Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
The Atlantic: 5 Pandemic Mistakes We Keep Repeating
When the polio vaccine was declared safe and effective, the news was met with jubilant celebration. Church bells rang across the nation, and factories blew their whistles. “Polio routed!” newspaper headlines exclaimed. “An historic victory,” “monumental,” “sensational,” newscasters declared. People erupted with joy across the United States. Some danced in the streets; others wept. Kids were sent home from school to celebrate. One might have expected the initial approval of the coronavirus vaccines to spark similar jubilation—especially after a brutal pandemic year. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the steady drumbeat of good news about the vaccines has been met with a chorus of relentless pessimism. (Tufeki, 2/26)
The New York Times: Want to Sanitize a Baseball Stadium? Send in the Drones
On Wednesday morning, four days before spring training games began and fans returned across Major League Baseball, a six-foot-wide drone flew throughout a 10,500-seat stadium in Surprise, Ariz., the preseason home of the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers. The drone sprayed a cleaning solution that, according to its manufacturer, will protect surfaces from germs, including the coronavirus, for more than 30 days. The spraying took 90 minutes with a drone named Paul. (Wagner, 3/1)
The Wall Street Journal: Museums Launch Covid-19 Exhibits: Virus-Shaped Pinatas, ‘Happy Hour’ Masks
In South Florida, the pandemic is already history. On display at HistoryMiami Museum in downtown Miami are a first-grader’s virtual homework log with Zoom links; a high school mortarboard marked “I survived Quarantine and Graduation”; and a black Grim Reaper suit a lawyer wore to beaches last year to warn visitors about the deadly virus. Recently, the museum added two empty Pfizer vaccine vials. (Calvert, 3/3)
The Washington Post: As Cremation Becomes More Common, The Funeral Industry And USPS Adapt
Lately, nine or 10 times a month, Jason Oszczakiewicz, a Pennsylvania funeral home director known as “Oz,” walks into his local post office. Each time, he carries the same special package: the ashes of someone who has just died. “I seem to be mailing a lot to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, New York,” Oz said, after sending “a gentleman, a son, to his mother in Florida. ”The pandemic that has changed the rhythms and rituals of life is doing that in death, too. (Jordan, 3/3)
The Marshall Project: What People In Prison Need To Know About The COVID-19 Vaccine
Over 100 incarcerated people around the country told us their questions about the vaccine. Here’s information about whether it’s safe, when it could be available and more. (3/2)
The New York Times: What Do Vaccine Efficacy Numbers Actually Mean?
This week, Johnson & Johnson began delivering millions of doses of its coronavirus vaccine across the United States after receiving an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Central to getting the green light was a trial that Johnson & Johnson ran to measure the vaccine’s efficacy. Efficacy is a crucial concept in vaccine trials, but it’s also a tricky one. If a vaccine has an efficacy of, say, 95 percent, that doesn’t mean that 5 percent of people who receive that vaccine will get Covid-19. And just because one vaccine ends up with a higher efficacy estimate than another in trials doesn’t necessarily mean it’s superior. Here’s why. (Zimmer and Collins, 3/3)
Reuters: 'When Will It End?': How A Changing Virus Is Reshaping Scientists’ Views On COVID-19
Chris Murray, a University of Washington disease expert whose projections on COVID-19 infections and deaths are closely followed worldwide, is changing his assumptions about the course of the pandemic. Murray had until recently been hopeful that the discovery of several effective vaccines could help countries achieve herd immunity, or nearly eliminate transmission through a combination of inoculation and previous infection. But in the last month, data from a vaccine trial in South Africa showed not only that a rapidly-spreading coronavirus variant could dampen the effect of the vaccine, it could also evade natural immunity in people who had been previously infected. (Steenhuysen and Kelland, 3/3)
NBC News: What Brains Could Teach Scientists About The Lasting Effects Of Covid-19
Dr. Avindra Nath spends his days surrounded by brains. His goal: learning all he can about how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, affects brain tissue, potentially leading to long-term symptoms of the virus. "The involvement of the brain is quite extensive," said Nath, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The brains he studies come from Covid-19 patients who died suddenly, and were all donated by family members. (Edwards, Gosk and Dunn, 3/2)
The Washington Post: Germans Have Coined More Than 1,200 Words To Talk About Coronavirus
If you go out in Germany during the pandemic, don't forget your Alltagsmaske (everyday mask) or Spuckschutzschirm (spit protection umbrella). If it's a bit frigid outside, maybe don a Schnutenpulli (literally, snout sweater, a cozier word for mask).Heading out on a date? Be sure to check the latest Mundschutzmode (mouth protection fashion) before selecting your Gesichtskondom (face condom, as a mask is sometimes known). (Beck, 3/1)
Also —
The Washington Post: Dog Saved New Owner’s Life After He Had A Stroke
Brian Myers knew he was in trouble when he fell to the floor. He had no feeling on his left side and couldn’t stand up in the crawl space between his bed and the wall.“It was really frightening — I couldn’t get up and I didn’t realize at that moment that I’d had a stroke,” he said. “My cellphone was on the dresser about 15 feet away, but there was no way I could get to it.” Seconds later, Myers, 59, felt something wet and rough on his face: his dog’s tongue. (Free, 3/3)
NBC News: Kentucky Mom Alleges Hospital Workers Missed Her Cancer — Then Covered Up Their Mistake
Kim Johnson was nervous as she sat down at her dining room table in January 2015, clutching an unopened letter from the radiology department at Fleming County Hospital in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. Breast cancer had killed Johnson’s mother years earlier, a painfully slow death that took a toll on her entire family. The prospect of that happening to her was all Johnson had been able to think about since she’d discovered a tender lump in her right breast weeks before, prompting her doctor to send her for a mammogram. (Solon and Hikenbaugh, 3/3)
Houston Chronicle: How Texas Fails The Mentally Ill
Texas’ mental health system is strained beyond capacity, with waitlists for hospital beds that stretch on for sometimes up to a year. The state’s lack of oversight is so extreme that officials were unable to say which private hospitals received state funds for bed space to help reduce the waitlist. The state just started collecting that information in September. The state’s 10 public mental hospitals are supposed to be a kind of last safety net for the ill and indigent, but many of them are chaotic and dangerous places, where police visit up to 14 times a day. And that’s for people lucky enough to find a bed. (Stuckey, 2/25)
