First Edition: Oct. 21, 2021

KHN: DC’s Harllee Harper Is Using Public Health Tools To Prevent Gun Violence. Will It Work? 
After four people were murdered in one week in early September — all in the same Washington, D.C., neighborhood — residents made a plea for help. “We’ve been at funerals all week,” said Janeese Lewis George, a City Council member who represents the neighborhood. “What can we do as a community?” (Gomez, 10/21)

KHN: The Yelp Of Covid: Vigilantes Crowdsource Pandemic Safety Tips For Consumers 
Melissa Lee had more to deal with than funeral planning when her husband, Dan Lee, died by suicide in January. She also was faced with continuing Dan’s 1,400-member Facebook group, “Athens, GA Mask Grades 2.0,” designed to help residents of Athens protect themselves from covid-19 by grading local businesses on their safety measures. The group follows a strict template that Melissa Lee compares to a Yelp review. The review includes information about a company’s physical distancing provisions, the availability of outdoor services, vaccination requirements, and the percentages of masked employees and customers. (Gonzales, 10/21)

KHN: Worn-Out Nurses Hit The Road For Better Pay, Stressing Hospital Budgets — And Morale 
In parts of the country where covid-19 continues to fill hospitals, a rotating cast of traveling nurses helps keep intensive care units fully staffed. Hospitals have to pay handsomely to get that temporary help, and those higher wages are tempting some staff nurses to hit the road, too. Nearly two years into the pandemic, there’s some truth in a joke circulating among frustrated ICU nurses: They ask their hospitals for appropriate compensation for the hazards they’ve endured. And the nurses are rewarded with a pizza party instead. (Farmer, 10/21)

The Washington Post: CDC Advisers Weigh Mix And Match Coronavirus Booster Shots
Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are meeting Thursday to vote on recommendations about mixing and matching coronavirus booster doses of all three vaccines authorized in the United States. The all-day meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices comes after the Food and Drug Administration authorized boosters doses of the Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines for different populations and on different timelines. (Jeong, Timsit and Sun, 10/21)

Roll Call: White House Prepares For Younger Kids' COVID-19 Vaccinations 
Vaccinating children ages 5 to 11 against COVID-19 will require an approach that differs from vaccinating adults, and the White House on Wednesday announced additional steps it is taking to prepare states for new protocols to vaccinate school-age kids even though the shots are not yet authorized. The United States has enough supply to vaccinate the 28 million kids in this group who could become eligible once the Food and Drug Administration authorizes the shot, which is expected as early as next week. In the first week after the anticipated authorization, the administration plans to ship 15 million doses for this group. (Cohen, 10/20)

The Hill: Under Pressure, Democrats Cut Back Spending
Democratic lawmakers are swiftly cutting back their spending on the Build Back Better agenda after President Biden made clear to progressive lawmakers that the package will spend far less than they had hoped on key priorities. Progressive and centrist Democrats alike say a new reality is setting in after weeks of stalemate over the shape and size of the social spending bill, which had also brought work on an infrastructure measure passed by the Senate to an impasse. (Bolton, 10/20)

AP: Big Changes In White House Ideas To Pay For $2 Trillion Plan
In an abrupt change, the White House on Wednesday floated new plans to pay for parts of President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion social services and climate change package, shelving a proposed big increase in corporate tax rates though also adding a new billionaires’ tax on the investment gains of the very richest Americans. The reversal came as Biden returned to his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to highlight the middle class values he says are at the heart of the package that Democrats are racing to finish. Biden faces resistance from key holdouts, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who has not been on board with her party’s plan to undo Trump-era tax breaks to help pay for it. (Mascaro, Superville and Fram, 10/21)

The Washington Post: Biden Accelerates His Involvement In Agenda Talks
For weeks, President Biden has met repeatedly with Democratic lawmakers as part of the tortuous negotiations over his agenda — but to the frustration of many, he has revealed few opinions of his own on what should remain in the plan and what should be jettisoned. This week, however, Biden is doing something new: getting specific and plunging into details, telling lawmakers exactly what he thinks needs to go into the package that could define his presidency. (Linskey, Sullivan and Viser, 10/20)

