The New York Times: Biden's Plan: President To Propose $6 Trillion Budget To Boost Middle Class, Infrastructure 
President Biden will propose a $6 trillion budget on Friday that would take the United States to its highest sustained levels of federal spending since World War II as he looks to fund a sweeping economic agenda that includes large new investments in education, transportation and fighting climate change. Documents obtained by The New York Times show that the budget request, the first of Mr. Biden’s presidency, calls for total spending to rise to $8.2 trillion by 2031, with deficits running above $1.3 trillion throughout the next decade. The growth is driven by Mr. Biden’s two-part agenda to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure and substantially expand the social safety net, contained in his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, along with other planned increases in discretionary spending. (Tankersley, 5/27)

AP: Social Spending, Business Tax Hike Drive $6T Biden Budget
Biden had already announced his major budget initiatives, but during a rollout Friday he will release them as a single proposal to incorporate them into the government’s existing budget framework, including Social Security and Medicare. ... The budget incorporates the administration’s eight-year, $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal and its $1.8 trillion American Families Plan and adds details on his $1.5 trillion request for annual operating appropriations for the Pentagon and domestic agencies. (Taylor, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Biden’s Budget To Spotlight Battle Over Abortion Restrictions
President Biden’s coming budget proposal will include his decision on whether to push to end a ban on using federal dollars for abortions in most cases, potentially opening a new front in the clash over access to the procedure. Mr. Biden said during his presidential campaign that he backed scrapping the ban, known as the Hyde Amendment, reversing his longstanding position in favor of the measure that has been included in spending bills for decades. (Lucey, 5/27)

Politico: Biden Budget Won't Clear Up Congress' Infrastructure Limbo
The release of President Joe Biden’s budget on Friday was supposed to be the green light for Democrats to go it alone on his $4 trillion infrastructure plan. Instead his party is stalled at the intersection.Biden will release that long-awaited fiscal year 2022 budget plan on Friday, a crucial first step for congressional Democrats to unlock the legislative powers to pass an infrastructure package without GOP votes. (Emma, Ferris and Levin, 5/28)

AP: Biden To GOP: 'Don't Get In The Way' Of Infrastructure Plan
President Joe Biden on Thursday warned naysayers in Congress not to “get in the way” of his big infrastructure plans as the White House panned a counteroffer from Republican senators to tap unused COVID-19 relief for a more modest investment in roads, highways and other traditional public works projects. After touring a manufacturing technology center at a community college in Cleveland, Biden held up a card with the names of Republicans lawmakers who had rejected his coronavirus aid bill in Washington but later promoted its assistance when they were back home in front of voters. He warned them not to play similar games as he pushes this next legislative priority in Congress. (Mascaro and Lemire, 5/27)

CNN: President Biden Blasts Republicans For Touting Covid Relief Funds They Voted Against: 'Some People Have No Shame' 
President Joe Biden on Thursday criticized Republican lawmakers who have touted parts of the Covid-19 economic relief law that benefit their constituents despite having voted against the law, saying: "Some people have no shame." No Republican in Congress voted for the American Rescue Plan when it passed earlier this year, but Biden noted several are now touting portions of the $1.9 trillion package that have gone toward their home districts. (Sullivan and Judd, 5/27)

The Hill: Democratic State Treasurers Warn Against Repurposing COVID-19 Funds For Infrastructure
Democratic state treasurers are warning Congress against a GOP pitch to repurpose funds from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law to pay for infrastructure investments. In an open letter to lawmakers Thursday, 14 Democratic state treasurers argued that taking funds from the COVID-19 relief measure would imperil the economic recovery. (Chalfant, 5/27)

NBC News: White House Vaccine Diplomacy Push Confronts Logistical, Diplomatic Hurdles
The White House commitment to ship millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines abroad has generated diplomatic and logistical challenges for administration officials to untangle as more countries seek U.S. assistance to overcome dire vaccine shortages. Since President Joe Biden announced this month that 80 million shots would be shipped abroad by the end of June, the White House has yet to send out any of the doses because of a variety of hurdles from logistical to regulatory. In the meantime, infections are surging in countries from Haiti to Japan, which struggle with organizational challenges and have only a small fraction of the doses they need. (Pettypiece, 5/28)

Stat: How A Single Pfizer Decision Disrupted The Covid Vaccine Rollout 
Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines arrive in an insulated box, tightly packed with dry ice, roughly double the size of a carry-on suitcase. Fully loaded, it weighs about 80 pounds. Unremarkable as it may be, this rectangular package helps explain the considerable obstacles in rolling out Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine. The large box also represents how the pharma behemoth rebuffed the federal government, creating public health setbacks but greater profits. (Goldhill and Cohrs, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA, J&J Near Deal For Covid-19 Vaccine Production At Baltimore Plant
The Food and Drug Administration and vaccine maker Johnson & Johnson JNJ -0.15% expect to announce within days that contamination problems at a Covid-19 vaccine plant in Baltimore are resolved, clearing the way for millions more doses to become available. Vaccine production at the plant run by contract manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions Inc. EBS 0.61% was halted after unsanitary conditions led to contamination of J&J vaccines. The facility made vaccine substance and finished vaccine doses for J&J and AstraZeneca AZN 0.62% PLC. Emergent chief executive Robert Kramer told a House committee last week that the company had produced enough of a key ingredient to yield more than 100 million doses of the J&J vaccine. (Burton, 5/27)

The Hill: Shrinking Number Of Unvaccinated People Eager To Get Coronavirus Jab: Poll
A shrinking population of unvaccinated people say they're eager to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible this month, according to a poll released Friday. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) Vaccine Monitor determined that while 62 percent of respondents reported getting their COVID-19 shot, 4 percent say they will get vaccinated at soon as possible. The overall vaccination rate does show improvement since April’s survey, when 56 percent reported getting their shot. But the percentage of people who wanted the vaccine as soon as possible dropped from 9 percent in April. (Coleman, 5/28)

CIDRAP: Ten States Reach 70% COVID-19 Vaccination Goal
So far ten states have reached President Biden's Jul 4 goal of vaccinating 70% of eligible residents against COVID-19, according to White House COVID-19 response coordinator Andy Slavitt. Pennsylvania joined Vermont, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New Mexico as the tenth state to reach the 70% goal of having citizens with at least one dose of vaccine. Slavitt tweeted that another 10 states are above 65% coverage. (Soucheray, 5/27)

CIDRAP: State COVID-19 Vaccine Websites Found Wanting In Accessibility, Usability
Many state-run COVID-19 vaccine websites could improve their accessibility and usability, according to a research letter yesterday in JAMA Network Open. The researchers conducted a qualitative study on each state's website for COVID-19 vaccine information and looked at accessibility and usability from the standpoint of someone who was trying to understand vaccine eligibility, wanting to schedule an appointment online, or needing to be added to a wait list. (5/27)

Concord (N.H.) Monitor: State-Run Vaccine Sites To Close By End Of June
Starting on June 1, state-run vaccination sites will stop offering first-dose vaccinations, according to a statement released Thursday by the NH Joint Information Center. State-run sites will close down permanently on June 30, an indication that New Hampshire is saturated with doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly 60% of the population has received at least one dose and many of the remaining 40% have reported that they’re not interested in receiving the vaccine at this time. (Rosenbluth, 5/27)

