Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Will China Require Vaccine For Winter Olympics?; Children's Hospitals Are Strained
Bloomberg: China Can’t Have The Winter Olympics And ‘Zero Covid’
Over the past month, as China has struggled to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19, the government has deployed every tool at its disposal, from shutting down ports to imposing lockdowns that quarantined millions. Some of the strictest measures came in Beijing, which will host the 2022 Winter Olympics in February, including a ban on visitors from regions with even a single case. (Adam Minter, 8/25)
USA Today: COVID And Kids: America's Children Hospitals Are At Breaking Point
Our children’s hospitals are facing a perfect storm. The resurgence of COVID-19 in the form of the delta variant, the rapid increase in patient visits for viral conditions and mental health, and staffing shortages is placing major strains on the capacity of children’s hospitals to serve children. The increased demand for care in children’s hospitals is not just an issue in a few cities or states; it is a national problem. (Mark Wietecha, 8/26)
The Star Tribune: Don't Shame Anti-Vaxxers — Answer Their Questions
It was nearly a year after the first cases of COVID-19 in the United States that I received an invitation to receive the vaccine, due to a nursing clinical placement at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. When my date and time were selected I felt anxiety melt away. Suddenly there was hope of things going back to normal, but this idea quickly proved faulty. The concept of "anti-vaxxers" was not new to me, especially as a nursing student. But what was new to me was the public outcry of health care professionals — especially nurses — resisting the vaccine. In my eyes, front-line health care professionals must take care of their patients in the most effective way possible, and taking all measures to prevent the spread of such a deadly virus seemed like a no-brainer. (Lucy Moe, 8/25)
Chicago Tribune: COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Are Coming. The Willfully Unvaccinated Are About To See Their World Shrink
I have bad news for the willfully unvaccinated: COVID-19 vaccine mandates are coming, and your world is about to shrink to the size of a tweet. Vaccine mandates, with medical and religious exemptions, had been popping up at companies and universities even before the FDA granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine this week. But that announcement knocked down one of the anti-vaxxers’ main lame excuses — “It’s an experimental drug!” — and paved the way for corporations, venues, restaurants and schools to more comfortably require proof of vaccination. (Rex Huppke, 8/26)
NBC News: FDA Approval Of A Covid Vaccine Could Mean A Rapid Jump In Shots In Arms
As of last week, in spite of an extremely high level of confidence among policy officials and public health experts that any of the three Covid-19 vaccines with emergency use authorization are safe and effective, about 70 million adults in the U.S. remained unvaccinated, as well as nearly 50 million children under age 12 who aren’t yet eligible for inoculations. (Dr. Irwin Redlener, 8/25)
CNN: You Do Not Have The 'Constitutional Right' To Refuse The Covid-19 Vaccine
Now that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved the Pfizer/ BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older, it's time for all governments across the country to mandate the vaccine for people taking part in indoor activities. There are no more valid excuses for not being vaccinated other than health reasons. One frequently heard pushback against vaccine mandates is that there is a "constitutional right" to choose whether to be vaccinated or not for adults and a right to determine whether children can be vaccinated. That is a non-starter in the midst of a pandemic. (Marci Hamilton and Paul Offit, 8/25)
Kansas City Star: Nurses, Doctors, Restaurant Workers Face Anti-Vaxxer Abuse
Heidi Lucas, director of the Missouri Nurses Association, says families are demanding unproven treatments for their loved ones with COVID-19, and don’t always take it well when those requests are turned aside. “After working to the point of exhaustion and witnessing needless deaths,” tweeted a woman whose stepdaughter is a nurse in the area, “she is now advised by the hospital to take off her scrubs while in public because of threats. ”It isn’t just nurses. In Springfield, an anti-vaccine protest threatened Walmart pharmacists. “What they’re doing is crimes against humanity,” anti-vaxxer Christopher Key wrote on Facebook. “And if they do not stand down immediately, then they could be executed.” (8/26)
Los Angeles Times: On The Front Lines, Here's What The Seven Stages Of Severe COVID-19 Look Like
I’m a respiratory therapist. With the fourth wave of the pandemic in full swing, fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, the trajectory of the patients I see, from admission to critical care, is all too familiar. When they’re vaccinated, their COVID-19 infections most likely end after Stage 1. If only that were the case for everyone.Get vaccinated. If you choose not to, here’s what to expect if you are hospitalized for a serious case of COVID-19. (Karen Gallardo, 8/26)
Newsweek: Are You Unvaccinated? It's Time To Make An End-Of-Life Plan
Life expectancy in the United States fell by one and a half yearsin 2020, the largest annual decline in life expectancy since World War II. Now, one and a half years into the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 626,000 American lives lost, we have an abundance of safe, accessible Covid vaccines, and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine just received full approval beyond emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Summer 2021 was supposed to be a return to normalcy, a "hot vax" summer of connection and prosperity. Instead, we saw a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the return of Center for Disease Control (CDC) mask mandates, largely due to the over 90-million eligible Americans who remain unvaccinated in the setting of the highly infectious Delta variant. (Shoshana Ungerleider and Jesse O'Shea, 8/25)
The Washington Post: The FDA’s Slow Road To Full Vaccine Approval Will Matter In The Long Run
Warren Buffett famously remarked that “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” Of course, Buffett was talking about his industry — the quacks and frauds who surf the surging boom market, only to get beached when the waves of easy money recede. But his adage could easily be applied to the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose bureaucratic procedures looked fine right up to the point when the pandemic showed them to be disastrous. By now, most people paying attention to the agencies seem to have conceded there is something very wrong with the CDC — recall the early coronavirus testing debacles, its slowness in embracing masks or acknowledging airborne transmission, the apparent politicization of guidance surrounding schools, the decision to stop tracking breakthrough covid cases, the inability to provide real-time data on infections. (Megan McArdle, 8/25)
