Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: How Facebook Is Fighting Vaccine Hesitancy; Inoculating Elderly Comes With Unique Set Of Challenges
San Francisco Chronicle: What Facebook Is Doing To Combat Vaccine Hesitancy
We all want an end to the pandemic, and we will get there by working together as a community. When critics of Facebook highlight COVID-19 misinformation on our platform, they sometimes ignore the broader trends of how communities are responding to the pandemic, as well as the critical positive role Facebook and other platforms can play — in partnership with health experts — in increasing behaviors like mask wearing or vaccinations. In the Bay Area, 95% of people now report they are wearing a mask in public; like most parts of the country, this is up dramatically from this time last year, in part due to a massive, collaborative public health education campaign from health experts and others, including on Facebook, to encourage mask wearing. And, more than 85% of people intend to get the vaccine. (Kang-Xing Jin, 3/8)
The Washington Post: The CDC Is Missing A Critical Opportunity To Get Americans Vaccinated
After much delay, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued interim guidance on Monday for what fully vaccinated people can do. While some guidance is better than no guidance, the guidelines are too timid and too limited, and they fail to tie reopening guidance with vaccination status. As a result, the CDC missed a critical opportunity to incentivize Americans to be vaccinated. The guidelines provide little information that members of the Biden administration have not already conveyed. Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser on covid-19, has been saying for weeks that vaccinated people can visit one another indoors without masks. He and others have said that it’s probably fine for vaccinated grandparents to see their grandchildren. The CDC was more explicit on this front, clarifying that a fully vaccinated household can visit an unvaccinated family so long as those unvaccinated are not at high-risk for severe outcomes from covid-19. If they are, they should see one another outdoors, with masking and distancing. (Leana S. Wen, 3/8)
Stat: Barriers Keep Many Primary Care Practices From Vaccinating Seniors
When news first broke in mid-December 2020 that the FDA had issued an emergency use authorization for a Covid-19 vaccine that was astonishingly effective, providers and staff at my clinic asked me in eager anticipation, “Will we be vaccinating seniors in our practice? ”My answer, as the administrator of the practice, was simple and unequivocal, “Absolutely. ”We had just witnessed the fastest vaccine development process in history, thanks to the ingenuity and perseverance of countless scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs worldwide. Making the fruits of their labor available to the patients of our practice, TotalCare Walk-In Clinic in Chino, Calif., was the least we could do. Opportunity knocked on Dec. 28, 2020, in an email from the San Bernardino County Medical Society on behalf of the county public health department, asking to sign up our practice as an independent vaccine administration site. I replied within minutes, excited to play an active role in helping end the worst pandemic in modern history. (Lynn Wang, 3/9)
Houston Chronicle: Holding Off On Vaccine Just Got More Dangerous In Texas
If Dolly Parton hadn’t already qualified for American sainthood, she stands an even better shot now that she’s made vaccination against COVID-19 fashionable, fun and even poetic. “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine,” the 75-year-old country singer and song-writing genius sang last week to the tune of her classic song “Jolene” as she waited, perfectly attired in a blouse cutaway at the shoulders, to receive the Moderna vaccine she helped fund. “I’m begging of you, please don’t hesitate.” (3/9)
The New York Times: Covid’s Future, Trauma’s Long Shadow And California’s Lessons
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s pioneering work on how childhood trauma shapes adult outcomes led to her being named the first surgeon general of California. That was in 2019. And then, of course, the novel coronavirus hit. The job of California’s surgeon general in 2020 was not what it was in 2019. But in some ways, Burke Harris’s expertise was more necessary than ever. This conversation on my podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show,” is about the growing evidence that difficult experiences we face as children reverberate in our lives decades later. It’s profound research that should reshape how we think about social insurance, public morality and criminal justice. But it’s also a conversation about what the coronavirus has done to children — whether this year will be a trauma that marks a generation, and remakes their lives. How has it changed socialization for toddlers — like my 2-year-old son? What has it meant for children who can’t go to school, who watched their parents lose work or who had family members die alone in a hospital? How do we help them? How do we even understand what they’ve gone through, particularly when they can’t tell us? (Ezra Klein, 3/9)