Politico: Democrats Weigh Vouchers For Medicare Dental Benefits Amid Funding Squeeze 
Congressional Democrats looking to cut at least a trillion dollars from their social spending package are considering converting one of the most expensive health care pieces — dental benefits for millions of seniors on Medicare — into a cheaper voucher program. The idea came up during a meeting Tuesday between House progressives and President Joe Biden, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who participated in the meeting, told POLITICO. (Ollstein, 10/20)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Focuses On Health Equity, Accountable Care In Its New Strategic Plan
For its second decade in operation, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center is implementing strategies to drive healthcare transformation, using demographic data, industry feedback and more accessible payment models. In a Wednesday webinar, CMS leaders outlined the agency's five new objectives and how they will advance health equity, expand coverage and improve health outcomes going forward. Driving accountable care: The first goal guiding the agency's work is to increase the number of people in relationships with providers that are accountable for patients' costs and improving their care history, said Dr. Liz Fowler, CMS Innovation Center director, during the virtual conference. (Devereaux, 10/20)

USA Today: Climate Change And Heat Waves Are Affecting Health In Deadly Ways
Working construction under the merciless Arizona sun, Eleazar Castellanos knew the signs that heat exhaustion was settling in. On the days when the temperature would top 100 degrees, he and his coworkers would sweat profusely. Then came the cramps in their arms and legs, and the overwhelming urge to stop: take a break, get some water, cool down. But they couldn’t. Not if they wanted to get paid and return home to their families as breadwinners. “Many of the employers don’t understand, we need to have breaks, to have water,” Castellanos said. “You don’t stop, because you know if you stop, you stop getting money. We try to get it done whatever the situation is.” (Bagenstose, 10/20)

The Boston Globe: Climate Change Is Taking Lives, And The Time To Act Is Running Out, Health Experts Say In New Report
As the planet heats up, an increase in wildfires, extreme heat, and drought is upending millions of lives worldwide, according to a new report from public health leaders around the world, putting the planet on the precipice of a global epidemic that could dwarf the COVID-19 crisis. The report, published Wednesday in The Lancet, details how little progress has been made to protect the world’s population from the health impacts of climate change, despite years of scientific reporting on the impacts of the crisis. (Shankman, 10/20)

AP: Reports: Health Problems Tied To Global Warming On The Rise
Health problems tied to climate change are all getting worse, according to two reports published Wednesday. The annual reports commissioned by the medical journal Lancet tracked 44 global health indicators connected to climate change, including heat deaths, infectious diseases and hunger. All of them are getting grimmer, said Lancet Countdown project research director Marina Romanello, a biochemist. “Rising temperatures are having consequences,” said University of Washington environmental health professor Kristie Ebi, a report co-author. (Borenstein, 10/21)

USA Today: New York Mandates COVID Vaccination For All City Workers, Offers Bonus
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is offering a carrot to go along with the vaccination mandate stick. De Blasio on Wednesday announced that all 160,000 city employees would have to be vaccinated by Oct. 29 or risk being placed on unpaid leave, but said those who comply will get a $500 bonus. To be eligible for the bonus, workers will have to receive at least their first vaccine dose by Friday of next week. Approximately 46,000 city employees, nearly 29% of the total, have yet to get their shots. (Ortiz and Bacon, 10/20)

The New York Times: Unmasked NYPD Officers Remove Subway Rider After He Confronts Them
A New York City police officer grabs a male commuter by his jacket and pushes him through an emergency exit door at a subway station in Manhattan, video posted to social media shows. “You’re being disruptive,” the officer tells him. The man in the 35-second video clip — which has garnered more than one million views and ushered in a fresh wave of criticism of the police — said in an interview that the confrontation erupted when he asked the officer and his partner to put on masks. (Closson, 10/20)

Bloomberg: Fed Survey Says Vaccine Mandates Contributing To Labor Turnover
Employers across the U.S. are struggling to attract and retain talent, and in some areas, vaccine mandates have made it even more challenging to hold onto workers, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book said Wednesday. The central bank said vaccine mandates were “widely cited” as contributing to high labor turnover, along with child-care issues and Covid-related absences. However, diving into the comments of the five regional Fed banks that mentioned vaccines, the repercussions of mandates varied. (Pickert, 10/20)

