First Edition: Oct. 12, 2021

KHN: A Wrenching Farewell: Bidding Adieu To My Primary Care Doctor After Nearly 30 Years 
I hadn’t expected the tears. My primary care doctor and I were saying goodbye after nearly 30 years together. “You are a kind and a good person,” he told me after the physical exam, as we wished each other good luck and good health. “I trust you completely — and always have,” I told him, my eyes overflowing. “That means so much to me,” he responded, bowing his head. Will I ever have another relationship like the one with this physician, who took time to ask me how I was doing each time he saw me? Who knew me from my first months as a young mother, when my thyroid went haywire, and who since oversaw all my medical concerns, both large and small? (Graham, 10/12)

KHN: The Public Backs Medicare Rx Price Negotiation Even After Hearing Both Sides’ Views 
As Congress debates cutting prescription drug costs, a poll released Tuesday found the vast majority of adults — regardless of their political party or age — support letting the federal government negotiate drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries and those in private health insurance plans. The argument that pharmaceutical companies need to charge high prices to invest in research and develop new drugs does little to change that sentiment, according to the new KFF poll. Most respondents agreed the negotiation strategy is needed because Americans pay more than people in other countries and because companies’ profits are too high. (Gomez, 10/12)

KHN: 6 Months To Live Or Die: How Long Should An Alcoholic Liver Disease Patient Wait For A Transplant? 
The night before Brian Gorzney planned to check into rehab for alcohol use, he began vomiting blood. First at 2 a.m. Then 5. And again at 11. When he arrived at the rehab facility in North Kansas City, Missouri, they sent him directly to the adjoining hospital. There, Gorzney, then 50, and his family learned he had severe alcoholic hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver typically associated with excessive alcohol use. Gorzney had been drinking heavily on and off for years and, by February 2020, was having as many as a dozen drinks a day. His only chance of survival was a liver transplant, doctors said. (Pattani, 10/12)

CBS News: Justice Department Asks Court To Stop Texas Abortion Law From Being Implemented
And one of the defining features of the Texas law is the fact that no state officials are involved in enforcing actions taken against violations of the ban. Instead, the law authorizes private citizens to file civil lawsuits in state courts against alleged violators of the law — clinics, providers or even people who help a woman get an abortion — and provides a monetary incentive for them to do so. ... In Monday's filing, the government argues that the lower court's injunction against the Texas law should be reinstated because the Texas abortion law is clearly unconstitutional in denying citizens access to a judicial remedy, and is therefore unlikely to stand. (Legare, 10/12)

Bloomberg: Texas Abortion Law Is ‘Sabotage’ Of Guaranteed Right, U.S. Says
The Biden administration urged a federal appeals court to reinstate a judge’s order blocking enforcement of Texas’s new ban on most abortions, arguing the law flouts more than 200 years of precedent. The Texas law barring most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant, far exceeds the power granted to state legislatures under the Constitution, the Justice Department said late Monday in a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans. “Texas defends its novel scheme by invoking state sovereignty,” the Justice Department said. “But state sovereignty does not encompass the authority to defy the Federal Constitution.” (Larson, 10/12)

CNN: Advocates Fear Abortion Laws Will Worsen The Black Maternal Health Crisis
Briana McLennan was 19 years old and at least eight weeks pregnant when she had to make a tough decision: get an abortion and continue with her plans of moving to Atlanta for college, or stay home in Texas and figure out a way to raise a baby with no job and no money. McLennan decided to get the abortion with some funding help from the Texas Equal Access Fund. "I knew that I was not ready to go through with the pregnancy," McLennan said. "I was still a child myself." McLennan, now 31, still believes she made the right choice. She was able to finish college, pursue her career goals and now has a job as a social worker for the Texas Equal Access Fund. (Ellis, 10/11)

NBC News: Supreme Court Considers Whether Kentucky Attorney General Can Defend Abortion Law
The Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider whether Kentucky's attorney general can defend a state abortion law that bans a surgical procedure commonly used in the second trimester of pregnancy. Immediately after the law was signed by then-Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, in 2018, a Louisville women's surgical center challenged the measure in court. A federal judge found the law unconstitutional in 2019, concluding that it restricted a woman's right to an abortion before the fetus is considered viable. (Williams, 10/12)

