First Edition: Feb. 22, 2021

KHN: Organ Transplant Patient Dies After Receiving Covid-Infected Lungs 
Doctors say a woman in Michigan contracted covid-19 and died last fall two months after receiving a tainted double-lung transplant from a donor who turned out to harbor the virus that causes the disease — despite showing no signs of illness and initially testing negative. Officials at the University of Michigan Medical School suggested it may be the first proven case of covid in the U.S. in which the virus was transmitted via an organ transplant. A surgeon who handled the donor lungs was also infected with the virus and fell ill but later recovered. (Aleccia, 2/22)

KHN: The Do’s And Don’ts On Social Media For Vaccine Haves And Have-Nots 
Posting about their day is a regular practice for Generations Y and Z, especially when they have something novel or exclusive to share. So, in the thick of a global pandemic, and with the shaky rollout of covid vaccines making them somewhat of a holy grail, it’s no surprise selfies featuring the coveted shot are infecting social media timelines. It might engender envy, even outrage, especially if the person posting seems to have cut the line. But what if the intention was to encourage others to also get the shot? Does that make it OK? (Giles, 2/22)

KHN: Countless Homebound Patients Still Wait For Covid Vaccine Despite Seniors’ Priority
Opening another front in the nation’s response to the pandemic, medical centers and other health organizations have begun sending doctors and nurses to apartment buildings and private homes to vaccinate homebound seniors. Boston Medical Center, which runs the oldest in-home medical service in the country, started doing this Feb. 1. Wake Forest Baptist Health, a North Carolina health system, followed a week later. (Graham, 2/22)

KHN: Feds OK’d Export Of Millions Of N95 Masks As U.S. Workers Cried For More 
In the midst of a national shortage of N95 masks, the U.S. government quietly granted an exception to its export ban on protective gear, allowing as many as 5 million of the masks per month to be shipped overseas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency issued the waiver in the final moments of Donald Trump’s presidency last month, allowing a Texas company to export its products after it failed to secure U.S. customers, according to the FEMA letter obtained by KHN. (Jewett, 2/19)

KHN: New Single-Payer Bill Intensifies Newsom’s Political Peril
A group of Democratic state lawmakers introduced legislation Friday to create a single-payer health care system to cover all Californians, immediately defining the biggest health policy debate of the year and putting enormous political pressure on Gov. Gavin Newsom. The Democratic governor faces the increasingly likely prospect of a Republican-driven recall election later this year. The single-payer bill adds to his political peril from the left if he doesn’t express support, and from the right if he does. (Hart and Bluth, 2/19)

KHN: In Search Of The Shot 
Too little covid vaccine and too great a demand: That’s what KHN readers from around the country detail in their often exasperating quest to snag a shot, although they are often clearly eligible under their local guidelines and priority system. Public health officials say the supply is growing and will meet demand in several months, but, for now, readers’ experiences show how access is limited. Some savvy readers report no problem getting in line for the vaccine, but others say that balky application processes and lack of information have stymied their efforts. Their unedited reports are a good snapshot of the mixed situation around the country. (2/19)

AP: Biden To Mark 500,000 Lives Lost With Ceremony
President Joe Biden will mark the U.S. crossing 500,000 lives lost from COVID-19 with a moment of silence and candle lighting ceremony at the White House. The nation is expected to pass the grim milestone on Monday, just over a year after the first confirmed U.S. fatality due to the novel coronavirus. (2/22)

AP: US Coronavirus Death Toll Approaches Milestone Of 500,000
The U.S. stood Sunday at the brink of a once-unthinkable tally: 500,000 people lost to the coronavirus. A year into the pandemic, the running total of lives lost was about 498,000 — roughly the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and just shy of the size of Atlanta. The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University surpasses the number of people who died in 2019 of chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s, flu and pneumonia combined. “It’s nothing like we have ever been through in the last 102 years, since the 1918 influenza pandemic,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” (Raby, 2/22)

The New York Times: A Ripple Effect Of Loss: U.S. Covid Deaths Approach 500,000 
Each death has left untold numbers of mourners, a ripple effect of loss that has swept over towns and cities. Each death has left an empty space in communities across America: a bar stool where a regular used to sit, one side of a bed unslept in, a home kitchen without its cook. The living find themselves amid vacant places once occupied by their spouses, parents, neighbors and friends — the nearly 500,000 coronavirus dead. (Bosman, 2/21)

