Health Industry Braces For More Worker Losses, Winter Covid Surge

The Wall Street Journal: Some Hospitals Prepare To Lose Staff Over Covid-19 Vaccination Mandate
Some hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare providers are preparing to operate without up to a third of their staff at the start of next year, if those workers don’t comply with a federal mandate to get vaccinated against Covid-19. The Biden administration is requiring facilities that receive funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to have workers vaccinated by Jan. 4. Two dozen states are challenging the requirement in court. Many healthcare providers in those states and beyond are reviewing requests for religious and medical exemptions from the rule or firing workers who won’t get the shots. (Wernau and Dill, 11/29)

Stat: With Winter Ahead, Cancer Patients And Doctors Seek More Covid Protection
Michele Nadeem-Baker is steeling herself for another winter. Diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2012, she lives with an impaired immune system that even a third dose of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine may not be able to rouse. Living in Boston in November now that the weather has turned cold means an end to backyard dinners and a return to a world narrowed by fear of infection. “I am not alone in that feeling,” said Nadeem-Baker, a patient advocate who also spoke to STAT in June. “Everyone is dreading yet another winter in lockdown. Just because there are these third vaccinations, it doesn’t mean everyone is protected. There is still a part of the population that is not.” (Cooney, 11/29)

Chicago Tribune: Contact Tracing ‘Takes An Emotional And Psychological Toll’ 
It’s not unusual for people to cry on the phone when they talk with contact tracers. Often, people vent to them about their fears, such as missing work because of a COVID-19 quarantine or infecting family members. Occasionally, contact tracers have to call ambulances for the people on the other end of the line. Since the early months of the pandemic, contact tracers have worked to try to slow the spread of COVID-19 by identifying close contacts of people with COVID-19 and often advising them to quarantine. (Schencker, 11/26)

On covid's impact on the health industry —

Dallas Morning News: Texas Has Spent $7B In Federal Money To Pay Temporary Health Care Workers During COVID Pandemic
The state is trying to wind down an expensive, federally paid program of hiring nurses and other health care professionals to keep its hospitals from buckling under staffing pressures and burnout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the plan could be upended by any spike in COVID-19 cases prompted by gatherings over the holidays. Already, the state decided to keep up surge staffing at hospitals in El Paso and the Panhandle because of recent outbreaks. (Garrett, 11/26)

Stat: Pfizer Sues Former Employee For Allegedly Stealing Covid Vaccine Files
Amid the intense race to develop Covid-19 products, Pfizer (PFE) accused a former employee of stealing more than 12,000 files — including scores of confidential documents — that contained information about its coronavirus vaccine as well as two cancer drugs. In its lawsuit, the drug maker alleged Chun Xiao (Sherry) Li uploaded the material from a company laptop in October onto a personal Google drive account and other personal devices shortly before she planned to accept a job with Xencor (XNCR), a small company developing monoclonal antibodies for various cancers. Pfizer sells one such treatment for bladder cancer and is working on another for blood cancer. (Silverman, 11/28)

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San Francisco Chronicle: Supply Chain Woes Mean Shortages Of Critical Medical Devices In California
The logjam at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — which handle 40% of all waterbound imports to the U.S. — has triggered shortages of everything from computer chips to paper products and drawn the attention of President Joe Biden. Many Californians are grappling with shortages of lifesaving medical supplies. California hospitals say medical supplies are more difficult to acquire now or are taking much longer to be delivered. Although the Hospital Association of Southern California says no one has reported any acute shortages yet, administrators are concerned about the delayed shipments that are anchored off the coast. (Hwang, 11/28)

KHN: Black Tech Founders Want To Change The Culture Of Health Care, One Click At A Time
When Ashlee Wisdom launched an early version of her health and wellness website, more than 34,000 users — most of them Black — visited the platform in the first two weeks. “It wasn’t the most fully functioning platform,” recalled Wisdom, 31. “It was not sexy.” But the launch was successful. Now, more than a year later, Wisdom’s company, Health in Her Hue, connects Black women and other women of color to culturally sensitive doctors, doulas, nurses and therapists nationally. (Anthony, 11/29)

Stat: 'Start At The Top': Women In Biotech On How To Break Down Barriers
Agnieszka Czechowicz remembers what the Magenta Therapeutics website looked like before the biotech startup went public: She, as a scientific co-founder, was featured on the website along with other, more junior co-founders. Then, as the company prepared for its IPO in 2018, she said, “suddenly the founders on the website were older, Caucasian men, even though some of those individuals were not part of the founding of the company during the early stages.” (Osman, 11/26)

KHN: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: How To Avoid The Worst Health Insurance
This episode kicks off with a wild ride: How one journalist nearly got roped into a scam. While hunting for a new health insurance plan, award-winning journalist Mitra Kaboli got an offer that seemed too good to be true — and seemed to be coming from her current insurer. She was skeptical and, it turns out, had every reason to be. Dania Palanker of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms unpacks this sketchy scheme and gives us the key to avoiding it: When you’re searching for health insurance, skip Google. Seriously. (Weissmann, 11/29)