First Edition: Sept. 9, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Obamacare Co-Ops Down From 23 To Final ‘3 Little Miracles’ 
New Mexico Health Connections’ decision to close at year’s end will leave just three of the 23 nonprofit health insurance co-ops that sprang from the Affordable Care Act.One co-op serves customers in Maine, another in Wisconsin, and the third operates in Idaho and Montana and will move into Wyoming next year. All made money in 2019 after having survived several rocky years, according to data filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. (Galewitz, 9/9)

Kaiser Health News: Exercise And Diet Are More Important Than Ever With Virus At Large 
If your life these days is anything like mine, a pre-pandemic routine that included regular exercise and disciplined eating has probably given way to sedentary evenings on a big chair, binge-watching reruns of your favorite TV series while guzzling chocolate ice cream or mac ’n’ cheese. But let’s not beat ourselves up about it. Several doctors I spoke with recently said most of their patients and many of their colleagues are struggling to maintain healthy habits amid the anxiety of the pandemic. “The Quarantine 15” (pounds, that is) is a real phenomenon. (Wolfson, 9/9)

Stat: AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine Study Put On Hold Due To Suspected Adverse Reaction In Participant In The U.K.
A large, Phase 3 study testing a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford at dozens of sites across the U.S. has been put on hold due to a suspected serious adverse reaction in a participant in the United Kingdom. A spokesperson for AstraZeneca, a frontrunner in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine, said in a statement that the company’s “standard review process triggered a pause to vaccination to allow review of safety data.” In a follow-up statement, AstraZeneca said it initiated the study hold. The nature of the adverse reaction and when it happened were not immediately known, though the participant is expected to recover, according to an individual familiar with the matter.  (Robbins, Feuerstein and Branswell, 9/8)

The New York Times: AstraZeneca Pauses Covid-19 Vaccine Trial For Safety Review 
Drug companies are racing to complete a coronavirus vaccine that could bring an end to a pandemic that has already claimed more than 890,000 lives globally. AstraZeneca is a front-runner, with late-stage clinical trials underway around the world, and has said it hoped to have a vaccine ready before the end of the year. If the cause of the reaction turns out to be related to the vaccine, those efforts could be derailed. Late-stage vaccine testing remains crucial, as large trials can turn up rare but serious side effects that would surface only if many thousands of people received a vaccine. (9/8)

Politico: AstraZeneca Halts Covid-19 Vaccine Trials To Assess Safety Issue 
"This is a routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "In large trials illnesses will happen by chance but must be independently reviewed to check this carefully. We are working to expedite the review of the single event to minimise any potential impact on the trial timeline." (Brennan, 9/8)

The Hill: AstraZeneca Vaccine Trial Paused To Investigate 'A Potentially Unexplained Illness' 
One of the leading coronavirus vaccine clinical trials, from AstraZeneca, has been paused to investigate a “potentially unexplained illness” in one of the participants, the company said Tuesday. The announcement could lead to a concerning setback to a high-profile coronavirus vaccine clinical trial, though much remains unknown, and it is not clear how much of an impediment the development will be. (Sullivan, 9/8)

The Washington Post: Pandemic Seems To Be Leveling Off In U.S., But Numbers Remain Troublingly High, Experts Say 
The coronavirus pandemic appears to be leveling off in most of the United States, with new cases, deaths and hospitalizations all down over the past week, but the plateau leaves the country with high and persistent infection numbers and worries of a ­post-Labor Day surge in some areas. The number of new cases reported daily peaked above 70,000 in July and has been falling since. The decline now seems to be slowing, with the daily number hovering near 40,000 for more than a week, a review of nationwide data showed Tuesday. That is one sign that the infection may be leveling off. (Gearan and Weiner, 9/8)

Reuters: COVID-19 Cases Rise In U.S. Midwest And Northeast, Deaths Fall For Third Week 
Several states in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast have seen new COVID-19 cases increase for two weeks in a row, though nationally both new infections and deaths last week remained on a downward trend, a Reuters analysis showed. The United States reported more than 287,000 new cases in the week ended Sept. 6, down 1.4% from the previous week and marking the seventh straight week of declines. More than 5,800 people died from COVID-19 last week, the third week in a row that the death rate has fallen. (9/8)

