First Edition: April 9, 2021

Guardian/KHN: ‘My Children Were Priceless Jewels’: Three Families Reflect On The Health Workers They Lost 
The daughter of an internist in the Bronx, the father of a nurse practitioner in Southern California and the son of a nurse in McAllen, Texas, share how grief over their loved ones’ deaths from covid-19 has affected them. These health care workers were profiled in KHN and The Guardian’s yearlong “Lost on the Frontline” project. (Renwick, 4/9)

Guardian/KHN: Fauci Thanks US Health Workers For Sacrifices But Admits PPE Shortages Drove Up Death Toll 
Dr. Anthony Fauci thanked America’s health care workers, who “every single day put themselves at risk” during the pandemic, even as he acknowledged that PPE shortages had contributed to the deaths of more than 3,600 of them. “We rightfully refer to these people without hyperbole — that they are true heroes and heroines,” he said in an exclusive interview with The Guardian. The deaths of so many health workers from covid-19 are “a reflection of what health care workers have done historically, but putting themselves in harm’s way by living up to the oath they take when they become physicians and nurses,” said Fauci. (Glenza, 4/9)

KHN: They Tested Negative For Covid. Still, They Have Long Covid Symptoms. 
Kristin Novotny once led an active life, with regular CrossFit workouts and football in the front yard with her children — plus a job managing the kitchen at a middle school. Now, the 33-year-old mother of two from De Pere, Wisconsin, has to rest after any activity, even showering. Conversations leave her short of breath. Long after their initial coronavirus infections, patients with a malady known as “long covid” continue to struggle with varied symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, gastrointestinal problems, muscle and joint pain, and neurological issues. Novotny has been contending with these and more, despite testing negative for covid-19 seven months ago. (Zuraw, 4/9)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Health Care As Infrastructure 
Health care makes some surprising appearances in President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan, even though more health proposals are expected in a second proposal later this month. The bill that would help rebuild roads, bridges and broadband capabilities also includes $400 billion to help pay for home and community-based care and boost the wages of those who do that very taxing work. An additional $50 billion is earmarked for replacing water service lines that still contain lead, an ongoing health hazard. (4/8)

CBS News: Two Vaccine Sites Close After Adverse Reactions To Johnson & Johnson Shot
The race to vaccinate hit more roadblocks on Thursday, as several patients at a mass vaccination site in North Carolina suffered immediate reactions to the Johnson & Johnson shot. A day earlier, 11 people had adverse reactions in Denver, ranging from dizziness to nausea. Both sites temporarily shut down. "At this point we have no reason to believe there's anything wrong with the vaccine itself," said Dr. Shauna Gulley, a Centura Health chief clinical officer. "This is a temporary pause of one brand of vaccine so that we can investigate further."  (Diaz, 4/8)

Axios: America May Be Close To Hitting A Vaccine Wall
There are growing signs that parts of the country may be close to meeting demand for the coronavirus vaccine — well before the U.S. has reached herd immunity. For the last few months, the primary focus of the U.S. has been getting shots to everyone who wants them, as quickly as possible. Soon, that focus will abruptly shift to convincing holdouts to get vaccinated. (Owens, 4/9)

CNN: More Than Half Of Rural Residents Have Received A Covid-19 Vaccine Or Plan To, But Hesitancy Remains High, Analysis Finds 
More than half of rural residents in the US have received a Covid-19 vaccine or plan to, but one in five still say they will definitely not get vaccinated, according to an analysis released Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. KFF researchers surveyed 1,001 adults living in rural America and found that 54% said they have received a Covid-19 vaccine or plan to. (Mascarenhas, 4/9)

AP: Trump-Loving Alabama County Faces Uphill Vaccination Effort
Tending a thrift store that displays a faded Trump flag in a nearly all-white Alabama county with a long history of going against the grain, Dwight Owensby is among the area’s many skeptics of the COVID-19 vaccine. Owensby, 77, said he doesn’t often watch TV news or read the local paper, and he doesn’t spend much time talking about the pandemic with others — it’s just not a big topic in this rural, heavily forested part of the state. But he suspects the coronavirus pandemic was planned, as a discredited conspiracy theory holds, and he said there’s no way he’s getting any shot. (Reeves, 4/8)