Other efforts to get shots in arms —

The Eagle-Tribune: Forums Address Adolescent COVID Vaccine Concerns
A series of virtual town halls aims to answer families’ questions about adolescents getting the COVID-19 vaccine. The Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics has hosted a dozen family forums since last Thursday. “We really wanted to plan some outreach events and provide an opportunity for families to hear the information, but also really to have a conversation with local pediatricians and family physicians,” said AAPVT Executive Director Stephanie Winters. (Sabataso, 5/27)

The Hill: ACLU Calls For COVID-19 Vaccines For Those In ICE Detention
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is pushing the Biden administration to vaccinate everyone in immigration detention along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) staff. “Given the urgency posed by COVID-19 — including the introduction of new variants and continued outbreaks throughout detention centers across the country from increased population numbers — it is imperative that ICE act quickly to provide vaccines to all detained people and staff in all detention facilities nationwide,” the ACLU wrote in a letter to both Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE acting Director Tae Johnson. (Beitsch, 5/27)

The Washington Post: Yes, We’ll Probably Need Coronavirus Booster Shots. But Which One?
“As we know, covid is not going to go away anytime soon, and we know that the antibodies decrease over time, so that a boost will be needed at some juncture. I can’t predict when,” said John Beigel, associate director for clinical research in the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Beigel is working on a U.S. trial, set to launch this week, that will provide one piece of the answer, testing whether people can mix and match shots when the need arises. Can a person fully vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine in February take a third shot of Moderna? Is there an advantage — or a risk — in switching from one brand or vaccine technology to another? (Johnson, 5/27)

Modern Healthcare: Community Health Centers Prepping For Potential Vaccine Boosters
The provider community is started to prepare for the potential rollout of booster shots to maintain immunity from COVID. And front and center in the preparation are a key segment: community health centers. Those providers have played a vital role in the current vaccination effort, administering more than 10 million doses since December with 61% of those patients belonging to racial and ethnic minority populations. But more resources will be necessary to remain pivotal in the battle to stop the spread of the virus. (Ross Johnson, 5/27)

Axios: COVID Immunity Could Last Years, Studies Find 
Immunity to coronaviruses lasts at least a year and could possibly last a lifetime, two new studies have found. This could offer some peace of mind for lingering concerns about how long protection against COVID-19 will last, the New York Times reports. (Reed, 5/27)

NPR: Vaccine Patches Use Microneedles To Eliminate Pain
It's the rare individual who actually looks forward to getting jabbed with a needle, even if what's in the needle can protect them from a serious disease such as COVID-19. But several teams around the world are working on a way to inject a vaccine without the ouch. The trick is to make the needles small. Really small. So small they don't interact with the nerve endings that signal pain. (Palca, 5/27)

And looking to the next pandemic —

AP: Future Pandemics Targeted By New Oxford Research Center
Oxford University is launching an effort to bring together academic, industry and government experts from around the world to use the lessons learned from COVID-19 in the fight against future pandemics. The Pandemic Sciences Centre will unite Oxford researchers in disciplines ranging from immunology and public health to computing and social sciences in an effort to improve the rapid identification of and response to emerging threats, the university said in a statement released Friday. (Kirka, 5/28)

Los Angeles Times: California To Pay $116.5 Million In Gifts, Cash To Those Who Get COVID Vaccinations
In the latest and most extraordinary effort yet to boost California’s flagging COVID-19 vaccination rates, state officials on Thursday announced what appears to be the largest inoculation incentive in the nation: the chance for 10 residents to win $1.5 million apiece. The goal of the multimillion-dollar giveaway is simple: Give residents every possible motivation to finally roll up their sleeves as the state’s vaccine rollout enters its crucial next phase. Those prizes — along with 30 additional awards of $50,000 each — are open to Californians who have gotten at least one dose. Those who have previously received their shots will be entered into the drawings automatically, and there is no need to register, according to state officials. (Money and Lin II, 5/27)

AP: California Giving $116 Million To People Who Get Virus Shots
The goal is to motivate roughly 12 million people who are eligible but not yet vaccinated, though the more than 20 million Californians already partially or fully vaccinated also are in the running for the most valuable prizes. “We’re putting aside more resources than any other state in America, and we’re making available the largest prizes of any state in America for those that seek to get vaccinated,” Newsom announced at an East Los Angeles high school where people were being vaccinated in the gymnasium. (Melley and Ronayne, 5/28)

Axios: Minnesotans Can Get A Free State Parks Pass If They Get Vaccinated For COVID 
The first 100,000 Minnesotans who get vaccinated against the coronavirus between Memorial Day weekend and the end of June will be eligible for free state parks passes, free fishing licenses or other rewards, Gov. Tim Walz (D) announced Thursday. The incentives are part of the state's effort to increase vaccinations. 61% of Minnesotans 12 years and older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, but the pace of doses administered daily has slowed since its peak in April, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. (Knutson, 5/27)

AP: The Latest: W Virginia Steps Up Prizes For Vaccination
West Virginia will step up its prizes for vaccines, enrolling all residents who have received a coronavirus shot into a lottery for the chance to win a college scholarship, an F-150 pickup truck or cash rewards. Republican Gov. Jim Justice announced the plan for the new incentives Thursday, but more details are expected to be finalized next week. The governor has aimed to turn around a vaccination drive that drastically slowed down after a strong early start. (5/28)

AP: Arizona Groups Push To Inoculate Central American Migrants
A leader in the Central American community in Phoenix says local groups are banding together to ensure more hard-to-reach migrants are vaccinated against COVID-19 as Arizona struggles to improve its inoculation rates. “I have been very worried about our people because many of them have not wanted to be vaccinated,” the Rev. Antonio Velazquez, an evangelical pastor originally from Guatemala, said Thursday. The push to vaccinate at least 5,000 migrants from Central America and Mexico begins Sunday at a Spanish-language church in central-west Phoenix, Velasquez said. (Snow, 5/27)

And on business incentives —

Axios: CVS Health Offers Vacation Sweepstakes For COVID Shots 
Since protection against a potentially deadly virus isn't enough incentive for some to get the COVID-19 vaccine, companies have begun offering everything from date nights to tropical vacations to coax Americans to get the shot. The giveaways are just the latest examples of increasingly lucrative rewards, including Ohio's $1 million lottery prizes, aimed at luring the hesitant. (Reed, 5/28)

CBS News: Kroger To Give Away $5 Million To Promote U.S. Vaccination Effort
Kroger will give $1 million to five customers and free groceries for a year to another 50 to encourage more Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the nation's biggest grocery chain said Thursday. The move has Kroger joining a national effort to get more Americans immunized and derail a pandemic behind the deaths of more than 593,000 Americans. Details of the Kroger Health campaign will come next week, and follows a collaboration with the Biden administration to push toward a target of having at least 70% of U.S. adults given their first vaccine dose by July 10, the company said. That target could be hard to reach amid hesitancy by a sizable chunk of the population. (Gibson, 5/27)

