Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
White House's Continuation Covid Plan Not Ready For End Of Emergency
Stat: Who’s In Charge Of The Covid Response After The Emergency Ends?
The White House isn’t quite ready to launch its new pandemic response office for a neat handoff at the end of the Covid-19 public health emergency, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha told reporters Tuesday. Jha said White House officials are in the middle of setting up an Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy that Congress mandated them to create in December, but it won’t be ready in time for a clean transfer at the end of the public health emergency on May 11. (Cohrs, 5/9)
The New York Times: As Covid Emergency Ends, U.S. Response Shifts To ‘Peacetime’ Mode
On Thursday, three years and 100 days after the Trump administration declared the coronavirus a public health emergency, the Biden administration will allow the emergency declaration to expire, ushering in a new era when the government will treat Covid-19 like any other respiratory ailment. If the coronavirus pandemic was a war, the United States is about to officially enter peacetime. (Stolberg and Weiland, 5/10)
The Washington Post: End Of Covid Emergency Highlights U.S. Weakness In Tracking Outbreaks
When the covid public health emergency ends May 11, laboratories across the United States will no longer be required to report coronavirus test results to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospitals and state health departments, too, will report less comprehensive data, making it more difficult for the federal agency responsible for detecting and responding to public health threats to protect Americans. (Sun, 5/10)
Reuters: Biden Revokes COVID Travel, Federal Employee Vaccine Requirements
President Joe Biden on Tuesday revoked requirements that most international visitors to the United States be vaccinated against COVID-19 as well as similar rules for federal employees and contractors. Biden's orders take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET May 12 with the expiration of the U.S. COVID public health emergency. The Biden administration's rules imposed in September 2021 requiring about 3.5 million federal employees and contractors to be vaccinated or face firing or disciplinary action have not been enforced for over a year after a series of court rulings. (Shepardson, 5/9)
More on the spread of covid —
Reuters: Calif. Top Court Reluctant To Hold Employers Liable For COVID Infections
Judges on California's top state court on Tuesday said they were concerned that allowing employers to be sued when workers who contracted COVID-19 spread it to members of their households would unleash "an avalanche of litigation" against businesses. The seven-member California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in San Francisco over whether woodworking company Victory Woodworks Inc could be held liable for negligence by Corby Kuciemba, an employee's wife who says she became seriously ill when her husband contracted COVID at work in the early days of the pandemic in 2020 and passed it to her. Even with the COVID global health emergency officially over, the court's ruling in the case could have major implications for California businesses. (Wiessner, 5/9)
San Francisco Chronicle: SFO Is First US Airport To Screen Airplane Wastewater For COVID
San Francisco International Airport has become the first in the United States to begin a government program to monitor airplane wastewater samples for new coronavirus variants. The initiative, created in partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will regularly collect combined wastewater flows from international arriving flights using an automatic sampling device and send them off to a laboratory for testing for emergent strains of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. (Vaziri, 5/9)
CIDRAP: Antibodies Spiked Then Waned After Pfizer, Moderna COVID Vaccines, But J&J Response Was Opposite
In a head-to-head comparison today in Scientific Reports, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) researchers describe very different antibody responses to the monovalent (single-strain) Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines up to 6 months after receipt. (Van Beusekom, 5/9)
On long covid —
CIDRAP: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Reduces Severe Fatigue In Long-COVID Patients
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) lessens fatigue and improves concentration among long-COVID patients, finds a Dutch randomized controlled trial published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases. (Van Beusekom, 5/9)
CIDRAP: Cognitive Issues, Anxiety, Depression During Acute COVID Linked To Lingering Symptoms
A new study from clinicians at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) offers more insight into the mental and physical components of long COVID, suggesting that people who perceived having more cognitive difficulties during their acute COVID-19 illnesses—including "brain fog," anxiety, and depression—were more likely to later report the lingering physical symptoms that define long COVID-19. (Soucheray, 5/9)
Also —
CIDRAP: Experts Warn Widespread Use Of Antibacterial Products Could Promote Antibiotic Resistance, Other Health Threats
More than two dozen scientists warn that the accelerated use of antibacterial products during the COVID-19 pandemic could pose health risks, such as antimicrobial resistance, and that a comprehensive research and policy agenda is needed to understand and limit these potential impacts.(Dall, 5/9)
