First Edition: Jan. 24, 2022

KHN: The Doctor Didn’t Show Up, But The Hospital ER Still Charged $1,012
Dhaval Bhatt had been warned about hospital emergency rooms. “People always told me to avoid the ER in America unless you are really dying,” said Bhatt, an immigrant from India who got a Ph.D. in pharmacology in the U.S. and is now a research scientist at Washington University in St. Louis. But when Bhatt’s 2-year-old son burned his hand on the kitchen stove on a Wednesday morning in April, the family’s pediatrician directed them the next day to the local children’s hospital. (Levey, 1/24)

KHN: Why Medicare Doesn’t Pay For Rapid At-Home Covid Tests
What group is especially vulnerable to the ravages of covid-19 even if fully vaccinated and boosted? Seniors. And who will have an especially tough time getting free at-home covid tests under the Biden administration’s plan? Yes, seniors. As of Jan. 15, private insurers will cover the cost of eight at-home rapid covid tests each month for their members — for as long as the public health emergency lasts. Finding the tests will be hard enough, but Medicare beneficiaries face an even bigger hurdle: The administration’s new rule doesn’t apply to them. (Andrews, 1/24)

KHN: Vaccine Wars Ignite In California As Lawmakers Seek Stronger Laws
California is poised to become the front line of America’s vaccination wars. State lawmakers are drafting the toughest covid-19 vaccine legislation in the country, backed by a new pro-vaccine lobbying force promising to counter anti-vaccine activists who have threatened government officials and shut down public meetings across the state. Legislators want to require most Californians to get the shots — not just schoolchildren and health care workers — and eliminate the exemptions that would allow many people to get out of them. (Hart, 1/24)

KHN: One Year In, How Much Of Trump’s Health Agenda Has Biden Undone? 
It’s been a year since President Joe Biden took the reins of the federal executive branch, and with them the power to undo health policies of his predecessor. So how much has this administration accomplished? It depends on how — and what — you count. Biden or his health officials were quick to reverse many of the policies President Donald Trump implemented that did not require formal regulations. Those include having the U.S. rejoin the World Health Organization, rolling back the “Mexico City” policy that banned aid or international organizations that support abortion rights, and canceling a ban on the use of federal funds to study fetal tissue from elective abortions. (Rovner, 1/21)

ABC News: Fauci Optimistic Omicron Will Peak In February
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist, said Sunday he is "as confident as you can be" about the prospect of most states reaching a peak of omicron cases by mid-February. "You never want to be overconfident when you're dealing with this virus," Fauci told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz, adding that the COVID-19 virus has "surprised us in the past." (Gomez, 1/23)

The New York Times: Fauci, Cautiously, Says U.S. Wave Seems Like It’s Going In ‘Right Direction’ 
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, sounded cautiously optimistic on Sunday that the Omicron wave was peaking nationally in the United States and that the coronavirus cases could fall to manageable levels in the coming months. “What we would hope,” Dr. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser for Covid-19, said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” “is that, as we get into the next weeks to month or so, we’ll see throughout the entire country the level of infection get to below what I call that area of control.” (Chang, 1/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Cases May Have Peaked, But Hospitals Still Face A Torrent Of Patients
This winter’s omicron surge — the most explosive wave yet of the 2-year-old coronavirus pandemic — may be cresting in the Bay Area, but hospitals expect more challenging weeks ahead as the astonishingly high case counts continue to translate into a torrent of patients. Though the highly infectious omicron variant is causing less severe illness than earlier strains of the coronavirus, this winter has in some ways been just as difficult for hospitals, health care staff and administrators say. They may have fewer very sick patients, but most hospitals are about as busy this year as last as they deal with staffing shortages caused by COVID on top of profound physical and emotional fatigue among workers. (Allday, 1/23)

USA Today: 'Completely Full' ICUs As Omicron Wave Stresses Hospitals
The omicron wave of COVID-19 is straining hospitals in some regions of the country, even as a growing number of states have seen cases plateau or decline in the past seven days. COVID-19 cases in January soared to unprecedented levels, but Friday data from Johns Hopkins University shows most states have seen cases stay flat or decline this week. Even so, hospitals across the country are still seeing the effects of the surge of cases coupled with staffing shortages. (Fernando and Shannon, 1/22)

