First Edition: Oct. 25, 2021

KHN: Fresh Faces, Fewer Tools: Meet The New Bosses Fighting Covid
Emilie Sayler’s roots run deep in southwestern Montana. She serves on a nearby town council and the board of the local Little League. She went to college in a neighboring county and regularly volunteers in the schools of her three kids. Just a few months into her new job as public health director for Madison County, she had hoped that those local connections might make a difference, that the fewer than 10,000 residents spread out across this agricultural region would see her familiar face and support her efforts to curtail the covid-19 pandemic raging here. (Ehli, 10/25)

KHN: 3 States Limit Nursing Home Profits In Bid To Improve Care
Nursing homes receive billions of taxpayers’ dollars every year to care for chronically ill frail elders, but until now, there was no guarantee that’s how the money would be spent. Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York are taking unprecedented steps to ensure they get what they pay for, after the devastating impact of covid-19 exposed problems with staffing and infection control in nursing homes. The states have set requirements for how much nursing homes must spend on residents’ direct care and imposed limits on what they can spend elsewhere, including administrative expenses, executive salaries and advertising and even how much they can pocket as profit. Facilities that exceed those limits will have to refund the difference to the state or the state will deduct that amount before paying the bill. (Jaffe, 10/25)

KHN: In Maine, Vaccine Mandate For EMTs Stresses Small-Town Ambulance Crews 
On a recent morning, Jerrad Dinsmore and Kevin LeCaptain of Waldoboro EMS in rural Maine drove their ambulance to a secluded house near the ocean, to measure the clotting levels of a woman in her 90s. They told the woman, bundled under blankets to keep warm, they would contact her doctor with the result. “Is there anything else we can do?” Dinsmore asked. “No,” she said. “I’m all set.” This wellness check, which took about 10 minutes, is one of the duties Dinsmore and LeCaptain perform in addition to the emergency calls they respond to as staffers with Waldoboro Emergency Medical Service. (Wight, 10/25)

KHN: Confronting Ageism In Health Care: A Conversation For Patients, Caregivers And Clinicians 
What does ageism in health care look like? It can be a thoughtless quip that makes an older person feel diminished. Or an assumption that patients are unable to follow a conversation or make their own decisions. Maybe it occurs when a concern is voiced, then discounted or dismissed. Ageism is reflected in care strategies that ignore a patient’s values and ideas about what constitutes a productive life. Too often, attitudes such as “these patients are old and near the end anyway” or “there’s not much we can do to help them” prevail. (10/22)

USA Today: Vaccine Appears To Work In Young Kids, FDA Says
Federal health regulators said for the first time late Friday that kid-size doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine appear highly effective at preventing symptomatic infections in elementary school children and caused no unexpected safety issues. The Food and Drug Administration posted its analysis of Pfizer’s data ahead of a public meeting next week to debate whether the shots are ready for the nation’s roughly 28 million children ages 5 to 11. The agency will ask a panel of outside vaccine experts to vote on that question and is expected to authorize the vaccine for young children as early as next week. (Santucci and Carless, 10/23)

AP: FDA Says Pfizer COVID Vaccine Looks Effective For Young Kids
Federal health regulators said late Friday that kid-size doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine appear highly effective at preventing symptomatic infections in elementary school children and caused no unexpected safety issues, as the U.S. weighs beginning vaccinations in youngsters. The Food and Drug Administration posted its analysis of Pfizer’s data ahead of a public meeting next week to debate whether the shots are ready for the nation’s roughly 28 million children ages 5 to 11. The agency will ask a panel of outside vaccine experts to vote on that question. (Neergaard and Perrone, 10/22)

Reuters: Fauci Says Vaccines For Kids Between 5-11 Likely Available In November 
Vaccines for kids between the ages of 5 and 11 will likely be available in the first half of November, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said on Sunday, predicting a timetable that could see many kids getting fully vaccinated before the end of the year. "If all goes well, and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendation from the CDC, it's entirely possible if not very likely that vaccines will be available for children from 5 to 11 within the first week or two of November," Fauci said in an interview with ABC's This Week. (Pamuk, 10/24)

Politico: CDC Director Encourages Halloween Trick-Or-Treating 
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Sunday encouraged families to celebrate Halloween and other holidays amid the Covid-19 pandemic, though still urged “prevention strategies.“ Speaking to host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” she said, “I would say put on those costumes, stay outside and enjoy your trick-or-treating.“ (Cohen, 10/24)

The Hill: CDC Director: 'We Can't Be Complacent' Amid Drop In COVID-19 Cases
Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on Sunday that she was "encouraged" by dropping COVID-19 cases across the country but warned "we can't be complacent." Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Walensky gave her assessment of the current state of the pandemic to host Chris Wallace, who noted that the U.S. is still seeing over 70,000 COVID-19 cases a day but that cases have seen a decrease compared to the prior month that saw a surge due to the delta variant. (Choi, 10/24)