Louisville Courier Journal: SCOTUS Abortion Ruling: Daniel Cameron To Defend Kentucky Abortion Law
Lawyers for Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron will appear before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, seeking the right to revive a defense of a 2018 state abortion law a federal appeals court struck down last year. The court will convene at 10 a.m. to hear arguments on whether Cameron can reopen a case involving an abortion procedure generally used after about the 14th week of pregnancy. The hearing focuses on a single procedural question of whether Cameron may challenge a decision last year by the appeals court striking down the Kentucky law or whether he intervened in the case too late. (Yetter, 10/12)

AP: Appellate Court Sets Hearing In South Carolina Abortion Case
An appellate court is set to debate a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s abortion law about a week after the U.S. Supreme Court considers a similar measure in Mississippi. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has tentatively calendared the South Carolina case for oral arguments the week of Dec. 6, according to an order from the court posted Friday. Planned Parenthood is suing South Carolina to over the measure, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster earlier this year and requires doctors to perform ultrasounds to check for a so-called “fetal heartbeat.” If cardiac activity — which can typically be detected about six weeks into pregnancy — is detected, the abortion can only be performed if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger. (Kinnard, 10/11)

AP: Justices' Views On Abortion In Their Own Words And Votes
Abortion already is dominating the Supreme Court’s new term, months before the justices will decide whether to reverse decisions reaching back nearly 50 years. Not only is there Mississippi’s call to overrule Roe v. Wade, but the court also soon will be asked again to weigh in on the Texas law banning abortion at roughly six weeks. The justices won’t be writing on a blank state as they consider the future of abortion rights in the U.S. They have had a lot to say about abortion over the years — in opinions, votes, Senate confirmation testimony and elsewhere. Just one, Clarence Thomas, has openly called for overruling Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two cases that established and reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion. Here is a sampling of their comments. (Sherman and Gresko, 10/12)

CNBC: Texas Gov. Abbott Issues Order Banning Covid Vaccination Mandates In Rebuke Of Biden
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order on Monday prohibiting any entity, including private businesses, from imposing Covid-19 vaccination requirements on employees or customers. “The COVID-19 vaccine is safe, effective, and our best defense against the virus, but should remain voluntary and never forced,” said Abbott said in a statement. Abbott, a Republican, said in his order that it was prompted by the Biden administration’s vaccine federal mandate, which the governor called federal overreach. (Clark, 10/11)

Houston Chronicle: Abbott Flips, Aims To Bar Private Businesses From Requiring Vaccines
Under increasing pressure from his GOP primary opponents, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is changing his position on vaccine mandates and now trying to bar private businesses from requiring their workers to get them. It was just in August, Abbott declared in an executive order that he would bar governments from requiring them. But his office made clear he would not meddle in private business decisions. "Private businesses don't need government running their business,” Abbott’s spokeswoman Renae Eze said at the time. (Wallace, 10/11)

Newsweek: Teen Becomes Fourth Person To Die From COVID In Same Texas School District Since August
A16-year-old Texas student has died from COVID-19, becoming the fourth person from the same school district to lose their life after contracting the virus since August. George Moralez, a 10th-grader at Connally High School in Waco, passed away on October 6, having reportedly been ill for more than a month. ... Three district employees have also died from COVID-19 in recent weeks. Connally Junior High seventh-grade social studies teacher David McCormick, 59, passed away on August 24, and just four days later, a sixth-grade social studies teacher at the same school, 41-year-old Natalia Chansler, died. On September 14, Angela Thompson, an instructional aide at Connally Primary School, died from COVID-19, having contracted the virus before the school year began. (Sulleyman, 10/12)

USA Today: New Treatments Offer Hope With Vaccines For 'Interlocking Benefits' Against COVID-19
Several new COVID-19 treatments are likely to become available within the next few months. Each drug fills a slightly different role, but together they could change the course of the illness, at least in the United States. Both an experimental antiviral from Merck and a monoclonal antibody from AstraZeneca, along with a handful of other drugs making their way through the development process, could make COVID-19 a much less fearsome disease. (Weintraub, 10/12)

The Wall Street Journal: New Clues Emerge About Whether Vaccines Can Help Fight Long Covid
Millions of people suffer from symptoms of long Covid, doctors estimate. Now, early research is offering some clues about whether vaccinations might help. When the vaccines first came out, some people who had suffered from debilitating symptoms for months after their initial Covid-19 infections told their doctors they felt better after getting vaccinated. The response intrigued scientists. Now, emerging research suggests that vaccines may help reduce symptoms in some people. (Reddy, 10/11)