CIDRAP: US Sees Almost 90,000 COVID Deaths From Memorial To Labor Day
Instead of a summer lull in novel coronavirus cases, the pandemic quadrupled in case counts and almost doubled in fatalities between the Memorial Day and Labor Day holidays in the United States. According to the Washington Post, the summer of 2020 saw the US fatality count go from just under 100,000 to 186,000. Per the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker, there were 24,257 new COVID-19 cases yesterday and 267 deaths, bringing the national total to 6,314,282 cases and 189,400 deaths. (Soucheray, 9/8)

The Hill: Half A Million US Children Have Tested Positive For Coronavirus 
Roughly half a million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to a new joint report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association. The report, which was released in early September, said that a total of 513,415 children have tested positive for the virus since the onset of the pandemic. It also noted that roughly 70,000 coronavirus cases among children were reported between Aug. 20 and Sept. 3, representing a 16 percent increase in child cases from the previous two weeks. (Wise, 9/8)

The Hill: Senate To Vote Thursday On GOP Coronavirus Bill 
The Senate will vote Thursday on a scaled-down GOP coronavirus relief bill. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters, as he headed to his office off the Senate floor, that he expected a vote on Thursday. The timeline comes after McConnell indicated in a statement earlier this week that a vote could take place "as soon as this week." Because McConnell is expected to tee up the bill on Tuesday, the earliest a vote could have taken place was Thursday. (Carney, 9/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Roll Out ‘Skinny’ Stimulus Bill As Talks With Democrats Remain Stalled -
Senate Republicans proposed a new, smaller package of coronavirus aid Tuesday aimed at unifying the party and bolstering it politically, as talks with Democrats remained at a standstill and both parties blame the other for the lack of progress over the summer. The new bill, which includes jobless aid, liability protections for businesses and school funding among other measures, is expected to cost around $300 billion, after the $650 billion in new spending is offset with $350 billion in savings from unspent funds from earlier coronavirus packages. The proposal is designed to assuage the spending concerns of some GOP senators by reducing the price tag from an earlier $1 trillion proposed by Republicans, while also adding new tax credits for private-school scholarships and homeschooling expenses, a longtime priority of conservative groups that many Democrats oppose. (Peterson, 9/8)

The Hill: McConnell Works To Lock Down GOP Votes For Coronavirus Bill 
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is working to wrangle his caucus behind a pared-down coronavirus relief bill, with top GOP senators predicting they’ll be able to win over at least 51 Republican votes this week. The decision to force a vote on Thursday follows weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiating between the White House and congressional Republicans on a smaller package that could unify the party after high-profile divisions and with the elections looming. (Carney, 9/8)

The Hill: Pelosi, Schumer Warn GOP Coronavirus Bill 'Headed Nowhere' 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday warned that a forthcoming GOP coronavirus proposal is a non-starter. The two congressional Democratic leaders, in a joint statement, said the pared-down Republican bill is “headed nowhere.” (Carney, 9/8)

NPR: COVID-19's Serious Financial Impact Hits Almost Half Of U.S. Households 
In America's four largest cities, at least half of people say they have experienced the loss of a job or a reduction in wages or work hours in their household since the start of the coronavirus outbreak. That's the finding of a new poll published Wednesday by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Many of these problems are concentrated among Black and Latino households in the four cities, according to the poll, which gathered responses from July 1 through Aug 3. (Neel, 9/9)

The Hill: Gap Narrows Between Those Who See Pandemic As More Of A Health Crisis And Those Focused On Economy: Poll 
The gap between U.S. adults who see the coronavirus pandemic as more of a health crisis and those focusing on the economy has narrowed within the past two months, a poll released Tuesday found. The poll, from NBC and SurveyMonkey, found that a slight majority of respondents — 52 percent — said they see the coronavirus mostly as a health crisis, compared to 47 percent who see the pandemic as more of an economic issue. (Coleman, 9/8)

AP: Trump And Biden Run Vastly Different Pandemic Campaigns
North Carolina caps outdoor gatherings at 50 people to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, but don’t tell that to President Donald Trump. He basked in a largely maskless crowd of several thousand supporters during a Tuesday rally in this critical battleground state. “As far as the eye can see,” Trump said, reveling at the sight of people flouting public health guidelines. “I really believe that these crowds are bigger than they were four years ago.”A day earlier in Pennsylvania, Trump’s Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, held a socially distanced meeting in a backyard. His team has been so attentive to local regulations that some staffers have left the room if they risked breaking the rules on crowd limits. (Miler and Jaffe, 9/9)

