First Edition: March 17, 2022

KHN: Covid’s ‘Silver Lining’: Research Breakthroughs For Chronic Disease, Cancer, And The Common Flu 
The billions of dollars invested in covid vaccines and covid-19 research so far are expected to yield medical and scientific dividends for decades, helping doctors battle influenza, cancer, cystic fibrosis, and far more diseases. “This is just the start,” said Dr. Judith James, vice president of clinical affairs for the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. “We won’t see these dividends in their full glory for years.” (Szabo, 3/17)

KHN: Long Waits For Montana State Hospital Leave Psychiatric Patients In Jail
A woman experiencing delusions sat in Montana’s Cascade County jail for 125 days while waiting for a bed at the state psychiatric hospital. A man with schizophrenia spent 100 days last year in the Flathead County jail on the hospital’s waitlist, at times refusing food and water. A man complaining of voices in his head was jailed for 19 months awaiting a mental health evaluation. Montana State Hospital’s forensic facility, which evaluates and treats patients in the criminal justice system, has always had a waitlist, court records show, but the pandemic has lengthened it. As a result, people have been behind bars for months on pending charges without adequate mental health treatment. (Houghton, 3/17)

KHN: Missouri Tried To Fix Its Doctor Shortage. Now The Fix May Need Fixing. 
Missouri state Rep. Tricia Derges is pushing a bill to give assistant physicians like herself a pathway to becoming fully licensed doctors in the state. Not that Derges — among the highest-profile holders of the assistant physician license created in 2014 to ease a doctor shortage — is the most persuasive advocate right now. Derges was indicted last year on charges accusing her of selling fake stem-cell treatments, illegally prescribing drugs, and fraudulently receiving covid relief funds. (Sable-Smith, 3/17)

The Washington Post: Biden Interacted With Taoiseach Of Ireland Before Positive Coronavirus Test 
President Biden interacted with Micheál Martin, the Taoiseach of Ireland, on Wednesday night, shortly before the Irish leader disclosed a positive coronavirus test, a U.S. official said. But White House officials said Biden is not considered a close contact, according to the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC defines a close contact as being in the presence of someone with the virus for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more. Biden and the Taoiseach both attended the Ireland Funds National Gala on Wednesday night before the Irish leader left due to a positive test. (Pager and Hudson, 3/16)

NBC News: Irish Prime Minister, Who Attended Biden Event, Tests Positive For Covid
Martin left the event after the positive Covid test was returned and is not experiencing symptoms, the source said. A spokesman for the prime minister told Reuters that Martin received a positive PCR test. Biden, who has Irish roots, spoke onstage Wednesday for around 15 minutes, according to video and a press pool report. (Helsel and O'Donnell, 3/17)

The Boston Globe: Health Experts Say Making Daylight Saving Time Permanent Is A Terrible Idea. Permanent Standard Time, On The Other Hand ... 
War is raging in Ukraine. The coronavirus looks like it’s making a comeback overseas. Yet the Senate this week gave winter-weary Americans something different to fight about: the prospect of making daylight saving time permanent. The Senate’s unanimous passage of legislation Wednesday to do just that sparked intense reactions, from sun-starved Northeasterners thrilled over a potential reprieve from 4:30 p.m. winter sunsets to exasperated voters wondering why Congress can’t manage to work on more pressing matters. “It’s about time. No pun intended,” Ari Silverman responded in a survey of Globe readers.“There is some kind of prejudice against us morning people,” quipped Lillian Reynolds. (Tziperman Lotan and Fatima, 3/16)

The Washington Post: Permanent Standard Time Is Better Than Daylight Saving, Sleep Experts Say 
Sleep experts widely agree with the Senate that the country should abandon its twice-yearly seasonal time changes. But they disagree on one key point: which time system should be permanent. Unlike the Senate, many sleep experts believe the country should adopt year-round standard time. After the Senate voted unanimously and with little discussion Tuesday to make daylight saving time permanent, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine issued a statement cautioning that the move overlooks potential health risks associated with that time system. (The legislation, which would take effect next year, must get through the House and be signed by President Biden to become law.) (Chiu, 3/16)