Bloomberg: Biden’s Orphaned AstraZeneca Stockpile Rises To 20 Million Doses
The U.S. stockpile of the controversial AstraZeneca Plc coronavirus vaccine has grown to more than 20 million doses, according to people familiar with the matter, even as the shot looks increasingly unlikely to factor into President Joe Biden’s domestic vaccination campaign. AstraZeneca has yet to request Food and Drug Administration authorization for the two-dose vaccine, and the company faces safety questions abroad and scrutiny from U.S. regulators who’ve already rebuked it for missteps during clinical trials and partial data releases. (Wingrove, 4/8)

Fox News: Arizona GOP Congressman Introduces No Vaccine Passport Act
Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs introduced legislation Thursday that would ban federal agencies from creating "vaccine passports." Vaccine passports are a method some have purposed to demonstrate whether or not an individual has been vaccinated from the deadly coronavirus. While proponents of such a system have said it would be helpful in reopening businesses and the travel industry, Republicans in Congress have condemned the idea as an invasion of privacy and an opening for government surveillance. (McFall, 4/8)

The Washington Post: U.S. Cases Involving Contagious Brazil Variant On The Rise, According To CDC Data 
As new U.S. coronavirus cases trend upward — with nearly 80,000 new infections reported on Thursday — health officials are warning about the spread of multiple, more transmissible variants, some of which have seeded outbreaks in states such as Michigan and California. On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data on emerging variants, including those first identified in Brazil, Britain and South Africa. The B.1.1.7 variant initially detected in Britain accounts for almost 20,000 cases in all 50 states — and has become the dominant strain, officials say. (Cunningham, 4/9)

The Washington Post: Rise Of Coronavirus Variants Will Define The Next Phase Of The Pandemic In The U.S.
Variants of the coronavirus are increasingly defining the next phase of the pandemic in the United States, taking hold in ever-greater numbers and eliciting pleas for a change in strategy against the outbreak, according to government officials and experts tracking developments. The highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant that originated in the United Kingdom now accounts for 27 percent of all cases in this country. It is the most common variant in the United States, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday — a development that officials predicted months ago. Two other variants, which took root in South Africa and Brazil and also are more transmissible, are cropping up with increasing frequency in parts of the United States. (Bernstein, Cha, McCoy and Dupree, 4/8)

CNBC: National Guard Urges U.S. To Follow Health Measures As Military Races To Vaccinate Population
National Guard leaders on Thursday called for people in the U.S. to keep adhering to Covid-19 mitigation measures as the military races to vaccinate the population. “We’re excited to follow the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] science that tells us what the smart thing is to continue to protect the civilians around us,” U.S. Air Force Col. Russell Kohl, commander of the 131st Medical Group for the Missouri National Guard, told CNBC when asked if there were concerns of more states relaxing guidance. (Macias, 4/8)

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Some Wisconsin Schools Shed Mask Requirements After Court Ruling
A week after the state Supreme Court threw out Wisconsin's mask requirement, some schools are no longer requiring face coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This week the Paris Consolidated School District in Kenosha County stopped requiring masks. District Administrator Roger Gahart emailed families Monday, explaining that since the district never had its own mask policy, the end of the statewide mandate meant masks became optional in the district. "Our district is simply leaving the choice of wearing face masks or not wearing face masks up to the people," Gahart said in an emailed statement. (Linnane and Marley, 4/8)

