollar initiative underway to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and its accompanying 300 million doses, before the end of 2020. The initiative is called “Operation Warp Speed” and it’s placing big bets in the form of investments. Thus far it has identified, as finalists, five companies that are developing vaccines, including four U.S.-based companies and an alliance between Oxford University and AstraZeneca, a UK-based pharma company. (Michael Caron McGuill, 6/30)
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Congress Must Take Action To Keep Medicaid Healthy As States Reopen
COVID-19 has devastated communities across Pennsylvania, either through illness or loss of livelihood. These economic conditions created by the pandemic have brought on a tremendous budget shortfall in the commonwealth; in May, revenues were nearly $440 million below estimates, pushing Pennsylvania’s current revenue shortfall to $2.6 billion. These shortfalls have the potential to further harm families and communities if the federal government does not take action to shore up the programs that keep Pennsylvanians healthy.Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) have formed the backbone of our public health response to the pandemic. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, using mid-range estimates, more than 1.64 million Pennsylvanians are expected to lose employer-sponsored health insurance because of COVID-19. The same study estimated that 864,000 people will become eligible for Medicaid as a result. (Antoinette Kraus, 6/30)
Stat: Hospitals Must Treat Infection Control As A Priority, Not A Profit Center
For years, hospitals penny-pinching on infection control has been an open secret. Whether Covid-19 will puncture that pre-pandemic complacency is open question. But it’s long past time for every hospital to treat infection control as a priority, not as a profit center. (Michael L. Millenson, 7/1)
San Francisco Chronicle: Tragedy Of COVID-19 In Prisons Shows Need For Decarceration
As countless Americans take to the streets in defense of Black lives and call for the transformation of policing, we must not neglect the threat that COVID-19 continues to present and the urgent need for immediate decarceration. Nine of the nation’s 10 largest outbreak hotspots are jails and prisons. Because of deep-seated racial inequities in the justice system, failure to curb the virus’ spread through corrections facilities will lead to countless and needless deaths, disproportionately of people of color — once again demonstrating the lack of value placed on their lives. (Scott Colom and Miriam Aroni Krinsky, 7/1)
Stat: Regeneron Wasn't Paying 'Kickbacks.' It Was Paying Medicare
Last Wednesday, the Department of Justice filed suit against Regeneron for paying ” tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks” through a foundation that helps patients cover copays associated with Eylea, its macular degeneration drug. Whether or not Regeneron broke the law, the suit illuminates the stupidity, cruelty, and counterproductivity of Medicare’s insistence that patients feel financial pain in order to receive medically necessary therapies. (Peter Kolchinsky, 6/30)
Stat: Structural Racism Is Why I'm Leaving Organized Psychiatry
The killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many others are leading many Americans to reflect on structural racism in society and resolve to do things differently. They have led me to make the difficult decision to end my membership with organized psychiatry, specifically the American Psychiatric Association. (Ruth S. Shim, 7/1)
The Hill: The Courts Will Not Save Abortion Access
A Supreme Court decision in June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo requiring Louisiana abortion providers to have admitting privileges would have been devastating. Upholding the Louisiana law would have put an enormous undue burden on abortion providers, it would have emboldened other states to follow suit with laws meant to shut down abortion clinics, and it would have made life even more difficult for people of color who already face countless hurdles to getting any reproductive care, including abortion. But make no mistake: although the court struck down the Louisiana law, it is not going to save abortion access, especially for people of color. (Ann Marie Benitez, 6/30)