The Oregonian: Portland Trail Blazers Offer Fans COVID-19 Vaccination Prizes At Various Locations 
The Portland Trail Blazers are giving fans another reason to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The Blazers announced they’re encouraging fans to get the COVID-19 vaccine with prizes at locations throughout Portland. Fans who attend one of the team’s vaccination clinics, which are hosted by Multnomah Country’s REACH program and Oregon Health & Science University, and get their first doses will have a chance to receive prized Trail Blazers items, such as shirts, posters and even tickets to a 2021-22 preseason game. (Yohannes, 5/27)

The New York Times: U.S. Is Said To Have Unexamined Intelligence To Pore Over On Virus Origins
President Biden’s call for a 90-day sprint to understand the origins of the coronavirus pandemic came after intelligence officials told the White House they had a raft of still-unexamined evidence that required additional computer analysis that might shed light on the mystery, according to senior administration officials. The officials declined to describe the new evidence. But the revelation that they are hoping to apply an extraordinary amount of computer power to the question of whether the virus accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory suggests that the government may not have exhausted its databases of Chinese communications, the movement of lab workers and the pattern of the outbreak of the disease around the city of Wuhan. (Barnes and Sanger, 5/27)

Reuters: U.S. Intelligence Community Acknowledges Two Theories Of Coronavirus Origin
The U.S. intelligence community on Thursday acknowledged its agencies had two theories on where the coronavirus originated, with two agencies believing it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals and a third embracing a possible laboratory accident as the source of the COVID-19 pandemic. "The U.S. Intelligence Community does not know exactly where, when, or how the COVID-19 virus was transmitted initially but has coalesced around two likely scenarios," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said, adding that the majority believes there is not "sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other." (5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Time Is Running Out In Covid-19 Origins Inquiry, Say WHO-Led Team Members
Members of a World Health Organization-led team investigating the origins of Covid-19 urged the United Nations agency’s member states to mandate a second phase of research, warning that time was running out to examine blood samples and other important clues in China regarding when, how and where the pandemic started. The researchers also called for the U.S. to share with the WHO any intelligence supporting the hypothesis that the Covid-19 virus might have spilled from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, saying they had already unsuccessfully asked Washington for that information. The first confirmed cases of Covid-19 emerged in Wuhan in December 2019. (Page and Hinshaw, 5/27)

CNN: China Counters Biden's Covid Origins Wuhan Lab Probe ... By Calling For A US Lab Probe
Naturally, that's drawn the ire of Beijing -- again -- and prompted it to renew a counter-conspiracy theory that the virus actually started in the US. "The US doesn't care about facts or truth at all, neither is it interested in a serious scientific study on the origins. Its only aim is to use the pandemic for stigmatization and political manipulation to shift the blame," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian. (Gan and Yeung, 5/28)

The New Yorker: The Sudden Rise Of The Coronavirus Lab-Leak Theory
Scientists and political commentators are no longer dismissing the possibility that COVID-19 emerged from a Chinese laboratory. What changed? (Wallace-Wells, 5/27)

NPR: Why A Lab In Wuhan Is Worth A Closer Look As A Possible Source Of The Pandemic
Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease expert who served on the Biden transition team's COVID-19 advisory board, agrees. Even if the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the less likely origin of the outbreak, "this needs more investigation," she said Thursday in an interview with NPR's Rachel Martin on Morning Edition. "And saying that this needs more investigation doesn't mean the virus leaked from a lab. But we need to investigate that and figure that out because it really does have implications for how we'll prevent the next pandemic." (Schneider, 5/27)

CNN: CDC Predicts Covid-19 Cases, Hospitalizations And Deaths Will Fall Over Next Four Weeks 
There is good news for the US as people get ready for Memorial Day weekend. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is predicting that Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths will fall over the next four weeks. The CDC ensemble forecasts conclude that there will be a total of 596,000 to 606,000 Covid-19 deaths by June 19. As of Thursday, Covid-19 has killed at least 593,288 people and infected more than 33 million in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University. (Kallingal, 5/28)

ABC News: Biden To Praise Progress Against COVID-19 Pandemic Ahead Of Major Holiday Weekend
Appearing in Virginia ahead of Memorial Day weekend, President Joe Biden is expected to tout the state's and the country's "strong progress" against the coronavirus pandemic, while encouraging more Americans to get vaccinated, according to a White House official. Nearly 130 days after he urged Americans in his inaugural speech to persevere through the "dark winter" with the coronavirus, Biden is also expected to take an optimistic and hopeful tone in a speech in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday, the official said. (Siegel, 5/28)

NPR: CDC Approach To Breakthrough Infections Sparks Concerns
The CDC has decided to focus investigations of cases in which the COVID-19 vaccines fail on people who get hospitalized or die, but critics say that's short-sighted. (Stein, 5/27)

From the states —

The New York Times: Cases On U.S. College Campuses Are Slowing Down
The New York Times has been tracking virus cases at U.S. colleges and universities for nearly a year and has identified about 700,000 infections involving students and employees. Of those, more than 260,000 cases have occurred since Jan. 1. The Times has regularly surveyed more than 1,900 colleges and universities for coronavirus information for nearly a year. Altogether, the colleges reported about 60,000 cases each month between January and late April. From late April to late May, however, they reported fewer than 30,000 cases. Some of the newly identified cases may be from earlier in the pandemic and cases may be slowing in some places because spring semesters ended in early May, but the decline suggests that the overall outlook might be improving. (Wong, 5/28)

AP: Oregon Reaches 200,000 Confirmed Coronavirus Cases
Oregon has surpassed 200,000 confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, health officials said Thursday. The state’s death toll is 2,660. “As we head into the Memorial Day holiday weekend, this milestone is a grim reminder that while case counts are decreasing statewide in large part due to vaccination, there remains a risk of COVID-19 in Oregon, especially for those who are not yet vaccinated,” said Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen. “I urge caution for Oregonians who are not yet vaccinated.” Oregon’s daily case count, hospitalizations, deaths and positivity rates have been decreasing. (Cline, 5/27)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Officials Reclassify 517 Deaths As COVID Fatalities, Bringing Death Toll To Over 9,300 
Maryland officials said Thursday that there have been 517 more COVID-19 fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic that were not counted previously, increasing the death toll of the virus to more than 9,300 in the state. The state’s Department of Health attributed the increase to deaths caused by COVID-19 that were classified improperly by doctors, nurses and others who record deaths at hospitals, nursing homes and elsewhere. The errors weren’t caught until the department’s Vital Statistics Administration reviewed the data later and compared it with other sources of data. (Cohn, Mann and Miller, 5/27)

AP: Lamont Holds Last COVID Briefing, But Says Work Isn't Done
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont held his last regular COVID-19 briefing for the media on Thursday, a sign that he and his administration believe the state is well on its way to finally emerging from the pandemic. But Lamont said he wasn’t proclaiming “mission accomplished” after about 15 months of giving regular, televised updates. He warned there could still be some flare-ups of infections, especially with variants of the virus, in parts of the state where vaccinations have lagged such as eastern Connecticut and some urban areas. “So that’s why we are not taking our foot off the accelerator when it comes to getting everybody vaccinated,” he said. (Haigh, 5/27)

