The Washington Post: U.S. Reports More Than 4,000 Deaths In Deadliest Day Of Pandemic 
The United States on Thursday shattered records for the number of coronavirus-related deaths on a single day, topping 4,000 fatalities for the first time. Experts worry that the new, more contagious strain of the virus that has already been detected in eight states could make matters worse. “We are in a race against time,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The Washington Post. “We need to increase our speed in which we act so that we don’t allow this virus to spread further and allow this variant to become the dominant one in circulation. The clock is ticking.” (Noori Farzan, 1/8)

CNN: US Sees Five Deadliest Days Since Covid-19 Pandemic's Start In Last Two Weeks
In just less than two weeks, the US recorded its five deadliest days since the Covid-19 pandemic's start -- with more than 4,000 virus-related deaths reported Thursday. The nation's total Covid-19 death toll has now climbed to more than 365,300, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And another nearly 115,000 people could lose their life over the next four weeks, according to projections from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. (Maxouris, 1/8)

The New York Times: ‘Things Will Get Worse,’ Fauci Warns, As U.S. Hits A New Daily Death Record 
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the United States, predicted on Thursday that the daily death toll from the coronavirus would continue to rise for weeks to come, and counseled patience with the vaccination program gearing up across the nation. In an interview with NPR, Dr. Fauci said the high toll was likely to continue, and was probably a reflection of increased travel and gatherings over the holidays. “We believe things will get worse as we get into January,” he said. He stressed that it was still possible to “blunt that acceleration” by strictly adhering to public health measures like social distancing and mask wearing. (1/8)

AP: US Registering Highest Deaths Yet From The Coronavirus
The virus is surging in several states, with California hit particularly hard, reporting on Thursday a record two-day total of 1,042 coronavirus deaths. ... Meanwhile, the number of Americans who have gotten their first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine climbed to at least 5.9 million Thursday, a one-day gain of about 600,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Johnson and Pane, 1/8)

In news from California, Florida and Georgia —

CNN: Los Angeles County Covid-19 Deaths In A Day Equal City's Homicide Deaths In A Year, Mayor Says 
The number of people dying of Covid-19 in Los Angeles County in a day is now equivalent to the number of homicide deaths the city saw in an entire year, Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a Thursday news conference. "Yesterday we had 259 deaths, that's one more than all the homicides in 2019 in L.A. city combined," he said. "In a single day, equal to a year of homicides." (Moon and Maxouris, 1/8)

ABC News: Arizona 'Hottest Hot Spot' For COVID-19 As Health Officials Warn Of Hospital Strain
Arizona has become "the hottest hot spot" for COVID-19, as the state experiences the highest case rates in the world and record hospitalizations -- and health officials warn the numbers are only going to get worse due to holiday gatherings. (Deliso, 1/7)

AP: With Nearly 20,000 New Cases, Florida Breaks One-Day Record
Florida broke its record for the highest single-day number of coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, tallying 19,816 new cases on Thursday, while the state’s death toll reached 22,400. Statistics from the Florida Department of Health on Thursday showed the totals surpassed the previous single-day record, which was 17,783 cases on Wednesday. Since the pandemic started in March, about 1.4 million people in Florida have contracted COVID. As of 3 p.m. Thursday, 7,331 people in the state were hospitalized with the virus. (Farrington and Lush, 1/7)

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Since Pandemic Began, 800 Georgia National Guardsmen Have Tested Positive For COVID-19
The total number of Georgia National Guardsmen who have tested positive for COVID-19 has more than doubled to 800 since last summer, when hundreds were dispatched to help fight the spread of the disease and boost security amid the protests for racial justice. They represent nearly 6% of the 13,791 guardsmen who have tested positive nationwide. (Redmon, 1/7)

And fears loom of a coming surge after the Capitol riots —

San Francisco Chronicle: Was The Capitol Siege A COVID Super-Spreader Event? Here’s What Experts Say
Infectious disease experts on Thursday identified more potential fallout: That the Capitol invasion may have been a COVID-19 super-spreader event that could result in thousands of new cases and deaths. “It’s the perfect storm,” said Yvonne Maldonado, an infectious disease expert at Stanford University. The elements of a super-spreader event were all there: hundreds of people congregated together, mostly maskless, yelling and screaming for prolonged periods of time. The rioters were also from all over the country and will be traveling back to their communities, increasing the risk of multiple surges while the country is already experiencing a record explosion of cases and a highly transmissible new variant has begun circulating in the U.S. (Vainshtein, 1/7)

The New York Times: A Riot Amid A Pandemic: Did The Virus, Too, Storm The Capitol? 
The mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday did not just threaten the heart of American democracy. To scientists who watched dismayed as the scenes unfolded on television, the throngs of unmasked intruders who wandered through hallways and into private offices may also have transformed the riot into a super-spreader event. ... “It has all the elements of what we warn people about,” said Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “People yelling and screaming, chanting, exerting themselves — all of those things provide opportunity for the virus to spread, and this virus takes those opportunities.” (Mandavilli, 1/7)

Fox News: Those With Mild Coronavirus Experience Loss Of Taste, Smell In 86% Of Cases: Study
In a study published on Tuesday in the Journal of Internal Medicine, researchers found that some 86% of people with a mild case of the coronavirus lost their sense of taste and smell. The study involved more than 2,500 patients across 18 European hospitals. "[Olfactory dysfunction] is more prevalent in mild COVID-19 forms than in moderate-to-critical forms," the researchers said in the study, noting that according to their research, 75% to 85% of people regained their ability to taste and smell two months after their infection, while 95% of patients regained their ability to taste and smell at six months. An estimated 5% of patients, however, still had not regained this ability by six months. (Farber, 1/7)

Miami Herald: Mild COVID Cases More Likely To Lose Their Sense Of Smell 
Loss of smell, clinically known as anosmia, is often one of the first symptoms felt by people infected with the coronavirus, and often one of the only ones to show up. Now, a new study of about 2,500 COVID-19 patients found that a faulty nose affects mostly those with mild cases — nearly 86% — while only slightly affecting people with moderate illnesses (4.5%) and severe-to-critical cases (6.9%). (Camero, 1/7)

CNN: Loss Of Smell In Mild Covid-19 Cases Occurs 86% Of The Time, Study Says
Some 86% of people with mild cases of Covid-19 lose their sense of smell and taste but recover it within six months, according to a new study of over 2,500 patients from 18 European hospitals. A case of Covid-19 was considered mild if there was no evidence of viral pneumonia or loss of oxygen and the patient was able to recover at home. (LaMotte, 1/6)

NBC News: Loss Of Smell And Taste Can Linger After Covid Or Come Back Different
Why loss of smell and taste are more common among people with milder forms of Covid-19 remains unclear. The study's authors theorized that such patients have higher levels of certain antibodies that might limit the spread of the coronavirus to the nose. (Edwards, 1/6)

The Washington Post: People Without Symptoms Spread Virus In More Than Half Of Cases, CDC Model Finds 
People with no symptoms transmit more than half of all cases of the novel coronavirus, according to a model developed by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their findings reinforce the importance of following the agency’s guidelines: Regardless of whether you feel ill, wear a mask, wash your hands, stay socially distant and get a coronavirus test. That advice has been a constant refrain in a pandemic responsible for more than 350,000 deaths in the United States. (Guarino, 1/7)