The New York Times: Has The Era Of Overzealous Cleaning Finally Come To An End? 
When the coronavirus began to spread in the United States last spring, many experts warned of the danger posed by surfaces. Researchers reported that the virus could survive for days on plastic or stainless steel, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that if someone touched one of these contaminated surfaces — and then touched their eyes, nose or mouth — they could become infected. ... But the era of “hygiene theater” may have come to an unofficial end this week, when the C.D.C. updated its surface cleaning guidelines and noted that the risk of contracting the virus from touching a contaminated surface was less than 1 in 10,000. (Anthes, 4/8)

Axios: National Park Service Cancels Independence Day Parade For Second Year 
The National Park Service announced Thursday it was canceling this year's National Independence Day parade because of logistical and planning limitations stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. It's the second year the annual parade has been canceled due to the pandemic. (4/8)

The Washington Post: Florida Gov. DeSantis Sues CDC, Biden Administration To Get Cruises Sailing 
Making good on an earlier threat, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Thursday that the state has filed a lawsuit against the federal government demanding that cruises be allowed to resume from the United States immediately. “We don’t believe the federal government has the right to mothball a major industry for over a year based on very little evidence and very little data,” DeSantis said in a news conference at Miami’s seaport. “I think we have a good chance for success.” (Sampson, 4/8)

The Washington Post: HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge Details How Biden Stimulus Bill Will Target Homelessness 
Housing Secretary Marcia L. Fudge on Thursday unveiled nearly $5 billion in new grants to states and local governments across the country for rental assistance, the development of affordable housing and other services to help people experiencing or on the verge of homelessness. The infusion of money to reduce homelessness, part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that President Biden signed last month, is the latest example of how the administration is using the American Rescue Plan to enact a sweeping anti-poverty agenda amid the pandemic. (Jan, 4/8)

AP: US Jobless Claims Up To 744K As Virus Still Forces Layoffs
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week to 744,000, signaling that many employers are still cutting jobs even as more people are vaccinated against COVID-19, consumers gain confidence and the government distributes aid throughout the economy. The Labor Department said Thursday that applications increased by 16,000 from 728,000 a week earlier. Jobless claims have declined sharply since the virus slammed into the economy in March of last year. But they remain stubbornly high by historical standards: Before the pandemic erupted, weekly applications typically remained below 220,000 a week. (Wiseman, 4/8)

CNBC: Snags In Free COBRA Insurance May Leave Unemployed Footing Big Bills
Linda, a lawyer from California who was laid off from her job in January, is like millions of others in the Covid pandemic who are living without health insurance. But she discovered that the government would fully subsidize her COBRA health insurance premiums from April until September, thanks to a provision in the latest stimulus package. ... But when Linda emailed her previous insurer in April asking if she was free to go to the doctor for treatment of her infection, she was surprised to be told that the government subsidy isn’t available yet. ″[F]orms and processes have not yet been provided nor finalized by the IRS or DOL,” she was told, according to the email seen by CNBC. “Until notified otherwise, we must operate as ‘business as usual.’” (Nova, 4/8)

CIDRAP: Report Spotlights Inequalities In COVID-Related Restrictions
COVID-related mobility restrictions such as stay-at-home orders had disproportionate burdens on women, minorities, and lower-income populations, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Network Open. ... Individuals with low household incomes had the highest risk of all six adverse outcomes, which included inaccessible medical care or defaulting on a monthly rent/home mortgage payment. (4/8)

The New York Times: A Novel Effort To See How Poverty Affects Young Brains
New monthly payments in the pandemic relief package have the potential to lift millions of American children out of poverty. Some scientists believe the payments could change children’s lives even more fundamentally — via their brains. It’s well established that growing up in poverty correlates with disparities in educational achievement, health and employment. But an emerging branch of neuroscience asks how poverty affects the developing brain. (Katsnelson, 4/7)

AP: US Suicides Dropped Last Year, Defying Pandemic Expectations
The number of U.S. suicides fell nearly 6% last year amid the coronavirus pandemic — the largest annual decline in at least four decades, according to preliminary government data. Death certificates are still coming in and the count could rise. But officials expect a substantial decline will endure, despite worries that COVID-19 could lead to more suicides. It is hard to say exactly why suicide deaths dropped so much, but one factor may be a phenomenon seen in the early stages of wars and national disasters, some experts suggested. (Stobbe, 4/8)