AP: Additional Variants Of COVID-19 Cases Found In Mississippi
Additional cases of two variant strains of COVID-19 have been found in Mississippi, the state Health Department said Thursday. Officials said 10 additional cases of the variant that originated in South Africa have been identified in the state, bringing the total to 12. The new cases are from outbreaks in two long-term care facilities — one in Forrest County and one in Covington County. The cases were described as “breakthrough” illnesses in “fully vaccinated older individuals.” “The majority of these cases had minimal to no symptoms, however, two required hospitalizations and one person died,” the department said in a news release. (5/27)

Axios: House Democrats Attack GOP Over Drug Pricing Bill Many In Their Own Caucus Oppose 
House Democrats are following the money in a series of new ads hitting Republican opponents of major drug price legislation — but the trail also leads back to their own members. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is accusing House Republicans of doing the bidding of drug industry donors by opposing the bill. Unremarked upon are the House Democrats who've also received money from the industry — and whose opposition is seen as potentially fatal to the legislation. (Markay, 5/27)

Roll Call: Senate Advances Science And Tech Bill
The Senate’s scientific research and development package got past a key hurdle on Thursday as the chamber voted 68-30 to invoke cloture on a substitute amendment by Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, setting the legislation up for possible final passage later in the day. The sprawling substitute amendment, amended over the course of two weeks on the Senate floor to include proposals by both Republicans and Democrats, would authorize more than $100 billion in the next five fiscal years for a whole-of-government effort to compete with China’s quest for dominance in emerging fields of science and technology. (DeChiaro, 5/27)

In other news from Capitol Hill —

Politico: Democrats Are Stuck On Abortion And Gun Control. They Have A Backup Plan
Congressional Democrats dream of ditching long-held Republican bans that block abortion funding and stifle gun violence research. Even with total control in Washington, they still can’t make it happen. To soften that defeat, they're plotting to spend billions of dollars on reproductive health and gun violence prevention this year. (Emma, 5/27)

The Hill: Top Senate Republican Says 'Structural Reforms' Needed At CDC For Next Health Threat
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) issued a scathing memo criticizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) response to the coronavirus pandemic, calling for “structural” reform of the agency following what he called “mistakes” responding to COVID-19. “Structural and cultural reforms at CDC are needed to ensure the organization is modern, nimble, mission-focused, and able to leverage cutting-edge science so that the United States is better prepared for the next threat that will come our way,” Burr, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote in a five-page brief. (Axelrod, 5/27)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: The Return Of The Public Option
The “public option” is back — both in Washington, D.C., and the states. President Joe Biden as a candidate supported the idea of a government-run or heavily regulated insurance plan that would compete with private insurance. But until now it has been more of a concept than a plan. Two top health leaders in Congress say they will try to put a plan together, while public options in various forms work their way through legislatures in Colorado and Nevada. Meanwhile, bioethicists are debating whether the U.S. should be vaccinating low-risk adolescents against covid-19 while high-risk adults in other countries remain vulnerable. (5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Resistance To Medicaid Expansion Sets Up 2022 Fight In Holdout States
Democrats look to Medicaid expansion fights to juice 2022 races in battleground states like Wisconsin and Florida, and even red ones like Missouri. They have been boosted by several state ballot referendums showing popular support for the expansions, and a carrot-and-stick approach from the Biden administration aided by American Rescue Plan funds. Resistant Republicans are tying the expansions to other Democratic policies, like expanded unemployment benefits, that they say are hampering the economic recovery from the pandemic. (Rubin, 5/28)

AP: Governor Lets Medicaid Bill Become Law Without Signature
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said Thursday he has let a bill putting some restrictions on his plan to privatize Medicaid become law without his signature. Stitt has pushed forward with a plan to outsource management of the state’s Medicaid system to for-profit insurance companies, maintaining that that approach will maximize health care quality while cutting costs. But much of the Republican-controlled Legislature opposes that proposal. The bill they passed imposes some restrictions on the privatization proposal, dubbed managed care. (5/27)

Health News Florida: Florida Hits Managed Care Plans For Damages 
Florida relies on managed-care companies to provide Medicaid coverage to 3.7 million low-income and elderly residents, but a review of data assembled by regulators shows that the companies have been hit with dozens of complaints that have resulted in the state requesting millions of dollars in payments. In the first three months of 2021, Florida Medicaid officials assessed more than $1 million in liquidated damages against managed-care plans, according to Agency for Health Care Administration data updated last week. (Sexton, 5/27)

Reuters: U.S. Opens Criminal Probe Into Alleged Lapses At Eli Lilly Plant
The U.S. Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into Eli Lilly and Co (LLY.N) focused on alleged manufacturing irregularities and records tampering at a factory in Branchburg, New Jersey, that produces the pharmaceutical giant’s COVID-19 therapy and other drugs, three people familiar with the matter said. The probe represents a significant escalation of the government scrutiny on Lilly. The pharmaceutical company, one of the world's largest, has been under examination for more than a year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over alleged manufacturing and records violations at the Branchburg factory. (Taylor, Spector and Levine, 5/27)

Stat: FDA Revives Program Trump Administration Ended Based On 'Inaccuracies'
In an unexpected move, the Food and Drug Administration is reversing a decision by the Trump administration to end a controversial program that forces drug makers to win regulatory approval for medicines already on the market, but were never actually approved. At issue is the Unapproved Drugs Initiative, which was launched in 2006 to gather data on numerous medicines that had been available for years on a grandfathered basis because they predated stricter approval requirements. But the program prompted complaints that some companies established monopolies after winning approval for a drug that, in some cases, led to big price hikes or shortages. (Silverman, 5/27)

CNBC: Elizabeth Holmes' Lawyers Cite Negative Coverage In Request To Expand Jury Selection
In the case of Elizabeth Holmes apparently all publicity isn’t good publicity. Attorneys for the former Theranos CEO are citing widespread negative coverage as a reason to expand selection for the pool of jurors in her upcoming criminal fraud trial. A 21-page motion filed late Thursday spelled out example after example of highly descriptive and unflattering stories in the past several years about Holmes. (Khorram, 5/28)

CIDRAP: CARB-X To Fund Development Of CRISPR-Based Drug For E Coli Infections
CARB-X announced today that it is awarding up to $3.9 million to a Danish microbiome biotechnology company to develop a CRISPR-based drug to prevent Escherichia coli infections in cancer patients. The award will help Copenhagen-based SNIPR BIOME ApS develop its lead drug candidate, SNIPR001, which uses CRISPR/Cas DNA editing technology to selectively eradicate E coli bacteria in the gut and prevent translocation of the bacteria to the bloodstream while sparing other beneficial bacteria in the patient's microbiome. (5/27)