WRAL: New CDC Data Shows Nearly 60% Of COVID-19 Transmissions Come From Asymptomatic Carriers 
New data from the CDC shows more than half of COVID-19 transmissions come from people who don’t even know they have it. A new model shows that 59% of all transferals come from asymptomatic carriers. That includes 35% of people who were pre-symptomatic and 24% who never developed any symptoms. “It’s really a signal that someone’s immune system has not yet responded to the virus entering the body, that’s one possibility,” says UNC Dr. Alexa Mieses Malchuk. (1/7)

The Washington Post: U.S. Sets Covid-19 Death Record As Researchers Point To Asymptomatic Cases 
As the United States marked another grim milestone Thursday with more than 4,000 covid-19 deaths reported in a single day, federal disease trackers said research suggests that people without symptoms transmit more than half of all cases of the novel coronavirus. The findings, which came from a model developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, demonstrate the importance of following the agency’s guidelines about wearing a mask and maintaining social distance, officials said. The emergence of a more contagious variant of the virus, first detected in the United Kingdom and discovered in eight U.S. states by Thursday, places the federal agency’s conclusion about how the virus is spreading in even starker relief. (Shammas and Guarino, 1/7)

Another study of asymptomatic spread has been used to spread misinformation —

AFP Fact Check: Article Headline Misleads On Study Into Covid-19 Asymptomatic Transmission
A screenshot of an article headline reporting that a study showed that asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 “didn’t occur at all” has been shared in multiple Facebook and Instagram posts. The claim is misleading; the authors of the study said their results do not show that asymptomatic carriers cannot transmit Covid-19 and warned against generalising the study’s findings. (1/8)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: CDC Study: COVID-19 Leapt In Counties Where Colleges Held In-Person Classes
Residents of university towns including Athens have been wary of claims that campuses can bring thousands of students back for in-person classes without escalating the spread of COVID-19 in the surrounding area. Turns out that skepticism may be justified. A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis released today found counties with large universities experienced a 56% increase in COVID-19 when the campuses opened with in-person instruction. Conversely, counties with major universities that opened with remote learning showed a 17.9% decrease in incidences of COVID-19. (Downey, 1/7)

CIDRAP: In-Person Classes, Greek Life Tied To College COVID Outbreaks 
Two Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) studies published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report track COVID-19 spread on US college campuses, one showing that 101 counties with large universities offering in-person instruction saw a 56% jump in coronavirus cases after classes began, the other finding that 91% of gatherings at an Arkansas university were tied to fraternity and sorority activities. ... In contrast, counties with institutions that featured in-person instruction observed a 56.2% increase, while those without large colleges or universities witnessed a 5.9% decline in new cases. (Van Beusekom, 1/7)

CNN: In Counties Where University Classes Were In Person, Covid-19 Cases Rose 56%
The researchers found that counties where universities held in-person classes were more likely to be identified as Covid-19 "hotspots" at least once compared with those where universities held remote classes and those without universities. The study did not consider mitigation strategies -- such as mask-wearing and social distancing -- at the local level or on university campuses. It also was not clear whether Covid-19 cases in counties with universities were related to transmission on campuses or within the community. (Howard and Christensen, 1/7)

The Chronicle for Higher Education: As The Pandemic Worsens, Colleges Prepare To Test Their Spring Plans
Even as much has changed since the fall, higher education’s approach to the spring looks remarkably familiar. Many campuses that operated mostly online in August have opted to do so again. And many colleges that held in-person classes and housed students are planning to remain in person — knowing, however, that their carefully laid plans may end up going out the window. Even with the spring semester just weeks away for some, what it will look like remains up in the air. (Diep, 1/5)

In related news —

Wisconsin Public Radio: CDC: UW Antigen Tests Missed Nearly 59 Percent Of COVID-19 Cases Among Asymptomatic Individuals 
Rapid COVID-19 tests used at nearly all University of Wisconsin System campuses missed 20 percent of positive cases among those showing symptoms, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For asymptomatic individuals, the tests missed nearly 59 percent of positives. In August, a month before the start of the 2020 fall semester, UW System Interim President Tommy Thompson announced the purchase of 350,000 COVID-19 antigen testing kits that would be used to screen students living in dormitories at all campuses except UW-Madison every other week. Quidel's antigen test, called the Sofia, wasn't designed for surveillance. Documentation provided by the company states they're intended to test people "within the first five days of the onset of symptoms." (Kremer, 1/7)

MIT Technology Review: Covid-19 Immunity Likely Lasts For Years
Covid-19 patients who recovered from the disease still have robust immunity from the coronavirus eight months after infection, according to a new study. The result is an encouraging sign that the authors interpret to mean immunity to the virus probably lasts for many years, and it should alleviate fears that the covid-19 vaccine would require repeated booster shots to protect against the disease and finally get the pandemic under control. “There was a lot of concern originally that this virus might not induce much memory,” says Shane Crotty, a researcher at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California and a coauthor of the new paper. “Instead, the immune memory looks quite good.” (Patel, 1/6)

CBS News: Moderna CEO Says COVID-19 Vaccine Protection May Last Years 
Moderna's CEO said the company's new COVID-19 vaccine may prevent infection for years. While speaking at a virtual event by Oddo BHF, a financial service group, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said the once-believed "nightmare scenario" that the vaccine won't work is now out the window. "We believe there will be protection potentially for a couple of years," Bancel said. (O'Kane, 1/7)

The Washington Post: Post-Infection Coronavirus Immunity Usually Robust After 8 Months, Study Shows 
The human body typically retains a robust immune response to the coronavirus for at least eight months after an infection, and potentially much longer, researchers said in a study published in the journal Science. About 90 percent of the patients studied showed lingering, stable immunity, the study found. ... The review of blood samples from nearly 200 patients also saw that multiple elements of the immune system — not just antibodies — continued to be effective at recognizing and responding to the virus. The human body appears to retain a memory of the invader and is poised to generate a coordinated counterattack of antibodies and killer T cells quickly if exposed again. (Achenbach, 1/7)

New York Post: COVID-19 Patients Still Immune Eight Months After Infection: Study
COVID-19 patients who have recovered still have significant immunity up to eight months after infection — a promising sign that there is lasting protection from the deadly illness, according to a new study. The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Science, analyzed blood samples from 188 patients mostly from San Diego who had contracted the virus. “There was a lot of concern originally that this virus might not induce much memory. Instead, the immune memory looks quite good,” co-author Shane Crotty, a researcher at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, told MIT Technology Review. (Salo, 1/7)

FierceHealthcare: AHA Presses For Changes To COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout And For HHS To Take Larger Role
The American Hospital Association is imploring the Trump administration to make several moves aimed at improving the disparate rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which in some cases has overwhelmed facilities. The association sent a letter Thursday to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar calling for more transparency and support for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine doses. The letter comes as frustrations are boiling over in hospitals that are shouldering both the rollout and massive surges of the virus. (King, 1/7)

NPR: Fauci: U.S. Needs More Time To 'Catch Up' On Vaccine Rollout
Dr. Anthony Fauci — head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, who will be President-elect Joe Biden's chief medical adviser — said Thursday that the initial rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has been slow because it came during the holiday period. "I think it would be fair to just observe what happens in the next couple of weeks. If we don't catch up on what the original goal was, then we really need to make some changes about what we're doing," he said in an interview with NPR's Morning Edition. (King, 1/7)