The Washington Post: Campaign Of Contrasts: Trump’s Raucous Crowds Vs. Biden’s Distanced Gatherings
When the announcer at President Trump's recent rally here urged a packed airplane hangar of supporters to don their masks, a cacophonous round of boos erupted, followed by defiance. No matter that the attendees' chairs were inches apart, their temperatures had not been taken and masks were required by the state. Joe Biden, meanwhile, has barely left his home without a mask for months, and he makes a point of keeping voters — when he encounters any — at a distance from himself and one another. Events at drive-in theaters have been kept under 50 — people, not cars — to respect state guidelines. (Dawsey, Scherer and Linskey, 9/8)

The Hill: Trump, Supporters Gather Without Masks In NC Despite Request From Local GOP Official 
President Trump and scores of supporters gathered for a rally in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Tuesday without masks, despite the urging of a local Republican official and a state mandate. Dave Plyler, the GOP chairman of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, told The Winston-Salem Journal that he felt Trump should abide by Gov. Roy Cooper's (D) order for individuals to wear a face covering when unable to socially distance. (Samuels, 9/8)

USA Today: Trump Accuses North Carolina Of Using Coronavirus Restrictions To Hurt His Re-Election Chances
President Donald Trump kicked off a campaign rally on Tuesday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to accuse the state's governor of using coronavirus restrictions to hurt his re-election chances in November. "Your state should be open," Trump said to a crowd of hundreds that erupted in cheers at the Smith Reynolds Airport. The president, still stung from the loss of the GOP convention that was due to take place in Charlotte last month but was moved to a nearly all-virtual event over COVID-19, said North Carolina and other key battleground states such as Michigan were keeping their states shut for "political reasons." (Fritze, Subramanian and Jackson, 9/8)

Politico: USAID To Shut Down Its Coronavirus Task Force 
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been on the front lines of the battle with the coronavirus, is about to shut down the task force it set up to tackle the still-ongoing pandemic. The decision is being met with concerns by some who fear it will lead to greater dysfunction at USAID, which already faces personnel and structural turmoil. Others, however, say the task force was poorly managed and that its functions can be delegated. (Toosi, 9/8)

Fox News: Second Russian Coronavirus Vaccine Candidate Finishes Phase II Human Trials: Report
Researchers in Russia finished Tuesday the early-stage human trials of a second COVID-19 vaccine candidate, according to a report. According to Reuters, “Siberia’s Vector virology institute” wrapped up Phase II, attributing Interfax news agency, which reportedly cited “watchdog” Rospotrebnadzor.The vaccine candidate is reportedly a “peptide-based jab” and began human trials on July 27, involving 100 volunteers, the outlet wrote. (Rivas, 9/8)

CIDRAP: Study: Acute Kidney Injury Common In Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19
A new study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology shows that 46% of hospitalized adults with severe COVID-19 suffer from acute kidney injury (AKI), and AKI was associated with a 50% mortality rate. The study was based on 3,993 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 admitted to the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City from Feb 27 to May 30. Of those patients, 1,835 (46%) had AKI, and 347 (19%) of the patients with AKI required dialysis. According to the authors, in-hospital mortality was 50% among patients with AKI, versus 8% among those without AKI (adjusted odds ratio, 9.2; 95% confidence interval, 7.5 to 11.3). (9/8)

AP: Doctors Studying Why Obesity May Be Tied To Serious COVID-19
In the early days of the pandemic, doctors noticed something about the people severely ill from COVID-19: Many were obese.The link became more apparent as coronavirus swept across the globe and data mounted, and researchers are still trying to figure out why.Excess weight increases the chances of developing a number of health problems, including heart disease and diabetes. And those are among the conditions that can make COVID-19 patients more likely to get very sick. (Choi, 9/8)

The New York Times: How The Aging Immune System Makes Older People Vulnerable To Covid-19 
Covid-19 patients who are 80 or older are hundreds of times more likely to die than those under 40. That’s partly because they are more likely to have underlying conditions — like diabetes and lung disease — that seem to make the body more vulnerable to Covid-19. But some scientists suggest another likely, if underappreciated, driver of this increased risk: the aging immune system. (Greenwood, 9/8)