On the opioids crisis —

AP: Sheriff At WVa Opioid Trial Worried About Future Generations
A West Virginia sheriff testified Thursday during a landmark trial against three large opioid distributors that he is worried the scourge of the pain pill epidemic will remain a very real part of life. “It’s long from being over,” Cabell County Sheriff Chuck Zerkle said. “I fear for what comes for my grandchildren and the next generation. This is not about me. I’m an old guy. I’m done. What comes down the road, that’s what I worry about.” A civil lawsuit filed by Cabell County and the city of Huntington accuses drug distributors AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp. of fueling the U.S. crisis. (5/28)

KHN: Opioids Like ‘Lean’ Permeate Hip-Hop Culture, But Dangers Are Downplayed
Nykerrius Williams knows about the close relationship between hip-hop and opioid use. Williams, 27, an independent rapper from Gibsland, Louisiana, who goes by the name Young Nyke, took oxycodone pills for the first time when he was 16 and has continued patterns of misuse of those pills, as well as Lortabs, Xanax and codeine cough syrups, until recently. To him, it’s part of the business. “If you ain’t rapping about being on no drugs, or you out here in the streets selling some drugs,” he said of his chosen profession, “you ain’t got some of that going on — like, don’t nobody wanna hear what you talking about.” (Giles, 5/28)

Modern Healthcare: How COVID-19 Warped Payer-Provider Contract Negotiations
A year later, some experts believe health systems may be using their post-COVID-19 publicity glow to pressure insurers into rate increases, pointing to a rash of recent tense negotiations erupting into the public sphere. "That's something we need to watch out for the, kind of the afterglow of public support, and then the argument that 'we lost money, we need to make it up,' " said Glenn Melnick, a professor of healthcare at the University of Southern California, who conducts research on payer-provider negotiations. "I do think that we will see that this year and next." (Tepper, 5/27)

Axios: Hospital Chain Ascension Has Weathered The Pandemic Just Fine 
Taxpayer bailouts and massive gains from Wall Street investments helped Ascension — the largest tax-exempt hospital system in the country — glide through the coronavirus pandemic. Dominant hospital chains like Ascension really haven't had to worry about their financial status during the pandemic, unlike smaller hospitals and safety-net systems, in part because those chains already accumulated massive rainy day funds over the years. (Herman, 5/27)

The CT Mirror: Proposal Requiring Higher Staffing Levels In Nursing Homes Clears Senate
Following calls from advocates, the state Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that would increase the number of direct-care hours for nursing home residents, would require nursing homes to maintain at least a two-month supply of personal protective equipment and would mandate that every nursing home employ a full-time infection prevention specialist. Recommendations for those reforms were made by a special task force established last fall to study the dire conditions in Connecticut’s nursing facilities and propose legislative fixes. (Carlesso, 5/27)

KHN: In California, Nursing Home Owners Can Operate After They’re Denied A License
The pandemic has highlighted poor care in America’s nursing homes, where nearly 175,000 people have died of covid-19 — a third of all deaths from the disease nationwide. Even before the pandemic, patient advocates pointed to dangerous conditions in U.S. nursing homes, including staffing shortages and infection control failures. Many nursing homes didn’t provide quality care, they charged. (Mendelson and Yu, 5/28)

KHN: Caring For An Aging Nation
Health care for the nation’s seniors looms large as the baby-boom generation ages into retirement. President Joe Biden tacitly acknowledged those needs in March with his proposal to spend $400 billion over the next eight years to improve access to in-home and community-based care. The swelling population of seniors will far outpace growth in other age groups. That acceleration — and the slower growth in other age groups — could leave many older Americans with less family to rely on for help in their later years. Meanwhile, federal officials estimate that more than half of people turning 65 will need long-term care services at some point. That care is expensive and can be hard to find. (Zuraw and Heredia Rodriguez, 5/28)

The Oregonian: Oregon State Hospital Calls For 30 National Guard Personnel To Help As Staffing Crisis Intensifies 
The Oregon State Hospital’s critical staff shortage reached a new level this week, and officials have called for the National Guard to help fill roles vacated by staff on coronavirus-related leave, the hospital announced late Wednesday. The announcement was a sudden change from a plan released to the public Tuesday, when the psychiatric hospital said it would pull in managers from around the Oregon Health Authority and other state agencies to help with emergency staffing. The hospital still plans to use those managers for temporary staffing. (Ramakrishnan, 5/27)

NPR and WLRN: Trying To Avoid Racist Health Care, Black Women Seek Out Black Obstetricians
Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Some of them look to black doctors for a sense of safety and connection, while medical schools add antiracism training. (Zaragovia, 5/27)

CIDRAP: Review Finds Persistent Symptoms In 73% Of COVID-19 Patients
Almost three quarters of patients reported at least one persisting COVID-19 symptom during follow-up, with the most common being shortness of breath and fatigue, according to a literature review published in JAMA Network Open yesterday. The researchers looked at 45 studies published from Jan 1, 2020, to Mar 11, 2021, and defined long-haul COVID as either 60 days after diagnosis, symptom onset, or hospitalization, or at least 30 days after acute illness recovery or hospital discharge. The largest proportion of studies came from China (7), followed by the United Kingdom (6), Spain (6), Italy (5), France (4), and the United States (3). (5/27)

AP: Heart Inflammation After Virus Is Rare In Big Ten Athletes
The results from the Big Ten COVID-19 Cardiac Registry show just 37 of nearly 1,600 athletes — a little over 2% — had evidence of heart inflammation on imaging tests. Of these, nine athletes had any chest pain, palpitations or other symptoms, according to the study published Thursday in JAMA Cardiology. Follow-up testing showed inflammation had disappeared a month later in most of the athletes affected, but about 40% of the 37 had scarring. The researchers said it is uncertain whether these affects pose a substantial health risk, although myocarditis, the medical term for the type of heart inflammation involved, is a leading cause of sudden death in athletes. (Tanner, 5/27)

In other research news —

CIDRAP: Big Spikes In Overdose Cardiac Arrests, Opioid Deaths Amid COVID-19
Two new JAMA studies reveal startling jumps in overdose-related cardiac arrests and fatal opioid overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first study, led by University of California, Los Angeles, researchers and published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry, involved 33.4 million patient emergency medical services (EMS) encounters from the beginning of the pandemic to May 2020 in the US National EMS Information System, a database of EMS visits from more than 11,000 agencies in 49 states. These visits made up more than 87% of all EMS encounters in 2020. (Van Beusekom, 5/27)

Stat: Inequities In Cancer Genomics Undercut Precision Medicine
Translating the promise of cancer genomics into health equity has not yet become a reality, two experts write in a commentary published recently in Cancer Cell. Instead, the racial gaps in cancer mortality have only slightly narrowed since the human genome was sequenced two decades ago, they note, and in preventable cancers such as breast and colorectal cancer, socioeconomic inequalities in cancer deaths are widening. (Cooney, 5/28)

AP: Idaho Lieutenant Governor Bans Mask Mandates
With the governor out of the state, Idaho’s lieutenant governor issued an executive order Thursday banning mask mandates in schools and public buildings, saying the face-covering directives threatened people’s freedom. Republican Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin is acting governor while Gov. Brad Little is at the Republican Governors Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee. He was expected to return Thursday evening. (Ridler, 5/27)