Salon: Would Permanent Daylight Saving Time Actually Improve Our Sleep? Here's What Experts Say
What difference does moving the time one hour forward or back really make? Apparently, a lot, as legislators are once again trying to put a permanent end to biannual clock-changing by making daylight saving time permanent. The issue of daylight saving time has been at the forefront of public discussion in the past few years, with the possibility of change on the horizon in 2020 and 2021. Previously, there was even a trial period of year-round daylight saving between January 1974 to April 1975 to conserve energy (though the change didn't last). (Karlis, 3/16)

WFTS Tampa Bay: Sleep Experts Say Permanent Daylight Saving Has Health Risks
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine believes permanent standard time, rather than year-round daylight saving time is the better option. “When you have standard time, you’re exposing your body to its natural rhythm, which means light is predominantly exposed during the day and then towards the evening that’s when you want to decrease your light exposure. So, that your body starts going back into that rhythm,” said Dr. Jocelyn Cheng with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. (Petit, 3/16)

NBC News: CDC Confirms Uptick In Covid-19 Found In Wastewater
Government scientists confirmed Tuesday that there has been an uptick in the presence of Covid-19 in wastewater samples across the U.S. The potentially troubling trend comes as the country is shedding masks and easing pandemic restrictions aimed at stopping the spread of a virus that in two years has killed nearly a million people in the United States. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged the increase after Bloomberg reported that a third of the agency’s wastewater sample sites showed a rise in Covid cases from March 1 to March 10. (Edwards and Siemaszko, 3/15)

The Washington Post: U.S. Experts Bracing For Another Coronavirus Surge 
A surge in coronavirus infections in Western Europe has experts and health authorities on alert for another wave of the pandemic in the United States, even as most of the country has done away with restrictions after a sharp decline in cases. Infectious-disease experts are closely watching the subvariant of omicron known as BA.2, which appears to be more transmissible than the original strain, BA.1, and is fueling the outbreak overseas. (Bernstein and Achenbach, 3/16)

Stat: With Variant On The Rise, Experts Warn U.S. Could Face A Covid Resurgence
On the surface, U.S. Covid-19 metrics continue to show improvement, with cases, hospitalizations, and deaths down dramatically from their peaks just two months ago. But some experts are growing increasingly nervous that the positive trends may be slowing down or even headed for reversal. The country needs to prepare for another spike in cases, they’re warning, even if it turns out to be a minor one. Europe has seen a surge of cases in recent weeks, and the situation there has typically foreshadowed that in the United States. Moreover, some U.S. wastewater surveillance sites are picking up increased viral levels. Individual testing is down, and is increasingly done at home, so it’s harder to see the full landscape. (Joseph, 3/17)

CNN: This Key Indicator May Determine How Bad A BA.2 Wave Could Be 
With a new version of the Omicron coronavirus variant picking up steam in the United States, as many as 28 million seniors remain at risk of becoming severely ill from Covid-19, either because they are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, or because it has been more than five months since their second or third dose of a vaccine, according to a CNN analysis of federal data. As America casts a wary eye on rising cases caused by the BA.2 subvariant in Europe, the immune status of adults over the age of 65 will be a key indicator of how future variants will affect the US because the risk of severe outcomes rises dramatically with age. (Goodman and McPhillips, 3/16)

The Atlantic: Our Antibodies Can Tell Us About Future COVID Surges
The hunt for the next big, bad coronavirus variant is on. Scientists around the world are sampling wastewater and amassing nose swabs from the sick; they’re scouring the microbe’s genetic code for alarming aberrations. The world of outbreak surveillance “is all virus,” says Danny Douek, an immunologist at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. We’re laser-focused on getting eyes on a variant that would be well-equipped to wallop us, then alerting the globe. But that, Douek told me, is just one half of the infectious playing field where offense and defense meet. (Wu, 3/16)

The Washington Post: Hospitalizations Of Young Children Increased Fivefold During Omicron Surge, But Few Died, Says CDC Report
Young children in the United States were hospitalized at much higher rates this winter as omicron became the dominant variant than they were during the delta surge, according to a new report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the peak of the omicron wave, infants and other children under 5 were hospitalized at about five times the rate documented during the delta wave, although few deaths were reported, the study said. For infants under six months, hospitalizations were about six times higher during the omicron surge. (Shepherd, 3/16)