CBS News: Black Women 3 Times More Likely To Die From COVID-19 Than White Men 
Since the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic, it's been widely believed that men are more likely to die of COVID-19 than women. Now, research is challenging the notion that the likelihood of dying of the disease largely comes down to biology, finding that coronavirus mortality rates for Black women in the U.S. are more than three times that of White and Asian men.  Black women in the U.S. are dying from the virus at a higher rate than any other group, male or female, except Black men, according to an analysis of COVID-19 mortality patterns by race and gender in Georgia and Michigan published this week in the Journal of Internal Medicine. (Gibson, 4/8)

CIDRAP: Health Workers Report 'Long COVID' After Just Mild Illness
Fifteen percent of healthcare workers at a Swedish hospital who recovered from mild COVID-19 at least 8 months before report at least one moderate to severe symptom disrupting their work, home, or social life, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA.A team led by scientists at Danderyd Hospital, part of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, conducted the study from April 2020 to January 2021. The research involved obtaining blood samples and administering questionnaires to healthcare workers participating in the ongoing COVID-19 Biomarker and Immunity (COMMUNITY) study. (Van Beusekom, 4/8)

AP: COVID-19 Patient Receives Lung Transplant From Living Donors
Doctors in Japan announced Thursday they have successfully performed the world’s first transplant of lung tissue from living donors to a patient with severe lung damage from COVID-19. The recipient, identified only as a woman from Japan’s western region of Kansai, is recovering after the nearly 11-hour operation on Wednesday, Kyoto University Hospital said in a statement. It said her husband and son, who donated parts of their lungs, are also in stable condition. (Yamaguchi, 4/9)

NBC News: Air Force Reservist On Covid Front Lines Goes From Securing Body Bags To Delivering Vaccines
This time last year, Col. Brian Biggs of the Air Force Reserve was helping to dispatch refrigerated trucks and body bags to pandemic-ravaged New York City and other places in the Northeast that needed them the most. Now, Biggs’ mission is helping to ensure that needles loaded with the Covid-19 vaccine get into the arms of as many people as possible in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Siemaszko, 4/9)

Stat: Scientists Work Toward An Elusive Dream: A Simple Pill To Treat Covid-19
The world has vaccines that can prevent most cases of Covid-19. It even has drugs that can help with the most serious symptoms of the disease. Now what it needs is a Tamiflu for SARS-CoV-2. It would be a pill, exquisitely calibrated to target SARS-CoV-2, with tolerable side effects and a low price tag. (Garde, 4/9)

Axios: Scientists Hunt For Antiviral Drugs To Fight COVID-19 
Antiviral drugs can be a key pandemic-fighting tool, but so far there's only one approved in the U.S. for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Because some people won't get vaccinated, and because there will likely be new variants of the virus, we'll need effective treatments — including antivirals, former FDA commissioners Scott Gottlieb and Mark McClellan wrote earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal. (Snyder, 4/8)

Crain's Detroit Business: Michigan Hospitals Start Reducing Elective Procedures In Wake Of COVID-19 Patient Surge
Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor is the first hospital in Southeast Michigan to slow elective surgeries and other procedures due to the latest surge in COVID-19 patient admissions, hospital officials confirmed Thursday. Henry Ford Macomb also has decided to limit elective procedures Thursday and Friday because the hospital is full. Bob Riney, president of hospital operations at Henry Ford Health System, said administrators will evaluate patient volume over the weekend. Riney said Henry Ford's other four Southeast Michigan hospitals continue to provide full slate of services. (Greene, 4/8)

CIDRAP: COVID-Related School Closures Linked With Learning Loss
An 8-week national school closure in the Netherlands was associated with an equivalent loss in learning, with disproportionate losses in students from lower-educated families, according to a study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. To assess the effects of remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers looked at national test results for spelling, reading, and math from 350,000 Dutch students ages 8 to 11. The national tests occurred before and after the lockdown (January to February plus June 2020), and the researchers included the previous 3 years' test results as a baseline. (4/8)