The Boston Globe: Mass General Brigham Employees Lose Bid To Halt Unpaid Leave Over Vaccine Mandate
On the day that 229 Mass General Brigham employees were placed on unpaid leave for failing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, a federal judge in Boston on Wednesday denied their motion to prevent the company from enforcing its vaccine mandate. Employees of the state’s largest hospital system had until Wednesday to show they had received at least one shot or be placed on unpaid leave. Those who have not received their first shot by Nov. 5 now face termination. A federal lawsuit filed by employees in US District Court on Sunday sought to halt those actions, saying the workers’ disability and religious exemptions had been wrongly denied without explanation or “meaningful interactive process” and “without a showing of undue hardship.” (Alanez, 10/20)

Fox Business: Advocate Aurora Health Fires More Than 400 Workers Over Lack Of Vaccinations: Reports
Health care company Advocate Aurora Health has fired more than 400 employees because they haven’t been vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to reports. About half the affected workers were part-timers, FOX 32 of Chicago reported, citing information from the Chicago Sun-Times. The move follows a vaccination mandate for health care workers in Illinois that was issued in August by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, the Sun-Times reported. (Calicchio, 10/21)

Charleston Gazette-Mail: Vaccine Exemption Bill Heads To Justice
If signed into law as is, House Bill 335 would force any private or public employer in West Virginia to accept religious or medical exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine if being vaccinated is a requirement of employment for the business. It would be the first piece of state code ever to dictate vaccine practices outside of those for public school registration. It also would be the first time the state codifies religious exemptions for any kind of vaccination. The current Department of Health and Human Resources webpage on vaccine exemptions reads, “non-medical exemptions [for immunization] have been associated with increased occurrence of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks originating in and spreading through schools.” (Coyne, 10/20)

ABC News: Largest Nurses Union Applauds Possible OSHA Action Against 3 States Over PPE
The country's largest nurses' union praised the federal government on Wednesday after officials said three states tasked with implementing their own safety measures for health care workers would lose that right unless they adhered to agreed-upon guidelines. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had announced Tuesday it was considering stripping Arizona, Utah and South Carolina of their abilities to oversee workplace safety enforcement because they're not in compliance with an emergency standard order passed over the summer that guarantees certain protections. (Pereira, 10/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: Court Overturns Order For ICE To Consider Releasing Medically Vulnerable Detainees During Pandemic
A federal judge’s April 2020 order requiring immigration officials to reassess their COVID-19 detention policies, and consider releasing thousands of detainees who were medically vulnerable, was overturned Wednesday by a federal appeals court, which said the order intruded on government authority over immigration. The injunction by U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal of Los Angeles effectively placed the nation’s 250 immigrant detention facilities “under control of a single District Court,” the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 2-1 ruling. Although the initial response of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the pandemic “may have been imperfect, even at times inadequate,” there was no evidence that ICE had been “deliberately indifferent” to the migrants’ health, the standard for judicial intervention, the court said. (Egelko, 10/20)

Bloomberg: Ivermectin Poisonings Rise As Unproven Use For Covid Soars
Poisonings from taking ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug that some people have used in an attempt to treat or prevent Covid-19, rose sharply in August, according to a report from the Oregon Poison Center. The center, which also serves Alaska and Guam, received 21 calls from people reporting ivermectin toxicity in August, up from a previous average of less than one per month, according to the report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Approved to treat parasitic worms in both people and livestock, ivermectin has surged in popularity recently as fringe groups, vaccine skeptics and social-media figures hype it as a cheap and accessible treatment for the coronavirus. (Langreth, 10/20)

The Hill: Navy Identifies 15th Sailor Killed By COVID-19
A Navy sailor who died of coronavirus-related complications earlier this month has been identified as Master-at-Arms Senior Chief Michael Haberstumpf. Haberstumpf, 42, of Whispering Pines, N.C., died Oct. 10 at UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill, N.C. due to COVID-19 related complications, the Navy said in a Wednesday statement. ... The release did not say whether he had received any COVID-19 vaccines, which active-duty Navy sailors are required to have done in full by Nov. 28. Reserve sailors, meanwhile, have until Dec. 28. (Mitchell, 10/20)