Politico: New Jersey Lifts Mask Mandate, Social Distancing Rules In Time For Memorial Day
New Jersey is lifting its mask mandate after having been one of the few holdouts in adopting the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday. Murphy’s new directive, which takes effect Friday, the start of the Memorial Day weekend, gives New Jersey residents — even those who aren’t fully vaccinated — the green light to remove their masks and other face coverings in most cases. Matching the CDC’s guidance, the order excludes settings such as health care facilities, jails, schools, child care centers and public transportation networks. (Sutton, 5/27)

The New York Times: NYC And Homelessness: Lawmakers Take Dramatic Step To Stem Rise
For nearly a decade, New York City has struggled to help homeless people find apartments of their own, as rents hovered in the stratosphere and the number of people stuck in shelters surged past 60,000. So on Thursday, the City Council took its most dramatic step in years to address the city’s affordable housing crisis, voting overwhelmingly to expand a subsidy program in ways that could make apartments affordable to tens of thousands of people who are homeless or threatened with eviction. (Newman, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Fraud Charges Leveled Across The Country
Billy Joe Taylor set up a medical testing lab in 2017 in Arkansas, submitting around $23 million in claims to Medicare through early 2020. His billing activities had already left a former business partner uneasy, the partner later told the FBI, but once the pandemic hit the activities appeared to go into overdrive. Mr. Taylor acquired a California lab for $60,000 in February 2020, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit filed last week, and used it to bill more than $42 million in fake claims through last month. Mr. Taylor bundled expensive and unnecessary tests with those coded as Covid-19-related, in an apparent effort to slip them through for approval, the affidavit alleged. The document said $11 million of those claimed were paid. (Viswanatha, 5/27)

The CT Mirror: House Approves Bill Aimed At Expanding School Mental Health Clinics
The state House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday aimed at expanding school-based mental health clinics throughout Connecticut. If it passes the Senate and is signed into law, this legislation would have the Department of Public Health, in collaboration with the Department of Children and Families and the Connecticut Association of School-Based Health Centers, conduct a study no later than Jan. 1, 2022, identifying school districts in the state that do not have accessible mental health resources for students and provide them with options to integrate school-based mental health clinics or centers in the area. (Watson, 5/26)

Health News Florida: Florida Planned Parenthood Clinics Expand Mental Health Offerings
May is mental health awareness month, and it seems the need for mental health services grows in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Now a new source for these services has emerged in the form of Southeast and North Florida's Planned Parenthood clinics. Dr. Karen Peters is Planned Parenthood's Behavioral Health Program director. She said Florida locations are among the first in the organization to expand health care offerings in this direction. (Flanigan, 5/27)

North Carolina Health News: How To Return To Normalcy Post-Pandemic 
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Pat Szafranski chose her restaurants the way most of us would: by looking at the menu. In recent months, she’s developed a new criteria, and it has nothing to do with food. The Greensboro resident judges a restaurant by its ventilation. “If we have to eat inside, it would be at a place with really high ceilings, it would have good ventilation,” she said about eating out with her husband. “I would ask them to put me in a corner somewhere out of the way.” (Engel-Smith, 5/28)

ABC News: These Florida Concert Tickets Are $18 If You're Vaccinated, $1,000 If You're Not
A concert promoter in Florida came up with a creative way to encourage his community to get vaccinated by offering $18 discounted tickets to an upcoming show for those who have been vaccinated -- and charging $999.99 per ticket for those who have not. Paul Williams of Leadfoot Promotions in Tampa Bay said he came up with the idea as vaccination appointments in his state opened up to all, and while trying to plan a concert that people could safely enjoy after over a year of living through a pandemic that shut down most live events with crowds. (Thorbecke, 5/27)

NBC News: Tennessee Woman Accused Of Driving Through Clinic, Shouting 'No Vaccine' Is Charged
A Tennessee driver accused of yelling "no vaccine!" while speeding through a Covid-19 vaccination tent has been charged with reckless endangerment, the Blount County Sheriff's Office said Thursday. Virginia Christine Lewis Brown, 35, of Greenback, is facing seven counts of felony reckless endangerment in the incident Monday at the vaccination site outside a mall, the sheriff's office said. No one was hurt, but the sheriff's office said the lives of workers were placed in danger. (Helsel, 5/28)

NPR: International Travel Opens To The Vaccinated, But How Do You Prove You Got The Shot? 
There's good news and bad news for Americans who have been itching to take a European vacation. Spain reopens to vaccinated tourists on June 7. Greece, Germany, France, Italy, Croatia and other countries are opening up again soon. But in order to go, travelers will have to show proof that they've been vaccinated, and it's not yet clear how they'll do that. That's causing a lot of confusion among those with pent-up wanderlust, as demand for air travel has been soaring in recent weeks. (Schaper, 5/27)

NBC News: As Europe Eases Travel Restrictions, Vacation Hot Spots Hope American Tourists Return
They have a reputation for being loud and obnoxious, but as Europe looks set to reopen its borders to foreign visitors in time for the summer travel season, it’s hoping American tourists will make a comeback. The European Union signaled last week that it will ease restrictions for vaccinated travelers from outside the bloc, including the United States. The E.U. shut its borders last year in a bid to stop Covid-19 from spreading, but many member states that are heavily reliant on tourism are desperate for foreign travelers to return. (Talmazan and Lavanga, 5/28)

Politico: Trudeau's Own MPs Demand Plan For Canada-U.S. Border
American lawmakers have so far spearheaded the push to get Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ease pandemic restrictions at the Canada-U.S. border. But as more Canadians are vaccinated the pressure is now coming from within Trudeau’s own Liberal caucus. Longtime Liberal MP Wayne Easter, who chairs the House of Commons finance committee, told POLITICO on Thursday that the Trudeau government must lay out a border reopening plan — and soon. (Blatchford, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Russia Rolls Out Covid-19 Vaccine For Animals
As Russia’s efforts to vaccinate its population against Covid-19 sputter, authorities have turned to a new target group: animals. Russian officials said they rolled out a homegrown animal vaccine, Carnivac-Cov, after trials showed that it generates antibodies in dogs, cats, foxes and mink. While scientists say there is no strong evidence that animals play a large part in spreading Covid-19 to people, infections have been recorded in various species worldwide, including dogs, cats and apes. Massive outbreaks have been observed especially in mink farms, with Denmark culling millions of the mammals last year amid fears of new mutations. (Kantchev, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: China’s Vaccination Surge Could Accelerate Asian Recovery From Covid
After a slow start, China’s vaccination campaign is roaring into action and now accounts for around half of the doses being distributed daily around the world. If anything like that pace holds, it could overturn expectations of the pace of recovery in Asia and emerging markets globally. About 20 million vaccines were distributed on Thursday alone and over the past week, vaccinations have proceeded at a pace faster than the U.S., European Union or U.K. have registered at any point during their rollout. UBS economists note that it’s worth watching for any pinch in supply of Chinese vaccines to countries currently deploying them: notably Chile, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico and Brazil. (Bird, 5/28)