The New York Times: Does It Hurt Children To Measure Pandemic Learning Loss? 
Studies continue to show that amid the school closures and economic and health hardships of the past year, many young children have missed out on mastering fundamental reading and math skills. The Biden administration has told most states that unlike in 2020, they should plan on testing students this year, in part to measure the “educational inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.” But others are pushing back, especially on behalf of the Black, Hispanic and low-income children who, research shows, have fallen further behind over the past year. They fear that a focus on “learning loss” could incite a moral panic that paints an entire generation as broken, and say that relatively simple, common-sense solutions can help students get back up to speed. (Goldstein, 4/8)

The New York Times: Vaccinated Mothers Are Trying To Give Babies Antibodies Via Breast Milk 
As soon as Courtney Lynn Koltes returned home from her first Covid-19 vaccine appointment, she pulled out a breast pump. She had quit breastfeeding her daughter about two months earlier because of a medication conflict. But she was off those pills, and she had recently stumbled across research suggesting that antibodies from a vaccinated mother could be passed to her baby through milk. Getting the milk flowing again — a process known as relactation — would not be easy. She planned to pump on every odd-numbered hour from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. But Ms. Koltes and her husband were eager to finally introduce their 4-month-old daughter to family members, and with children not yet eligible for vaccination, she was willing to try. (Murphy, 4/8)

AP: A Year After COVID-19 Superspreader, Family Finds Closure
With dish soap, brushes and plastic water jugs in hand, Carole Rae Woodmansee’s four children cleaned the gravestone their mother shares with their father, Jim. Each scrub shined engraved letters spelling out their mother’s name and the days of her birth and death: March 27, 1939, and March 27, 2020.Carole passed away on her 81st birthday. That morning marked a year since she died of complications of COVID-19 after contracting it during a choir practice that sickened 53 people and killed two — a superspreader event that would become one of the most pivotal transmission episodes in understanding the virus. (Valdes, 4/9)

LiveScience: These Viruses Are The Most Likely To Trigger The Next Pandemic, Scientists Predict
The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is the latest pathogen to "spill over" from animals to people, but hundreds of thousands of other viruses lurking in animals could pose a similar threat. Now, a new online tool ranks viruses by their potential to hop from animals to people and cause pandemics. The tool, called SpillOver, essentially creates a "watch list" of newly discovered animal viruses that pose the greatest threat to human health. The researchers hope their open-access tool can be used by other scientists, policymakers and public health officials to prioritize viruses for further study, surveillance and risk-reducing activities, such as possibly developing vaccines or therapeutics before a disease spills over. (Rettner, 4/8)

CIDRAP: Australian Study Links Rapid Flu Tests To Reduction In Antibiotic Prescribing
Antibiotics were initiated less frequently, and antivirals used more frequently, in patients diagnosed as having influenza using rapid polymerase chain reaction (RPCR) tests compared with standard multiplex PCR (MPCR) tests, Australian researchers reported yesterday in BMC Infectious Diseases. In the retrospective cohort study, the researchers compared outcomes in patients with positive influenza RPCR and MPCR tests at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney during the 2017 flu season, examining test turnaround times, antibiotic initiation, oseltamivir initiation, and hospital length of stay (LOS) for both emergency department and inpatient hospital stay. (4/8)

