Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Exposed To Covid? FDA Now Advises 3, Not 2, Home Tests
AP: FDA: Take 3 Home Tests If Exposed To COVID To Boost Accuracy
If you were exposed to COVID-19, take three home tests instead of two to make sure you’re not infected, according to new U.S. recommendations released Thursday. Previously, the Food and Drug Administration had advised taking two rapid antigen tests over two or three days to rule out infection. But the agency says new studies suggest that protocol can miss too many infections, and could result in people spreading the coronavirus to others, especially if they don’t develop symptoms. (Perrone, 8/11)
More on the spread of covid —
Becker's Hospital Review: Reinfection With BA.2.75 Unlikely After Bout With BA.5, Experts Say
Countries in the middle or just past the peak of a surge driven by the BA.5 omicron subvariant, such as the U.S., likely won't experience a subsequent wave from BA.2.75, another omicron relative, some experts predict. "We're coming to a point where these variants are sort of competing with each other and they're almost equivalent," Dr. Shahid Jameel, a virologist at the University of Oxford in the U.K., told Nature in an Aug. 10 report. (Carbajal, 8/11)
NBC Bay Area: Pharmacists Can Directly Prescribe Paxlovid, But There’s A Catch
The antiviral drug that treats COVID-19, Paxlovid, must be taken within five days after symptoms begin. To expand quick access to the medication, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revised the Emergency Use Authorization for Paxlovid in July to authorize state-licensed pharmacists to directly prescribe it. “We were seeing some really low uptake and even within the pharmacy we were seeing just the medication sit on shelves because prescriptions weren't coming in,” said Richard Dang, president of the California Pharmacists Association. (Nguyen and Carroll, 8/10)
WUSF Public Media: Florida Is Leading 23 States Against Mask Requirements On Planes, Other Transportation
State Attorney General Ashley Moody and other Republican politicians from across the country urged an appeals court this week to uphold a Florida federal judge’s ruling that blocked a mask requirement on airplanes and in other transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Saunders, 8/11)
On the covid vaccine rollout —
The Baltimore Sun: Emergent Dumped More Than A Half Billion Doses Of COVID Vaccines, Congressional Panel Finds
The tally of wasted COVID-19 vaccine continues to climb at the troubled Emergent BioSolutions plant in East Baltimore and now exceeds a half-billion doses, according to findings a congressional panel released Thursday on the manufacturer once central to the U.S. coronavirus pandemic response. (Cohn, 8/11)
AP: J&J COVID Vaccine Factory Forced To Trash Even More Doses
About 135 million more doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine from a troubled Baltimore factory will have to be destroyed due to quality problems, Congressional panel leaders said Thursday. The announcement follows a report in May that detailed how more than 400 million vaccine doses made at an Emergent BioSolutions plant had to be trashed. The doses more recently slated for destruction were made between August 2021 and February, the House members said. (8/11)
ABC News: Only Half Of Eligible Americans Have Gotten Their First COVID Booster
Although over 61 million people, over the age of 50, are eligible to receive their second COVID-19 booster shot, just a third have actually done so, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Similarly, less than half of Americans, over the age of 5, who are eligible to receive their first booster have received their supplemental shot. (Mitropoulos, 8/12)