The Washington Post: 500,000 Coronavirus Deaths Visualized: A Number Almost Too Large To Grasp
A year ago, covid-19 had killed just a handful of people in the United States. Now, the pandemic’s official death toll equals the size of a major city, more than the population of Kansas City, Mo., and nearly as many as Atlanta or Sacramento. It can be hard to grasp the enormity — almost half a million people, gone. What if we imagined them traveling as one group? Or killed in action? Or all buried together? (Galocha and Berkowitz, 2/21)

CIDRAP: More Than 20.5 Million Years Of Life Lost During COVID-19
More than 20.5 million years of life may have been lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Scientific Reports study published yesterday. The study also reports that, compared with the median mortality rate of the seasonal flu, COVID-19 deaths may be two to nine times higher. The researchers looked at mortality and life expectancy data in 81 countries through Jan 6, 2021, focusing on both COVID-related deaths and excess deaths. By analyzing 1,279,866 deaths, they found that 20,507,518 years of life were lost over the study period. While this averages out to be about 16 years per death, years of life lost (YLL) were distributed unevenly across age groups. (2/19)

The Washington Post: Child Covid Deaths Leave Devastated Families As US Reaches 500,000 Deaths Mark 
As the nation reaches the milestone of a half-million deaths about a year after the first American succumbed to the coronavirus, the number of children killed by the disease remains relatively small. ... Each death represents a shattered family and a trauma deepened, parents say, by the rampant belief that kids can’t get covid, or that it doesn’t much harm them when they do. (Fisher, Cha, Gowen, Hernandez and Rozsa, 2/21)

The Washington Post: U.S. New Cases Dropping As Country Hits Half Million Deaths
After hitting almost unimaginable highs of hundreds of thousands of new cases a day over the winter holidays, the infection rate in the United States has plummeted to levels not seen since the fall, with a seven-day rolling average of under 65,000. The good news, possibly due to rising vaccinations, seasonal virus patterns or increased respect for restrictions, however, pales in comparison to the grim toll of the pandemic that will hit 500,000 deaths on Monday. Yet deaths too are falling, with numbers almost 30 percent lower this week than last week and hospitalizations down 15 percent. The brutal winter surge may be slowing and vaccinations gaining pace, but the experts warn there is still a long way to go in the fight. Top infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci warned that we might still be seeing masks in 2022 and refused to predict when “normal” would return. (Cunningham and Schemm, 2/22)

Politico: Fauci Calls 500,000 Coronavirus Deaths 'Terrible' 
Dr. Anthony Fauci called the United States' approach of half a million deaths due to Covid-19 "terrible," "really horrible" and "historic" Sunday. "It's nothing like we've ever been through in the last 102 years since the 1918 influenza pandemic," he told host Dana Bash on CNN's "State of the Union." "People decades from now are going to be talking about this as a terribly historic milestone in the history of this country." (Mueller, 2/21)

The New York Times: Fauci Warns Americans Might Need To Wear Masks For Another Year 
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser for Covid-19, said on Sunday that Americans may still be wearing masks outside their homes a year from now, even as he predicted the country would return to “a significant degree of normality” by fall. “I want it to keep going down to a baseline that’s so low there is virtually no threat,” Dr. Fauci said on the CNN program “State of the Union,” referring to the number of cases nationally that would make him comfortable enough to stop recommending universal masking. “If you combine getting most of the people in the country vaccinated with getting the level of virus in the community very, very low, then I believe you’re going to be able to say, for the most part, we don’t necessarily have to wear masks.” (Goodnough, 2/22)

The Washington Post: When Will Things Be Normal Again? Fauci Says Americans May Still Need Masks In 2022 
Pandemic-weary Americans have employed a particular dependent clause so often that it has become a cliche: “When things are back to normal ...” Kids back to school. Parents back at work. Bars. Gyms. Concerts. Travel. Dinner parties. It is a phrase as optimistic as it is anticipatory. But it hides a burning question: When will things be normal again? (Thebault, 2/21)

