Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Various Ways The World Is Managing Covid; Clarifying Covid Confusion
Bloomberg: Covid Isn’t Going Away. So How Do We Live With It?
As we near the end of our second year living through a pandemic, countries are taking somewhat different approaches to handling the virus. In the U.K., disgraced Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced an end to all Plan B restrictions and a target date for ditching the legal requirement to isolate after contracting Covid-19. Meanwhile, Hong Kong has sentenced more than 2,000 hamsters — including beloved pets — to death after 11 hamsters in a single pet shop were found to have traces of the coronavirus. (Lara Williams, 1/23)
The New York Times: Omicron Is (Still) Confusing. Two Experts Help Untangle The Covid Chaos
With canceled plans, restaurants shuttering and talk of school shutdowns, the experience of the Covid pandemic can sometimes feel like two steps forward, one step back. And it’s not helped by changing (and sometimes confusing) guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the lack of key resources like at-home rapid tests, and the misinformation that abounds from Dr. Google. (Dr. Ashish Jha and Emily Oster, 1/24)
Stat: Done Right, Antigen Testing Could Reshape The Future Of Health Care
The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has renewed attention on Covid-19 antigen test kits. They are in high demand across the United States, and many Americans are having trouble getting them, prompting President Biden to announce that the White House will buy and ship 500 million rapid tests for free beginning in January. The untold backstory here is that many people are growing accustomed to simultaneously serving as doctor and patient. Before the pandemic struck, the idea that millions of people would administer tests on themselves at home to determine whether they had a life-threatening illness seemed difficult to imagine. Today, it’s part of daily life. (Yonatan Adiri, 1/24)
NBC News: As Covid Surges, Health Officials Must Remember That In-Person Postpartum Care Is Essential
With the omicron variant forcing hospitals to make difficult decisions once again about what care to provide, Covid-19 must not again defer postpartum care. Postpartum follow-up care is essential health care, and we should be expanding rather than constricting access. The experiences of women who gave birth during the early days of the pandemic make that clear. (Tova Walsh, 1/24)
Dallas Morning News: The Risk To Our Health Care System Goes Far Beyond COVID
The moral injury health care workers face is fundamentally structural. With omicron on track to shatter hospitalization records in Texas, some patients continue to deny that COVID-19 is real, even on their deathbeds. Health care workers undertake the grueling task of managing more and more patients with less and less support (18% quit during the pandemic, according to Morning Consult), while the cycles of death and disruption fail to cure people of this collective delusion. (Dona Kim Murphey, 1/23)
