Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Who Should Make The Decision On Booster Shots?; Vaccine Boards Could Deal With Exemptions
The Washington Post: The CDC Should Let Americans Decide For Themselves If Their Risk Warrants Getting A Booster Shot
Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Friday to authorize a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at least six months after the initial two doses to those 65 and older and others deemed high risk for severe covid-19. Though I wish the agency went further to allow boosters for all adults, I think the FDA reached a reasonable decision — one that I hope will be reaffirmed this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Leana S. Wen, 9/21)
Stat: Do We Need Vaccine Exemption Boards?
When I was a senior in college, the U.S. government tried to draft me — and thousands of other young men like me — into the armed forces. The war in Vietnam was being fought with an army of conscripts. I was exempt from the draft as a college student, but my graduation loomed and the government had instituted a lottery system to determine who would be drafted first. Each day of the year was assigned a random number according to your birthdate; those with the lowest numbers were called first. (Arthur L. Caplan, 9/22)
Bloomberg: Covid-19: Companies Should Hurry Up And Require Vaccines
It’s been less than two weeks since President Joe Biden said the federal government would throw its weight behind new Covid-19 vaccine and testing mandates for corporate America. And there are already signs of progress. Last week, Biden hosted some of the country’s top business leaders at the White House to discuss the push. Afterward, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and Raytheon Technologies Corp. said all their employees in the U.S. — about 250,000 and 130,000 workers, respectively — would have to get vaccinated. (Walgreens, like some of its corporate counterparts, is allowing workers to enroll in a testing program if they choose not to get a jab.) (Timothy L. O'Brien, 9/20)
The Atlantic: Pandemic Policy Is A Matter Of Democracy, Not Just Science
When President Joe Biden announced last month that the U.S. would offer a third vaccine dose to Americans who had already received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, he exposed a divide between an administration that has pledged to “follow the science” and many prominent health experts who disagreed with the decision. I am a physician and public-health professional specializing in infectious diseases, and I can think of many potential scientific, regulatory, logistical, and ethical objections to Biden’s announcement. (Jay Varma, 9/21)
CNN: What Vaccine Inequity Means If You're A Young Woman In Uganda
When Uganda ran out of vaccines shortly after the first doses arrived in March, it was another blow for girls and young women who have made extraordinary sacrifices as our country struggles to keep Covid-19 at bay. Schools and universities were again shuttered, leaving 15 million students at home or on the streets. Workers went unpaid and fear spread through the communities. The impacts were felt first and hardest by women, especially if they were young. (Agnes Cynthia Amoding, 9/20)
Los Angeles Times: What Would Jesus Do? He'd Get Vaccinated, That's What
One year ago, when my father was sliding toward the end, I had occasion to call 911 three times in the weeks before he died. During each fraught first-responder visit, my house filled with at least half a dozen brawny, uniformed paramedics and firefighters. We stood inches from one another as they took my father’s vital signs to determine why he had fallen or passed out or — on the last visit — whether he’d had a catastrophic stroke. This is the kind of vulnerable person that our vaccine-resistant firefighters are metaphorically spitting on when, in the name of personal or religious freedom, they refuse any of the widely available, safe and efficacious COVID-19 vaccines. (Robin Abcarian, 9/22)
Newsweek: The World Needs More Equity In COVID Vaccine Access
The decline in the COVID-19 fatality rate in vaccinated populations is evidence of the efficacy of vaccines. In the U.S., 65 percent of the adult population has received at least one dose and 54 percent is fully vaccinated. The average figure for the European Union's 27 member countries is 70 percent. In Africa, meanwhile, just 3 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. Africa rightly feels indignant about the unfair global distribution of vaccines. The vast majority of AstraZeneca, Janssen, Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines available in 2021 have been reserved by upper-middle- and high-income countries, leaving the African Union's Africa Vaccine Access Trust (AVAT) and the COVAX vaccine sharing scheme empty. (Githinji Gitahi and Charles Okeahalam, 9/22)
The New York Times: We Have Gone Badly Off Track In The Global Covid Fight
The giant steel vats used to make most of the world’s vaccines are not easy to come by. They’re highly specialized pieces of equipment; there are only so many of them to go around, and it’s expensive and time-consuming to make more. So when vaccine developers were figuring out how to produce billions of Covid-19 vaccine shots as quickly as possible, they decided to use an alternative: disposable bioreactor bags. At first, it was a win-win. The bags are quicker and cheaper to make than the tanks, and using them can shave precious hours off manufacturing times because they don’t have to be cleaned and sterilized after each use. (Jeneen Interlandi, 9/21)
