First Edition: April 13, 2022

KHN: Who Doesn’t Text In 2022? Most State Medicaid Programs 
West Virginia will use the U.S. Postal Service and an online account this summer to connect with Medicaid enrollees about the expected end of the covid public health emergency, which will put many recipients at risk of losing their coverage. What West Virginia won’t do is use a form of communication that’s ubiquitous worldwide: text messaging. “West Virginia isn’t set up to text its members,” Allison Adler, the state’s Medicaid spokesperson, wrote to KHN in an email. (Galewitz, 4/13)

KHN: Biden Administration Announces Boost For Rural Health Care In Midterm Election Push
As the midterm election season ramps up, the Biden administration wants rural Americans to know it’ll be spending a lot of money to improve health care in rural areas. It has tasked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack with delivering the message that the covid-19 pandemic exposed long-standing problems with health care infrastructure in remote parts of the country and pushed many rural health providers to the brink. (Houghton, 4/13)

KHN: When Symptoms Linger For Weeks, Is It Long Covid? 
Many Americans are discovering that recovering from covid-19 may take weeks or even months longer than expected, leaving them with lingering symptoms like intense fatigue or a racing pulse. But does that mean they have what’s known as long covid? Though such cases may not always amount to debilitating long covid, which can leave people bedridden or unable to perform daily functions, it is common to take weeks to fully recover. (Feldman, 4/13)

KHN: Private Equity Ownership Of Nursing Homes Triggers Capitol Hill Questions — And A GAO Probe
In his State of the Union address last month, President Joe Biden focused attention on how private equity ownership of nursing homes can affect residents’ health. “As Wall Street firms take over more nursing homes, quality in those homes has gone down and costs have gone up. That ends on my watch,” Biden said. Those comments dovetail with growing interest from Congress. (Knight, 4/13)

KHN: Babies Die As Congenital Syphilis Continues A Decade-Long Surge Across The US 
For a decade, the number of babies born with syphilis in the U.S. has surged, undeterred. Data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows just how dire the outbreak has become. In 2012, 332 babies were born infected with the disease. In 2021, that number had climbed nearly sevenfold, to at least 2,268, according to preliminary estimates. And 166 of those babies died. (Barry-Jester, 4/12)

AP: Oklahoma Governor Signs Bill To Make Abortion Illegal 
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights. The bill, which takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns next month, makes an exception only for an abortion performed to save the life of the mother. Abortion rights advocates say the bill signed by the GOP governor is certain to face a legal challenge. (Murphy, 4/12)

AP: Judge Upholds Florida's 24-Hour Wait Period For Abortion 
Women will have to wait 24 hours before getting an abortion under a ruling by a Florida judge in a nearly seven-year battle over the waiting period. Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey in Tallahassee tossed out a lawsuit filed on behalf of a Gainesville women’s clinic, saying other medical procedures have similar waiting periods and other important decisions like getting married, getting divorced and buying a gun have longer waiting periods. (Farrington, 4/12)

Bloomberg: Yelp Joins Citi, Apple to Offer Workers Abortion Travel Benefits
In the wake of increasingly restrictive abortion laws sweeping the U.S., Yelp Inc. is the latest company to cover travel costs for employees who need to leave their home states to get reproductive care. The company has nearly 4,000 workers in the U.S. and just over 200 in Texas, where a bill has banned abortions after six weeks. Yelp will offer its benefit through the company’s insurance provider starting next month, according to a person familiar with the matter. It will also extend coverage to dependents. “As a remote-first company with a distributed workforce, this new benefit allows our U.S. employees and their dependents to have equitable access to reproductive care, regardless of where they live,” Miriam Warren, the company’s chief diversity officer, said in an emailed statement. (Butler, 4/12)

AP: COVID-19, Overdoses Pushed US To Highest Death Total Ever
2021 was the deadliest year in U.S. history, and new data and research are offering more insights into how it got that bad. The main reason for the increase in deaths? COVID-19, said Robert Anderson, who oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work on death statistics. The agency this month quietly updated its provisional death tally. It showed there were 3.465 million deaths last year, or about 80,000 more than 2020′s record-setting total. (Stobbe, 4/12)

The Boston Globe: UMass Model Was Most Accurate At Predicting COVID-19 Deaths, Study Finds
A University of Massachusetts model that combines dozens of other models to provide short-term forecasts of COVID-19 deaths in the United States performed better than the individual models, according to a new study. The ensemble model, which synthesizes model forecasts collected by researchers at UMass Amherst, “provided a reliable and comparatively accurate means of forecasting deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic that exceeded the performance of all of the models that contributed to it,” researchers said in a study published last week in the journal PNAS. “Synthesizing multiple models removes the risk of overreliance on any single approach for accuracy or stability,” the study said. It said ensemble approaches have previously demonstrated “superior performance” in forecasting flu, Ebola, and dengue fever. (Finucane, 4/12)