Axios: Why Some Experts Want To Relax Vaccine Prioritization 
Some political leaders and public health experts are rethinking strict prioritization for coronavirus vaccines, suggesting that it might make more sense to simply try to administer as many doses as possible as quickly as possible. Why it matters: Especially while supplies are still limited, there's an inherent tension between trying to focus first on the people most at risk from the virus — including those most likely to spread it — and getting shots into arms at maximum speed. (Owens, 1/8)

In related news —

Politico: 8 Democratic Governors Demand HHS Release More Vaccine Doses 
The Democratic governors of eight states — including California, New York and Michigan — are demanding that federal health officials release doses of Covid-19 vaccines currently being held back to ensure people who got their first dose can get their second. The federal government has held back doses equal to the amount it has shipped out, to ensure that everyone who is vaccinated completes the recommended two-shot sequence. But with a new, likely more transmissible coronavirus strain now circulating, public health experts have urged state and federal authorities to pick up the pace of vaccination. (Lim, 1/7)

CNN: Feds Overpromised And Underdelivered On Coronavirus Vaccines, State Health Officials Say 
The federal government "overpromised and underdelivered" on coronavirus vaccine expectations, leaving states understaffed and without enough money to immunize their residents quickly, state health officials said Thursday. (Thomas and Langmaid, 1/7)

Politico: Scott Demands Federal Probe Of Florida's Vaccine Distribution 
Sen. Rick Scott on Thursday called for a congressional investigation into what he called “vaccine distribution mismanagement,” following multiple reports that a West Palm Beach nursing home and assisted-living facility steered highly sought after vaccine shots to its board members and major donors. Gov. Ron DeSantis already has been under fire for the bumpy rollout of vaccinations in Florida due to the Republican governor’s insistence that those 65 or older be among the first to get inoculated with one of the Covid-19 vaccines. The state has roughly 4.4 million older residents. (Fineout and Sarkissian, 1/7)

KHN: KHN On The Air This Week
KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal discussed issues with the U.S. rollout of the covid-19 vaccines with NPR’s “Weekend Edition” and MSNBC’s “The Week With Joshua Johnson” on Jan. 3. KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed covid’s impact on current politics with WAMU’s “1A” on Dec. 31, and more. (1/8)

KHN: As The Vulnerable Wait, Some Political Leaders’ Spouses Get Covid Vaccines
With supplies of covid-19 vaccines scarce, a federal advisory panel recommends first putting shots into the arms of health care workers, who keep the nation’s medical system running, and long-term care residents most likely to die from the coronavirus. Nowhere on the list of prioritized recipients are public officials’ spouses. (Ungar, 1/8)

Also —

Modern Healthcare: Brigham President Stepping Down After Moderna Controversy
The president of Brigham Health will step down March 1 after more than a decade in the role following criticism over a perceived conflict of interest with Moderna. Dr. Elizabeth "Betsy" Nabel resigned from the drugmaker's board in July shortly after Brigham announced its flagship Brigham and Women's Hospital was a clinical research site in the phase 3 trial for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine. Nabel didn't cite the kerfuffle in an email to colleagues explaining her upcoming departure. Instead, she wrote that she had only intended to occupy the role for a decade—which she hit in January 2020—and later extended that to the end of calendar 2020. (Bannow, 1/7)

Los Angeles Times: California OKs Expansion Of Who Can Get COVID-19 Vaccine To Avoid Doses Going To Waste
In an effort to avoid wasting COVID-19 vaccine and help speed up the vaccine rollout, the state is instructing local health departments and providers to expand vaccine prioritization to community healthcare workers, public health field staff, primary care clinics, specialty clinics, laboratory workers, dental clinics and pharmacy staff. The state has also told officials that if a surplus remains even after all those eligible to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine under expanded criteria have been granted access, they should move to Tier 1 of the next phase of distribution, which has not yet officially taken effect. (Shalby, 1/7)

Des Moines Register: Polk County Offers COVID Shots To Expanded List Of Health Care Workers
The Polk County Health Department on Thursday released a list of professions whose members will be eligible for coronavirus vaccinations starting Monday. A department news release said shots would be available for people who have direct contact with patients or infectious materials and who are in one of these categories: Blood bank staff; chiropractors; clinical lab staff; dental professionals; dialysis center staff; emergency medical workers; environmental services staff; home health workers; health care students who provide patient care; hospice staff; mental health professionals; medical practice employees; occupational health staff; optometrists; physical therapists; rehabilitation staff; respiratory therapists; and school nurses. (Leys, 1/7)

NPR: Why West Virginia's Push To Vaccinate Against COVID-19 Is Ahead Of Other States
Nearly two weeks before most states started vaccinating anyone, pharmacist Gretchen Garofoli went to a long-term care facility in Morgantown, W.Va., on Dec. 15 and administered one of the first COVID-19 vaccinations in the state. "Psychologically, yes, it was a beacon of hope," she says. So far, West Virginia is outpacing the rest of the country. Having delivered vaccine to health workers and completed a first round of shots at all its long-term care facilities, the state is now administering second doses and moving on to other populations, including people age 80 and over, and teachers who are 50 and older. (Noguchi, 1/7)

Albuquerque Journal: NM Launches Call Center To Boost Vaccination Effort
New Mexico established a vaccination call center Thursday as it prepares to announce who will be part of the next priority group for COVID-19 shots. The state has already announced it expects those 75 and older to be part of the next group, and federal recommendations suggest offering the next round of vaccinations also to teachers, grocery store employees and other front-line workers. Meanwhile, the call center is intended to help people who have had trouble registering for the vaccine online or can’t access the internet. (McKay, 1/7)

In related news —

Detroit Free Press: Michigan's Switch Delayed Coronavirus Vaccines For Nursing Homes
More than 29,000 coronavirus cases have been reported among nursing home residents and staff, with 3,683 residents (more than 28% of the state's 12,918 deaths) and 34 staff dying so far in the pandemic. A few facilities said they had a delay in getting shots into arms because the state switched from the Pfizer to the Moderna vaccine for its long-term care facilities, whose populations are being vaccinated through a federal pharmacy program. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said the switch was made to "maximize the use of the doses of both vaccines being made available to Michigan. At the time of the decision, we understood that we would have more doses of Moderna vaccine available than Pfizer and, because of the nursing homes, we made this switch," spokeswoman Lynn Sutfin said. (Hall, 1/8)

Houston Chronicle: Texas' New 'Large Vaccination Hubs' Could Serve 100K People Per Week
State officials will start distributing most of Texas’ vaccine doses next week to a handful of large pharmacies and hospitals, creating “vaccination hubs” where more people can get a shot quickly, the Department of State Health Services announced Thursday. “As the vaccination effort continues to expand to people who are at a greater risk of hospitalization and death, in addition to frontline health care workers, these vaccination hubs will provide people in those priority populations with identifiable sites where vaccination is occurring and a simpler way to sign up for an appointment with each provider,” the department said. (Harris, 1/7)

Anchorage Daily News: Anchorage School Nurses Deployed At What Unexpectedly Became The City’s First Large-Scale Vaccination Effort For Seniors
What began as a small vaccine clinic intended for health care workers unexpectedly became the first large-scale vaccine operation for seniors in Anchorage. The Anchorage School District, which is working with the state on the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, didn’t plan to take on a role in vaccinating Anchorage’s senior population, according to district Healthcare Services Director Jennifer Patronas. But on Thursday morning, on the first floor of the Anchorage Education Center, a team of school nurses at a cluster of stations lining the hallway gave senior citizens their first COVID-19 vaccine shots. (Goodykoontz and Berman, 1/7)