The Hill: Fauci: Scientists Lacked 'Any Direction' From Trump In Last Days Of Presidency 
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said scientists lacked “any direction” during the last days of former President Trump’s time in office. In an interview with The Telegraph published on Friday, Fauci said that scientists were “acting alone” trying to protect the nation from the pandemic during the last two months of Trump’s presidency. (Williams, 2/19)

AP: Beyond 100M: Biden Team Aiming For Bigger Vaccine Numbers
It sounded so ambitious at first blush: 100 million vaccination shots in 100 days. Now, one month into his presidency, Joe Biden is on a glide path to attain that goal and pitching well beyond it to the far more ambitious and daunting mission of vaccinating all eligible adults against the coronavirus by the end of the summer. (Miller, 2/21)

The Washington Post: White House Reiterates Teacher Vaccinations ‘Not A Prerequisite’ To Reopening Schools 
The White House on Sunday reiterated that teachers do not need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus before schools can reopen, a stance Biden administration officials say is in line with scientific guidelines but that puts them at odds with some teachers unions that have insisted members will not return to the classroom until they receive the vaccine. Whether teachers must be vaccinated before in-person lessons resume has become another inflection point in heated debates about when and how schools should safely reopen, as the United States nears its one-year mark grappling with the pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 people here. (Wang and Whoriskey, 2/21)

Stat: New CDC School Opening Guidelines Fail To 'Follow The Science' 
President Biden vowed to “follow the science” in an effort to get kids back to school. But that’s not what the latest school opening guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do. (Vladimir Kogan and Vinay Prasad, 2/20)

NPR: California Will Begin Setting Aside 10% Of COVID-19 Vaccine Doses For Teachers
California is planning to start setting aside 10% of the COVID-19 vaccine the state receives each week to vaccinate teachers, day care workers and other school employees in the hopes of getting more students back in the classroom. "It must be done, and it must be done much sooner than the current path we are on. And we believe this will advance that cause," Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday as he announced the plan at an Oakland vaccination site. The plan will begin March 1 by setting aside about 75,000 vaccine doses from the state's current weekly allotment, Newsom said. (Stein, 2/20)

Politico: Teachers Union Leader On Reopening Schools: 'If The NFL Could Figure Out How To Do This, Let's Do It' 
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said Sunday that U.S. schools need to "actually try to get as much in person as possible right now." "I want to debunk this myth that teacher unions, at least our union, doesn't want to reopen schools," Weingarten told host Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Teachers know that in-person education is really important. We would have said that pre-pandemic. We knew remote education is not a good substitute." (Mueller, 2/21)

The Hill: Teachers Are Leaving Schools Due To Stress — And Many Say They Won't Be Back Next Year 
American teachers are stressed, and more of them are leaving the profession because they’re not getting paid enough to put up with it — especially in a pandemic. “Different COVID-19 stressors affected pandemic teachers differently,” said Melissa Diliberti, lead author of a new report and an assistant policy researcher at RAND, in a statement. “Insufficient pay and childcare responsibilities drove out younger teachers under 40, while older teachers were more likely to say health conditions made them leave.” (Srikanth, 2/19)

Detroit Free Press: As Classrooms Reopen, Stagnant Water Pipes Pose A Health Risk
Water safety experts say thousands of students returning to Michigan schools that have been closed for months are potentially walking into a health hazard. Water left stagnant in school plumbing systems during COVID-19-related shutdowns could contain dangerous bacteria or elevated lead levels, potentially posing a threat to students and staff. Schools can eliminate the danger by flushing plumbing systems with fresh water, a process most districts complete after summer breaks. But experts say schools may need to take extra precautions now, because COVID-19-related closures have stretched to 11 months in some communities — ample time for bacteria to grow and for lead to leach out of pipes. (Levin, 2/21)

Politico: Dems Prepare For Party-Line House Vote On Biden's Pandemic Aid Bill 
The House is on track to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package by the end of this week as Congress sprints to deliver aid to millions of Americans reeling from the pandemic and facing a jobless benefits cliff in mid-March. But House Democrats aren't expecting to get a single GOP vote for their aid package, which they're taking up with the procedural maneuver known as reconciliation in order to win Senate passage without the threat of a filibuster. The House Budget Committee will meet Monday afternoon to tee up the legislation for floor passage on Friday or Saturday, with Senate action as soon as the following week. (Emma, 2/21)