AP: A Million Empty Spaces: Chronicling COVID's Cruel US Toll
On the deadliest day of a horrific week in April 2020, COVID took the lives of 816 people in New York City alone. Lost in the blizzard of pandemic data that’s been swirling ever since is the fact that 43-year-old Fernando Morales was one of them. Two years and nearly 1 million deaths later, his brother, Adam Almonte, fingers the bass guitar Morales left behind and visualizes him playing tunes, a treasured blue bucket hat pulled low over his eyes. Walking through a park overlooking the Hudson River, he recalls long-ago days tossing a baseball with Morales and sharing tuna sandwiches. He replays old messages just to hear Morales’ voice. (Geller, Johnson and Hollingsworth, 4/13)

The Hill: Omicron Subvariant Now Almost 90 Percent Of US COVID Cases: CDC
Nearly 90 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the United States are now a more transmissible subvariant of omicron known as BA.2, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The data, for the week ending April 9, shows that 86 percent of cases were the BA.2 variant, showing how the variant has risen in the United States to now make up almost all new cases.  (Sullivan, 4/12)

CIDRAP: Estimate: Less Than Half The World Has Had COVID-19, With No Indication Of Herd Immunity 
From March 2020 to the emergence of the Omicron variant in late 2021, about 3.8 billion COVID-19 infections and reinfections occurred, with nearly 44% of the world's population infected at least once but with wide regional variations, estimates a statistical analysis of 190 countries and territories published late last week in The Lancet. ... Of all infections and reinfections, 1.3 billion occurred in South Asia, the highest count of all regions, but the highest infection rate (79.3%) was in sub-Saharan Africa. High-income countries had the fewest cases, at 239 million, while Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania had the lowest infection rate (13.0%). The rate in the United States and Canada was 30.9%, while the rate in Western Europe was 48.9% (Van Beusekom, 4/12)

Fox News: WHO Tracking New Omicron Sub-Variants Amid US BA.2 Surge
Only a few dozen cases have been reported to the GISAID database. The U.K. Health Security Agency said last week that work was underway to "precisely define the phylogeny" of the variants. In an April 8 update, the organization wrote that BA.4 had been found in South Africa, Denmark, Botswana, England and Scotland. All BA.5 cases were in South Africa, but Botswana's ministry of health reportedly said it had identified four cases of both BA.4 and BA.5 among individuals aged 30 to 50 years old who were fully vaccinated and experiencing mild symptoms. (Musto, 4/12)

NPR: The New White House Coronavirus Czar Calls For Calm As BA.2 COVID Cases Rise
The U.S. should use this moment when coronavirus cases are relatively low to prepare for a "likely" surge in the future, according to an assessment from the new White House coronavirus response coordinator. Monday was Dr. Ashish Jha's first official day in the role and he takes on the job at an important time in the pandemic. Congress has yet to approve funding that would cover the cost of testing, vaccines and lifesaving treatment, and there is concern that the delay could hamper access to all three. COVID cases have also risen slightly across the U.S. in the past week, particularly in the Northeast, after mostly trending downwards since a peak in January, with the BA.2 variant now the dominant strain. (Levitt and Estrin, 4/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Bay Area School Group Went To D.C. Fifty Kids Came Back With COVID
Marin County eighth-graders got to visit Washington, D.C., last week, renewing a favorite spring break tradition that had been on a two-year pandemic hiatus. But dozens of them returned with more than souvenirs: Over the past two days, about 50 students have tested positive for the coronavirus, swept up in an East Coast swell in COVID cases that has hit high-ranking policymakers and the D.C. elite. “By and large they’re having mild symptoms,” Dr. Matt Willis, the Marin County health officer, said of the infected students. He said about 90% of eighth-graders in the county are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus and half have received booster shots as well. (Allday, 4/12)

CIDRAP: COVID-19 Inflammation—Not SARS-CoV-2—May Be Behind Loss Of Smell
Local COVID-related inflammation, rather than the virus itself, may cause the common early symptom of loss of smell, according to a postmortem study published yesterday in JAMA Neurology. The researchers used light and electron microscopy to look for any SARS-CoV-2 genetic material and assess cell structures and characteristics and the blood vessels and neurons within them. They also measured the number of axons in the neurons, which inform sensory perception and movement. Information about sense of smell and taste was derived from the medical records of three patients and from family interviews for the remainder. (4/12)