Fox News: COVID-19 Has Infected About 20% Of Americans, But True Percentage Likely Higher: Report
At least one in five Americans have now been infected with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, but the number is likely higher, including secondary to unreported asymptomatic cases, according to The Hill. The United States had its first confirmed case of COVID-19 reported 731 days ago on Jan. 21, 2020, but now has had over 70 million confirmed COVID-19 cases with over 866,000 deaths as of this Friday, according to The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which is a continuously updated source of COVID-19 data. (Sudhakar, 1/23)

The New York Times: How Omicron Is Different Than Delta 
In less than two months, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has spread around the globe and caused a staggering number of new infections. ... Scientists have been working overtime to study Omicron. Many questions remain unanswered, but here’s what they’ve learned so far. (Anthes and Corum, 1/22)

AP: Arkansas Sets New Record For COVID Hospitalizations 
Arkansas reported on Saturday its biggest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations since the pandemic began in 2020. The increase in hospitalizations comes as the state continues to feel the surge of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. (1/23)

AP: COVID-19 Patient At Center Of Ventilator Fight Dies In Texas
An unvaccinated COVID-19 patient flown from Minnesota to Texas during a legal battle over whether his ventilator should be turned off died Saturday, the family’s attorney said. A Minnesota judge had issued a restraining order on Jan. 13 blocking Mercy Hospital from turning off the machine that was keeping Scott Quiner alive, after his family sued the Coon Rapids health care facility. The family flew Quiner to a Texas hospital. (1/23)

The Washington Post: Booster Shots In U.S. Have Strongly Protected Against Severe Disease From Omicron Variant, CDC Studies Show 
Vaccine boosters provide robust protection against severe disease from the omicron variant in the United States, according to three reports released Friday that use real-world data to show the shots are effective at keeping vaccinated people out of the hospital. But the reports by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrived late to the winter surge in coronavirus cases that have choked the corridors of hospitals across much of the country. (Sun, Achenbach and Keating, 1/21)

CIDRAP: Moderna Vaccine Outperforms Pfizer Against Delta Breakthrough Cases
A study yesterday in JAMA shows the Moderna mRNA vaccine was more protective than the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine at preventing breakthrough COVID-19 cases during the US Delta surge. The study was based on electronic health records from 637,000 fully vaccinated patients from 63 healthcare organizations across the United States, dated from July to November 2021. Full vaccination was considered to be 2 or more weeks since a second dose of mRNA vaccine. Patients who were boosted (given a third dose) or who had prior COVID-19 infections were excluded from the study. (1/21)

CIDRAP: No Reduced Fertility With COVID Vaccines, But Infection Ups Risk In Men
A cohort study of more than 2,000 US and Canadian women indicates that COVID-19 vaccination does not impair fertility—but men who become infected with SARS-CoV-2 may experience short-term reduced fertility, according to surveys of the women's partners. (1/21)

CBS News: COVID-19 Vaccination Doesn't Reduce Fertility For Women, But Men Catching COVID Might, Study Finds 
Getting vaccinated against COVID-19 does not reduce the chances of successfully becoming pregnant for couples who are trying to conceive, suggests data from a study by researchers at Boston University. However, men in the study who tested positive for the virus appeared to have at least "a short-term decline in fertility." (Tin, 1/21)

The Atlantic: What’s Even Happening With Vaccines For Kids Under 5?
Back in September, the party line was that under-5 trial data would arrive “before the end of the year,” as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla declared at The Atlantic Festival. Those data never appeared. Instead, the week before Christmas, Pfizer announced in a maddeningly cryptic press release that two little-kid-size doses of vaccine had failed to elicit a hefty-enough immune response in 2-, 3-, and 4-year olds in late-stage trials. (Doubly dosed kids in the six-month-to-2-year-old range, though, did produce enough antibodies to satisfy the company’s criteria.) But the company had a plan—researchers would test a third injection eight weeks after the second—and a new timeline, with data arriving in the “first half of 2022,” maybe April-ish. Add to that the few weeks the FDA typically takes to review the data submitted for emergency-use authorization, and the earliest shots for this group are still probably two or three months away. (Wu, 1/21)

The Washington Post: Anti-Vaccine Activists March In D.C. — A City That Mandates Coronavirus Vaccination — To Protest Mandates
Thousands of protesters from across the country — including some of the biggest names in the anti-vaccination movement — descended on the nation’s capital Sunday for a rally against vaccine mandates. Almost two years into a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 860,000 Americans, the gathering on the National Mall was a jarring spectacle: A crowd of demonstrators, many unmasked, decrying vaccine mandates in the middle of a city that has adopted mask and vaccine mandates to reduce sickness and death from the surge of the virus’s omicron variant, which has battered D.C. for weeks. (Mettler, Johnson, Moyer, Contrera, Davies, Silverman, Hermann and Jamison, 1/23)