Boston Globe: Lawmakers Seek $25.2 Billion For Vaccine Equity As Part Of Budget Plan, Markey Says
Senator Edward Markey said Saturday that lawmakers are seeking $25.2 billion to address COVID-19 health disparities nationally and protect vulnerable populations hardest hit by the pandemic as part of President Biden’s stimulus package. The funding package was discussed during a nearly hour-long livestream discussion regarding efforts to ensure equity in vaccine distribution as people of color are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. That effort not only includes ongoing work to overcome skepticism of vaccines among some people of color, but to provide the funding and support for local, community-driven efforts to help people navigate the state’s phased vaccination rollout and help them secure appointments to get shots. (Hilliard, 2/20)

The Hill: Biden Pick For Surgeon General Made Over $2M On COVID-19 Consultations And Speaking Events: Report 
President Biden’s pick for surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, was paid more than $2 million last year for coronavirus-related consulting and speeches, according to ethics documents filed this month obtained by The Washington Post. According to the financial disclosures, Murthy received hundreds of thousands of dollars each in consulting fees from companies such as Netflix, Airbnb and Carnival Cruise Line, among others. (Castronuovo, 2/20)

The New York Times: Who Will Be The Next F.D.A. Chief? 
One month into his presidency, President Biden still has not named a candidate to head the Food and Drug Administration, a critical position at a time when new vaccines and coronavirus treatments are under the agency’s review. The glaring vacancy lags behind the president’s selections of most other top government health posts, and has spurred a public lobbying campaign by supporters of the two apparent front-runners, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a former high-ranking F.D.A. official and Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner. (Kaplan, 2/20)

The Hill: Six Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Delayed By Winter Storms: White House 
The White House said Friday that winter storms have caused a backlog of 6 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, about three days worth of shipments, but they expect to clear the backlog within a week. (Sullivan, 2/19)

The Washington Post: Winter Storm Death Toll: At Least 58 People Have Died In Texas, Tennessee And Other States 
The cold has killed the young and the old. It has claimed lives from southern Texas to northern Ohio. And authorities expect the toll to rise in the coming days, with frigid weather lingering, hundreds of thousands without electricity and millions without clean water. The two major winter storms that have plunged most of the United States into an Arctic chill have killed at least 58 people since Sunday, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. More than half of them — 32 — lived in Texas, where persistent power outages have exposed residents to bitter temperatures. (Thebault, Firozi and Shammas, 2/21)

AP: Hospitals Confront Water Shortages In Winter Storm Aftermath
Hospitals across the South grappled with water shortages Sunday in the wake of a devastating winter storm as the region carried on with recovery efforts and the weather offered a balmy respite — temperatures as high as the mid-60s.At the height of last week’s storm, hospitals scrambled to care for patients amid record cold temperatures, snow and ice that battered parts of the country more accustomed to going through winter with light jackets and short sleeves. The icy blast ruptured water mains, knocked out power to millions of utility customers and contributed to at least 76 deaths — half of which occurred in Texas. At least seven people died in Tennessee and four in Portland, Oregon. (Lozano, Mattise and Sainz, 2/21)

The Hill: Biden Visits Pfizer Vaccine Manufacturing Plant In Michigan 
President Biden on Friday toured a Pfizer manufacturing plant in Michigan, seeking to highlight efforts to mass produce a coronavirus vaccine as his administration looks for ways to increase supply and streamline distribution. Biden visited a factory in Kalamazoo, where he met with lab workers and learned about the process behind creating one of the two COVID-19 vaccines that is being widely used across the country to inoculate Americans. (Samuels and Sullivan, 2/19)

Fox News: Pfizer Files To Ease COVID-19 Vaccine Temperature Storage Requirements
Pfizer has submitted data to potentially ease storage requirements for its COVID-19 vaccine. The company said the vaccine has demonstrated stability when stored at -25 degrees Celsius to -15 degrees Celsius, which is commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers and refrigerators. Pfizer said it submitted the data to the FDA to support a proposed update to prescribing information, which would allow the vials to be stored at these temperatures for up to two weeks as an alternative or complement to using the ultra-low temperature freezer. (Hein, 2/20)