CIDRAP: Study Shows COVID-19–Induced Myocarditis Rare, Linked To Severe Cases
Approximately 2.4 out of every 1,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 developed myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that typically follows viral infections, according to an international study published yesterday in the American Heart Association (AHA) journal Circulation. When including possible myocarditis cases, the rate increases to 4.1 per 1,000 hospitalized patients. (4/12)

AP: Type 2 Diabetes On The Rise Among Wisconsin Children 
New data shows a sharp increase in Type 2 diabetes among children in Wisconsin and doctors think COVID-19 could be a factor. Figures from UW Health Kids shows a nearly 200% increase in the number of cases over the last several years. (4/12)

Stat: Researchers Developing Covid Vaccine For Immunocompromised People
A couple months before the pandemic started, Joseph Ford started experiencing a rash of pinpoint polka dots around his lips, ankles, and lower legs. They were itchy, inflamed, painful, and, for him, the first signs of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “Petechiae,” he explained. Just as he was starting to deal with that, Covid-19 changed the world. “Go home and stay there,” Ford, a 77-year-old retired librarian in Tumwater, Wash., recalled a physician telling him as Covid hollowed out society. “You won’t survive a Covid infection.” That advice has largely remained unchanged over the last two years for the millions who, like Ford, are immunocompromised and haven’t produced adequate — or any — antibodies from the Covid-19 vaccines. (Chen, 4/12)

The Washington Post: Should U.S. Lift Its Entry Covid Test Rule? 5 Health Experts Weigh In. 
One of the biggest logistical headaches for international travelers — the requirement to test negative for the coronavirus within a day of flying into the United States — appears to be sticking around. Here’s what five health experts say about whether the testing rule is still needed. (Sampson, 4/12)

Boston Herald: Moderna Sets Sights On Flu Vaccine, Starts Giving Shots To Trial Participants
The Cambridge-based biotech giant that created one of the earliest and most effective COVID-19 vaccines is now looking to develop a flu shot. Moderna on Monday announced that the first trial participants have been dosed in the Phase 1/2 study of the company’s seasonal influenza vaccine candidates. The biotech is applying its messenger RNA (mRNA) platform to the flu vax. This Phase 1/2 randomized study will evaluate the safety and immune response of a single dose of mRNA-1020 or mRNA-1030 in healthy adults 18-plus in the U.S. The company intends to enroll about 560 participants in the study. (Sobey, 4/12)

The Washington Post: Syphilis, Gonorrhea Cases Increased In 2020 As STD Rates Remain High
The number of cases of some sexually transmitted diseases increased during the first year of the pandemic, officials said Tuesday, continuing a rise seen over the last decade. Syphilis and gonorrhea cases increased in 2020, as screening clinics closed and people put off regular doctor visits, according to an annual report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. Fewer chlamydia cases were recorded than in past years, but experts say that decrease was due to reduced testing rather than a true decline in the disease’s prevalence. (Shepherd, 4/12)

Politico: STDs Are Surging. The Funding To Fight Them Is Not
The latest figures — part of an ongoing upward trend — follow Congress’ decision last month to provide far less funding to sexual health clinics that provide free and subsidized testing for sexually transmitted diseases, education, contraception and other services than providers say is needed to reverse the current course. (Ollstein, 4/12)

AP: Epidemiologist: Drug Supply Fueled WVa Crisis Over Poverty 
The influx of prescription opioids into West Virginia communities was the main driver of the state’s drug crisis — more than poverty, job loss and other economic stressors, an epidemiologist testified Tuesday at the ongoing trial against three major pharmaceutical companies. “The economic conditions were the kindling, but the opioid suppliers were the gasoline that was poured directly on that kindling,” said Dr. Katherine Keyes, director of Columbia University’s Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program. (Willingham, 4/12)

AP: Jury Deliberations Underway In Ohio Doctor's Murder Trial
A jury on Tuesday began deliberating in the trial of an Ohio doctor charged in multiple hospital deaths, a day after a prosecutor told jurors during closing arguments that regardless of how close a patient is to death, it’s illegal to speed up the process. An attorney for Dr. William Husel told jurors the state hadn’t provided evidence to prove murder allegations. (Welsh-Huggins, 4/12)

AP: Influential Panel Raises Doubts On Youth Suicide Screening 
An influential U.S. group is raising doubts about routine suicide screening for children and teens even as others call for urgent attention to youth mental health. In draft guidance posted Tuesday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said there’s not enough evidence to recommend routinely screening kids who show no obvious signs of being suicidal. The document is open for public comment until May 9, and opposing voices are already weighing in. (Tanner, 4/12)