The Washington Post: Independent Family Doctors Struggle To Survive Amid Coronavirus 
The wedding band is gone. So are his class ring, his wristwatch, the neckties he has worn for decades — even the white coat with his name embroidered in blue. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, James W. McNabb has switched to wearing just surgical scrubs. It’s a departure from the Norman Rockwell image of a small-town doctor, depicted in a print hanging at McNabb’s small-town practice in Mooresville, N.C. But the stripped-down look leaves fewer places for coronavirus to hide. The staff disinfects the office five times a day. The waiting-room magazines have all been tossed out, eliminating another route of infection. (Rowland, 9/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Why We Need More Black Doctors—And How To Get There 
Black people in the U.S. are more likely than white people to suffer from hypertension and heart disease and more likely to die at younger ages. They have accounted for a disproportionate share of Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. They are also more likely to enjoy healthier lives if treated by Black doctors, but there aren’t enough. Valerie Montgomery Rice is working to address these disparities. Dr. Montgomery Rice became president of Morehouse School of Medicine in 2014. The historically Black institution produces the third-highest number of Black doctors among all U.S. medical schools, putting Dr. Montgomery Rice in a position to impact one of America’s most pressing health challenges. (Belkin, 9/8)

USA Today: Amid COVID-19, More Bad Doctors May Be Avoiding Disciplinary Actions
As hospitals filled with COVID-19 patients and the coronavirus infected physicians and nurses, state medical boards took a hands-off approach to doctor discipline: Emergency actions against doctors' licenses dropped 59% from April through June of this year compared with the same period last year. Emergency license suspensions and restrictions dropped 85% in April alone, according to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, which administers the National Practitioner Data Bank and provided the analysis to USA TODAY. HRSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services intended to improve health care for the vulnerable and support training of medical professionals. (O'Donnell, 9/8)

The New York Times: Dentists Are Seeing An Epidemic Of Cracked Teeth. What’s Going On? 
“How’s your dental practice?” a friend of mine asked, brow furrowed, concern evident on her face. I’ve seen this look a lot recently. Since the onset of the pandemic, with a citywide shutdown and social distancing measures firmly entrenched, more than a handful of friends and family members have presumed I must be on the brink of closing. But I let her know that I am busier than ever. “Really?” she asked. “How’s that possible?” “I’ve seen more tooth fractures in the last six weeks than in the previous six years,” I explained. (Chen, 9/8)

Stat: The Real Bioterrorists Behind Covid-19: Emerging Viruses 
In 2001, not long after the 9/11 attacks, a mysterious spate of anthrax attacks by mail killed five people and sickened 17. What the FBI calls “the worst biological attacks in U.S. history” led to concerns that bioterrorists might weaponize other globally deadly diseases, like smallpox. The sudden emergence of a highly infectious novel coronavirus in late 2019 has reminded us of a sobering fact: Nature is the ultimate bioterrorist. (Morens and Breman, 9/9)

Stat: Drug And Device Makers Paid Teaching Hospitals $832 Million In 2018
Amid ongoing concern that drug and device makers may influence medical practice and research, a new analysis suggests the issue also extends to teaching hospitals, which received a total of $832 million in payments for various activities and arrangements other than research in 2018. Of 1,281 teaching hospitals, 91% received money from industry for continuing education, royalties, consulting and speaking fees, space rentals, gifts, and food, among other things. In all, nearly 47,000 payments were made and most were related to specific products, although one-fifth of the hospitals received more than 90% of the $832 million. (Silverman, 9/8)

Stat: Merck Chronic Cough Drug Shows Mixed Results In Late-Stage Clinical Trials
An experimental pill from Merck reduced the frequency of chronic coughing enough to achieve the goal of two Phase 3 clinical trials, but the benefit relative to placebo was small and a majority of patients reported negative alterations to their sense of taste. Merck presented detailed study results of its chronic cough drug gefapixant for the first time on Monday at the annual meeting of the European Respiratory Society. This followed its announcement last March that the Phase 3 studies achieved their primary endpoints. (Feuerstein, 9/8)