Reuters: South Asia Crosses 30 Million COVID-19 Cases As India Battles Second Wave
Coronavirus infections in the South Asia region surpassed 30 million on Friday, according to a Reuters tally of official data, led by India which is struggling with a second COVID-19 wave and a vaccine shortage across the region. India, the second most-populous country in the world, this month recorded its highest COVID-19 death toll since the pandemic began last year, accounting for just over a third of the overall total. (M and Maan, 5/28)

The Washington Post: India's Covid Surge Has Killed More Than 500 Doctors And Sickened Hundreds Of Others Since March
The dead include an orthopedic surgeon in his 60s and an obstetrician in his 20s. They include community doctors who examined patients with their first symptoms, and specialists who worked around-the-clock in covid-19 hospital wards, trying to save gravely ill victims. Across India, hundreds of doctors have died in the new wave of coronavirus infections that has ravaged the country. The Indian Medical Association this week confirmed the covid-related deaths of 515 physicians since March, publishing their names and pictures. The group previously reported that 748 doctors had died because of the virus in 2020. (Constable and Dutta, 5/28)

Reuters: India Posts Lowest Daily Rise In COVID-19 Cases In Over A Month
India reported on Friday 186,364 new coronavirus infections during the previous 24 hours, for its lowest daily rise since April 14, while deaths rose by 3,660. The South Asian nation's tally of infections now stands at 27.56 million, with the death toll at 318,895, health ministry data show. (5/28)

Reuters: UK Cases Of Indian Variant Double To Nearly 7,000 In A Week
Britain has seen a total of nearly 7,000 cases of the B.1.617.2 coronavirus variant of concern first identified in India, more than double the previous total, Public Health England (PHE) said on Thursday. PHE said that there were a total of 6,959 confirmed cases of the variant, up 3,535 from the total reported last week. (5/27)

AP: Thailand Aims At Pandemic Risks By Fighting Wildlife Trade
Thailand is ramping up efforts to curb trade in wildlife to help reduce the risk of future pandemics, officials said Thursday, though it was unclear whether that would mean an end to all such sales in the wildlife trafficking hub. The government intends to make Thailand “free of the legal wildlife trade” while also combatting illegal trafficking in wild animals, Minister for Natural Resources and the Environment Waravut Silpa-archa said Thursday. Speaking in pre-recorded addresses, Silpa-archa and other officials said the pandemic has raised the urgency of shutting down the supply chain of wildlife and game meat that may harbor pathogens that cause COVID-19, Ebola and other illnesses in people. (Kurtenbach, 5/28)

The Washington Post: Thai Princess Approves Sinopharm Vaccine Imports As Covid Infections, Anger Mount
The sister of Thailand’s king raised eyebrows this week when she bypassed the country’s government and approved coronavirus vaccine imports by a research institution she chairs. The surprise intervention was the latest incident in which Southeast Asian elites appeared to skirt their countries’ rules on vaccination use and procurement, and comes as another wave of covid-19 infections crashes over the region. In Malaysia, outrage erupted recently over a report that the king was inoculated overseas even as other Malaysians wait their turn. And in the Philippines, anger lingers over how foreigners and the president’s bodyguards received early access to vaccines. (Miller, 5/28)

The Hill: EU Health Official: People Probably Died Due To AstraZeneca Vaccine Delays
A European Union health official on Thursday argued that some people in the region likely died from COVID-19 due to delays in the delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Pierre Delsaux, the deputy director general at DG SANTE, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, said during a Politico Live virtual panel titled, “Health in the EU’s post-COVID-19 recovery,” that some EU states relying on the AstraZeneca shot, which was developed in partnership with Oxford University, resulted in a “disaster.” (Castronuovo, 5/27)

In other health news from around the globe --

Reuters: AstraZeneca Drug Tagrisso Gets EU Nod For Early Lung Cancer Treatment
AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) top-selling Tagrisso drug has been approved for use in the European Union to treat patients with a type of early-stage lung cancer, the company said on Friday. The European Commission has approved the lung cancer drug as an add-on treatment for adults diagnosed early enough for the tumour to be surgically removed, and who have a mutation of the EGFR gene, the British drugmaker said. The approval was based on positive results from a late-stage trial called ADAURA, which showed Tagrisso cut the risk of the tumour growing back in patients or death by 80%. (5/28)

The Hill: Naomi Osaka Cites Mental Health In Skipping French Open Press Room
Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka says that in an effort to protect her mental health, she won't be speaking to the media at this year's French Open, risking substantial fines. Osaka, the current world No. 2, said on her Instagram Wednesday that seeing other players have mental breakdowns in the press room after losses led to her decision, adding she doesn’t believe in "kicking a person while they are down." (Oshin, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Ireland’s Health Service Warns Staff Not To Use Work Devices
A ransomware attack on May 14 forced Ireland’s public healthcare system to shut down its technology services, leading to delays and cancellations of medical appointments. Shortly after the attack, the Health Service Executive published instructions for employees on its website. Many of the systems run by the organization are still down, and services such as X-rays and radiology are unavailable in many places. Employees could potentially spread ransomware if they leave their work devices on, or they could leave an opening for attackers to enter the network again after the initial attack, said Brian Honan, executive director of BH Consulting, a Dublin-based firm that advises companies, including those hit by ransomware attacks. (Stupp, 5/28)

NBC News: Black People Are In A Mental Health Crisis. Their Therapists Are Busier Than Ever
The last year has been one marked by collective trauma. Covid-19 brought on a wave of loss, anxiety, stress, fear, economic instability and isolation across the country, creating, within the pandemic, a mental health crisis. Images of Black people shot and killed by police, mass protests, the shock of the Capitol riot and the opening up of the deep, systemic wounds of racism have brought on another level of trauma. Through it all, Black therapists, who are disproportionately underrepresented in their field, have been in high demand. (Gaines, 5/27)

Huffington Post: Can America Close The COVID Vaccine Race Gap?
The U.S. vaccination campaign has in many respects been a mind-boggling success, with a reach and a pace that most other peer nations can only envy. But some population groups here have fallen conspicuously behind, and one of them is Black Americans, whose vaccination rate is about two-thirds that of white Americans, according to estimates from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. A similar differential exists in Detroit, where the citywide vaccination rate is the lowest for any jurisdiction that the state tracks on its website. What makes the gap especially disturbing is that it seems unlikely to go away soon. More than half of all American adults are now fully vaccinated, the White House announced this week. But in Detroit, Deputy Mayor Conrad Mallett Jr. told me in an interview, “it would be fantastic if we could get to the middle or high 40s” by September. (Cohn, 5/26)

The Atlantic: What Breakthrough Infections Can Tell Us
With 165 million people and counting inoculated in the United States, vaccines have, at long last, tamped the pandemic’s blaze down to a relative smolder in this part of the world. But the protection that vaccines offer is more like a coat of flame retardant than an impenetrable firewall. SARS-CoV-2 can, very rarely, still set up shop in people who are more than two weeks out from their last COVID-19 shot. These rare breakthroughs, as I’ve written before, are no cause for alarm. For starters, they’re fundamentally different from the infections we dealt with during the pre-mass-vaccination era. The people who experience them are getting less sick, for shorter periods of time; they are harboring less of the coronavirus, and spreading fewer particles to others. Breakthroughs are also expected, even unextraordinary. They will be with us for as long as the coronavirus is—and experts are now grappling with questions about when and how often these cases should be tracked. (Wu, 5/27)