Reuters: Screening For Anxiety Should Begin At Age 8, U.S. Panel Says 
Children as young as 8 years old should be screened for anxiety and those ages 12 and over for depression, according to new recommendations by the government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). The guidance for healthcare providers, still in draft form, applies to children and teens who are not showing signs or symptoms of these conditions. (Lapid, 4/12)

Stat: Fatal Teen Overdoses Doubled In 2020, Driven By Fentanyl 
After staying flat for a decade, the overdose death rate among U.S. adolescents nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020 — an alarming climb that continued into 2021, a study released Tuesday showed. The reasons do not include a surge of children in this group — ages 14 to 18 — using drugs, researchers said. If anything, survey data indicate that fewer teens experimented with drugs during the pandemic. Rather, a main factor is that the supply of increasingly deadly drugs, which has driven overall overdose deaths to more than 100,000 per year, has trickled into what adolescents are using. What teens may think is an opioid painkiller or Xanax diverted from the legal supply is now more likely to be a counterfeit tablet containing fentanyl or similar synthetic opioids. (Joseph, 4/12)

The Washington Post: Number Of Adolescents Prescribed Opioids After Surgery Has Declined 
Routinely prescribing opioids for pain after surgery appears to be on the decline for American youths. Nearly half — 48 percent — of adolescents get a post-surgical opioid prescription, representing a drop from more than three-fourths (78 percent) given opioids in such situations five years earlier, according to research published in the journal Pediatrics. It found even greater percentage drops among younger children. Opioid prescriptions fell from 54 percent to 26 percent among those 5-to-10-years-old. For children younger than 5, those being prescribed opioids declined from 30 percent to 12 percent. Overall, hydrocodone and oxycodone were the most commonly prescribed opioids. (Searing, 4/12)

The Washington Post: Fatal Fentanyl Overdoses: Police Say 10 People Died In Northeast D.C. 
Ten people in two neighborhoods in Northeast Washington have now died from a lethal batch of fentanyl, police said Tuesday, the second mass-casualty incident involving the deadly opioid in the District this year. Police said at least 17 people overdosed on cocaine laced with fentanyl in Trinidad and Ivy City from Saturday morning through Monday evening, and seven of them survived. (Hermann, 4/12)

NPR: Study: Nearly A Third Of Children With Disabilities Have Experienced Violence
A new study suggests that nearly a third of children and adolescents with disabilities has experienced violence – defined as physical, emotional or sexual abuse as well as neglect. It's everything from being struck or verbally attacked by a family member to cyberbullying. And they're reportedly twice as likely to experience violence as young people without disabilities. A tremendous number of kids are affected. An estimated 291 million children and adolescents — slightly more than 1 in 10 — have disabilities such as hearing or vision loss, epilepsy or intellectual disabilities. The review, published in the medical journal The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, reaffirms the discouraging conclusions of a World Health Organization-backed review published in The Lancet a decade ago, focusing on high-income countries. (Kritz, 4/12)

The Washington Post: Pandemic Led To Fewer Adolescents Vaccinated Against HPV, CDC Says 
Since the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine was introduced in 2006, the prevalence of the disease — a precursor to a variety of cancers — has plummeted. Despite being the most prevalent sexually transmitted infection in the United States, it has fallen by an order of magnitude. But that progress could be in jeopardy at the clinics where vaccination takes place, a new CDC study warns. The culprit? The coronavirus, which has upended nearly all aspects of health care. (Blakemore, 4/12)

Houston Chronicle: More Texans Received Help To Pay ACA Premiums Than Ever Before, But Those Benefits Won't Last Long
A record number of Texans enrolled in Affordable Care Act health insurance in 2022 largely because of federal financial assistance provided as part of pandemic relief initiatives, according to an analysis released Tuesday. More than 1.8 million Texans signed up for ACA marketplace health insurance in 2022, up 42 percent from 2021, according to the analysis by Episcopal Health Foundation, a Houston nonprofit that studies health and health care. That means more than 500,000 additional Texans have marketplace health insurance coverage compared to last year. (Carballo, 4/12)

AP: Atlantic City Casino Workers Feel Smoking Ban Is In Reach
On the 16th anniversary of a New Jersey law that banned indoor smoking in most public places — except in casinos — hundreds of Atlantic City casino workers called on state lawmakers Tuesday to ban smoking in the gambling halls. The push comes at a crucial time for the Atlantic City casino industry as it tries mightily to regain lost business from the coronavirus pandemic, and braces for the opening of one or more additional casinos in New York City, which will compete for many of Atlantic City’s customers. (Parry, 4/12)