Stat: Dan Trigub, Head Of Uber Health, Is Leaving To Launch A Health Care Startup
Dan Trigub, who for the last two years has led Uber Health, is leaving the ride-sharing giant to start his own health care company, he wrote in an email to his contacts, the text of which was shared with STAT. His last day with the company is Tuesday. (Brodwin, 9/8)

Stat: Google Enlists The Military To Test Its Cancer-Detection AI 
Google has published plenty of papers demonstrating the potential of artificial intelligence to detect cancer earlier and with greater accuracy than doctors can. But so far the benefits have remained entirely theoretical. Now the company is taking a crucial next step — embedding its cancer-detection AI in clinics where it will be used to help guide the care of real patients. (Ross, 9/9)

Fox News: Stool Testing For Coronavirus May Be Effective In Detecting Cases In Children And Infants, Report Says 
Stool tests may detect coronavirus more effectively than respiratory tests in infants and children, according to researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) who said in a report published in the journal Gut that children and infants carry a higher viral load in their stool than adults. The researchers said stool samples also can carry the coronavirus after it has been cleared from an infected patient’s respiratory tract. This could help identify asymptomatic cases, especially in infants and children who have difficulty undergoing the nasal or throat swab tests, the researchers stated in a press release. (McGorry, 9/8)

Stat: U.S. Needs 193 Million Covid-19 Tests Per Month, Report Says
The U.S. may need up to 193 million coronavirus tests each month in order to safely reopen schools and fortify nursing homes, according to a new report published Wednesday. Current testing capacity in the U.S. is about 21 million tests per month, according to the Covid Tracking Project. (Sheridan, 9/9)

The New York Times: It’s Not Easy To Get A Coronavirus Test For A Child
When Audrey Blute’s almost 2-year-old son, George, had a runny nose in July, she wanted to do what she felt was responsible: get him tested for coronavirus. It wasn’t easy. Ms. Blute, 34, planned to walk to one of Washington, D.C.’s free testing sites — until she learned they do not test children younger than 6. She called her pediatrician’s office, which also declined to test George. (Kliff and Sanger-Katz, 9/8)

The New York Times: Website Crashes And Cyberattacks Welcome Students Back To School 
A ransomware attack forced Hartford, Conn., to call off the first day of classes. A website crash left many of Houston’s 200,000 students staring at error messages. And a server problem in Virginia Beach disrupted the first hours back to school there.For millions of American schoolchildren, the Tuesday after Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer vacation and the start of the first day of classes. But this year, instead of boarding buses and lugging backpacks, many students opened their laptops for online instruction at home, only to encounter technical glitches. (Levin and Taylor, 9/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Millions Of Students Head Back To School For A Year Like No Other 
Many students are heading back to school this week, virtually and in person, with some campuses reopening to students for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic hit about six months ago. For some students in grades K to 12 who returned to in-person instruction on Tuesday, the first day started with a temperature check and new rules, which require masks and social distancing. Some buildings look different inside, with hallway floors marked with arrows for traffic flow and signs on walls reminding students to keep apart and wash hands. Visitors are being kept out of many schools, denying parents the time-honored tradition of walking their children to class on the first day. (Hobbs, 9/8)

USA Today: 'So Much For Honor': Despite COVID Cases, College Students Partied Labor Day Weekend Away
Any doubts that students would find a way to party, even during a pandemic, have been quickly dispelled as COVID-19 cases skyrocketed at colleges around the country. Some colleges promptly canceled in-person instruction, and social media videos and images of partying students helped feed a narrative of irresponsible behavior putting everyone in the university community at risk. (Faulds, Molloy, LaTona, Torchinsky, Vann, Sondgeroth, Cassidy, LeBoeuf and Lempres, 9/9)

AP: Illinois University Quarantines All Student Body
Bradley University in central Illinois is requiring its entire student body to quarantine for two weeks because of clusters of COVID-19 on campus and is reverting to remote learning, officials announced Tuesday. Officials of the private university said they have linked a spike of the coronavirus to off-campus gatherings. The Peoria university is requiring students to limit nonessential interactions, stay in their off-campus apartments, residence halls and take classes remotely beginning Tuesday. (9/9)

AP: Virus Cases At University Of Arkansas Approaching 1,000
Arkansas health officials on Tuesday said their biggest growth in new coronavirus cases is among college-aged people as the number of active infections at the University of Arkansas’ main campus approached 1,000. The Arkansas Department of Health on Tuesday reported 294 new confirmed virus cases statewide, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 66,021. Cases among people 18 to 24 years old grew by nearly 17% last week, two to three times more than any other age group. (DeMillo, 9/8)