NBC News: NBA Player Karl-Anthony Towns On Losing 8 Relatives From Covid-19
NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns opened up about the loss of his mother and seven other family members to Covid-19 during a candid episode of the Facebook Watch show “Peace of Mind with Taraji.” The series, hosted by actor Taraji P. Henson and her friend Tracie Jade Jenkins, the executive director of Henson’s mental health advocacy group, tackles mental health awareness. (Breen, 10/20)

CNBC: Bomb Threat Locks Down Walter Reed Hospital, Navy Base
A shelter-in-place order was lifted Wednesday afternoon at a U.S. Navy base just outside of Washington, D.C., hours after a bomb threat was made against Walter Reed Medical Center located there. The order ended a lockdown at the base in Bethesda, Maryland, which had closed the facility’s gates to nonemergency traffic, according to tweets posted by the base and Walter Reed accounts. (Mangan and Breuninger, 10/20)

Stat: How Amazon Pharmacy Stacks Up A Year After Its Ambitious Launch
It was the launch that sent pharmacy stocks into a tailspin. Within hours of Amazon announcing it was starting Amazon Pharmacy last November, analysts began issuing warnings to investors in would-be rivals including CVS and Walgreens. “Today’s announcement is a net negative” for drug stores, one note from Evercore analysts read. “Retail Pharmacy is trading down big pre-market,” noted another, from Baird. But nearly a year after Amazon Pharmacy’s public debut — and three years after its purchase of specialty pharmacy startup PillPack — it remains unclear how Amazon will carve out its corner in an increasingly crowded market. (Brodwin, 10/21)

Bloomberg: Hundreds Sick As Onion-Linked Salmonella Outbreak Hits 37 States
People across the U.S. have been advised to throw away all unlabeled red, white and yellow onions after a mass salmonella outbreak sickened hundreds of people across 37 states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said one source of infections had been traced to onions imported from Chihuahua, Mexico, and distributed by ProSource Inc. So far 652 people have been reported sick, with 129 hospitalized. No deaths have been reported. The CDC said the actual number of people made ill was likely to be much higher, with most going unreported. Infections were recorded between May 31 and Sept. 30. (Millson, 10/21)

Fox News: Leptospirosis Cases Surge In NYC: What To Know About The Rat-Spread Infectious Disease
New York City has reported an increase in human cases of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that the city reports has been spread by rats. In a late September advisory, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported that 14 cases of human leptospirosis had been identified this year, a number it said was more than the total number reported to the city's health department in any previous year. Cases had been identified in all boroughs except Staten Island with "no obvious clustering." (Musto, 10/20)

New York Post: Broken Heart Diagnoses On The Rise In The US: Study
Hearts are breaking at rising rates, researchers have found. The life-threatening medical condition known as broken heart syndrome is being reported at increasing rates, according to a new study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The temporary condition, also known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, causes the heart muscle to become suddenly weakened and generally happens following a period of severe emotional or physical stress. While potentially life-threatening, most people recover within two months. (Frishberg, 10/20)

The Washington Post: AMC Bringing Captions To Big Screens Across The Country
The world’s largest movie chain is bringing open captions to the big screen, creating more accessibility for people who are deaf and hard of hearing at a time when younger audiences are used to seeing the spoken word flash on their streaming and social media feeds. AMC Entertainment said the rollout will cover 240 movie houses in 100 markets, or roughly 40 percent of the company’s U.S. theaters. The company said filmgoers will be able to find locations and showtimes on its app and website, and that availability could be adjusted based on audience demand and guest feedback. (Shaban, 10/20)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Nevada Overdose Deaths Continue To Climb, Reports Show
Drug overdose deaths among Nevadans under 25 nearly tripled from 2019 to 2020, while fatalities among the Hispanic community more than doubled, according to a recently released report from the state’s Division of Public Health and Behavioral Health. Last year, 106 Nevadans younger than 25 died of drug overdoses, compared with 38 in 2019, the report made public earlier this month stated. For Hispanics Nevadans death rose to 145 in 2020 from 66 the year prior. And the numbers continue to climb. (Torres-Cortez, 10/20)

AP: Maricopa County Signs Onto National Opioid Settlement
Maricopa County has become the first local government in Arizona to sign onto a massive settlement agreement with pharmaceutical companies over the nation’s opioid epidemic. The county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the settlement, which is expected to bring the county about $80 million of Arizona’s anticipated allocation, which could reach $550 million or more. (10/20)