CIDRAP: Twice As Many Black COVID Patients Deemed Lowest Priority In ICU Triage System 
A crisis-standards-of-care (CSOC) scoring system used to triage COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) patients assigned twice the proportion of Black patients as other patients to the lowest-priority group, finds a modeling study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. During the pandemic, health systems developed CSOC scoring systems to prioritize the allocation of scarce resources such as ventilators. While the Massachusetts Department of Health published and then revised guidelines for COVID-related resource rationing, and Beth Israel preemptively scored patients to prepare for shortages, resources remained adequate, and allocation didn't occur. This study is an analysis of that data. (Van Beusekom, 3/16)

CIDRAP: COVID Of Any Severity May Lead To Long-Term Small Airways Disease
COVID may lead to lasting disease of the small airways, regardless of infection severity, according to a single-center study published yesterday in Radiology. Based on observations that many COVID-19 survivors later showed signs of chronic lung disease, University of Iowa researchers led the study of 100 adults who still had COVID-19 symptoms more than 30 days after diagnosis, or post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC). Participants, who were prospectively enrolled from June to December 2020, were compared with 106 matched healthy controls enrolled from March to August 2018. (3/16)

AP: Diabetes & COVID-19: Scientists Explore Potential Connection 
When their 11-year-old son started losing weight and drinking lots of water, Tabitha and Bryan Balcitis chalked it up to a growth spurt and advice from his health class. But unusual crankiness and lethargy raised their concern, and tests showed his blood sugar levels were off the charts. Just six months after a mild case of COVID-19, the Crown Point, Indiana, boy was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. His parents were floored — it didn’t run in the family, but autoimmune illness did and doctors said that could be a factor. (Tanner, 3/16)

NBC News: Pfizer's Covid Vaccine Safe In People With Prior Myocarditis, Study Says
The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine appears to be safe in people previously diagnosed with myocarditis, according to a small study presented Thursday at a European medical conference. The findings, experts say, should help reassure people who previously experienced myocarditis that Covid vaccination is safe. (Lovelace Jr., 3/17)

Crain's New York Business: A New Report Shows Lower Rates Of Suicidal Thoughts Among Physicians, But New York Hospitals Maintain Vigilance
Even as COVID-related hospitalizations decrease in the city, the mental health challenges accumulated by providers during the past two years are not likely to dissipate easily. A recent survey from Medscape, a West Village–based medical news source, found that suicide remains a pertinent risk for physicians experiencing stress. In its Physician Suicide Report released this month, surveying more than 13,000 doctors across 50 states, it found that 9% of respondents had thought of suicide but did not act on it; 1% of survey takers said they'd attempted to take their own life. (Sim, 3/16)

Modern Healthcare: Mental Health-Related ED Visits Increase After COVID-19 Surges, Study Finds
Hospitals are seeing more emergency department visits for mental health issues after COVID-19 surges, particularly among young adults and racial minority groups, a recent study found. Compared with before and during peaks in COVID-19 cases, mental health-related ED visits following the pandemic's surges composed a larger proportion of all ED visits, according to a JAMA Psychiatry report released Wednesday. Using National Syndromic Surveillance Program data, the study looked at a sample of U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 64 with several million ED visits across 3,600 emergency facilities nationwide between Jan. 1, 2019 and Aug. 14, 2021 that were related to a set of 10 mental health disorders. (Devereaux, 3/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: How To Cope With Perpetual Pandemic Fatigue
You’re getting up later and later; after work or school you collapse onto the couch, unlikely to move for a few hours. The naps are getting more frequent, and the dishes are piling up in the sink. Your brain can’t take it anymore. This is pandemic fatigue — which not only hasn’t faded, but has been compounded by a parade of new concerns, experts say. As the Bay Area marks the two-year anniversary of shelter-in-place orders, an increasing number of people across the U.S. are reporting heightened levels of anxiety and stress, according to the American Psychological Association. Even though some parts of life are returning to “normal” — offices asking workers to come back in (for real this time) and schools removing their mask mandates — there is still something decidedly not normal about life right now. (Wu, 3/16)