CIDRAP: Mental Disabilities, Disorders Linked To Mortality Risk During Pandemic
People with mental disorders and intellectual disabilities had a greater mortality risk during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to a study published late last week in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe. The researchers looked at 167,122 people from the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust from 2019 to 2020. Across the cohort, 40.0% had at least one affective disorder, 34.7% neurotic/stress-related and somatoform disorders, 22.5% substance use disorder, and 15.8% schizophrenia-spectrum disorder. Overall, all-cause mortality from Jan 1, 2019, to Dec 31, 2020, was 4.0%, with 48.4% of those (3,227) occurring prior to Jan 30, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern. (10/11)

Stat: A Primer On What We Know About Mixing And Matching Covid Vaccines
Later this week an expert committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will hear about the results of a clinical trial that could influence how Covid vaccines are used in this country at some point in the future. The trial, conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is a so-called mix-and-match trial, testing the Covid vaccines authorized in the U.S. in combinations with each other. The goal of the trial was to see whether using a different vaccine as a booster shot improves protection. (Branswell, 10/12)

The New York Times: Boosters Are Complicating Efforts To Persuade The Unvaccinated To Get Shots 
Vaccinated people have been burning up the phone lines at the community health center in rural Franklin, La., clamoring for the newly authorized Covid booster shot. But only a trickle of people have been coming in for their initial doses, even though the rate of full vaccination in the area is still scarcely 39 percent. (Hoffman, 10/11)

AP: Most State Workers, WA Hospital Staff Vaccinated For COVID
Nearly 90% of Washington’s hospital staff statewide are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a recent survey released a week before a deadline for workers to either be vaccinated or receive an exemption in order to keep their jobs. Cassie Sauer, CEO of the Washington State Hospital Association, said Monday that with 94% of the state’s hospitals reporting, an overall rate of 88% fully vaccinated was reported as of last week’s cutoff date for vaccination in order to make the deadline. Under the mandate issued by Gov. Jay Inslee in August, full vaccination is considered two weeks after a final dose, meaning workers needed to receive a final dose of either Pfizer or Moderna, or the one-shot dose of Johnson & Johnson by Oct. 4. (La Corte, 10/11)

AP: Nearly All State Health Workers Vaccinated In North Carolina
North Carolina officials announced Monday that nearly all of the 10,000 employees working in 14 state-operated health care facilities are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. According to the state Department of Health and Human Services, 6% of workers got an approved medical or religious exemption or a special accommodation, while the remaining 94% are fully vaccinated. (Anderson, 10/11)

Los Angeles Times: Facing Disruption, LAUSD Extends Staff COVID Vaccine Deadline
The Los Angeles school district — confronted with widespread campus disruption and the firing of potentially thousands of unvaccinated teachers and other staff — has extended the looming deadline for all workers to be fully immunized for COVID-19. The prior deadline of Oct. 15 — this Friday — has been moved to Nov. 15, when employees must have received the second of two doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, according to a brief district statement. The district did not clearly state a timetable for the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. (Blume, 10/11)

AP: Thousands Protest Vaccine Mandates At Mississippi Rallies
Thousands recently rallied against COVID-19 vaccine mandates at protests held on Mississippi’s coast and in its capital. Upwards of 1,500 workers and their family members waved homemade signs and flags along U.S. 90 near the entrance to Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula on Friday, the Sun Herald reported. The company, which builds 70% of the U.S. Navy’s warships, is one of the largest federal contractors and state employers. (10/11)

CNN: A Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate Won't Force Staff At This Rural Missouri Hospital To Get The Shot, CEO Says. It Will Make Them Quit 
Dr. Randy Tobler, CEO of Scotland County Hospital in Memphis, Missouri, has struggled to retain staff during the Covid-19 pandemic, losing 10 of his 57 nurses in the main hospital and three rural health clinics. So Tobler can't afford to alienate any more health care workers, but he believes a Covid-19 vaccine mandate could do just that. Such a requirement won't make his unvaccinated staff get the shot, he says. It will make them quit. (Reeve, Guff, Russell and Andone, 10/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Southwest Pilots Insist Disruptions Are Not Part Of Sickout
As Southwest Airlines canceled several hundred more flights Monday following a weekend of major disruptions that it blamed on bad weather and air traffic control issues, the company and the pilots union said the cancellations were not in response to a vaccination mandate, according to the Associated Press. The widespread disruptions began shortly after the union for Southwest’s 9,000 pilots asked a federal court on Friday to block the airline’s order that all employees get vaccinated against COVID-19. The union said it doesn’t oppose vaccination, but it argued in its filing that Southwest must negotiate before taking such a step. Pilots are not conducting a sickout or slowdown to protest the vaccine mandate, according to the union, which said it “has not authorized, and will not condone, any job action.” (Vaziri, Buchmann, Fracassa and Beamish, 10/11)