Reuters: Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine Appears Effective Against Mutation In New Coronavirus Variants -Study 
Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine appeared to work against a key mutation in the highly transmissible new variants of the coronavirus discovered in the UK and South Africa, according to a laboratory study conducted by the U.S. drugmaker. The not-yet peer reviewed study by Pfizer and scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch indicated the vaccine was effective in neutralizing virus with the so-called N501Y mutation of the spike protein. (Erman, 1/7)

AP: Pfizer Study Suggests Vaccine Works Against Virus Variant
Most of the vaccines being rolled out around the world train the body to recognize that spike protein and fight it. Pfizer teamed with researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for laboratory tests to see if the mutation affected its vaccine’s ability to do so. They used blood samples from 20 people who received the vaccine, made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, during a large study of the shots. Antibodies from those vaccine recipients successfully fended off the virus in lab dishes, according to the study posted late Thursday on an online site for researchers. (Neergaard, 1/8)

In related news about the covid mutations —

Axios: Fauci Says COVID Variants Threaten Some Treatments More Than Vaccines
The COVID-19 variants first detected in the U.K. and South Africa and now circulating globally aren't a current threat to the effectiveness of the first vaccines, but mutations will be closely monitored because "they could be an issue," NIAID director Anthony Fauci tells Axios. (Drage O'Reilly, 1/7)

Houston Chronicle: More Contagious COVID-19 Strain Identified In Harris County, The First In Texas
The new strain of the COVID-19 virus considered more contagious has been identified in the Houston area, Harris County Public Health confirmed Thursday, a threat to hopes that recovery from the pandemic is within sight. The strain, initially discovered in the United Kingdom, was found in a southwest Harris County man between 30 and 40 years old, the county reported in a news release. The case marks the first time the strain has been identified in Texas. (Ackerman, 1/7)

The New York Times: The Events Of The Last Two Days Have Changed Biden’s Presidency In Profound And Unpredictable Ways.
The events of the last 48 hours — Tuesday’s Democratic takeover of the Senate and Wednesday’s mob violence at the Capitol by President Trump supporters — fundamentally altered the trajectory of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidency two weeks before his hand touches the bible. ... What does this mean in the short term? For starters, it is likely to diminish (but not eliminate) opposition to Mr. Biden’s cabinet picks, although big fights loom. (Thrush, 1/8)

Roll Call: Democrats Aim To Move Health Care Agenda Despite Slim Majorities
The outlook for Democrats’ health care priorities was boosted by the party’s two final Senate victories in Georgia this week, yet exactly what the party may accomplish remains to be seen. President-elect Joe Biden said in a statement Wednesday that “the bipartisan COVID-19 relief bill passed in December was just a down payment,” signaling that another pandemic response bill is on tap. (McIntire and Clason, 1/7)

FierceHealthcare: The Dems Just Flipped The Senate. Here Are 3 Health Policies Biden Could Now Get Passed—And One He Won't
While Democrats will have a majority, it would be a narrow 50-50 majority with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris breaking any ties, leaving the margin of error very slim. However, Democrats could use a parliamentary procedure called reconciliation that lets them bypass a legislative filibuster for budgetary bills and pass certain pieces of legislation via a simple majority. Here are three health policy areas where Democrats could have legislative success—as well as one in which experts say that is unlikely. (King, 1/6)

The New York Times: With Democrats In Control, Biden Moves To Advance Agenda 
The president-elect and his team are setting higher expectations for a legislative agenda now that his party controls Congress. Efforts like expansion of the Affordable Care Act and an ambitious overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws are more likely than they were with the Senate in Republican control. Several immigration advocacy groups issued statements urging Mr. Biden to quickly put the Democratic gains to use. ... The first big test of Mr. Biden’s congressional efforts is likely to be another coronavirus relief bill that provides more stimulus for the economy, additional aid to individuals and businesses, and extra funding for vaccine distribution and other pandemic responses. (Tankersley and Shear, 1/7)

KHN: Biden’s First Order Of Business May Be To Undo Trump’s Policies, But It Won’t Be Easy 
The party split in Congress is so slim that, even with Democrats technically in the majority, passing major health care legislation will be extremely difficult. So speculation about President-elect Joe Biden’s health agenda has focused on the things he can accomplish using executive authority. Although there is a long list of things he could do, even longer is the list of things he is being urged to undo — actions taken by President Donald Trump. While Trump was not able to make good on his highest-profile health-related promises from his 2016 campaign — including repealing the Affordable Care Act and broadly lowering prescription drug prices — his administration did make substantial changes to the nation’s health care system using executive branch authority. And many of those changes are anathema to Democrats, particularly those aimed at hobbling the ACA. (Rovner, 1/8)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Georgia Turns The Senate Blue 
Surprise Democratic victories in Georgia’s two runoff elections this week will give Democrats control of the Senate, which means they will be in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House for the first time since 2010. Although the narrow majorities in the House and Senate will likely not allow Democrats to pass major expansions to health programs, it will make it easier to do things such as pass fixes for the Affordable Care Act. (1/7)

FierceHealthcare: ACA's Coverage Gains Decreased Income Inequality: Study
Coverage gains made and subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act reduced income inequality by more than 10% in 2019, according to a new study from the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank. The study, backed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in Health Affairs, found that for a typical person in the bottom 10th percentile of income, those who enrolled in a plan under the ACA saw their incomes increase by an average of 18.8%. (Minemyer, 1/7)

Read The Study: Health Affairs: The Affordable Care Act Reduced Income Inequality In The US
The study simulated the impact of the ACA on income inequality in 2019 compared with a scenario without the ACA. We found that the ACA reduced income inequality and that the decrease was much larger in states that expanded Medicaid than in states that did not. We also decomposed the effect of the ACA on inequality by race/ethnicity, age, and family educational attainment. The ACA reduced inequality both across groups and within these groups. (Matthew Buettgens, Fredric Blavin, and Clare Pan)

In related news about health care law —

FierceHealthcare: How COVID-19 Is Changing The Way HR Professionals Think About Employee Benefits 
COVID-19 is changing the way human resources professionals view employee benefits, a new survey shows. Artemis Health, a data analytics company, polled 300 benefits leaders at firms with more than 5,000 employees and found that 78% reported employee health and well-being became a significantly higher priority over the course of 2020. (Minemyer, 1/7)

Texas Tribune: Texas Gives Medicaid Recipients On Planned Parenthood Until Feb. 3 To Find New Provider
Thousands of low-income Medicaid recipients who rely on Planned Parenthood for non-abortion services like cancer screenings and birth control will have until Feb. 3 to find new health care providers, according to a letter sent from the state’s Health and Human Services Commission to the women’s health provider Monday. The extension comes after the conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in November sided with Texas officials who have long tried to block Planned Parenthood from participating in Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled. To qualify, a single woman in Texas with two children must make less than $230 a month. (Najmabadi, 1/5)

Houston Chronicle: As Texas Boots Planned Parenthood, Medicaid Clients Get 30 Days To Find New Providers 
The nonprofit had asked for at least a six month extension to help recipients transition to new providers, following a November court ruling that allowed Republican officials to stop reimbursing it for Medicaid services. In the letter sent Monday, however, the health agency said it has only until Feb. 3, and is prohibited from accepting any new Medicaid patients. Planned Parenthood served about 8,000 Medicaid recipients last year. The program helps low-income Texans, but many health providers don’t participate because of low reimbursement rates from the state. (Blackman, 1/7)