USA Today: One COVID Shot May Provide Protection, But US Stays Firm On Two Doses
A new study out of Israel reignited the public debate Friday about the spacing between the two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, but the U.S. government isn't budging in its commitment to the original schedule. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine might be just as effective if the gap between doses is wider than the recommended 21 days, according to the new study from Israel. If the doses could be given further apart, more people could be protected faster. Vaccine supplies, which remain quite limited now, are expected to ramp up in late spring. (Weintraub, 2/19)

The Wall Street Journal: For Covid-19 Survivors, One Shot May Be Enough, Preliminary Studies Show 
Covid-19 survivors who have gotten a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine are generating immune responses that might render a second shot unnecessary, potentially freeing up limited vaccine supply for more people, several new research papers suggest. The research, while preliminary, found that the previously infected people generated protection against the disease quickly and at dramatically higher levels after a first shot of the current two-shot regimens when compared with people who were vaccinated but hadn’t been sick. (Hopkins, 2/21)

HuffPost: Organ Transplant Patient Dies After Receiving COVID-Infected Lungs 
The woman who received the transplant was a chronic obstructive lung disease patient at University Hospital in Ann Arbor. She tested negative for COVID-19 several hours before the transplant procedure. Three days after the surgery, the patient developed worsening fever, low blood pressure and respiratory problems. Doctors decided to test samples collected from the patient’s nose and throat as well as her lower respiratory system for COVID-19 after she developed septic shock and heart function problems. The nose and throat sample came back negative but the lower respiratory sample tested positive. (Miller, 2/21)

New York Post: Michigan Woman Dies From COVID-19 After Lung Transplant
The incident may be the first proven case in the U.S. in which the coronavirus was transmitted through an organ transplant, researchers say in a report published by the American Journal of Transplantation. “We would absolutely not have used the lungs if we’d had a positive COVID test,” Dr. Daniel Kaul, director of the Transplant Infectious Disease Service at the University of Michigan Medical School and one of the co-authors of the study, told Kaiser Health News. (Elizalde, 2/21)

Boston Globe: Thousands Of Hospital Workers Sickened With COVID Since Start Of Pandemic
They’ve been on the front lines of the pandemic for almost a year. They’ve battled under grueling conditions. They’ve saved lives and watched people die. And a staggering number have become sick themselves. More than 14,000 health care workers at the state’s largest medical centers and hospital systems have been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to data compiled by the Globe — a reflection of the toll of the pandemic on the essential health care workforce. The figure includes people who work in all parts of hospitals, from nurses and doctors to cleaning and cafeteria staff. (Dayal McCluskey, 2/21)

Stat: Most Vaccine Trials Fail To Report Data On Participant Ethnicity Or Race
An analysis of the demographics of a decade’s worth of vaccine clinical trials has found that Black Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and Alaskan Natives, as well as people age 65 and older, were underrepresented as participants within these studies, though most of the differences, when compared with the U.S. population, were not especially large. Adult women, on the other hand, were found to be overrepresented. (St. Fleur, 2/19)

The Hill: Crist Calls On DOJ To Investigate DeSantis Over Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution 
Democratic Florida Rep. Charlie Crist sent a letter to acting U.S. Attorney General Monty Wilkinson on Sunday, calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open an investigation into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over allegations that the governor was selecting vaccine administration sites to benefit political supporters. (Choi, 2/21)

The Washington Post: U.S. Airlines Agree To Voluntary Program To Speed Contact-Tracing Efforts 
Seven U.S. air carriers said Friday that they will begin collecting information from international passengers intended to help health officials more quickly warn travelers if they have been exposed to the coronavirus on a flight. The announcement is a turnabout for the industry, which previously pushed back against government efforts to require it to provide passenger information for contact tracing. (Aratani, 2/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Trucking, Freight Industry Seek Faster Route To Covid-19 Vaccinations 
As the U.S. vaccine rollout accelerates, freight operators and transportation groups are pushing to get their workforce better access to vaccinations, arguing their operations are crucial to keep the economy running. That is thrusting truck drivers, parcel carriers and dockworkers into a heated national debate over who should get priority for the shots, as teachers, public-transit workers and other essential workers jockey for a place in vaccination lines defined by national and regional priorities. (Smith, 2/19)