The Washington Post: Pelosi: Democrats Near Deal On Biden’s Build Back Better Plan, Will Vote On Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill This Week 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Democrats are on the verge of an agreement on a social spending bill and also plan to vote on a separate $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill this week. “I think we’re pretty much there now,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, when asked whether President Biden would “have a deal in hand” on his “Build Back Better” agenda before he travels to Europe later this week. “We’re almost there. It’s just the language of it.” (Wang, 10/24)

Politico: Dems Weigh Ditching Medicare Expansion And Paid Leave In 11th Hour Of Social Spending Talks 
Democrats are haggling over whether to drop two of the most popular elements of their social spending bill as negotiations reach the zero hour, according to a half-dozen sources close to the discussions. While high-level talks on the $1 trillion-plus package are ongoing, lawmakers, staffers, advocates and lobbyists said that a plan to expand Medicare with dental, vision and hearing benefits for tens of millions of seniors — as well as a pitch to guarantee paid family and medical leave to all U.S. workers — is now in danger of getting cut from the bill entirely. (Caygle, Ollstein, Mueller and Levine, 10/23)

Politico: Pelosi Tries To Salvage Housing Aid 
Progressives are gaining traction in a bid to preserve housing funding in Democrats’ $2 trillion social spending package, after negotiators earlier floated plans to slash the aid by two-thirds. Democratic lawmakers and White House officials on Friday were considering devoting between $150 billion and $175 billion of the bill to housing, according to three sources familiar with the discussions. While it would be a major cut from the $327 billion that was initially proposed, it’s up from the $100 billion level that was on the table earlier this week. (O'Donnell and Cassella, 10/22)

The Washington Post: Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Recipients Rush To Get Boosters 
Jennifer Lopez, 58, had jumped at the chance to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last March but soon began feeling regret when data showed it might be less effective than other coronavirus vaccines. So, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on booster shots Thursday night for all Johnson & Johnson recipients who had gone two months since their shot, Lopez wasted no time seeking one out. (Shepherd and Sun, 10/23)

USA Today: COVID Vaccine: Why Mental Health Disorders May Qualify For Boosters
Research during the pandemic has shown those with mental health disorders are more vulnerable to COVID-19, but it wasn't until last week that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added them to the list of underlying medical conditions associated with a higher risk of severe disease. Although mental health experts say the addition should have come sooner, they applaud the agency’s update as the Food and Drug Administration authorizes COVID-19 boosters for millions of vulnerable Americans. (Rodriguez, 10/23)

PBS NewsHour: WATCH: CDC Says The Definition Of ‘Fully Vaccinated’ May Change As More People Get Boosters
Currently, the CDC says people still are considered fully vaccinated starting two weeks after the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, or the single-dose J&J shot. “So even after you boost, it remains important for us to remain smart about our prevention strategies,” Walensky said. “We still have over 93% of our counties with high or moderate community transmission, currently around 64 million Americans remain unvaccinated, leaving themselves and their children, their families, their loved ones and communities vulnerable.” (10/22)

The Washington Post: Americans Abroad Search For A First Vaccine Dose As Millions At Home Get Their Third One
U.S. Army veteran Leighton Slattery, 83, who lives with his daughter outside of Jakarta, Indonesia, says the two have spent much of the year housebound as they implored officials to share coronavirus vaccines donated by the U.S. government. In Bangalore, India, Asray Gopa, 17, still waits to get vaccinated because — unlike his friends in the United States — he is not old enough to obtain the shots under that country’s rules. (Diamond, 10/24)

CNN: People Who Got Covid-19 Vaccines Were Less Likely To Die From Any Cause Compared To Unvaccinated People, Study Finds
People who got Covid-19 vaccines were not only less likely to die from the virus, but they were less likely to die from any cause over the following months, researchers reported Friday. The research team was trying to demonstrate that the three authorized Covid-19 vaccines are safe and they say their findings clearly demonstrate that. "Recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Janssen vaccines had lower non--COVID-19 mortality risk than did the unvaccinated comparison groups," the researchers wrote in the weekly report of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Fox, 10/22)

NBC News: ‘Left Behind’: For Those With Weakened Immune Systems, Vaccines Have Not Provided Same Freedoms
One morning in March 2020, Terez Giuliana sat down to compose an email to her daughter. In the subject line, she wrote, “If I die.” Giuliana, 65, of Philadelphia, has common variable immune deficiency, a disorder characterized by an inability to produce antibodies, sometimes even after receiving vaccines, leaving those who suffer from it very vulnerable to infections. Covid-19 posed an extraordinary threat to her health. So as the virus began to sweep through the United States, Giuliana felt a need to get her affairs in order — just in case. (Chuck, 10/23)