Modern Healthcare: Cigna And Oscar Expand Their Small Business Partnership
The two companies' small business insurance plan is now available across Tennessee, Connecticut, California and the Atlanta area. The insurers aim to sell their health plan to companies with 100 employees or less. Their plan includes integrated medical, behavioral and pharmacy services and broad access to high-performing doctor and hospital networks, the companies said. As in other Oscar plans, members will receive support from a concierge team to understand their benefits and find care. They will also have access to round-the-clock telemedicine at no cost and other digital tools to support their care. The insurers first partnered last year and entered Los Angeles and Orange County at the same time. (Tepper, 4/8)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Wants To Bump Pay For Hospices, SNFs Next Year
Hospices and skilled nursing facilities are likely to get a pay bump in 2022, CMS said Thursday. The agency plans to increase hospice payments by 2.3%, or $530 million, in 2022. The proposed aggregate cap for hospice payments is just under $31,390. According to a CMS fact sheet, CMS also plans to update the labor shares for continuous home care, route home care, inpatient respite care, and general inpatient care. (Brady, 4/8)

Modern Healthcare: MACPAC Wants To Cut Medicaid Spending On High-Cost Specialty Drugs
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission is poised to recommend changes to how Medicaid pays for high-cost specialty drugs. At MACPAC's April meeting on Thursday, commissioners signaled they would recommend Congress increase the minimum rebate percentage and additional inflationary rebate on drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration through the accelerated approval program. According to the draft recommendations, the increased minimum rebate percentage and additional inflationary rebate would apply to a drug until the drugmaker completes the confirmatory trial and gets full FDA approval. (Brady, 4/8)

Stat: Digital Pharmacy Startup Thirty Madison Taps Former Lilly Exec As President
After nearly three decades working at two of the world’s pharmaceutical giants, Michelle Carnahan is going digital. The former senior vice president of general medicines for Sanofi’s North America division has stepped into a new role as the president of Thirty Madison, a digital pharmacy that sells medications online and delivers them to your door. (Brodwin, 4/8)

AP: Slain South Carolina Doctor Wrote Of Faith, Life's Fragility
Robert Lesslie, the South Carolina physician and author who authorities say was killed along with three family members and a repairman by former NFL player Phillip Adams, frequently wrote of the fragility of life and a deep-seated Christian faith that guided him personally and professionally. “I know without a doubt that life is fragile,” the 70-year-old doctor wrote in one of his books, a collection of missives he termed “inspiring true stories” from his medical work. “I have come to understand that humility may be the greatest virtue. And I am convinced we need to take the time to say the things we deeply feel to the people we deeply care about.” (Kinnard, 4/9)

CNN: Philip Adams: South Carolina Community Mourns Family And Worker Who Officials Say Were Killed By Former NFL Player 
A shocked South Carolina community was grieving and looking for answers Thursday after officials said a beloved doctor and four other people were shot and killed by a man who had gone from a local high school on to college and the NFL. York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson said that on Wednesday afternoon Phillip Adams, 32, shot two air conditioning technicians outside -- killing one -- then forced his way into Dr. Robert Lesslie's home in Rock Hill. (Gallagher, Almasy and Hanna, 4/9)

The Hill: CDC Director Says Racism Is 'Serious Public Health Threat' 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday declared racism a "serious public health threat," becoming the largest federal agency to do so. "A growing body of research shows that centuries of racism in this country has had a profound and negative impact on communities of color," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement published on the agency's website. (Weixel, 4/8)

The Washington Post: George Floyd Died Of Low Level Of Oxygen, Medical Expert Testifies; Derek Chauvin Kept Knee On His Neck ‘Majority Of The Time’
The pressure of Derek Chauvin’s knees on George Floyd’s neck and back made it virtually impossible for the handcuffed man to breathe as he was pinned face down on a street and would have killed any healthy person, an expert on the respiratory system testified Thursday. Martin Tobin, a Chicago-area pulmonologist and critical-care doctor who specializes in the science of breathing, testified that the pressure of Chauvin “jamming” his knees into Floyd’s body cut off oxygen and led to brain damage within minutes, sparking an arrhythmia that caused his heart to stop. He characterized Chauvin’s knee as being on Floyd’s neck “the vast majority of the time.” (Bailey, 4/8)