AP: Caregivers Of Frail Tennessee Kids Get Vaccine Priority
The upcoming vaccine priority group in Tennessee includes people who live with or care for children younger than 16 who have any number of medical frailties, ranging from those receiving chemotherapy to children who use a wheelchair because of high-risk conditions. They might have to wait more than a month and a half to be eligible, under state Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey’s recent conservative timeline. But the national vaccine landscape is constantly shifting, with President Joe Biden saying there will be enough doses for 300 million Americans by the end of July. (Mattise, 2/21)

The Hill: Publix Offers Employees Who Get COVID-19 Vaccine A $125 Store Gift Card 
Publix will give employees a $125 gift card to the store if they get a COVID-19 vaccine, the grocery store announced last week. “We care about our associates and customers and believe getting vaccinated can help us take one step closer to getting back to normal,” Publix CEO Todd Jones said in a Friday statement. “We’re encouraging our associates to get vaccinated when they become eligible and doses are available.” (Pitofsky, 2/21)

The Hill: Blumenthal Pushes Facebook, Twitter To Remove Vaccine Misinformation Targeting Pregnant Women 
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is pushing Facebook and Twitter to clamp down on coronavirus vaccine misinformation campaigns that are targeting pregnant women. Blumenthal, in a letter sent to the tech giants on Friday, urged them to follow through on commitments to remove coronavirus vaccine misinformation after reported incidents of anti-vaccine campaigns are targeting and harassing pregnant women with false information. (Klar, 2/19)

Philadelphia Inquirer: For Philly Hospitals, Phone Calls More Effective Than Digital Platforms At Registering Seniors For COVID-19 Vaccines
Temple University Hospital System’s offer of COVID-19 shots to 10,000 older and medically at-risk patients prompted a low response rate — just 15% — from the people who should be most concerned about getting the virus. But after those initial invitations to register through TempleHealth, its online patient portal, the hospital system followed up with phone calls. The acceptance rate jumped to about 80%. “We knew this was going to be a lot of manual phone calls in our population,” said Tony Reed, chief medical officer at Temple University Health System. “We’re afraid that the people who need it aren’t going to get it if we don’t make it a personal touch." (Laughlin and McDaniel, 2/21)

Stat: Could The Pandemic Drive A Rise In Vision Problems Among Children?
Researchers around the world are closely watching for a potential ripple effect of the Covid-19 pandemic: an uptick in vision problems in children, many of whom are spending less time outside, and more time than ever in front of screens during work and play. (Goshua, 2/22)

CIDRAP: Mental Anguish In COVID-19 Survivors, Young US Adults 
Two new studies reveal high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts in adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. A research letter by Italian investigators published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry details a study of 381 patients in Rome who had sought emergency care for COVID-19 and were given a psychiatric assessment 1 to 4 months after recovery, from Apr 21 to Oct 15, 2020. (Van Beusekom, 2/19)

Modern Healthcare: Staffing Stress Leading To Calls For More Nurses
Anecdotes from front-line caregivers—particularly nurses—over unsafe conditions for patients have emerged throughout the pandemic. Crystal Johnson, an emergency department nurse at Emanate Health Inter-Community Hospital in Covina, Calif., is an example. The hospital experienced a surge of COVID-19 during the holiday season and in the weeks after. When she spoke to Modern Healthcare last month, Johnson claimed a waiver from the state allowing hospitals to adopt higher nurse-staffing ratios led to subpar care for patients. “You’re prioritizing your care based on what is needed at the time,” she said. “It’s completely unsafe.” (Castellucci, 2/20)

Stat: FDA Issues Alert On The 'Limitations' Of Pulse Oximeters
Two months after Democratic lawmakers expressed concern about potential racial disparities in pulse oximeter readings — calling the issue a matter of “life or death” — the Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued a public warning about the devices, acknowledging they had “limitations.” (Brodwin and St. Fleur, 2/19)

Modern Healthcare: Quality Of Care May Be Slipping During COVID, Experts Warn
Experts are worried that patient safety has been negatively affected amid all this immense change. “The conditions and the common contributing factors that increase the risk for errors have probably risen throughout the pandemic,” said Patricia McGaffigan, vice president of patient safety programs at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “The normal defenses we have put in place have really been centered around our expected way of working and so much of that has really changed.” For instance, restrictions on family members visiting patients likely contributes to oversights in safety because they are typically an extra set of eyes and ears for their loved ones, McGaffigan said. (Castellucci, 2/20)