The Hill: NBA Superstar Won't Play Home Games All Season Because He Refuses To Be Vaccinated 
Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving’s decision to not take a COVID-19 vaccine could lead to the superstar missing his team’s home games throughout the season. New York City vaccine mandates will require any person in attendance at games at the Barclays Center --home of the Nets -- and New York Knicks facility at Madison Square Garden to have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Yet Irving will be able to practice with the team at the HSS Training Center, which is a private business. (Barnes, 10/11)

AP: New Mexico Professor Against Vax, Mask Mandates Fired
A New Mexico State University professor who publicly opposed campus vaccine and mask mandates will no longer be teaching there. The Las Cruces Sun-News reports David Clements, a business college professor, posted on his social media account on the Telegram platform that he had been “terminated.” The university confirmed Monday that Clements was “no longer employed by NMSU.” (10/11)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Philly Marathon 2021 Runners Must Have COVID Vaccine
The Philadelphia Marathon, which is scheduled for Nov. 20, is requiring runners to be vaccinated for COVID-19 two weeks prior to race day, organizers said Monday. Also, the number of registered in-person participants will be limited compared to pre-pandemic times, when the whole event would draw around 30,000 runners. There will be a preliminary cap of 10,000 in-person runners for the full 26.2-mile marathon, a 10,000 cap on the half-marathon, and around 3,500 for the 8K race, for a total of about 24,000 in-person participants. (Moran, 10/11)

NPR: Poll: Financial Distress Worsens For Americans During Delta Surge
Americans have fallen way behind. The rent's overdue and evictions are looming. Two-thirds of parents say their kids have fallen behind in school. And one in five households say someone in the home has been unable to get medical care for a serious condition. These are some of the main takeaways from a new national poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (Simmons-Duffin and Neel, 10/12)

Modern Healthcare: Kaiser Permanente Workers Give Union OK To Strike
Members of two labor unions representing more than 24,400 Kaiser Permanente employees in southern California and Oregon have voted to allow their bargaining teams to call a strike, if needed. The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals' and the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals' votes comes after the unions' contracts with the integrated health system expired at the end of September. At both unions, 96% were in favor of authorizing strikes. The labor groups announced the voting results Monday. (Christ, 10/11)

NBC News: 'This Is Not Where We Expected To Be': Massachusetts Nurses Strike Hits 7-Month Mark
The nursing strike at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, marked its seventh month Friday, as negotiations between the union and hospital officials continued to deteriorate with no end in sight. More than 700 nurses walked off the job March 8, citing chronic staffing issues made worse by the pandemic. Despite months of negotiations, the workers, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, said the hospital owned by Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare would not meet their demands. The nurses now hold the record for the longest nurses strike in state history. (Kesslen, 10/10)

Crain's Detroit Business: Michigan Medicine To Negotiate With Nurses Union Over Vaccine Mandate
As the Nov. 1 deadline for vaccination against COVID-19 nears for all Michigan Medicine staff, the university health system still hasn't figured out how to mandate the policy for its 6,150 nurses. Last December, the system ratified a one-year collective bargaining extension with the University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council Independent Union that exempted nurses from a vaccine mandate and instead required the system to negotiate with the union for required vaccination.The agreement states: " ... the Employer will provide the COVID-19 vaccination at no cost to the employees and on a voluntary basis." (Walsh, 10/11)

Modern Healthcare: Anesthesiologists Accuse UnitedHealth Of Anticompetitive Network Exclusions
The American Society of Anesthesiologists is calling on the Justice Department to investigate the "high rate" of provider contracts the nation's largest insurer is canceling early, a practice the lobbying group says leads to higher costs for patients and employers and threatens providers' financial viability. UnitedHealth Group's UnitedHealthcare arm has been removing a growing number of anesthesiologists from its provider networks, the organization wrote in a letter sent to acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Powers on Thursday. (Tepper, 10/11)