Reuters: Doctors Challenge 'Drug Overdose' Defense In Derek Chauvin's Murder Trial 
Medical experts used anatomical diagrams and charts to testify on Thursday that George Floyd was killed by police pinning him to the ground, not a drug overdose, challenging a key assertion by former police officer Derek Chauvin in his murder trial for Floyd’s deadly arrest. (Allen, 4/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: Amid Rise In Violence, Asian American Community Leaders Want S.F. To Help Victims
Asian American community advocates urged San Francisco officials on Thursday to fill gaps in public safety and victim services, especially for non-English speakers, amid a rash of violence. Supervisor Gordon Mar held a hearing Thursday to discuss the alarming attacks over the past year that have left Asian Americans injured and traumatized — and in one case resulted in the death of an 84-year-old Thai man. Mar said he was committed to funding public safety, such as victim services, in the upcoming budget. Using his power as chair of the committee that held the hearing, he tasked multiple departments with creating a citywide violence prevention plan by the end of May before another hearing in June. (Moench, 4/8)

The Washington Post: Woman Conceives Baby While Pregnant 
Rebecca Roberts and her partner struggled with infertility for more than a year, so when they got a positive result with an at-home pregnancy test, they were overjoyed. ... But her excitement abruptly shifted to shock five weeks later at the 12-week ultrasound appointment, when the sonographer spotted something astonishing: It appeared as though Roberts was suddenly carrying two babies — one of which was considerably less-developed than the other. The room fell silent. ... Her pregnancy was diagnosed as superfetation, a rare condition in which a woman who is already pregnant conceives another baby. (Page, 4/8)

ABC News: Baby Heads Home After Nearly 700 Days In Hospital 
A Michigan baby is now home with her family after a hospital stay that lasted 694 days. Valentina Garnetti was diagnosed in utero with hypoplastic left heart syndrome -- a condition that affects normal blood flow through the heart and causes the left side of the heart to not form correctly. The 1-year-old remained in University of Michigan's CS Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor since the day she was born. (Pelletiere, 4/9)

CNBC: The Hollywood Covid-19 Vaccine Script Fighting Misinformation
As doctors and health professionals race against Covid-19 vaccination skepticism, some Hollywood producers, writers and showrunners are betting that inputting vaccines into television storylines can help curb widespread misinformation. Shows across TV networks began integrating Covid-19 into scripts, including questions about social distancing and masking, as the pandemic spread across the U.S. last March. (Subin, 4/8)

Health News Florida: Florida Still Tops Nation In ACA Enrollment 
Florida continues to lead the nation in the number of people taking advantage of a special enrollment period for coverage under the Affordable Care Act, with 146,250 people obtaining health insurance between Feb. 15 and March 31. Nationwide, more than 500,000 people obtained Obamacare coverage during that period, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (4/8)

The Washington Post: Maryland Lawmakers Want Counseling For Children Without Parental Consent 
In voting to make Maryland one of five states that allows preteens to get mental health treatment without parental consent, Del. Kumar P. Barve said he was honoring an uncle he never met. His mother’s twin brother died by suicide in the 1940s, Barve told colleagues in the General Assembly on Thursday. (Wiggins, 4/8)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Pa. Lawmaker Wants To Compel Wolf Administration To Release Details Of Wasted COVID-19 Vaccine Doses
A state lawmaker wants to compel the Wolf administration to make public details on wasted COVID-19 vaccine doses, information it refused to release to Spotlight PA. Although vaccine providers are required to report when and why a dose of vaccine is “compromised,” the Pennsylvania Department of Health last month denied a public records request from Spotlight PA seeking documentation, citing a decades-old law that it has frequently used to shield the public from scrutinizing its pandemic response. The request did not seek any patient information. (Olumhense, 4/9)