The Washington Post: Glenn Youngkin’s Masking Order Plunges Virginia Schools Into Utter Chaos 
A level of statewide chaos unprecedented in recent memory is looming for Virginia schools, as a new Republican governor prepares to enforce a mask-optional mandate on Monday that many superintendents and parents have vowed to fight, or to uphold, with all the ammunition they can muster. (Natanson, 1/23)

The Washington Post: Across The Region’s Schools, A Wildly Varied Treatment Of Masks 
Hannah Donart, a mother of two in Maryland, was glad her school system, in Montgomery County, planned to hand out KN95 masks for students and staff — but then frustrated by what her 7- and 10-year-olds brought home: a mask in a plastic sandwich bag, with no label or packaging. “I can’t trust them blindly, not with my children’s health,” said Donart, not wanting to chance that the items were less effective than what she already had. (St. George, Natanson and Asbury, 1/22)

CBS News: Virginia Parent Charged After She Threatens To "Bring Every Single Gun Loaded" Over School's Mask Dispute
A Virginia mother was charged Friday after she said at a school board meeting that she would "bring every single gun loaded and ready" to fight mask requirements for her children. Amelia King later emailed the board to apologize for her choice of words, saying she was not referring to "actual firearms."  (Powell, 1/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Schools May Be Open—But They’re Struggling 
Schools should be open, pandemic or not, much of the public says. If only they all had what they need to function. Students at New York City’s elite Brooklyn Technical High School played Hangman in psychology class recently while a substitute sat behind the teacher’s desk. They were eager to prepare for a coming midterm exam, the students said, but their usual instructor was out sick again. “Everybody’s kind of freaking out,” said Delia Marcus, 17. “We haven’t really learned anything.” (Chapman and Calvert, 1/23)

CNN: New Mexico's Governor Signs Up To Be Volunteer Substitute Teacher Amid Staffing Shortage
Faced with a dire staffing shortage in schools, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has taken drastic measures. The Democratic governor launched an initiative Wednesday asking state workers and National Guard members to become licensed volunteer substitute K-12 teachers and child care workers. Lujan Grisham has completed the registration to become licensed as a substitute teacher, her press secretary Nora Sackett confirmed to CNN. (Stracqualursi and Watson, 1/23)

AP: Governor Delays New Nursing Home Staffing Requirements 
Rhode Island is delaying a new law that would fine nursing homes for failing to comply with minimum staffing requirements. Gov. Dan McKee signed an executive order Friday that delays the law from going into effect until at least Feb. 14, the Providence Journal reported. The law was supposed to go into effect Jan. 1, but nursing homes warned they were be unable to meet the requirements amid ongoing staffing shortages. (1/23)

AP: New Conservative Target: Race As Factor In COVID Treatment
Some conservatives are taking aim at policies that allow doctors to consider race as a risk factor when allocating scarce COVID-19 treatments, saying the protocols discriminate against white people. The wave of infections brought on by the omicron variant and a shortage of treatments have focused attention on the policies. (Richmond, 1/23)

USA Today: Center For COVID Control Office Searched By FBI
The FBI on Saturday searched the headquarters of a nationwide string of coronavirus testing sites known as the Center for COVID Control. The company and its main lab, which has been reimbursed more than $124 million from the federal government for coronavirus testing, are under investigation by state and federal officials. The company and lab are registered at the same address in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. "The FBI was conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity in Rolling Meadows yesterday," Siobhan Johnson, a spokesperson for the FBI's Chicago office, told USA TODAY Sunday. (Hauck, 1/23)

CIDRAP: US Flu Levels Drop Slightly For Second Consecutive Week
For the second week in a row, US flu markers showed a slight decline, though activity is still elevated and will likely continue for several more weeks, the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) said today in its weekly update. The percentage of outpatient visits for flulike illness is still above the national baseline, but it dropped from 4.3% to 3.5% last week. The CDC has said that flu is just one of multiple respiratory viruses contributing to flulike illness levels and that flu levels vary in different parts of the country. (1/21)