Philadelphia Inquirer: COVID-19 Led To A Drop In Heart Surgery, With Grim Consequences
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, heart surgeons warned that fewer people were coming in for bypass operations, valve replacements, and other cardiac procedures, in some cases dying as a result. In a new nationwide analysis, researchers determined that the consequences may have been even worse than many realized — particularly in hard-hit hot spots in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. During April, the number of heart surgeries plunged by 71% in those three states and by 53% in the country as a whole, when compared with monthly averages in 2019. (Avril, 2/21)

Stat: Federal Watchdog Raises Concerns About Increasing Telehealth Fraud
A federal government watchdog is sounding the alarm that Americans’ growing enthusiasm for telehealth services during the coronavirus pandemic has led to a worrying parallel: a “dramatic increase” in telehealth-related fraud. (Diaz, 2/22)

NPR: Court Temporarily Blocks South Carolina Heartbeat Abortion Ban
Just a day after a bill banning most abortions in South Carolina was signed into law by Gov. Henry McMaster, a federal court blocked the measure. U.S. District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis granted a two-week temporary restraining order on Friday while the case, brought by Planned Parenthood, works its way through the legal system. The "South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act" would prohibit abortion as soon as cardiac activity can be detected with an ultrasound. The only exceptions would occur in cases of rape, incest or when a mother's life is in danger. (Romo, 2/19)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Outbreak Inside Maryland Detention Facility Sparks Class Action Lawsuit 
Advocates for detainees inside Maryland’s Chesapeake Detention Facility filed a federal lawsuit Saturday alleging that a host of unsanitary conditions fostered a coronavirus outbreak that affected 234 inmates and employees. The class-action lawsuit, filed in Baltimore’s U.S. District Court, alleges among other things that guards in the pretrial facility of 400 detainees rarely wore masks and that healthy detainees were forced into contaminated cells that had not been sanitized. (Olivo, 2/21)

NPR: U.K. Moves To Speed Up Vaccinations, With Goal Of 1st Dose For All Adults By July 31
The British government has announced that every adult in the U.K. will be offered a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of July, one month earlier than initially planned. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the accelerated target will allow vulnerable people to be protected "sooner," which should help relax the lifting of lockdown restrictions across the country. Senior ministers met to discuss the plan Sunday. Johnson will unveil the plan to ease restrictions to the House of Commons on Monday. Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC that about one-third of U.K. adults — about 17 million people — have already been vaccinated. The new target also calls for everyone over 50 or with an underlying health condition to get a vaccine shot by April 15, rather than the previous target of May 1. (Northam, 2/21)

Modern Healthcare: Some Europeans Get Choosy About Their Vaccine
Many Europeans are desperate for a coronavirus vaccine. But not just any vaccine. As AstraZeneca shots are rolling out to European Union nations this month, joining the Pfizer and Moderna doses already available, some people are balking at being offered a vaccine that they perceive—fairly or not—as second-best. In Poland, some teachers had misgivings about being put in line for the AstraZeneca vaccine, viewing it as less effective than the others, the Associated Press reported. (2/20)

The Hill: Macron Urges US, EU To Share Vaccine Doses 
French President Emmanuel Macron pressed the U.S. and European Union to allocate some coronavirus vaccine doses to be shared with developing countries that have been slower in getting their COVID-19 outbreaks under control. Macron said in an interview with the Financial Times that the U.S. and E.U. should set aside between 3 percent and 5 percent of their doses. (Axelrod, 2/19)

The Hill: Australia Begins Coronavirus Vaccine Rollout 
Australia has begun its coronavirus vaccine rollout, Reuters reports, with frontline healthcare workers and senior citizens receiving the first round of doses. According to the news outlet, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was among a group of 20 people who received the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer before the broader rollout began on Monday. Sixty thousand doses are expected to be administered by the end of this week, Reuters reports. (Choi, 2/21)

AP: Young Children Return To School In Germany
Elementary schools and kindergartens in more than half of Germany’s 16 states reopened Monday after two months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. The move comes despite growing signs that the decline in case numbers in Germany is flattening out again and even rising in some areas. (2/22)