Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
The 'Dire' State Of Surge In Hot Spots: Full Hospitals, Full Morgues
Bloomberg: CDC Director Warns Of ‘Dire Straits’ In Delta-Hit Areas Of U.S.
Parts of the U.S. health system “are in dire straits,” as the spread of the Covid-19 delta variant forces some states to prepare for rationed medical care, Rochelle Walensky, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said. “That means that we are talking about who is going to get a ventilator, who is going to get an ICU bed,” Walensky said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Those are not easy discussions to have, and that is not a place we want our health care system to ever be.” (Fisher, 9/26)
Axios: Montana VA Medical Center Opens To Non-Veterans Amid COVID Surge
A veterans medical facility in Montana is planning to accept non-eligible patients as a COVID-19 surge overwhelms nearby hospitals in the state, CNN reports. The move underscores the dire health situation in Montana due to the latest COVID-19 case surge, where some hospitals in the state have started to consider rationing care, according to the Montana Free Press. (Doherty, 9/25)
The Washington Post: Idaho Morgues Are Running Out Of Space For Bodies As Covid-19 Deaths Mount
The dire situation in Idaho, one of the least vaccinated states in the country, is another grisly illustration of what happens when a state fails to contain infections. (Hawkins, 9/25)
WUSF 89.7: Florida Has Surpassed 53,000 Deaths From COVID-19
Total deaths with COVID-19 in Florida during the pandemic have jumped to 53,105, with more than 10,000 in the past month alone, according to Thursday’s data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thursday’s report showed an increase of 1,213 over Wednesday, though officials caution that the deaths on any given day’s report may have occurred in the days or weeks prior. (Sheridan, 9/24)
AP: Judge Won't Order Hospital To Give Ivermectin To Patient
A Delaware judge has refused to order a hospital to administer the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin to a man who is seriously ill with COVID-19. Vice Chancellor Morgan Zurn said in a ruling issued Friday that patients, even if they are gravely ill, do not have a right to a particular medical treatment. She also said a health care provider’s duty to treat is bound by that provider’s standard of care. (Chase, 9/24)
The New York Times: As Covid Wave Pushes Up Demand, Costco Limits Purchases Of Toilet Paper And Water
Last year, a frantic run on toilet paper that left store shelves bare across the United States became a symbol of the panic that seized Americans in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, at least one big-box retailer is trying to prevent a repeat of that frenzy as the Delta variant has driven caseloads higher in many parts of the country. (Levenson, 9/26)
In other news about the spread of the coronavirus —
AP: LA Police, Fire Agencies Had Over 200 COVID-19 Outbreaks
Public health officials have identified more than 200 coronavirus outbreaks at police or fire agencies throughout Los Angeles County since the start of the pandemic, according to data obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The 211 outbreaks, accounting for more than 2,500 cases between March 2020 and last month, represent 9% of total workplace outbreaks across the county, the newspaper reported Sunday. However, they have continued to occur regularly even as vaccination rates increased among police and fire personnel and the number of individual coronavirus cases per outbreak has fallen since last winter. (9/26)
KHN: Firefighters On Front Lines, No Strangers To Risk, Push Back Against Covid Vaccine Mandates
Kentucky firefighter Jimmy Adams saw the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic when he served as a medic who helped care for the sick on medical calls amid surging covid cases. He knew retired firefighters who died of complications from covid-19. But he reasoned that they were older and likely had underlying health issues, making them susceptible to the virus. “That’s how you make peace with those things,” said Adams, 51, a lieutenant. He believed the precautions his department was taking kept him safe. But he refused to get a covid vaccine. The reason wasn’t strictly political, he said. He had grown weary of the debate around masks, mitigation, caseloads and vaccines. (West, 9/27)
CIDRAP: Medicare Eligibility Not Tied To Excess Pandemic Deaths
Medicare, for which most US adults become eligible around age 65, was not associated with excess deaths in 2020, according to a study published today in JAMA Health Forum. US mortality data from those 61 to 69 years old from March to December, 2015 to 2020, showed no discontinuities in the researchers' model. Similar results were found when the researchers tightened their age range around 65 years and when they altered the model relationship between age and death counts. The percent change in total death counts in the 2020 period compared with those from 2015 to 2019 was 28.1% or 30.6%, depending on whether Datavant or National Center for Health Statistics data were used, respectively. (9/24)
The New York Times: Covid Rapid Test Prices: How A Law Allows Labs To Charge Any Price
At the drugstore, a rapid Covid test usually costs less than $20.Across the country, over a dozen testing sites owned by the start-up company GS Labs regularly bill $380. There’s a reason they can. When Congress tried to ensure that Americans wouldn’t have to pay for coronavirus testing, it required insurers to pay certain laboratories whatever “cash price” they listed online for the tests, with no limit on what that might be. (Kliff, 9/26)
North Carolina Health News: COVID Testing Questions In NC Prisons Cause Confusion
As the most recent COVID-19 outbreak spread throughout the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women late this summer, the most pervasive feeling among those incarcerated was fear. Fear that they would get sick, fear that they wouldn’t make it home, fear that no one on the outside really knew exactly what was going on inside the Raleigh women’s prison. Though about 80 percent of the women incarcerated at NCCIW are vaccinated against COVID, there is still a lot of confusion over who gets tested for the virus and why. (Thompson, 9/27)
Bloomberg: The Rise Of The Pandemic Dashboard
In 2019, the website of Public Health England (PHE) wasn’t exactly racking up the hits. People visited it occasionally for general public health information, or some key data insights. But it was not much compared to the 19 million hits the site now receives on a weekly basis, with spikes of 300,000 users hanging around on the website at 4 p.m. every day, waiting for the updated Covid-19 numbers to publish. (Patino, 9/25)
Bloomberg: Profiling Coronavirus Mutations Helps Scientists Find Weak Spots
Erica Ollmann Saphire spent the past year and a half profiling the coronavirus, creating intricate three-dimensional images in her San Diego lab to understand its most problematic features. That information is now revealing the pathogen’s weak spots and ways to exploit them. Using an 11-foot (3.35 meter) tall microscope, the most powerful commercially available, she’s scoured hundreds of different antibodies against the Covid culprit to identify its salient features. The research at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology led to a study Thursday in Science that gives the most detailed map yet of how to circumvent the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s panoply of mutations and variants. (Gale, 9/25)
