Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Why Do Some Believe Ivermectin Cures Covid?; Poverty Worsens Covid Outcome
NBC News: Ivermectin Myths Make Covid Vaccine And Test PSAs A Harder Sell
The rise of the ivermectin cult is one of the most nonsensical storylines — in a sea of nonsensical storylines — to emerge during the pandemic. Even now, as Covid begins to become a less dominant force in our lives, the ivermectin bunkum continues. There have been several recent large, well-done, clinical trials, including one published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, that definitively show, according to one of the study’s authors, “there’s really no sign of any benefit.” (Timothy Caulfield, 4/5)
The Washington Post: Hidden In Plain Sight: The Force Fueling America’s Covid Catastrophe
“Mapping the Intersections of Poverty, Race and Covid-19” presents the first comprehensive county-level picture of how poverty has shaped both the spread of covid-19 and its devastating impact on the United States. It shows that death rates in the highest-income group are half the death rates in the lowest-income group. And, when we focus on the covid waves after vaccines were made available, the disparities are even more striking: During last fall’s delta wave, death rates in the United States’ poorest counties were five times those in the nation’s wealthiest counties. (Rev. William J. Barber II and Rev. Liz Theoharis, 4/5)
The New York Times: Covid Proved That The C.D.C. Is Broken. Michael Lewis Has Ideas For How To Fix It
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the face of America’s Covid response and has been praised and vilified for his expertise. But who are all the other people who have worked behind the scenes at agencies like the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to guide America through the pandemic? This is a question Michael Lewis tackles in his book “The Premonition,” which was published in May 2021. He talks about how getting to know these public health experts gave him a completely different understanding of the country’s public health system — and the systemic challenges institutions like the C.D.C. face when pandemics and other crises strike. (Kara Swisher and Michael Lewis, 4/4)
Bloomberg: In China's Covid Fight, Respect For Seniors Backfires
China’s strict Covid-zero policy is getting costlier by day. As the infectious omicron variant spreads, the government is resorting to widespread lockdowns. Shanghai, a city of 25 million people, is at a standstill, and cities accounting for a quarter of China’s gross domestic product are under some form of restrictions on movement, estimates Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Shuli Ren, 4/5)