The New York Times: Their Jobs Made Them Get Vaccinated. They Refused. 
Under the threat of losing their jobs, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers finally got a Covid-19 vaccine. Teachers, nurses and home health aides accepted their occupations’ mandates. The mass resignations some experts had predicted did not occur, as most workers hurriedly got inoculated. Josephine Valdez, 30, a public school paraprofessional from the Bronx, did not. (Nir, 10/24)

The Hill: DeSantis Eyes $5,000 Bonus For Unvaccinated Police To Relocate To Florida
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Sunday that he is looking to enact legislation that will provide a $5,000 bonus to police officers to relocate to Florida, where they can avoid vaccine mandates. DeSantis told host Maria Bartitomo on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that Florida is “actively working” to recruit law enforcement officers from other states who are being fired for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine. (Schnell, 10/24)

Houston Chronicle: AG Paxton Vows To Sue The Feds For Any State Agency Defying Biden Vaccine Mandate
As President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors took effect, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told state agencies he’d gladly sue the federal government if they choose to instead follow Gov. Greg Abbott’s order blocking such requirements. He also warned the agencies that “any violation of state law may expose your agency and its principals to liability.” “We will support any agency that follows state law and seeks to resist the repressive funding conditions being unlawfully imposed by President Biden,” Paxton wrote to Texas state agencies in an Oct. 15 letter obtained by Hearst Newspapers. (Goldenstein, 10/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Rejected 6% Of Medical Exemptions For School Vaccinations This Year, In Hint Of Fight Ahead
As California moves toward requiring all students to be inoculated against COVID-19, state officials have revoked more than 180 medical exemptions granted to families for other required school vaccinations since the start of the year. The revocations, which reflect a tension that may grow in coming years, came under a new law that seeks to crack down on suspected abuse in the process for forgoing the immunizations that every California student must get. The California Department of Public Health told The Chronicle that as of early October, it had revoked 182 medical exemptions through a new administrative review process because they did not meet federal guidelines for immunization practices — representing nearly 6% of the 3,136 exemption requests the department had reviewed. (Koseff, 10/24)

The Washington Post: Pro-Kyrie Irving, Anti-Vaccine-Mandate Protesters Demonstrate Before Nets Game 
A group of anti-vaccine-mandate protesters demonstrated Sunday afternoon at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in support of Nets guard Kyrie Irving, who has been told by the team to stay away as long as he refuses to receive a coronavirus vaccination. The incident occurred before the Nets’ home opener against the Charlotte Hornets. At one point, a number of demonstrators pushed through a row of metal barricades and rushed to an arena entrance. According to an arena spokesperson, none managed to enter the arena. (Bieler, 10/24)

AP: Florida's Top Doctor Refuses Mask, Is Told To Leave Meeting
Florida’s top health official was asked to leave a meeting after refusing to wear a mask at the office of a state senator who told him she had a serious medical condition, officials have confirmed. Florida Senate leader Wilton Simpson, a Republican, sent a memo to senators Saturday regarding the incident at the office of Democratic state Sen. Tina Polsky, asking visitors at the building to be respectful with social interactions. Polsky, who represents parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, had not yet made public her breast cancer diagnosis. (Licon, 10/24)

Fox News: COVID-19 Hospital Airborne Transmission Prevented By Air Filters, Study Suggests
COVID-19 particles can be effectively filtered from the air to prevent transmission in the hospital using portable air filters and ultraviolet (UV) light sterilization technology, according to a recent study. Nature recently reported the study, which is currently not peer reviewed, to be the first to demonstrate how portable high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters can reduce hospital transmission of detectable airborne COVID-19 virus in a real-world health care setting. The research is currently reported in the preprint server MedRxiv. (Sudhakar, 10/24)

CNN: Brain Fog In Covid-19 Patients Can Persist For Months, Even In Those Who Were Not Hospitalized, Study Finds
Cognitive impairment -- described as brain fog -- can persist for months in Covid-19 patients, even for some who were not hospitalized, according to a new study. The research, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open, found that nearly a quarter of Covid-19 patients in a Mount Sinai Health System registry experienced some issues with their memory -- and although hospitalized patients were more likely to have such brain fog after a coronavirus infection, some outpatients had cognitive impairment too. (Howard, 10/22)

The New York Times: Singer Ed Sheeran Announces He Has Tested Positive For The Coronavirus.
The singer Ed Sheeran announced Sunday on social media that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and would be canceling public appearances and working at home, in quarantine. It wasn’t immediately clear what appearances would be canceled or rescheduled, or whether Mr. Sheeran was sick with symptoms of Covid-19. (Carl, 10/24)