AP: Cuomo: COVID-19 A Problem On New York Campuses
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that COVID-19 outbreaks at colleges are already a problem, with one school shut down and cases rising on other campuses. Cuomo said the state health department would soon issue regulations requiring colleges to notify health officials when they have 100 confirmed cases, which could prompt a switch to remote learning for at least two weeks. (9/8)

USA Today: College Football Player Jamain Stephens Dies From COVID Complications
California University of Pennsylvania football player Jamain Stephens, 20, has died, the school announced Tuesday. Stephens, a senior defensive lineman, was the son of former Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals offensive lineman Jamain Stephens.Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, where Stephens played, said in a statement posted to Facebook on Tuesday his cause of death was related to complications involving COVID-19. (Smith, 9/8)

USA Today: Utah Police Shot 13-Year-Old With Autism After Mom Called For Help
Golda Barton told KUTV she called police because her son Linden Cameron, who has Asperger's, was having a mental health episode. Barton, who had just returned to work for the first time in a year, told police her son had "bad separation anxiety" but was unarmed. "I said, he's unarmed, he doesn't have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming," she told the outlet. "He's a kid he's trying to get attention, he doesn't know how to regulate."(Bragg, 9/8)

The Washington Post: Linden Cameron, 13-Year-Old Autistic Boy, Shot By Salt Lake City Police During Mental Crisis 
When Golda Barton dialed 911 on Friday, she hoped emergency responders could help hospitalize her 13-year-old son, who has Asperger syndrome and was having a mental crisis. Instead, a Salt Lake City police officer repeatedly shot Linden Cameron after he ran away, leaving the boy in serious condition with injuries to his intestines, bladder, shoulder and ankles. Barton says he was unarmed, and police said they didn’t find a weapon at the scene. (Elfrink, 9/8)

The Washington Post: Caster Semenya Loses Final Appeal Of IAAF Rule On Testosterone Levels
Switzerland’s top court ruled against two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya on Tuesday, dismissing her appeal of a 2019 ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that upheld a rule established by IAAF, track and field’s governing body, affecting female runners who produce testosterone at levels higher than other women. The ruling probably ends Semenya’s chance of defending her 2016 Olympic gold medal in the 800 meters because she has repeatedly said she would not submit to the IAAF rule. (Bonesteel, 9/8)

The Washington Post: Allegiant Passenger Allegedly Removed For Asking Flight Attendant To Wear A Mask 
Allegiant Air removed a passenger from a Labor Day flight preparing for takeoff from Punta Gorda, Fla., for “making threatening statements to the flight attendant,” according to the airline. But in a video of the incident shared online, the man can be heard explaining that he had only asked the flight attendant to wear a face mask.“I need you to come off or I get law enforcement,” says an employee a in a video shared anonymously to social media news wire Storyful. The passenger says, “I just asked somebody to put on their face mask, that’s all I did." (McMahon, 9/8)

The Washington Post: Arlington National Cemetery To Reopen To The Public On Wednesday 
Arlington National Cemetery will reopen to the public on Wednesday with limited hours, officials said.In a statement Tuesday, cemetery officials said it would be open to the public between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m., with face coverings mandatory and social distancing expected. The cemetery was closed to visitors in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, though those attending funerals have been permitted in the months since. (Moyer, 9/8)

The Washington Post: How To Sneeze During Coronavirus 
Sneezing used to be a low-key sign that someone was getting sick or had allergies, and sneezing into your elbow was a polite way to indicate to those around us that we didn’t want to give them whatever we might have. However, the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 6 million Americans and killed at least 180,000, causes a respiratory disease called covid-19 and spreads easily between people. In the midst of a global pandemic, sneezing into our elbows may no longer be enough. (Goren, 9/8)

Fox News: Tylenol May Make You Take More Risks, Study Says 
Tylenol may not just stop aches and fevers, it may actually make you more prone to taking risks, according to a study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. “Acetaminophen seems to make people feel less negative emotion when they consider risky activities – they just don’t feel as scared,” co-author of the study Baldwin Way, an associate professor of psychology at The Ohio State University, said in a press release. (McGorry, 9/8)