AP: Beshear Vetoes Measure Seeking Early End To COVID Emergency
A Republican-backed measure calling for an early end to Kentucky’s COVID-19 state of emergency was vetoed Wednesday by Gov. Andy Beshear, who said it would cut off extra food assistance to struggling Kentuckians. The state’s GOP-dominated legislature finished work on the measure last week, with supporters saying it signaled that life is getting back to normal after the long fight against the pandemic. (Schreiner, 3/16)

AP: NH To Close State-Managed COVID-19 Vaccination Sites 
New Hampshire is going to close its state-managed COVID-19 vaccination sites and demobilize most of its mobile vaccination teams on March 31. “The effort over the last one and a half years to get our residents vaccinated has been an immense success,” Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement Wednesday. (3/16)

Politico: Some Hospitals Ask Patients, Visitors To Remove N95s, Citing CDC
Late last year, Laura Wing-Kamoosi visited her 79-year-old father at the hospital in northern Michigan. To her surprise, a worker asked her to remove her N95 and replace it with a surgical mask. She declined, layering the surgical mask atop her N95 instead. She saw no staff wear N95s, among the best respiratory protection available, while they treated her father for a tear in his aorta and other medical issues, she told POLITICO. One doctor wore his surgical mask under his nose, she said. Her father, who was hospitalized for about a month, contracted Covid-19 during his stay, and while he survived, the virus slowed his recovery. (Levy, 3/16)

The Washington Post: TSA Has Investigated 3,800 Mask-Related Incidents, Issued $644,000 In Fines
The Transportation Security Administration has investigated more than 3,800 incidents of potential violations involving the federal mask mandate, assessing more than $644,000 in civil penalties, according to a report this week by the Government Accountability Office. The TSA, charged with enforcing the mandate in airports and other public transportation settings, has issued more than 2,700 warning notices, the report said. It issued civil penalties in about 900 instances, roughly 24 percent of cases that occurred between Feb. 2, 2021, and March 7, 2022. The average civil fine for violators was $699, the report said. (Aratani, 3/16)

The Hill: Members Of The 'People's Convoy' Given Capitol Tour By GOP Senator 
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) gave a tour of the Capitol to truckers from the “People’s Convoy,” his office confirmed to The Hill, noting it was compliant with the Senate sergeant-at-arms policies. ... Capitol Police declined to comment about the matter to The Hill. “Who would have known that taking a friendly group of hard-working American truckers, including Kansans, on a public tour of their nation’s Capitol building would cause such a stir. Let’s not forget, these are the essential workers who showed up to work every day in the earliest months of the pandemic to deliver goods and food to Americans,” Marshall said in a statement. (Vakil, 3/16)

AP: MLB Drops Regular COVID Tests, Can Move Games For Health 
Major League Baseball is dropping regular COVID-19 testing for all but symptomatic individuals while maintaining an ability to move games if the public health situation in an area deteriorates. MLB and the players’ association finalized their 2022 coronavirus protocols on Tuesday, easing pandemic restrictions five days after reaching a collective bargaining agreement. Some on-field issues have not yet been addressed, such as whether to continue the pandemic rule calling for “ghost runners” at second base in extra innings. (Blum, 3/16)

Modern Healthcare: Judge Greenlights Proposed Class Action Against Aetna
A federal judge revived a proposed class action that alleged Aetna Life Insurance Co. violated its own contractual obligations by using an overly restrictive definition of "medically necessary", in order to avoid paying for physical therapy. U.S. District Court of Connecticut Judge Michael P. Shea gave the greenlight for the proposed class action on Tuesday, leaving Aetna to defend itself from accusations that its coverage limits violated the Employment Income Retirement Security Act. The potential class action includes anyone who is insured through an employment plan administered by Aetna. The insurer did not respond to an interview request. (Tepper, 3/16)

Modern Healthcare: Blues Plans Accuse Walgreens Of Drug Fraud
Blues plans across the country on Tuesday accused Walgreen Co. of fraudulently inflating prescription drug prices by submitting false statements and omitting facts about its payment ceilings. For more than a decade, Blues plans in Maryland, South Carolina and Louisiana claim Walgreens overcharged them by hundreds of millions, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. A spokesperson for Walgreens declined to comment on the litigation. (Abrams, 3/16)