AP: California Senior Facility Fined Over Worker Abusing Woman
California regulators have fined a senior living center where a worker was secretly caught on video slapping a 90-year-old resident with dementia, roughly placing her into bed and throwing a blanket over the woman’s face. The California Department of Social Services said the treatment constituted physical abuse and fined the Brookdale Senior Living Facility in Folsom $500, saying in a report the resident sustained “a serious bodily injury while in care,” the Sacramento Bee reported Monday. (10/11)

Modern Healthcare: Northwell Health Ditches Insurers For Direct Network Contracting
Northwell Health will provide health benefits to its 75,000 employees and dependents through a new direct contracting system at the start of the next year, the not-for-profit integrated health system announced Monday. The New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based company has expanded the partnership with Northwell Direct, a for-profit subsidiary it launched last year that eschews traditional insurers and instead uses a direct network contracting approach with providers. Northwell Health, the Empire State's largest healthcare employer, previously had a self-insured plan administered by UnitedHealth Group's UnitedHealthcare, and also used that insurer's provider networks. UnitedHealthcare did not respond to an interview request. (Tepper, 10/11)

The Boston Globe: Some Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Trustees Stood To Profit From Roles
The trustees of the world-renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute serve a vital role. They hire the chief executive, are stewards for its thousands of vulnerable patients, organize big-ticket fund-raisers, and in some cases, give millions of dollars themselves. While the volunteer board position carries complex demands, it also puts the trustees in direct contact with the institute’s doctors and scientists who are on the front lines of the race to cure cancer. And with that, it has also given some trustees a unique opportunity for personal enrichment. (Kowalczyk, Ryley and Wen, 10/11)

Stat: Francis Collins’ Resignation Could Complicate Fight Over Funding For ARPA-H
Francis Collins’ announcement last week that he will soon step down as National Institutes of Health director could complicate the Biden administration’s plans to launch ARPA-H, arguably the largest initiative the agency has undertaken in decades. Collins, who has led NIH since 2009, is set to depart by the end of the year, leaving the White House just months to find a new leader for the $41 billion science agency. Beyond leaving the larger research office in flux, however, Collins’ retirement adds uncertainty to the process surrounding ARPA-H, a proposed $6.5 billion agency aimed at, in President Biden’s words, tackling major diseases like Alzheimer’s and diabetes and “ending cancer as we know it.” (Facher, 10/12)

Stat: Experiments With An Old Drug Suggest New Approach To Alzheimer’s 
A generic drug used widely to treat swelling associated with hypertension and heart failure showed hints in early research that it may also prevent the devastating brain damage of Alzheimer’s disease, a surprising twist that suggests scientists have a lot more to learn about the root cause of the neurodegenerative condition. The findings, reported Monday in Nature Aging, show how the drug, bumetanide, reversed signs of Alzheimer’s in mice, as well as in human brain cells in lab dishes. The new study also detailed real-world data mined from millions of patients’ electronic health records showing that people over the age of 65 who regularly took bumetanide were 35% to 75% less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. (Molteni, 10/11)

CNN: Phthalates: Synthetic Chemical In Consumer Products Linked To Early Death, Study Finds 
Synthetic chemicals called phthalates, found in hundreds of consumer products such as food storage containers, shampoo, makeup, perfume and children's toys, may contribute to some 91,000 to 107,000 premature deaths a year among people ages 55 to 64 in the United States, a new study found. People with the highest levels of phthalates had a greater risk of death from any cause, especially cardiovascular mortality, according to the study published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Pollution. (LaMotte, 10/12)

The Washington Post: The Flu Proves More Deadly For Children Of Color Than For White Youths, Study Says 
People who are Black, Hispanic or American Indian/Alaska Native are more likely than White people to be hospitalized with a case of the flu in the United States, according to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutions. Young children in these groups, along with Asian and Pacific Islander children, are also more likely to die of flu than White children. (Robers, 10/11)

CIDRAP: CDC Reports New Multistate Salmonella Outbreak Linked To Seafood
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) late last week issued a food safety alert concerning a Salmonella Thompson outbreak linked to raw and cooked seafood—a variety of fish species—distributed by Northeast Seafood Products. The outbreak has mainly affected Colorado residents or recent visitors. So far, there are 102 known illnesses in 14 states. Nineteen people have required hospitalization, but no deaths have been reported. Among 62 people interviewed, 51 (82%) reported eating seafood in the week prior to illness. Eighty-two sickened people live in Colorado. (10/11)