CBS News: Pennsylvania Congressman Confirms Breakthrough COVID-19 Case Hours After Appearing On House Floor 
Representative Glenn "GT" Thompson, who is vaccinated, has tested positive for COVID-19, his office confirmed Friday. The Pennsylvania Republican had voted on the House floor earlier Friday, according to House records. ... He was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center "out of an abundance of caution," his office said. "He is in good spirits and further updates will be made available in the coming days." (Reardon, 10/22)

NPR: Walmart Recalls Essential-Oil Infused Spray Due To Dangerous Bacteria Found
Walmart is recalling an essential-oil aromatherapy spray after a "rare and dangerous bacteria" that can cause a potentially fatal condition was reported, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says. Officials are investigating four confirmed cases and there have been two deaths, including that of a child, associated with the bacteria, according to the agency. The CPSC said that about 3,900 bottles of Walmart's Better Homes and Gardens-branded Essential Oil Infused Aromatherapy Room Spray with Gemstones are being recalled due to the discovery of a rare and dangerous bacteria called Burkholderia pseudomallei. The bacteria is known to cause melioidosis, a condition that is difficult to diagnose and can be deadly, the recall notice says. (Franklin, 10/22)

Fox News: New Study Suggests Breastfeeding May Help Prevent Cognitive Decline
Breastfeeding can have long-term cognitive benefits for the mother, a new study has found. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, conducted a study that found women over the age of 50 who had breastfed their babies performed better on cognitive tests compared to women who had never breastfed. "While many studies have found that breastfeeding improves a child’s long-term health and well-being, our study is one of very few that has looked at the long-term health effects for women who had breastfed their babies," Molly Fox, the study’s author, said in a news release. (Chasmar, 10/24)

AP: Maine Warns Of Ticks Amid Record Year For Babesiosis
Health authorities in Maine are warning residents of a second peak in tick activity in the state this fall. Many people associate deer ticks with summer, but they peak again from late September to November, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said. The ticks can carry diseases, such as Lyme disease, and are often found in wooded and leafy areas. (10/24)

USA Today: COVID-19 Updates: Europe Air Travel To US Won't End, Says CDC Chief
An alarming rise in cases of the "delta plus" COVID-19 variant in the United Kingdom is unlikely to result in a ban on flights from Britain and Europe, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Sunday. "We’re not anticipating that now," Walensky said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We're absolutely following the science very, very carefully, but we are not anticipating or looking into that right now." The delta plus variant, identified by British scientists last month, is considered a relative of the delta variant that fueled a deadly surge across the U.S. this summer. Because it isn’t a variant of interest or concern, it has not yet been named after a letter of the Greek alphabet. The U.N. health agency is tracking about 20 variations of the delta variant. (Santucci and Bacon, 10/24)

CNN: Covid In Europe Enters A Second Pandemic Winter As Chaos Grips The East And Uncertainty Haunts The West
Lockdowns, spiraling cases and a vaccine divide is framing the start of Europe's second pandemic winter, bringing chaos to eastern European countries and uncertainty to those in the West. Despite the widescale availability of vaccines this winter compared to the last, Europe is the only part of the world reporting an increase in new Covid-19 cases globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday. This is the third consecutive week the region has recorded a rise in cases, it added. The suffering has been acute in Eastern Europe and Russia, battling mounting deaths and cases fueled by vaccine hesitancy that has seen coverage rates dip as low as 24%, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). (John, 10/25)

CNN: Tens Of Millions Of Filthy, Used Medical Gloves Imported Into The US
Trash bags stuffed full of used medical gloves, some visibly soiled, some even blood-stained, litter the floor of a warehouse on the outskirts of Bangkok. Nearby is a plastic bowl, filled with blue dye and a few gloves. Thai officials say migrant laborers had been trying to make the gloves look new again, when Thai health authorities raided the facility in December. There are many more warehouses just like it still in operation today in Thailand -- trying to cash in on the demand for medical-grade nitrile gloves, which exploded with the coronavirus pandemic. And they're boxing up millions of these sub-standard gloves for export to the United States, and countries around the world amid a global shortage that will take years to ease. (McLean, Davey-Attlee, Olarn and Lister, 10/24)

New York Post: ‘Flesh-Eating’ STD That Causes ‘Beefy Red’ Sores Is Spreading In UK 
A once-rare flesh-eating sexually transmitted disease that causes "beefy red" ulcers is spreading across the UK, according to a report Friday. Cases of donovanosis — which causes thick sores that damage genital tissue — have been steadily growing in the region since 2016, and cases are expected to rise,  according to data and experts cited by Birmingham Live. "Figures suggest that donovanosis — which was previously thought to be restricted to places including India, Brazil, and New Guinea — is becoming more common on these shores," Dr. Datta, of MyHealthCare Clinic in London, told the outlet. Health officials reported 30 cases of the STD in the UK in 2019, but more infections in the past two years could pose a public-health risk, she warned. (10/24)