The Washington Post: Law Enforcement Cracks Down On Fake Coronavirus Cures And Vaccines 
The Maryland U.S. attorney’s office is cracking down on fraudulent websites pushing fake coronavirus treatments and vaccines. The office announced yesterday that it had seized three websites purporting to be the websites of actual biotechnology companies responding to the coronavirus, but actually were stealing people's personal information and conducting other scams. (Zakrzewski, 4/8)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Why Is Louisiana Unhealthy? New State Database Aims To Connect Environment, Behavior To Health
After a year in which the coronavirus laid bare health disparities among people of different backgrounds, the Louisiana Department of Health released a new dashboard that aims to shed light on the state’s dismal health care outcomes. For years, Louisiana has sat at or near the bottom of nearly every measurable health metric, ranking well below the national average when it comes to behavioral health, low birth weight, high cholesterol and early death. What is less understood is why residents in the state have such poor health. (Woodruff, 4/8)

Los Angeles Times: Parents Sue LAUSD, Push For Wider Reopening, No COVID Tests
A group of parents — who say their children have been illegally shortchanged by Los Angeles Unified School District’s return-to-school plan — is seeking a court order to force the district to reopen “to the greatest extent possible” within seven days. The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday, asks the court to prohibit L.A. Unified from using a six-foot distancing standard in classrooms, while also seeking to bar the district from requiring students to take regular coronavirus tests as a condition for returning to campus. (Blume, 4/8)

The Washington Post: Nearly 20 Percent Of The U.S. Population Is Fully Vaccinated, Widening The Global Gap 
In the United States, the good vaccine news keeps coming. For much of the world, things look bleak. As of Thursday, just short of 20 percent of the U.S. population was fully vaccinated, giving some 66 million people a strong measure of protection against a disease that has already killed more than 500,000 Americans. By contrast, Covax — a World Health Organization-backed push for equitable distribution — aims to secure enough doses to cover up to 20 percent of the people in participating countries by the end of 2021, but it may not meet that relatively modest goal, experts warn. (Rauhala, 4/8)

AP: Russia Wants Slovakia To Return Its Sputnik V Vaccines
Russia asked Slovakia on Thursday to return its Sputnik V vaccines it has received “due to multiple contract violations.” The official Twitter account of the Sputnik V vaccine said Slovakia’s drug regulator “in violation of existing contract and in an act of sabotage” tested Sputnik V “in a laboratory which is not part of the EU’s Official Medicines Control Laboratory network.” (Janicek, 4/8)

The New York Times: Slovakia Claims A Bait-And-Switch With The Russian Vaccines It Ordered 
Russia’s vaccine diplomacy suffered a setback on Thursday when Slovakia, one of the few countries in Europe to order its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, said that the doses it purchased differed from a version reviewed favorably by a respected British medical journal. A statement by Slovakia’s drug regulator questioning the Russian vaccine suggested potentially serious quality-control problems in the manufacture of Sputnik V and threatened recent progress made by Russia in winning acceptance for its product. (Higgins, 4/8)

AP: Germany Mulls Possible Order Of Russian COVID-19 Vaccine
Germany’s health minister said Thursday that the European Union doesn’t plan to order Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine but his country will hold talks with Russia on whether an individual order makes sense. The EU’s executive Commission said Wednesday it won’t place orders for Sputnik V on member countries’ behalf, as it did with other manufacturers, Health Minister Jens Spahn told WDR public radio. (Moulson, 4/8)

The Washington Post: Has Italy Been Vaccinating The Wrong People? Its Daily Coronavirus Death Tolls Suggest So. 
Looking at the day-by-day chart tracking Italy's relentless coronavirus death toll, it would be impossible to tell that the country has been armed since late December with vaccines. At a point when the pandemic has become a race between those vaccines and a more lethal variant, most Western European nations have managed to push down their death rate through a combination of lockdowns and vaccinations. Italy’s death rate, though, is much the same as it was 3 1/2 months ago, despite receiving the same proportion of doses as other European Union members. On Wednesday, the country reported another 627 victims of the virus, the highest daily figure since early January. The question of what’s gone wrong in Italy is now perplexing a hard-hit nation that had thought it was over the worst. (Harlan and Noack, 4/8)