Stat: A Battle Is Brewing Between A Senator And A Nonprofit Over Pharma Patenting Practices
As the pharmaceutical industry faces pointed criticism over its patent practices, an effort appears to be under way to push back and challenge one of its leading critics in hopes of changing the narrative about patents and their role in prescription drug pricing. The focus is on a nonprofit called the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, or I-MAK, which has published several papers over the last few years criticizing drug makers for pursuing patents that may profitably extend the marketability of their medicines, but without necessarily adding any new, substantive value. (Silverman, 3/16)

AP: Elizabeth Holmes' Ex-Lover, Business Partner Faces Own Trial 
Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the jilted lover and business partner of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, finally has his chance to defend himself against charges that he was Holmes’ accomplice in a Silicon Valley scam involving a ballyhooed blood-testing technology that flopped. Opening statements in Balwani’s trial are scheduled Wednesday in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where a jury found Holmes guilty of investor fraud and conspiracy in January. She was acquitted on other counts accusing her of duping patients who relied on Theranos’ flawed blood tests. (Liedtke, 3/16)

The Washington Post: A Dentist Broke His Patients’ Teeth On Purpose So He Could Fix Them. Prosecutors Say He Made Millions.
Scott Charmoli’s patients’ teeth were just fine, but fine wasn’t making him enough money. So the dentist in Jackson, Wis., drilled into and broke his patients’ teeth in order to charge them for fixing the damage he’d caused, according to federal prosecutors. By doing so, Charmoli went from pulling in $1.4 million and affixing 434 crowns in 2014 to raking in $2.5 million and performing more than 1,000 crown procedures a year later. (Edwards, 3/16)

AP: Kentucky Senate Passes Bill Banning Abortions After 15 Weeks 
Kentucky lawmakers took another step Wednesday toward banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy with an eye toward a looming U.S. Supreme Court decision on abortion rights. The bill, which won Senate passage 31-6, is modeled after a Mississippi law under review by the nation’s high court in a case that could dramatically limit abortion rights in the United States. The Kentucky measure next advances to the House. Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers. (Schreiner, 3/16)

Stateline: As Abortion Pills Take Off, Some States Move To Curb Them
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weaken or topple its nearly 50-year-old abortion rights decision, Roe v. Wade, giving states wide latitude to restrict the procedure.  But most legislatures will be adjourned by then, and anti-abortion lawmakers aren’t waiting to address what they expect will be one result of widespread limits on clinical abortions: spiraling demand for medication abortions. Since January, legislators in at least 20 states have proposed bills that would restrict or ban access to abortion pills approved more than two decades ago by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This year’s flurry of bills was spurred in part by an FDA ruling during the coronavirus pandemic that eliminated a long-standing requirement that patients consult with prescribers and pick up the pills in person. (Vestal, 3/16)

Bloomberg: Citi Draws Ire Of Texas Republicans Over Its New Abortion Policy
Citigroup Inc. may have found a way of doing business in Texas while addressing one of the state’s hottest cultural divides. Buried in a filing released Tuesday night, the bank disclosed it will now cover travel costs for employees seeking an abortion after several states including Texas implemented or proposed a near-total ban on the procedure. The New York-based bank will pay expenses, such as airfare and lodging, that employees may incur if forced to leave a state for an abortion. (Miller and Hagan, 3/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Supreme Court Will Decide If Job-Screening Companies Can Ask Applicants Intimate Medical Questions
California bars employers from asking job applicants about their physical or mental health, at least until they've been offered a job. But an occupational health company requires job-seekers with thousands of California businesses to disclose, for example, whether they’ve had venereal disease, diarrhea, constipation or menstrual problems. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court asked the state Supreme Court whether the ban on intrusive medical questioning applies to an employer’s agent, such as a job-screening company like U.S. Healthworks. The order was issued in a proposed class-action suit on behalf of about 500,000 job applicants in the last four years, according to their lawyers. (Egleko, 3/16)