Austin Statesman: Texas Lawmakers Could Be Poised To Debate Medicaid Expansion
Texas continues to lead the nation in the number of uninsured residents, a figure that estimates show has risen during the pandemic. At the same time, the state remains one of the few that has opted not to expand Medicaid, which would extend access to the joint state-federal program to more low-income adults. Advocates argue that the pandemic has created the perfect storm that could finally compel Republicans to tackle the issue (Democrats have long been in favor of the move), considering the lack of access to health care amid a public health crisis and the anticipated budgetary shortfall that could be aided by additional federal dollars available through expansion. (Mekelburg, 1/7)

In other Medicaid news —

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Expansion Has Saved Hospitals $6.4M, Study Shows
Hospitals in Medicaid expansion states have saved an average of $6.4 million on uncompensated care since the policies took effect, with safety-net hospitals pocketing even more savings, according to a new study published in Health Affairs. Researchers from the Urban Institute on Tuesday reported that uncompensated care comprised 6% of total expenses for hospitals located in non-expansion states in 2017, double the amount for those located in states that had expanded the program. (Tepper, 1/7)

FierceHealthcare: Study: Hospitals In Medicaid Expansion States Could Have Better Chance Of Weathering COVID-19 Crisis
Hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid have a greater chance of weathering the financial crisis caused by COVID-19 as they have increased Medicaid revenue, a new study finds. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, looked at the financial impact of the expansion on hospitals in 2016 and 2017 and the differences between facilities that resided in states which did and did not expand Medicaid. (King, 1/6)

AP: California Bypasses Tough Nurse Care Rules Amid COVID Surge
Overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients in the nation’s most populous state, nurses already stretched thin are now caring for more patients than typically allowed under state law after the state began issuing waivers that allow hospitals to temporarily bypass a strict nurse-to-patient ratios law — a move they say is pushing them to the brink of burnout and affecting patient care. California is the only state in the country to require by law specific number of nurses to patients in every hospital unit. It requires hospitals to provide one nurse for every two patients in intensive care and one nurse for every four patients in emergency rooms, for example. Those ratios, nurses say, have helped reduce errors and protect the safety of patients and nurses. (Rodriguez, 1/8)

The Baltimore Sun: GBMC Health Care Restoring Electronic Medical Records After Ransomware Incident 
One month after a crippling ransomware incident, Greater Baltimore Medical Center is beginning to restore the Towson hospital’s electronic medical records, officials said this week. GBMC previously disclosed little about the Dec. 6 cyberattack, which disrupted the health care system’s communication and data-keeping infrastructure and forced it to take systems offline and reschedule some procedures. The incident also impacted Gilchrist Hospice Care. (Miller, 1/7)

FierceHealthcare: CVS Taps Veteran Marketing Exec To Serve As First Chief Customer Officer 
CVS Health has created a new role in its C-suite: chief customer officer. The healthcare giant has tapped Michelle Peluso, a seasoned marketing and sales executive, to serve in the position. As chief customer officer, Peluso will be spearheading the company's plans to "transform" its customer experience and its push for more digital health solutions. (Minemyer, 1/6)

FierceHealthcare: CHI Franciscan, Virginia Mason Finalize Acquisition Deal And Roll Out New Name 
Healthcare giant CommonSpirit Health finalized a deal to acquire Seattle-based Virginia Mason this week. Virginia Mason will combine with Takoma, Washington-based CHI Franciscan to form an integrated health system to be known as Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. Officials said the combined health system will serve as a prototype of care innovation nationally as part of Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health. (Reed, 1/6)

In other health care industry news —

Indianapolis Star: Dr. Susan Moore: IU Health Convenes Outside Experts To Review Case
Indiana University Health has convened a panel of national experts on diversity and health care to investigate a high-profile case involving alleged racist treatment at the health care system’s Carmel hospital. The six panelists, four of whom are Black, will review the circumstances surrounding the care Dr. Susan Moore received for the coronavirus at IU Health North last month. Moore said in a widely circulated video that a doctor denied her medicine, ignored her pain and sought to discharge her prematurely because she was Black. (Rudavsky, 1/7)

Stat: When A Psych Bed Search Proves Difficult, These Patients Have A Partner
Hallie-Beth Hollister is a master at cold calling. She has to be. She and a small team of psychiatric bed searchers are responsible for calling hospitals across Massachusetts any time a patient is in need of an inpatient psychiatric bed. (Rapoport, 1/8)

FierceHealthcare: There Were Plenty Of Red Flags That Spelled The Demise Of Amazon, JPMorgan Healthcare Venture, Experts Say
Haven’s problem may have been internal issues and execution gaps, complicated by the competing interests of its major shareholders, according to Paddy Padmanabhan, founder and CEO of advisory firm Damo Consulting. "It isn’t easy to simply ‘disrupt’ healthcare by throwing tech and dollars at the problem. I believe a combination of market-driven change and policy action at the federal government level will transform healthcare eventually. This is already happening, as we have seen with the rapid rise in telehealth adoption during the pandemic," he said. (Landi, 1/6)

The Guardian: Arthritis Drugs Could Help Save Lives Of Covid Patients, Research Finds
Two drugs used to treat rheumatoid arthritis could help to save the lives of one in 12 intensive care patients with severe Covid, researchers have found. The NHS will begin using tocilizumab to treat coronavirus patients from Friday, health officials said after results from about 800 patients confirmed the drug brings benefits, potentially cutting the relative risk of death by 24%. Another arthritis drug, sarilumab, appears to do the same, not only saving lives but cutting the length of time patients spent in intensive care. (Davis, 1/7)

Bloomberg: Covid-19 Treatments: Arthritis Drugs Reduced Deaths, ICU Time In Study
The U.K. will start using a Roche Holding AG arthritis drug to treat critically ill Covid-19 patients after a study showed that it reduced mortality and shortened recovery times in intensive care. Some 27% of critically ill patients who got the Roche arthritis drug Actemra or a similar treatment from Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. died in the hospital, compared with about 36% of those who didn’t get them, an Imperial College London research team said. Those treated with the medicines were able to be released from the hospital an average of a week earlier, the study found. (Kresge, 1/7)

In other pharmaceutical and biotech news —

The Washington Post: The U.S. Paid A Texas Company Nearly $70 Million For Ventilators That Were Unfit For Covid-19 Patients. Why?
This spring, amid a panic over a shortage of ventilators to treat the anticipated surge in coronavirus cases, the Pentagon announced the purchase of $84 million worth of breathing machines from four companies. One of the ventilators, the SAVe II+, made by a small Plano, Tex.-based company called AutoMedx, stood out from the rest. ... Defense Department medical workers who had been told to use the existing SAVe II device on covid-19 patients quickly came to the conclusion that it was ill-suited for the coronavirus pandemic, and began to voice their consternation to each other in emails that were shared with The Washington Post. (Albergotti and Reed , 1/7)

Stat: Sarepta Gene Therapy For Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Stumbles
Sarepta Therapeutics on Thursday announced mixed results from the first randomized clinical trial of its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, raising questions about the path forward for the one-time, potentially curative treatment. A single infusion of the treatment, called SRP-9001, produced large increases in a crucial muscle protein typically missing in children born with Duchenne. But the increases failed to coincide with statistically significant improvements in muscle function for all patients after one year. (Feuerstein, 1/7)