AP: McLaren Will Pay $5M, Not $20M, In Flint Water Settlement
A $641 million settlement with people affected by Flint’s lead-contaminated water was reduced by $15 million Wednesday after a judge agreed that a hospital could cut its pledge. McLaren Health will pay $5 million instead of $20 million. It had the right to drop out completely if not enough claimants signed up for its share of the settlement. (10/20)

AP: Lawsuits: Mississippi Capital City's Water Harms Children
Two new lawsuits claim hundreds of children have been exposed to dangerous lead levels through the drinking water in Mississippi’s capital city, which has been facing water system problems for years. One lawsuit represents one child, while the other seeks to be a class action with about 600 children as plaintiffs. The suits, filed Tuesday in federal court in Jackson, say the city of Jackson and the state Health Department have made “conscience-shocking decisions and have shown deliberate indifference that have led to Plaintiffs’ exposure to toxic lead in Jackson’s drinking water.” (Pettus, 10/20)

AP: Auditor: Iowa's Privatized Medicaid Illegally Denies Care
Iowa’s privatized Medicaid system has illegally denied services or care to program recipients, and both private insurance companies managing the system have violated terms of their contracts with the state, according to a state audit released Wednesday. Auditor Rob Sand released a report from his investigation that examined cases from 2013 through 2019. He said his investigators found a massive increase in illegal denials of care by managed care organizations, or MCOs, under privatized Medicaid. (Pitt, 10/21)

AP: US Government Awards $1M To WV For Mother, Child Health Care
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded more than $1 million to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources for maternal and child health services in the state. West Virginia’s U.S. senators, Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Shelley Moore Capito, announced the award Wednesday. (10/21)

AP: Russians To Stay Off Work For A Week As Virus Deaths Rise 
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered most Russians to stay off work for a week later this month amid rising COVID-19 infections and deaths, and he strongly urged reluctant citizens to get vaccinated. The government coronavirus task force reported 1,028 deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. That brought Russia's death toll to 226,353, by far the highest in Europe. (10/20)

CNN: New Delta Descendant Is Rising In The UK. Here's What To Know 
British and international authorities are closely monitoring a subtype of the Delta variant that is causing a growing number of infections in the United Kingdom. This descendant of the Delta variant, known as AY.4.2, accounted for an estimated 6% of cases in the week of September 27 -- the last week with complete sequencing data -- and is "on an increasing trajectory," a report by the UK Health Security Agency said. Little is known about AY.4.2. Some experts have suggested it could be slightly more transmissible than the original Delta variant, though that has not yet been confirmed. While it accounts for a growing number of infections, it is not yet classified in the UK as a "variant of concern." (John, 10/20)

Bloomberg: NHS Chair Says Young May Be Infecting Old In U.K. Covid Surge
Amid concern that a new twist on the delta variant could be driving the current U.K. coronavirus surge, National Health Service chair David Prior said it’s more likely that school-aged children are infecting older people whose vaccine-induced immunity is on the wane. “It’s too early to say, but that’s what we think is the most likely explanation,” Prior said Tuesday evening in an interview at a Boston health conference. Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeted on Sunday that “urgent research” was needed to determine if the new delta variant AY.4 -- which represents 8% of recently sequenced cases in the U.K. -- was more transmissible and better at evading immune defenses. (Goldberg, 10/20)

Axios: India Hits 1 Billion COVID Vaccinations Milestone 
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Thursday that the country's health workers have now administered more than 1 billion COVID-19 vaccines doses. While this is a significant milestone for the country of 1.4 billion, which has been devastated by the coronavirus, only about 30% of the eligible population has been fully vaccinated against the virus, per AP. Roughly 75% has received at least one dose. (10/21)

The Hill: UK Sees Increase In Women Being 'Needle Spiked' With Date Rape Drugs
The United Kingdom has seen a disturbing increase in women being injected with "spiked needles" filled with date rape drugs, often at nightclubs in cities with large student populations, according to reports from BBC News. The spate of incidents has left women in the U.K. "terrified of going out" and has spurred to a petition with 150,000 signatures asking the U.K. government to make searching guests at bars a legal requirement, the BBC reported. (Breslin, 10/20)