Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Ohio Doling Out 55 More Scholarships For Ages 12-25 Who Get A Covid Shot
AP: Ohio Governor Offers New Vaccine Incentive For Young People
Ohioans ages 12-25 who receive the coronavirus vaccine can enter a new lottery making them eligible for five $100,000 college scholarships and 50 $10,000 scholarships, Gov. Mike DeWine announced Thursday in his latest effort to boost number of people vaccinated against COVID-19. Details of the new Ohio Vax-to-College program will be announced soon, and is aimed at the group of Ohioans with the most room to grow in terms of receiving the vaccination, the Republican governor said. (Welsh-Huggins, 9/23)
CNN: These States Have Still Not Vaccinated At Least Half Of Their Residents
There remain 18 states that have yet to fully vaccinate at least half of all residents, data shows: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The state with the highest rate of vaccination is Vermont at 69% of all residents, followed by Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Jersey. (Caldwell, 9/24)
The Washington Post: Many Unvaccinated People Are Not Opposed To Getting A Shot. The Challenge Is Trying To Get It To Them.
Yolanda Orosco-Arellano decided she would get the coronavirus vaccine long before it became available. But securing an appointment for it was less straightforward. The hotel housekeeper and mother of four worried about her anemia, a risk factor for severe illness from the virus. But Orosco-Arellano doesn’t have a car and needed a vaccination slot scheduled around her shifts at the hotel. Barriers to getting the shot and information about the vaccines have hindered the “unvaccinated but willing,” who account for approximately 10 percent of the American population, according to a report last month by the Department of Health and Human Services. (Kornfield, 9/23)
Axios: Vaccinated Americans More Worried About Coronavirus Than Unvaccinated
Vaccinated Americans are more worried about contracting a COVID infection than unvaccinated Americans, according to new Harris polling that was conducted in consultation with the CDC and provided exclusively to Axios. The science says that the unvaccinated have much more to fear, and are largely driving the current surge of hospitalizations and deaths. (Owens, 9/24)
CBS News: Want A Medical Exemption For The COVID-19 Vaccine? Good Luck With That.
As the Biden administration urges workers across the U.S. to get their shots against COVID-19, many Americans are asking their employers to exempt them from vaccination requirements on medical grounds. ... Although an individual may be allergic to a given ingredient in one vaccine that is not present in another, allergies to vaccine components are extremely uncommon, according to disease experts. "The only real exemption I can imagine is severe allergic reaction mainly in the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, but they are very, very rare — like one in a million," Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician at the University of California San Francisco, told CBS MoneyWatch. "Someone would have to argue that they had a severe allergic reaction to a previous dose of the vaccine or to a vaccine component — not just a rash or some muscle soreness, but having difficulty breathing, swelling in their throat or something of that nature," said Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. (Cerullo, 9/23)