The 19th: Inflation Rates Leave Women Facing More Food Insecurity In Grocery Stores
The price sticker startled Tammy Ferrell. She looked at the variety pack of FritoLay chips again and again. Her forehead wrinkled. Surely, she must have misunderstood — the chips used to be $12, but the sticker read $17. Around her, everything else had new stickers, too — the dairy, the produce, the meat. She left Costco without the turkey wings her family loved, without meat at all. She thought of how she would explain it to her grandsons. As the weeks went on and prices continued to rise, Ferrell’s family began eating noodles instead of meat. They stretched what was in their pantry, walking to the store instead of driving to avoid paying skyrocketing gas prices. It was turning into a nightmare, she said. (Carrazana, 4/12)

NBC News: Comedian Gilbert Gottfried Died Of Rare, Often Overlooked Disease
Gilbert Gottfried, the beloved brash comedian, died Tuesday after having battled a disease that his publicist identified as a rare genetic muscle disorder. Gottfried, 67, had type II myotonic dystrophy, a kind of muscular dystrophy, said his longtime friend and publicist, Glenn Schwartz. It isn't clear when Gottfried was diagnosed with the disease, which has no cure or treatment and typically appears when people are in their 20s and 30s. (Bendix and Stelloh, 4/12)

The Hill: Coronavirus Pandemic Pushed 77M Into ‘Extreme Poverty’: UN
The coronavirus pandemic pushed 77 million people into extreme poverty last year, according to a new report from the United Nations (U.N.) released on Tuesday. The 208-page report from the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs also says 1 in 5 developing countries will not see a gross domestic product return to 2019 levels within the next year. (Dress, 4/12)

AP: UK's Johnson Says He Paid A Police Fine For Lockdown Parties
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday he paid a fine from police for attending a lockdown-breaching birthday party in his official residence, making him the first British leader to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office. The fines for Johnson, his wife, Carrie, and Treasury chief Rishi Sunak brought a simmering crisis for the prime minister back to full boil, with opposition politicians immediately calling for his resignation. (Hui and Lawless, 4/12)

The New York Times: How One German State Beat The Odds On Covid Vaccinations
This northern port city, combined with neighboring Bremerhaven, makes up the smallest and by many measures the poorest state in Germany’s federal system. In state comparisons of education or addressing child poverty, it consistently ranks dead last. But when it comes to vaccines, Bremen is No. 1, with more than 90 percent of its population fully vaccinated. It has achieved its success in a country that has managed to vaccinate only slightly more than three-quarters of its people, and that voted last week against a bill that would have made vaccinations mandatory for people 60 and over. (Schuetze, 4/12)

CIDRAP: WHO Group Endorses 'Game-Changer' 1-Dose HPV Vaccination 
The World Health Organization's (WHO's) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) late last week said one dose of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine—not the standard three-dose regimen—offered good protection against cervical cancer, a move the WHO is calling a "game-changer." (Soucheray, 4/12)

Stat: Pharma Vows Faster Drug Launches In Europe To Avoid Stricter Regulations
In a bid to thwart stricter regulation, the European pharmaceutical industry trade group pledged to make faster product launches in all European Union countries, a reflection of growing concern that the European Commission will overhaul the approach to access to medicines. The commitment was one of several proposals made by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations in the face of a new, overarching strategy that the European Commission is devising toward pharmaceuticals. Besides access and affordability, the effort has also been looking at innovation, competitiveness, changes in technology, and preparing for crises. (Silverman, 4/12)

Stat: U.K. Readies A Subscription Payment Model For Badly Needed Antibiotics
Amid rising concern over antimicrobial resistance, the U.K. has taken a major step toward becoming the first country to launch an experimental payment model for antibiotics, a move designed to usher in a new era of drug development and reimbursement. The government completed a long-awaited cost-effectiveness review of two new antibiotics as part of a pilot program that would pay for the medicines using a so-called subscription model. The idea is to pay companies upfront fees based on the estimated value of benefits to patients and the country’s National Health Service, rather than payments based on volumes used. (Silverman, 4/12)

AP: EU: Salmonella Outbreak In Chocolate Eggs Due To Bad Milk 
European health officials investigating an outbreak of salmonella linked to chocolate Easter eggs that has sickened at least 150 children across the continent said Tuesday they suspect it is due to bad buttermilk in a Belgian factory. (4/12)