FierceHealthcare: Northwell Health Researchers Using Facebook Data And AI To Spot Early Stages Of Severe Psychiatric Illness
Feinstein Institutes and IBM researchers studied archives of people in an early treatment program to extract meaning from the data to gain an understanding of how people with mental illness use social media. ... The study analyzed Facebook data for the 18 months prior to help predict a patient’s diagnosis or hospitalization a year in advance. (Horowitz, 1/6)

Boston Globe: With Biotech Funding At ‘All-Time High,’ Scorpion Scoops Up $162 Million
Just over two months after announcing its debut with $108 million in funding, Boston startup Scorpion Therapeutics said Thursday it has raised an even larger amount of venture capital. Scorpion, which focuses on “precision medicine” for cancer, said it has completed a $162 million funding round, bringing the biotech’s total venture haul to about $270 million. (Anissa Gardizy, 1/7)

Stat: Serial Biotech Entrepreneur John Hood Targets Deadly Lung Disease
John Hood is at it again. In 2016, Hood started a company, Impact BioMedicines, around a medicine that had been abandoned by the drug giant Sanofi. Impact raised $22 million in October 2017, and then was purchased in January 2018 by Celgene for more than $2 billion. (Herper, 1/7)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Using Coronavirus Test That FDA Warns May Produce False Negatives
The coronavirus test being provided daily to tens of thousands of residents in Los Angeles and other parts of California may be producing inaccurate results, according to guidance from federal officials that could raise questions about the accuracy of infection data shaping the pandemic response. The guidance from the Food and Drug Administration warns healthcare providers and patients that the test made by Curative, a year-old start-up founded in Silicon Valley that supplies the oral swab tests at L.A.’s 10 drive-through testing sites, carries a “risk of false results, particularly false negative results.” (Lau and Nelson, 1/7)

Politico: HHS Working To Replace Potentially Faulty Covid Tests Used By Congress 
The federal health department is working to provide alternative Covid testing for Congress after the Food and Drug Administration warned the test lawmakers have relied on is prone to false results, HHS testing czar Brett Giroir said Thursday. Accurate coronavirus testing for the House and Senate took on even greater importance Wednesday after waves of maskless pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol building and forced lawmakers, staff and reporters to shelter in close quarters for hours. Several Democrats have said that some GOP members did not adequately adhere to mask wearing. (Lim, 1/7)

KHN: Do-It-Yourself Contact Tracing Is A ‘Last Resort’ In Communities Besieged By Covid
The contact tracers of Washtenaw County in Michigan have been deluged with work and, to cope, the overburdened health department has a new tactic: It is asking residents who test positive for covid-19 to do their own contact tracing. Washtenaw is a county of nearly 350,000 residents who live in and around the city of Ann Arbor, about 45 minutes from Detroit. Until mid-October, a county team of 15 contact tracers was managing the workload. But by Thanksgiving, more than 1,000 residents were testing positive for the coronavirus every week, and the tracers could not keep pace. (Dahlberg, 1/8)

In other public health news —

San Francisco Chronicle: Zoom Face And Stealth Recovery: Plastic Surgery Booming Amid Pandemic
For months during the pandemic, Bay Area professionals have been working from home, connecting over Zoom, and deciding they don’t like what they see. It’s not their colleagues they’re objecting to, but their own faces — double chins, brow furrows and hooded eyelids. And they’re doing something about it, in droves. “I’ve never seen so many people want to have facial surgery at the same time, and so urgently, in my 20 years in practice,” said Dr. Carolyn Chang, a San Francisco cosmetic plastic surgeon who specializes in faces and breasts. (Zinko, 1/6)

The Washington Post: Home-Fitness Gear Surges During Pandemic 
Health and fitness equipment revenue more than doubled, to $2.3 billion, from March to October, according to NPD retail data. Sales of treadmills soared 135 percent while those of stationary bikes nearly tripled, depleting inventories. (Shaban, 1/7)

The Guardian: Covid Billionaires Should Help Starving People, Says Charity Boss
Billionaires whose wealth has soared during the coronavirus pandemic should stump up to provide emergency aid to the record numbers of people facing starvation, the head of a US charity supporting the World Food Programme has said. The pandemic and ensuing economic crisis have contributed to a sharp rise in the number of people on the brink of starvation around the world. The WFP, the UN agency that provides emergency relief, was needed by 138 million people last year, up from about 100 million in 2019. (Harvey, 1/8)

In related news about covid's economic toll —

The New York Times: Unemployment Claims Show Continuing Pressure On Job Market 
New claims for unemployment benefits remained high last week, the government reported on Thursday, the latest evidence that the pandemic-racked economy still has a lot of lost ground to make up in the new year. The labor market has improved since the coronavirus pandemic first pummeled the economy. But of the more than 22 million jobs that disappeared in the spring, 10 million remain lost. (Cohen, 1/7)

CNBC: Millions Of Stimulus Debit Cards Will Be Mailed Out Starting This Week
The Treasury Department announced Thursday that approximately 8 million second stimulus payments will be mailed out starting this week in the form of prepaid debit cards. The debit cards, called Economic Impact Payment (EIP) cards, are issued by MetaBank, N.A., and will arrive in a white envelope that “prominently displays the U.S. Department of the Treasury seal.” (Adamczyk, 1/7)

The Guardian: 'I'm Sleeping In My Car': US States Fail To Provide Unemployment Help Amid Pandemic
Eugene Williams of Daytona Beach, Florida, lost his job with a restaurant food distributor when the pandemic hit in March 2020, and had been receiving unemployment benefits without issue until June, when he accidentally entered “return to work” in verifying his weekly benefits claim. ...“I’m sleeping in my car and in the next few weeks I’ll be without a phone,” said Williams. He’s been unable to find new work and has relied on charitable organizations for food. “It is impossible to get a hold of the unemployment department. (Sainato, 1/7)

AP: Identical Twins Aren't Perfect Clones, Research Shows
If you’re an identical twin who’s always resisted being called a clone of your sibling, scientists say you have a point. Identical twins are not exactly genetically the same, new research shows. Scientists in Iceland sequenced DNA from 387 pairs of identical twins — those derived from a single fertilized egg — as well as from their parents, children and spouses. That allowed them to find “early mutations that separate identical twins,” said Kari Stefansson, a geneticist at the University of Iceland and the company deCODE genetics, and co-author of the paper published Thursday in the journal Nature Genetics. (Larson, 1/7)

CIDRAP: Study Links Fluoroquinolones To Higher Risk Of Aneurysm 
The results of a large observational study suggest fluoroquinolone antibiotics are associated with an increased short-term risk of aortic aneurysm. The study, published yesterday in JAMA Surgery, found that aortic aneurysm incidence within 90 days of filling a fluoroquinolone prescription was 20% higher in adults 35 and over compared with other antibiotics. In particular, there was a 31% higher incidence of abdominal aortic aneurysm and a 61% higher incidence of iliac artery aneurysm after fluoroquinolone use. (Dall, 1/7)

Stat: With Success In Vaccines, Scientists Turn MRNA On Autoimmune Disease
The technology used in a pair of pioneering Covid-19 vaccines works by effectively revving up the immune system to fight off the virus that causes the disease. But what if that same approach could be used to turn the immune system down to treat autoimmune disorders? (Garde, 1/7)

