Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Out Of Clorox Wipes? You'll Likely Have To Wait Until 2021 To Buy More
Reuters: Clorox Won't Have Enough Disinfecting Wipes Until 2021, Its CEO Says
Grocery shelves won’t be fully stocked with Clorox’s disinfecting wipes until next year, CEO Benno Dorer told Reuters, as the world’s biggest cleaning products maker struggles with overwhelming pandemic-led demand for its top product. Since the start of global lockdowns, makers of hygiene goods have seen a sustained boom in sales. While California-based Clorox typically holds aside excess supply for flu seasons, it says it has been unable to keep up with a six-fold increase in demand for many of its disinfectants. (8/4)
ABC News: Bill Nye’s Message To Young Revelers Defying COVID-19 Guidance
Bill Nye the Science Guy has a simple message for many of the same people who grew up learning from his television show: choose to stay at home and you will save lives. “If we can't cool it, a lot fewer of us will get through this… It’s really a matter of life and death,” he told “Nightline.” “You’re spreading this virus [and it’s] killing people, so don’t do it. For crying out loud, this is not rocket surgery.” (Yang, Singh and Park, 8/4)
The New York Times: Forget Spas And Bars. Hotels Tout Housekeeping To Lure Back Travelers
When Beau Phillips checked into a hotel near Toledo recently, a table in front of the counter barricaded him from getting too close to the clerk, who wore a mask and stood behind a plastic window. “The key is gently tossed at you from three feet away,” said Mr. Phillips, a public affairs executive who was staying at a Radisson Country Inn & Suites while visiting family. (Richtel, 8/4)
Stat: Telemedicine Is Booming — But Many People Face Barriers To Virtual Care
As Covid-19 drives many patients away from in-person care and toward virtual visits, experts warn that the nation’s most vulnerable members may be shut out of the booming telehealth business. Federal policymakers temporarily relaxed regulations to make it easier to provide virtual care during the pandemic, fueling a shift toward telemedicine that has become so popular among patients and providers that there are now a number of proposals to make the changes permanent... But a pair of new studies published this week show that there are barriers to virtual visits that regulatory changes alone can’t fix. (Isselbacher, 8/5)
The Wall Street Journal: The $1.9 Million Covid Patient
Josephine Mazzara watched her husband disappear into a Manhattan emergency room, unable to follow and uncertain when she would see him again. Once inside, doctors quickly diagnosed Salvatore Mazzara with Covid-19. Soon, the 48-year-old’s lungs, kidneys and heart would give out. Doctors tried experimental drugs and tested other therapies in an effort to keep him alive. He was put on a ventilator and when its prolonged use posed a danger, they delivered oxygen directly through a hole cut in Mr. Mazzara’s throat. (Evans, 8/4)
The Atlantic: The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away
The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has sickened more than 16.5 million people across six continents. It is raging in countries that never contained the virus. It is resurging in many of the ones that did. If there was ever a time when this coronavirus could be contained, it has probably passed. One outcome is now looking almost certain: This virus is never going away. (Zhang, 8/4)
Also —
AP: 2 California State Hospital Patients With Coronavirus Die
Two patients at a state mental hospital in Central California have died after becoming infected with the coronavirus, officials said. One patient died Sunday at the Department of State Hospitals-Coalinga after contracting the virus while being treated outside of the facility, according to a hospital email sent to staff on Monday, the Sacramento Bee reported. (8/4)
Politico: Fed Study: Covid-19 Overwhelmingly Strikes Counties With Most Black Businesses
The Black community has been disproportionately battered by the coronavirus, as numerous studies have shown. Now, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has quantified just how hard an economic punch the pandemic has delivered. Thirty counties account for 40 percent of receipts from Black-owned businesses, and 19 of those areas — roughly two-thirds — have the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country, according to new research from the New York Fed. By contrast, counties with more white-owned firms have a lower share of cases. (Guida, 8/4)
The Hill: COVID-19 Outbreaks In Agricultural Communities Raise Harvest Fears
In the summer months, this tiny community on the shores of the Columbia River becomes the heart of America’s apple industry, ripe fruit weighing down branches in the surrounding orchards before they’re loaded onto trains and shipped around the world. Hundreds of migrants flock to the sunny high desert each summer, where they live in riverside dormitories and camps as they harvest apples, peaches, cherries and grapes for Gebbers Farms, one of the biggest fruit growers in the Pacific Northwest. Those workers are now at the heart of a massive surge in coronavirus cases that has made Okanogan County one of the hardest-hit areas in the world. In the last two weeks, almost 1 percent of the county has tested positive for the virus. (Wilson, 8/4)
AP: 'We Are No Less American': Deaths Pile Up On Texas Border
When labor pains signaled that Clarissa Muñoz was at last going to be a mom, she jumped in a car and headed two hours down the Texas border into one of the nation’s most dire coronavirus hot spots. She went first to a hospital so desperate for help that nurses recently made 49 phone calls to find a bed 700 miles away to airlift a dying man with the virus. From there, she was taken to a bigger hospital by ambulance. Along the way, she passed a funeral home that typically handles 10 services a month but is up to nine a week. And when she finally arrived to give birth, she was blindsided by another complication: A test revealed that she too was infected. (Weber, 8/5)