Los Angeles Times: California Bill Would Let Parents Sue Social Media Companies
California parents whose children become addicted to social media apps would be able to sue for damages under a bill advanced Tuesday in the state Assembly by a bipartisan pair of lawmakers. Assembly Bill 2408, or the Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act, was introduced by Republican Jordan Cunningham of Paso Robles and Democrat Buffy Wicks of Oakland with support from the University of San Diego School of Law Children’s Advocacy Institute. It’s the latest in a string of legislative and political efforts to crack down on social media platforms’ exploitation of their youngest users. (Contreras, 3/16)

Politico: Instagram, TikTok Could Get Sued For Addicting Kids Under California Proposal
Big Tech companies could face a slew of lawsuits for harming children under a new California proposal that takes the toughest industry-accountability stance yet on the mental health toll of intense social media use. The bipartisan measure from Assemblymembers Jordan Cunningham (R-Templeton) and Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), which rolls out on Tuesday, would hold social media companies legally liable for deploying features and apps that addict children to their detriment. Significantly, the legislation is retroactive, which would put the companies at legal risk for any past damage their products caused for teens and younger children. (Luthi, 3/15)

Roll Call: With Eating Disorders On The Rise, Lawmakers Seek Legislative Answer 
When Robin Nelson sought treatment for her daughter’s serious eating disorder in 2019, she hit a number of walls. Her adult daughter had left a 72-hour psychiatric hold but couldn’t get into a treatment program near her San Francisco home. The first available appointment was 32 days ahead. Nelson instead found her daughter a program at an Eating Recovery Center in Colorado — but her daughter’s insurance provider said it would be out of network. She ended up taking it, using her retirement and pension money to pay for it. (Raman, 3/16)

AP: Ex-Nurse Pleads Guilty In Nursing Home Death Of War Veteran 
A former nurse has pleaded guilty to her role in the death of a World War II veteran whose pleas for help were ignored at a nursing home, prosecutors said. Loyce Pickquet Agyeman of Snellville pleaded guilty Tuesday to involuntary manslaughter, neglect of an elder person and concealing the death of another, The DeKalb County District Attorney said. A judge sentenced Agyeman to serve eight years in prison. (3/16)

Fox News: Alzheimer's Disease Impacting 6.5M Older Americans
An estimated 6.5 million Americans ages 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's disease, according to a new report. In an annual update released by the Alzheimer's Association, the group wrote that 73% of those individuals are age 75 or older and about one in nine of those age 65 and older has Alzheimer's. Almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer's are women, and older Black Americans are about twice as likely to have Alzheimer's or other types of dementia than older White Americans. (Musto, 3/16)

AP: Study: SUVs, Pickups More Likely To Hit Walkers Than Cars 
Drivers of bigger vehicles such as pickup trucks and SUVs are more likely to hit pedestrians while making turns than drivers of cars, according to a new study. The research released Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety points to the increasing popularity of larger vehicles as a possible factor in rising pedestrian deaths on U.S. roads. The authors also questioned whether wider pillars holding up roofs of the larger vehicles make it harder for drivers to spot people walking near the corners of vehicles. (Krisher, 3/17)

Reuters: WHO Says Global Rise In COVID Cases Is 'Tip Of The Iceberg'
Figures showing a global rise in COVID-19 cases could herald a much bigger problem as some countries also report a drop in testing rates, the WHO said on Tuesday, warning nations to remain vigilant against the virus. After more than a month of decline, COVID cases started to increase around the world last week, the WHO said, with lockdowns in Asia and China's Jilin province battling to contain an outbreak. (Rigby and Mishra, 3/17)

AP: Canada To Drop COVID Tests For Vaccinated Visitors: Official 
Canada will no longer require a pre-arrival COVID-19 test for vaccinated travelers as of April 1. A senior government official confirmed the change Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to lack of authorization to speak publicly ahead of the announcement this week. (Gillies, 3/16)

The Washington Post: Unvaccinated Americans Can Travel To France Under Eased Travel Restrictions
France has moved the United States to a lower-risk category in its international travel restrictions, making entry significantly easier for Americans who are not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. The European country added the United States to its “green” list, which indicates “negligible or moderate circulation of the virus, in the absence of emerging variants of concern,” according to the Ministry of Interior. (Diller, 3/16)