Stat: Wastewater-Based Epidemiology May Pay Off For Covid-19 
When I entered public service in 1991 as a research scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency, its attention was focused on the impact of pesticides and industrial chemicals on humans and wildlife. A breakthrough came eight years later with an article I wrote with my colleague Thomas Ternes describing what would eventually become known as the exposome — the totality of exposure over time to all stressors, chemical and nonchemical alike. (Christian Daughton, 1/7)

CNBC: Israel’s Covid Vaccine Rollout Is The Fastest In The World — Here Are Some Lessons For The Rest Of Us
While the U.S., U.K. and Europe attempt to ramp up their own Covid vaccination drives, one country is outpacing them all: Israel. ... It has raced ahead of other countries that have also started their vaccination rollouts. To date, and with a new lockdown in place amid a surge in coronavirus cases, around 1.59 million people in Israel (of a population of 8.6 million) have received their first vaccine shot, according to Our World in Data. (Ellyatt, 1/8)

ABC News: Experts Warn Against UK's Planned Vaccination Strategy 
The U.K. plans to postpone giving the required second dose of their authorized vaccines by up to 12 weeks -- an attempt to hasten distribution of the first dose. This public experiment is highly controversial as the vaccines' second doses were authorized to be given three to four weeks after the first, per the clinical trials. (Ordonez and Woodruff, 1/7)

AP: Biggest Czech Crematorium Overwhelmed By Pandemic Deaths
All three cremation chambers are working round the clock, while storage capacity for caskets has been repeatedly boosted. Despite all the efforts, the Czech Republic’s biggest crematorium, in the northeastern city of Ostrava, has been overwhelmed by mounting numbers of pandemic victims. On Thursday, cars from funeral companies delivered caskets every few minutes, some with “COVID” written on them. These days, the crematorium receives more than 100 coffins daily, about double its maximum cremation capacity. (Janicek, 1/8)

The New York Times: One 18-Hour Flight, Four Coronavirus Infections 
After an 18-hour flight from Dubai landed in Auckland, New Zealand, in September, local health authorities discovered evidence of an outbreak that most likely occurred during the trip. Using seat maps and genetic analysis, the new study determined that one passenger initiated a chain of infection that spread to four others en route. (Carey, 1/7)

Reuters: South Korea Unveils Inflatable Isolation Ward For COVID-19 Patients 
South Korean researchers say they have designed an inflatable “negative pressure” ward for isolating and treating patients with infectious diseases like COVID-19, after the pandemic exposed shortages of such beds around the world. The rooms use a ventilation system that creates negative pressure to allow air to flow into the isolation room and be channeled out safely, helping prevent the spread of airborne pathogens. (Cha, 1/8)

Also —

AP: Brazilian Women Head To Argentina To Avoid Abortion Ban
With her 21st birthday fast approaching, Sara left the home she shares with her mother for her first trip on a plane. She didn’t tell her family the real reason she’d taken out a loan for 5,000 Brazilian reais ($1,000). Two days later and several hundred miles away, a 25-year-old woman packed a backpack in her one-bedroom Sao Paulo apartment and left for the airport with her boyfriend. Both women were bound for the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, seeking something forbidden in Brazil: an abortion. (Biller, Calatrava and Pollastri, 1/7)

The Washington Post: Boosting Our Sense Of Meaning In Life Is An Often Overlooked Longevity Ingredient 
Americans dream of living long. In a survey done by Stanford Center on Longevity several years ago, 77 percent said they’d like to make it to 100. And so we diet, count steps, pop supplements and hope for miracle immortality treatments. Yet although diet and exercise are certainly vital for health (some supplements may actually harm your centenarian potential), science shows there is another longevity ingredient we often overlook: finding purpose. (Zaraska, 1/3)

The Washington Post: Therapists Talk About What They Heard In 2020 
It was a year of relentless trauma, and day after day Americans who could afford to poured out their grief into the patient ears of the nation’s therapists. They were the confidants for feelings of disorientation, resentment and hopelessness. Secondhand witnesses to medical horror, cabin fever and money panic. The job was to catch grief and to try not to absorb it, or let it compound their own sorrow. New patient inquiries came in almost by the hour. We were hit with so much, and we needed to talk about it. The Washington Post talked to five counselors about what they heard in sessions with clients this year — and what they felt as the tumult of 2020 upended their own lives. (McCarthy, 12/29)

The Washington Post: ‘I Said Goodbye To My Sister Through A Computer Screen’
Heather Hussli never realized how often she spoke to her sister Heidi until she couldn’t anymore. There are still times when Heather reaches for the phone to call Heidi, forgetting everything for the briefest of moments. How their beloved mother, Kim, died in late August after months of declining health. How their family and friends gathered to say goodbye. They wore masks; they stayed apart the best they could. But Heather now believes that probably wasn’t enough. (Bailey, 1/2)

The Atlantic: Where The Pandemic Will Take America In 2021
The influenza pandemic that began in 1918 killed as many as 100 million people over two years. It was one of the deadliest disasters in history, and the one all subsequent pandemics are now compared with. At the time, The Atlantic did not cover it. In the immediate aftermath, “it really disappeared from the public consciousness,” says Scott Knowles, a disaster historian at Drexel University. “It was swamped by World War I and then the Great Depression. All of that got crushed into one era.” An immense crisis can be lost amid the rush of history, and Knowles wonders if the fracturing of democratic norms or the economic woes that COVID-19 set off might not subsume the current pandemic. “I think we’re in this liminal moment of collectively deciding what we’re going to remember and what we’re going to forget,” says Martha Lincoln, a medical anthropologist at San Francisco State University. (Yong, 12/29)

The Pew Charitable Trusts: Pandemic Could Hurt Home-Based Care For Kids With 24/7 Needs 
Midway through a conversation about her 14-year-old, Claire, Jamie Davis Smith felt the need to change direction for a moment, to highlight the happiness her daughter can experience. “She likes to have ice cream and go to the playground with them. She loves to go swimming and to movies. Despite all of the problems, she’s very happy and lets us know what she likes and doesn’t like. ... Afflicted with a chromosomal abnormality so rare that it doesn’t even have a name, Claire suffers from epilepsy, chronic lung disease, asthma and autism. Part of her brain is missing. Her heart is in the wrong place, and she must wear a compression suit to keep other organs from misaligning. ... Claire has benefited from a nearly 40-year-old Medicaid program, the Katie Beckett Waiver Program, that enables families who earn too much to qualify for regular health care coverage to tap into home-based services. Without that aid, many families, including Claire’s likely would have to place their children in an institution. Tennessee this month became the 50th state to offer a Katie Beckett program or one like it. But the pandemic has worsened worker shortages in home health care, and advocates fear tightening budgets might mean cuts to the program. (Ollove, 1/7)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: No More Baby Cuddlers, Pet Visits At Hospitals: 'We Used To Have Volunteers To Do That'
Critically ill babies are some of the patients who benefit most from volunteers. While doctors and nurses in adult ICUs worried about patients dying alone during the beginning of the pandemic, neonatologists worry about babies coming into the world alone. “The big difference for us is that once a mother goes home, we don’t have people coming in to help cuddle and nestle and sing to them and do the things they did before COVID,” said Dr. Jay Goldsmith, a neonatologist at Tulane Lakeside Hospital in Metairie. Lakeside, along with other hospitals around the United States, suspended volunteer services in March. Parents can't always be around to sit with their hospitalized newborns. Sometimes there are job and transportation conflicts. They often have other children to watch, and they go home to sleep. (Woodruff, 1/2)

