Viewpoints: Lessons On Pauses In Vaccine Trials; Much More Needed To Curb Health Misinformation

Stat: Covid-19 Clinical Trial Pauses 'Show The System Is Working' 
In the time before the Covid-19 pandemic, a company pausing a clinical trial drew about as much media attention as its appointing a new director of human resources. Today, such pauses are huge news. (Adrian Hernandez, 10/14)

The Hill: Protecting The Profits Of A Few Could Prevent Vaccine Access For All 
The race to develop safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 feels existential. But even if all goes according to plans, it’s clear that — at least for the foreseeable future — there will be far greater demand for these vaccines than supply. We’ve already seen the ugly scramble for personal protective equipment, COVID-19 testing kits, therapeutics and treatments, which pitted countries against one another, and in the U.S., forced states into competition. (Bruno Stagno-Ugarte, 10/14)

The Washington Post: The Danger Is Growing That A Coronavirus Vaccine Will Be Rejected By The Public — Thanks To Trump
Vaccine Hesitancy — the reluctance of people to get inoculated against disease — was a public health difficulty before the pandemic. Now it has grown more serious just when everyone is looking to vaccines to save the day. Doubts and suspicions, once stirred by a small phalanx of activists, have become more widespread, in part in response to President Trump’s unrealistic promises to rush a coronavirus vaccine out before Election Day. (10/14)

Stat: Twitter Should Let Verified Experts Flag Covid-19 Misinformation 
Twitter placed a warning label atop a tweet by President Trump last week that contained misinformation about Covid-19: He falsely claimed it is less deadly than seasonal influenza. This week it applied the same label to another tweet by the president containing misinformation about Covid-19 immunity. (Christopher M. Worsham, Lakshman Swamy and Rahul Ganatra, 10/15)

Bloomberg: Alarming Second Wave Covid Curve Shows Europe And U.S. At A Dangerous Moment
In late June, I highlighted what I deemed a "horrifying" chart showing massive growth in new infections in the U.S. relative to the European Union. A key explanation for the discrepancy was that many U.S. states were moving forward with reopening despite high case counts, while many European countries had waited to “crush the curve” and ensure infections were lower before loosening restrictions. Now, almost four months later, that same chart remains very scary — but in a different way. For the first time since March, the EU is reporting more new Covid-19 cases on a population-adjusted basis than the U.S., reflecting a second wave of virus outbreaks on the continent. (Max Nisen, 10/14)

Bloomberg: Long Covid Doesn't Care If You're Super Fit
Before he had Covid-19, Brendan Delaney, the 57-year-old chair of medical informatics and decision making at Imperial College, could cycle 150 miles in a day. Covid changed that, but not because he had a severe case of the disease. Delaney never got seriously ill from the virus. Like many healthy people, he figured his symptoms, a mild fever and a cough, would pass soon enough. Instead, he experienced debilitating aftereffects, such as fatigue and breathlessness, which many are now calling Long Covid. Seven months later, he is still not back to normal. He can’t imagine getting back on a bike and says that if he pushes himself too hard, he ends up in bed with a fever for a couple of days. He considers himself lucky that he’s able to work. Many other Long Covid sufferers cannot. (Therese Raphael, 10/15)

Modern Healthcare: We Need To 'Do Something' To Fight Inequities In Healthcare
Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the high-profile tragic deaths of a number of Black Americans this year, are stark and painful reminders of the deep-seated racial inequities and systemic racism that persist today—not only in our society but within our healthcare industry as well. Racism is unjust, unlawful and increasingly showing itself to be a deadly disease contributing to distrust in our U.S. healthcare system. (Mark C. Clement and David Cook, 10/14)

JAMA: The Toll Of COVID-19
By September 22, 2020, the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the US had surpassed 200 000, according to such unofficial tallies. As of September 18, 2020, the NVSS reported 184 341 deaths involving COVID-19 through the week ending September 12, 2020. During the same time period (beginning February 1, 2020) according to the NCHS, an even larger number of deaths, 188 170, reportedly involved pneumonia, with or without COVID-19; if deaths involving pneumonia, influenza, or COVID-19 are counted, the number of deaths increases to 295 323. As the NCHS repeatedly explains, its tally of deaths attributed to COVID-19 at any moment is an undercount due to the lag in reporting and tabulation, but how much may be due to underreporting (eg, missed COVID-19 diagnoses among deaths attributed to pneumonia) or overreporting (eg, presumed COVID-19 diagnosis in a patient who died of influenza) are matters of speculation. (Harvey V. Fineberg, 10/12)