AP: Youth's Overdose Death Renews Pleas For Narcan In Schools 
The death of a 13-year-old student who apparently overdosed on fentanyl at his Connecticut school has drawn renewed pleas for schools to stock the opioid antidote naloxone, as well as for training of both staffers and children on how to recognize and respond to overdoses. The seventh grader died Jan. 15 after falling ill at a Hartford school that did not have naloxone on hand. City officials vowed Wednesday to put the antidote in all city schools, as part of a wider drug use and overdose prevention strategy. (Collins, 1/23)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Pharmacist Accused Of Ignoring ‘Red Flags’ When Filling Opioid Prescriptions
The Justice Department is seeking to close a Southwest Side pharmacy accused of ignoring signs of abuse and illegally filling opioid prescriptions. Jitendra Chaudhary, the pharmacist-in-charge and part owner of Rite-Away Pharmacy and Medical Supply #2, is accused of unlawfully filling controlled substance prescriptions, according to a civil complaint filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The complaint alleges that Chaudhary and Rite-Away ignored numerous “red flags,” or obvious signs of abuse or diversion, when filling opioid prescriptions. One patient died from toxic effects of fentanyl nine days after Rite-Away filled her prescription for that drug, according to the complaint. (Beltran, 1/23)

AP: SC Senator To Get Medical Marijuana Debate After 7 Years 
A South Carolina senator who has fought to allow medical marijuana in the state for seven years appears to finally be getting a debate on the Senate floor. Senators put Sen. Tom Davis’ medical marijuana bill in a special debate slot where they will have to take it up before almost all other bills. The Beaufort Republican expects that could be either Tuesday or Wednesday. (1/23)

NBC News: Recreational Marijuana Sales Showered States With Cash In 2021
Legal, recreational-use marijuana sales boomed across the United States in 2021, reaching new levels in nearly a dozen states. Nationwide, those sales generated more than $3 billion in tax revenue for 11 states, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan and Nevada. That's higher than the $2.7 billion collected from the 10 states that allowed recreational marijuana sales in 2020, according to a report from the Marijuana Policy Project. (Ramos, 1/21)

The Mercury News: Five Workers Sue Sutter Health For Cleanser ‘Corrosive’ To Eyes
Sutter Health faced high rates of infection in its hospitals from a germ that causes severe diarrhea, and to combat the problem, the company procured a cleanser so noxious that dozens of employees have reported illnesses after using it, according to a lawsuit filed in Alameda Court earlier this week. The new product, Ecolab’s OxyCide, was cheaper than a two-step cleaning process that workers had previously used, saving Sacramento-based Sutter millions of dollars, attorneys alleged in a suit that seeks class-action status to represent 1,800 environmental services workers. “Rather than eliminate the product when confronted with its effects, Sutter wrote off the harm as user error and put the workers through re-training, doubling down on knowingly false claims to all EVS workers that the product was essentially harmless,” according to the lawsuit. (McClatchy, 1/23)

Modern Healthcare: CVS Caremark Agrees To Settlement Over Transaction Fees
The Oklahoma Insurance Department has entered into a settlement agreement with CVS Caremark over transaction fees the pharmacy benefit manager charges pharmacists to process Medicare Part D and group health plan claims, the agency announced Thursday. The CVS Health subsidiary will pay $4.8 million to settle the alleged violations of the state's Patient's Right to Pharmacy Choice Act. CVS Caremark will pay $2.3 million in restitution to drugstores and $2.5 million in penalties to the state. (Devereaux, 1/21)

Modern Healthcare: IBM Watson Health Data Sale To Include Imaging, Population Health Software
IBM Corp. plans to sell its imaging and population health software along with Watson Health's data and analytics business, the company said Friday. The tech conglomerate and private equity firm Francisco Partners have signed a definitive agreement and expect the deal to close in the second quarter, subject to customary regulatory approvals. The transaction, of which financial terms were not disclosed, includes IBM's medical imaging and population health software, Merge Healthcare and Phytel. (Kacik, 1/21)

Stat: Health Systems Invest More Aggressively Than Ever In Digital Health
During his talk at the recent J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Mayo Clinic CEO Gianrico Farrugia laid out a sweeping vision for technology transformation, driven largely by private sector upstarts that have partnered with the health system. Every few minutes, he punctuated references to this cadre of companies with a disclosure: Mayo owns equity in all of them. The Rochester, Minn., health system has long invested in for-profit businesses through its venture capital arm. But it has dramatically increased its allocation to digital health companies in recent years, pouring more than $100 million into a sector it had previously only acknowledged with sporadic, six-figure checks. (Ross, 1/24)