Stat: For People With OCD And Fear Of Germs, Covid-19 Upended Therapy 
Long before the pandemic arrived, Renée battled intense fears of getting sick from daily life. She worried she could get HIV from doorknobs or suffer brain damage from odorless carbon monoxide leaking from a faulty furnace. (Glaser, 1/6)

The Atlantic: We Know Almost Nothing About Giant Viruses
In garden ponds and in oceans, in desert soil and in industrial water-cooling towers, matters of life and death are playing out unseen by the human eye. Here, giant viruses prey on single-celled hosts such as amoebas or algae. This microscopic bloodbath can happen on such a large scale that massive algae blooms visible on the ocean surface turn white, as dead algae fade to reveal their colorless skeletons. Giant viruses, a group discovered only in 2003, are mysteriously large and complex, seemingly between bacteria and the tiny, simple viruses of classical biology. Scientists still don’t know much about what giant viruses do, other than kill amoebas and algae. Leave it to viruses, however, to keep surprising us: Giant viruses don’t just kill their hosts. In some cases, according to a recent study, they can keep their hosts alive and become part of them. (Zhang, 1/5)

USA Today: COVID Vaccine: Salk's Son Talks Polio Vaccine, Future Of Coronavirus
Dr. Peter Salk vaguely remembers the day he was vaccinated against polio in 1953. His father, Dr. Jonas Salk, made history by creating the polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh and inoculated his family as soon as he felt it was safe and effective. Although the vaccine hadn’t undergone any trials yet, 9-year-old Peter was among the first children to ever receive the vaccine. “My father had brought home some vaccine (and) these terrifying pieces of equipment that neither I nor my brothers very much enjoyed seeing,” Salk told USA TODAY. “Big glass syringes and reusable needles that needed to be sterilized by boiling over the stove.” (Rodriguez, 12/25)

Also —

ProPublica: Alaska Requires DNA Be Collected From People Arrested For Violent Crimes. Many Police Have Ignored That. 
Law enforcement agencies across Alaska, including in the state capital, are failing to collect DNA from people arrested for violent crimes, violating a state law passed with great fanfare in 2007 that was going to put Alaska at the leading edge of solving rape cases. The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found that across the state, some law enforcement agencies are not aware of the law or are not following it. That lapse means the database is potentially missing thousands of people and may explain why the effort to test a backlog of unexamined rape kits for DNA has yielded only one new prosecution. (Hopkins, 12/31)

ProPublica: After 3 Years And $1.5 Million Testing Rape Kits, Alaska Made One New Arrest 
In October, Anna Sattler saw the man who raped her for the first time since she jumped from his van 19 years earlier. He wore a dark tie and a blue face mask, appearing in one of Alaska’s first felony jury trials of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sattler was committed to getting justice for what had been done to her. She had subjected her body to the swabbing and prodding and picture taking of a forensic exam after the 2001 kidnapping, so troopers could collect a sample of the rapist’s DNA. In court, where a jury of socially distanced strangers examined images of her genitalia, she answered the defense lawyer’s questions about why she was barhopping the night of her rape. In the end, all the little humiliations built a case. (Hopkins, 12/30)

Bloomberg: U.K. Shows U.S. The Need For Urgent Covid-19 Action
The emergence in the U.K. of a new and more infectious variant of the Covid-19 virus sharpens an important “contrast and compare” health analysis between that country and the U.S. It sheds important new light on the immediate challenge the administration of President-elect Joe Biden will need to overcome if it is to have any realistic prospect of quelling the public health crisis by the middle of the year and of restoring inclusive and sustainable economic dynamism to the U.S. economy. It will also inform the continuing debate about what the deplorable mob attack on Congress on Wednesday means for the future of the U.S. (Mohamed A. El-Erian, 1/7)

Los Angeles Times: COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Is Slow -- How To Fix It
Health workers are of course the people who need COVID-19 vaccinations first. They are the ones most likely to be exposed, and their expertise is needed to vaccinate the rest of us and treat those who fall ill. So it was dismaying to learn that people who didn’t qualify for this initial round of shots nonetheless showed up at some Los Angeles County vaccination centers to skip the line — and succeeded. Some pretended to be health workers and were allowed to go ahead without any validating documents. Some were honest about their situation and still managed to talk their way into a shot. (1/8)

Atlanta Journal Constitution: ‘Long’ COVID’s Not Waiting For Vaccine
One-hundred fifty days. It’s a long time to have COVID-19, but it’s also five months of not being able to play soccer with my kids, five months of watching my wife singlehandedly keep our home afloat (while working full time), and five months of not being able to taste or smell. This is in addition to five months of not being able to work on the front lines as an emergency physician. The news focuses on the nearly 10,000 Georgian residents who have died from COVID-19, and rightly so. On the opposite end of the spectrum, many focus on the fact that the majority of COVID-19 infections result in mild or asymptomatic reactions – a fact for which we are all grateful. However, in the middle are thousands of people like me, suffering from months of debilitating symptoms with no end in sight. (Jeffrey N. Siegelman, 1/8)

Kansas City Star: How Does KS Gov. Kelly Explain Slow COVID Vaccine Response?
Kansans remain justifiably worried and confused about the COVID-19 vaccine — who can get it, when and where. “Where is my COVID SHOT!!!” one exasperated Facebook viewer asked online Thursday when Gov. Laura Kelly met with reporters to discuss new vaccine priority rankings.Kansans older than 65 have been moved closer to the front of the line. (1/8)

The Washington Post: Here’s Why Denying Treatment To Anti-Maskers Is A Bad Idea
Dear Carolyn: I cannot understand why some people refuse to wear masks and socially distance and believe they will not get sick. I suggest when they do get the virus and go to a hospital, doctors ask whether they have been wearing a mask and socially distancing. If they have not, they should NOT be treated if that takes a hospital bed from someone who has been doing the right thing. Your thoughts?— Wondering in VA. Wondering in VA: I understand your opinion comes from a place of justified rage and frustration, but it’s a knee-kick to our social contract. (Carolyn Hax, 1/7)

Stat: Mother Nature Is Not 'The Ultimate Bioterrorist'
Despite the menacing track record of emerging pathogens, “Mother Nature is the world’s worst bioterrorist,” a long-overused catchphrase of scientists and public health professionals, is in urgent need of retirement. Born in the maelstrom of Sept. 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed, the saying was meant to warn against fixating on bioterrorism while neglecting the risks posed by naturally emerging pathogens. (Chris Bakerlee, 1/8)

The New York Times: 10 Years Ago, A Gunman Tried To Silence Me
Ten years ago today I went to meet with my constituents in front of a grocery store in Tucson, Ariz. I was a young congresswoman, just sworn in for a third term; it had been a long and hard campaign in a charged national environment. Soon after I arrived that morning, a gunman opened fire. He shot me in the head at close range. Eighteen other people were shot that morning. Six died. What’s it like to survive in a world forever changed? How do you grieve what is lost, but move on with determination? How do you reckon with your country in a new way? These are timely questions for Americans these days. (Gabrielle Giffords, 1/8)

Stat: Even In A Virtual JPM Week, Relationships Keep Biotech Strong 
Every January, the week of the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPM week) is a whirlwind — oftentimes in the literal sense, with players from across the life science industry dodging the downpour in Union Square as we splash our way to back-to-back meetings. (Carin Canale-Theakston, 1/8)