The Wall Street Journal: The 27-Year-Old Friends Behind Puff Bar—Teens’ Favorite E-Cigarette
Two 27-year-old vaping entrepreneurs are the mystery men behind Puff Bar, the most popular e-cigarette brand among teens, which regulators have tried and failed to force off the U.S. market. In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, the business partners discussed the brand’s popularity among young people and Puff Bar’s decision to reformulate its products with synthetic nicotine so they don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (Maloney, 10/11)

Los Angeles Times: Noxious Odors In Carson Declared A Public Nuisance
Foul odors emanating from the Dominguez Channel were declared a public health nuisance by the Carson City Council on Monday, with Los Angeles County health officials making a similar declaration. The odors, which have been likened to rotten eggs, vomit, unwashed body parts or a “fart bomb,” are probably caused by hydrogen sulfide from decomposing organic material and have prompted thousands of complaints from residents since they started about a week ago. To lessen health effects, people should leave the area, the health department said in a news release Monday declaring the odors “sufficiently pervasive to be considered a public nuisance.” (Campa, 10/11)

Politico: Parliamentary Report Says UK Mistakes Cost Thousands Of Lives During Pandemic
Delaying a lockdown in the U.K. and failing to prioritize social care caused thousands of avoidable deaths, according to a parliamentary report on lessons learned to date from the coronavirus pandemic. The joint investigation published Tuesday by the House of Commons' science and health committees is lawmakers' first stab at digging into why the U.K., which was initially praised for its pandemic preparedness planning, saw cases skyrocket and deaths far outnumber many comparable countries. To date, deaths associated with the coronavirus in the U.K. stand at more than 150,000, placing the country in the Top 10 worldwide for total fatalities, according to World Health Organization data. (Collis, 10/12)

Bloomberg: Boris Johnson Slammed By U.K. MPs For ‘Fatalistic Approach’ To Covid
Boris Johnson’s U.K. government made serious mistakes in its early handling of the coronavirus pandemic and should have imposed a full lockdown more quickly, a move that would have saved many lives, a parliamentary inquiry found. In a sharply critical joint report released Tuesday, the health and social care committee and science and technology committee said the U.K. had adopted a “fatalistic approach” to Covid-19 in early 2020, failing to learn from East Asian countries that halted the spread of the virus using swift lockdowns and mass testing. (Ashton, 10/12)

Bloomberg: Vladimir Putin Says He Has A Cold, Tells Russian Officials It's Not Covid-19
President Vladimir Putin said he has a cold and he isn’t suffering from Covid-19, after he was heard repeatedly coughing at a televised meeting with officials. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine,” Putin told a videoconference Monday with his Security Council, also shown on state television. “They do tests practically on a daily basis not only for Covid-19 but for all other infections and everything is ok.” That unannounced broadcast followed an earlier one Putin held with officials to discuss agriculture, in which he was seen and heard coughing on numerous occasions. (Halpin, 10/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine Is World’s Preferred Shot 
The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE has emerged as the world’s vaccine of choice. From Latin America to the Middle East, dozens of governments are turning to the shot. Australia is now offering the vaccine, after shifting away from competitors. Turkey, the U.K. and Chile are providing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to people who took other shots. (Hopkins and Uribe, 10/11)

AP: Moderna Has No Plans To Share Its COVID-19 Vaccine Recipe
Moderna has no plans to share the recipe for its COVID-19 vaccine because executives have concluded that scaling up the company’s own production is the best way to increase the global supply, the company’s chairman said Monday. In an interview with The Associated Press, Noubar Afeyan also reiterated a pledge Moderna made a year ago not to enforce patent infringement on anyone else making a coronavirus vaccine during the pandemic. (D'Emilio, 10/11)

CIDRAP: DRC Confirms New Ebola Case In Earlier Outbreak Area
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over the weekend reported a lab-confirmed Ebola case and three suspected infections, all fatal, in an area in North Kivu province that was one of the main epicenters in earlier outbreaks. The new case marks the country's first Ebola infection in 5 months and its 13th Ebola outbreak. It's not yet clear if the flare-up is linked to an earlier outbreak in the same area that was declared over in early May after 11 confirmed cases, 6 of them fatal, were reported. (Schnirring, 10/11)