Axios: Biden Officials Fear "Mass Migration Event" If COVID Border Policies End
U.S. intelligence officials are privately bracing for a massive influx of more than 170,000 migrants at the Mexico border if COVID-era policies that allow instant expulsions during the public health emergency are ended, sources with direct knowledge of the discussions tell Axios. The response under way includes a newly created — and previously unreported — "Southwest Border Coordination Center (SBCC)," essentially a war room to coordinate an interagency response. (Swan and Kight, 3/17)

Reuters: Britain Approves AstraZeneca's Antibody-Based COVID Therapy
Britain's medicines regulator has approved AstraZeneca's (AZN.L) antibody-based COVID-19 treatment for adults with poor immune response, marking a major step in the fight against the pandemic as infections surge globally amid spread of the Omicron variant. The decision to grant approval for the treatment was endorsed by the government's independent scientific advisory body after reviewing the evidence, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said on Thursday. (3/17)

Fox News: WHO: Ukraine Health Facilities Struggling To Provide Care
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (U.N.) are warning that medical facilities in Ukraine have been stretched to a breaking point. The WHO's regional office for Europe said it is working "day and night" to keep medical supply chains open and preserve Ukraine’s health system. According to the U.N., Russian missile attacks on health care facilities, workers and patients had killed 12 people and injured 34 as of Tuesday. More attacks are being verified. (Musto, 3/16)

The Boston Globe: Boston Doctor, Addressing Russians, Warns Against Nuclear War And ‘End Of Civilization’
A doctor from Boston appealed directly to leading Russian scientists Wednesday, warning that a nuclear war triggered by the “massive bloodshed” in Ukraine could bring the “end of human civilization.” Addressing the prestigious Russian Academy of Science, Dr. James Muller, a cardiologist and Nobel laureate, cautioned that the ongoing destruction in Ukraine could escalate and is preventing collaboration between Americans and Russians on a range of medical and scientific issues. “There is no possibility of raising money in the US for cooperation with Russian physicians until the violence has ceased,” he said. His impassioned remarks prompted some top Russian scientists — who’d spoken earlier about being ostracized by international colleagues behind a “new Iron Curtain” — to say they’d consider joining US counterparts in a public call to oppose nuclear conflict and resume collaboration. (Weisman, 3/16)

AP: WHO: Evaluation Of Russia's COVID Shot Has Been Postponed
The World Health Organization said Wednesday its evaluation of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine has been postponed for the time being, due to the “uneven situation.” WHO vaccines expert Dr. Mariangela Simao said at a press briefing that the U.N. health agency’s officials had originally been scheduled to visit Russia on March 7 to assess the facilities where Sputnik V is produced — just weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. (3/16)

Bloomberg: Medicago Covid Shot Faces WHO Rejection Over Company’s Tobacco Links
Medicago Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine is poised to become the first western shot to be rejected by the World Health Organization, because of the company’s links to cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc. The Canadian biopharma company’s request for pre-qualification of its Covifenz shot was not accepted, according to the WHO’s guidance document dated March 2. That means the WHO is unlikely to approve the vaccine for emergency use, which would also keep it out of the Covax global vaccine-sharing facility. (Gretler, 3/16)

The Wall Street Journal: New Covid Wave In China Hits Sellers Of ‘Quarantine Insurance’ 
In a country where one person inadvertently crossing paths with a Covid-19 patient can instantly put an entire apartment complex under lockdown for 14 days or more, Chinese insurers last year began offering what they called “quarantine insurance”—get locked down, receive a payout. Now, as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads rapidly across the country, overwhelmed insurers are pulling the plug on the products. (Cheng, 3/16)

AP: WHO Chief: World's Worst Health Crisis Is In Ethiopia 
As much of the world’s attention is focused on the bloodshed in Ukraine, the head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday there’s ”nowhere on earth where the health of millions of people is more under threat” than Ethiopia’s Tigray region. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation in Tigray from where he hails was “catastrophic,” saying the region had been “sealed off from the outside world” for about 500 days. “No food aid has been delivered since the middle of December,” Tedros told a press briefing, adding that about three quarters of health facilities assessed by WHO in the region had been destroyed. He said there was no treatment for about 40,000 people with HIV in the region. (3/16)