USA Today: Elon Musk's Neuralink Set To Begin Implanting Chips In Human Brains
Elon Musk's Neuralink has begun recruiting for a clinical trial director, bringing it one step closer to developing technology that could connect the human mind directly to devices. Neuralink's goal is to build something called a "brain computer interface" that allows people to transmit and receive information between their brain and a computer wirelessly, according to Neuralink's website. (Shen, 1/23)

Stat: New Effort Aims To Accelerate Clinical Trials For Common Diseases 
A group of scientists who did more than perhaps any other to test new treatments for Covid, including establishing that the steroid dexamethasone can save lives, is now turning its focus to the rest of medicine. The first step, announced today: a partnership with the Paris-based drug giant, Sanofi. Sanofi will give the U.K. non-profit Protas $6.8 million to begin its work to accelerate how clinical trials are done and make them far cheaper. It aims to build on what the researchers learned studying treatments against Covid-19 to test medicines for heart disease, cancer, depression, Alzheimer’s, and other common ailments. (Herper, 1/24)

The Washington Post: Most Adults Don’t Consume The Recommended Amount Of Fruits And Vegetables 
Although fruits and vegetables are considered a key part of healthy eating, most U.S. adults are not consuming enough of them, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It found that only 12 percent of adults consume 1½ to 2 cups of fruit daily, the amount recommended by the federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Even fewer — just 10 percent — eat the suggested 2 to 3 cups of vegetables daily. (Searing, 1/23)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Food Supply Is Under Pressure, From Plants To Store Shelves
The U.S. food system is under renewed strain as Covid-19’s Omicron variant stretches workforces from processing plants to grocery stores, leaving gaps on supermarket shelves. In Arizona, one in 10 processing plant and distribution workers at a major produce company were recently out sick. In Massachusetts, employee illnesses have slowed the flow of fish to supermarkets and restaurants. A grocery chain in the U.S. Southeast had to hire temporary workers after roughly one-third of employees at its distribution centers fell ill. (Newman and Kang, 1/23)

The New York Times: Some Women Are Keeping Their Pregnancies Secret During Pandemic
The pandemic has transformed the reality for many women, allowing pregnant women to stay out of sight of colleagues (if they are working remotely) and friends and family, since socializing is so limited. With that comes the freedom to talk about their pregnancy when they are comfortable and when they feel it won’t harm them professionally or psychologically. (Krueger, 1/22)

USA Today: Conjoined Twins Successfully Separated After 10-Hour CHOP Surgery
A couple and hospital were celebrating after the separation of 10-month-old conjoined twins Addison and Lilianna Altobelli. Addison and Lilianna were joined at abdomen and chest, according to a news release from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The twins shared a liver, diaphragm, chest and abdominal wall. Their parents, Maggie and Dom Altobelli, learned they were having conjoined twins at a 20-week ultrasound appointment. “I was trying to find out the gender of one baby I thought we were having, and then it turned out to be a little more complicated,” Maggie told NBC's "Today." “It was an out-of-body experience. It’s like, ‘What do you mean their stomachs are connected? Is this even a thing?” (Gilbert, 1/21)

ABC News: 'Multiple' Dogs May Have Been Sickened By Rat-Transmitted Illness, NYC Official Says
New York City dog owners are being warned after several pets may have been sickened by leptospirosis, a disease commonly associated with rats.A city council member said this week his office had received "reports of multiple dog fatalities" in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. (Deliso, 1/22)

CNN: Australia Was A Model In How To Handle Covid. Now It's A Mess 
Summer in Australia is traditionally a time of beaches and barbecues, but this year it's become a hot mess of rising Covid cases and a national shortage of rapid antigen tests. Last week, worker absences due to Covid isolation and illness became so severe that the national cabinet considered lowering the age limit for forklift licenses so that minors could pitch in to smooth supply chains. Ministers ultimately decided not to go ahead with the plan. But the idea that Australia, a country once lauded for its Covid-19 response, was considering such a move appeared to show how much the country's leaders were struggling. (Whiteman, 1/23)

Reuters: Rich Countries' Access To Foreign Nurses During Omicron Raises Ethical Concerns, Group Says
The Omicron-fuelled wave of COVID-19 infections has led wealthy countries to intensify their recruitment of nurses from poorer parts of the world, worsening dire staffing shortages in overstretched workforces there, the International Council of Nurses said. ... "We have absolutely seen an increase in international recruitment to places like the UK, Germany, Canada and the United States," said Howard Catton, CEO of the Geneva-based group that represents 27 million nurses and 130 national organisations. (1/23)