Fox News: Kids Use Both Brain Hemispheres To Process Language, Unlike Adults, Researchers Say
New findings suggest infants and young kids process language in both hemispheres of the brain, which could help compensate after a neural injury, researchers say. In nearly all adults, sentence processing only takes place in the left hemisphere, according to neuroscientists from Georgetown University Medical Center. Previously, with traditional scanning, it was unclear whether “strong left dominance for language [was] present at birth or [appeared] gradually during development,” said Elissa Newport, Ph.D., Georgetown neurology professor, in a news release. (Rivas, 9/8)

The Hill: Meth Use Rose Across US In Pandemic's Early Days: Laboratory Firm
Illegal use of methamphetamines grew across the U.S. in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, and evidence suggests that other drug use grew during that period as well, according to a laboratory report. Urine samples from patients across the U.S. tested positive for methamphetamines at a roughly 20 percent higher rate between March and May than previous samples taken between January and March 12, the day before President Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, a report from the laboratory Millennium Health found. (Bowden, 9/8)

Fox News: Los Angeles County Bans Trick-Or-Treating This Halloween Due To Coronavirus 
This year was scary enough. Traditional Halloween activities won't be allowed for residents in Los Angeles County this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to local health officials. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced a ban on door-to-door trick-or-treating, carnivals, festivals, live entertainment and haunted houses. (Aaro, 9/9)

The Washington Post: D.C. Adds Two States, Removes Two Others From List Of Places That Require Quarantine 
D.C. health officials on Tuesday added Montana and Ohio to the list of states considered “high-risk” due to the coronavirus pandemic, marking the latest step in the city’s attempt to mitigate transmission of the virus. A state is deemed high-risk if its seven-day rolling average of new coronavirus cases is 10 or more per 100,000 residents. Anyone who arrives in the nation’s capital after traveling to one of the 29 states for nonessential reasons must self-quarantine for two weeks. (Sullivan, Brice-Saddler and Hedgpeth, 9/8)

The Washington Post: D.C. Plans To Pay The Internet Bills For 25,000 Low-Income Families For A Year 
The D.C. government will cover the monthly Internet bills for about 25,000 low-income families who have students in the city’s traditional public and charter schools, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) administration announced Tuesday.The $3.3 million program has been in the works for weeks and city officials said they recently finalized negotiations with two private Internet providers, Comcast and RCN, to provide Internet for families who receive food stamps or other public assistance. The Office of the Chief Technology Officer — the local office administering the program — will start contacting eligible families Tuesday afternoon to ask if they want Internet provided. (Stein, 9/8)

Fox News: Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Linked To 20% Of US Coronavirus Cases In August: Researchers 
Nineteen percent of the 1.4 million new coronavirus cases in the U.S. between Aug. 2 and Sept. 2 can be traced back to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally held in South Dakota, according to researchers from San Diego State University's Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies.That's more than 266,000 coronavirus cases attributed to the 10-day event, which more than 460,000 people attended despite fears it could become a so-called super-spreader event. (Fordham, 9/8)

USA Today: Sturgis Rally: Study Ties 260,000 COVID-19 Cases To South Dakota Event
A study by a California research group estimates that the Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota led to more than 260,000 coronavirus cases in the month following the event. Researchers from the Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University published their findings Saturday in a 63-page report.The estimate is dramatically more than the number of cases tied to the rally reported by both the South Dakota health department and the Associated Press. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Tuesday said the study was "fiction," and she criticized journalists who reported on it. (Raposa, 9/8)

The Washington Post: ’Worst Case Scenarios’ At Sturgis Rally Could Link Event To 266,000 Coronavirus Cases, Study Says
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally led to significant spread of the novel coronavirus in the event’s home state of South Dakota and in other parts of the United States, a team of researchers said in a newly released study that is disputed by state officials. The report from San Diego State University’s Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies used anonymized cellphone location data and virus case counts to analyze the impact of the 460,000-person event that took place last month, believed to be one of the largest events held during the pandemic. (Shammas, 9/8)

AP: Oklahoma Prison Inmate Being Treated For COVID-19 Dies
An Oklahoma state prison inmate being treated for the illness caused by the coronavirus has died, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections said.The inmate at the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft died Saturday at a hospital, the department said Monday. (9/8)