The Marshall Project: “He Died Like An Animal”: Some Police Departments Hogtie People Despite Knowing The Risks 
The U.S. Department of Justice in 1995 warned that people may die when police tie handcuffed wrists to bound ankles. (Neff and Siegel, 5/24)

The Hechinger Report: Black Teachers Are Facing Racial Battle Fatigue On Top Of A Stressful Job
Teaching was already a very stressful job, and the pandemic year has only made it worse. Many Black teachers are facing racial battle fatigue. (Barmore, 5/24)

Politico: The Tortured Saga of America’s Least-Loved Policy Idea
As a health care advocate in Massachusetts and later as an aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy, I first opposed and later embraced the “individual mandate” as a pathway to increase health insurance coverage for millions of people. At the time of my switch in 2004, the mandate was considered a conservative idea and seemed like a way to achieve one of liberalism’s most cherished goals, universal coverage. It succeeded and has helped to make Americans healthier. But it proved to be a flashpoint, and has outlived its usefulness as a policy tool. Now, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of hoping that the Supreme Court will kill it rather than use it to kill the Affordable Care Act. (McDonough, 5/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Bill And Barney, Two Old College Pals, Help Save The World From Covid-19
A half-century ago, freshman Barney Graham rolled onto the Rice University campus in a new 1971 Ford Mustang. To blow off steam that year, he launched water balloons off the dorm roof with his new roommate Bill Gruber, who drove a hand-me-down Dodge Monaco. Barney, a top high-school athlete and valedictorian from a family farm in Kansas, starred in intramural sports at Rice. Bill, a high-school academic star from a Houston suburb, said Barney made up for his own athletic deficiencies when they played football and softball. ... Last year, the two men returned to competition, this time in a race to stop the pandemic. (Hopkins, 5/25)

Inside Climate News: Fighting Attacks On Inconvenient Science—And Scientists
Any scientist whose research might conceivably threaten the bottom line of powerful corporate interests risks facing an orchestrated campaign to destroy their reputation. That’s the message of a commentary, published May 17 in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, that spins a cautionary tale about the fragility of scientific integrity by drawing on the disturbing history of a popular weed killer. (Gross, 5/24)

The New York Times: Why Apple And Google’s Virus Alert Apps Had Limited Success
When Apple and Google announced last year that they were working together to create a smartphone-based system to help stem the virus, their collaboration seemed like a game changer. Human contact tracers were struggling to keep up with spiking virus caseloads, and the trillion-dollar rival companies — whose systems run 99 percent of the world’s smartphones — had the potential to quickly and automatically alert far more people. Soon Austria, Switzerland and other nations introduced virus apps based on the Apple-Google software, as did some two dozen American states, including Alabama and Virginia. To date, the apps have been downloaded more than 90 million times, according to an analysis by Sensor Tower, an app research firm. (Singer, 5/27)

The New York Times: Why Are So Many Of My Fellow Health Workers Unvaccinated? 
In April of last year, I along with my entire family — my husband, my three children, in-laws and at least one of our four home health aides — came down with Covid-19. The domino effect of household transmission was like a spark that set our house on fire. It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life — and I am an infectious disease epidemiologist who responded to the Ebola outbreak in 2014. I am facing a new challenge at home and at my job, helping lead the pandemic response for New York City’s public hospitals: vaccine hesitancy, especially among health care workers. (Syra Madad, 5/28)

The Baltimore Sun: Should Employers Make Vaccination Mandatory? Yes, Here’s Why.
COVID vaccines hesitancy will likely further decrease as outreach continues, more people see family and friends choosing vaccination and more “perks” — from free doughnuts and beer to going maskless in public places and seeing sports teams in person — are offered to the vaccinated. But hesitancy will not disappear. Because some Americans consistently report not wanting to be vaccinated, questions are mounting whether employers should make vaccination mandatory. Already, more than 100 colleges and universities have announced that students must be vaccinated (or receive an exemption) to return to campus this fall, with some mandating for faculty and staff as well. Employers — from K-12 schools to office-based companies — are considering the same. And there is public support for this. Not only does the majority of the U.S. population want to get vaccinated; the majority say they want their employers to mandate vaccination for all employees for them to return to work. (Ruth Faden and Nancy Kass, 5/28)

Houston Chronicle: A Small Texas Town Shows What It Takes To Get The COVID Vaccine In More Arms
Although the term “vaccine hesitancy” has gained momentum in recent months, it fails to capture the greater problem of vaccine access and lack of trust in public health institutions, especially among groups and communities that historically have been underserved and mistreated or even abused by the public health and medical care systems. We should rephrase it to “vaccine equity. ”The COVID-19 pandemic undeniably hit communities of color the hardest. Disparities in testing, infection rates, rates of hospitalization and death in communities of color have been well-documented since the onset of the pandemic. And yet, according to the latest data available, the rate of vaccination within these groups lags well behind that of white individuals nationally, and Texas is no exception. (Octavio N. Martinez, Jr., 5/28)

Stat: Digital Twins Are Helping Lead The Charge Against SARS-CoV-2 - STAT
“Bad news wrapped up in protein.” That’s how the late Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Medawar and his wife and collaborator, Jean Medawar, once described viruses. In the case of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that “bad news” was an unprecedented pandemic leading to more than 3 million deaths so far. The virus causing this global crisis is surprisingly simple: just 29 proteins wrapped around a single strand of RNA. Its entire RNA sequence can be typed on about 13 sheets of paper totaling, just 7.5 kilobytes of data. Compare that to the human genome which, at more than 3 billion letters long, is equivalent to a stack of 1,000 King James Bibles or about 725 megabytes of data. (Stephen Ferguson, 5/28)

CNN: The Best Way To Get To The Bottom Of The Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden called for an inquiry by US intelligence agencies into the true origins of Covid-19. If this probe reveals new information, it could offer insight into the validity of the hotly-debated theory that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The scientific research facility was known to have been conducting research on coronaviruses. The "lab leak" explanation, which was panned and dismissed by a number of analysts, gained new life after the Wall Street Journal reported on a previously undisclosed US intelligence report revealing that three researchers from the Wuhan lab became so sick with Covid-19-like symptoms in November 2019 -- before official reports of the first outbreak -- that they had to seek hospital care. (Lanhee J. Chen, 5/27)

Modern Healthcare: Post-COVID Hospital Closure Boom On The Horizon
More than three decades after the publication of And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry, John Hoerr's book about the social upheaval wrought by Rust Belt deindustrialization remains as relevant as ever. It's most relevant, of course, in places like Pittsburgh, where I live and work, and where we still bear the scars from that slow-motion economic disruption and ensuing workforce dislocation. But it's also relevant to those of us working in healthcare, which is facing its own disruptions. (Dr. Jeffery Cohen, 5/27)

NBC News: California's Psychedelic Drug Decriminalization Is Long Overdue. I Wrote The Bill To Fix That.
I didn’t always think of psychedelics as medicine with the potential to help people work through mental health issues and addiction. I grew up in D.A.R.E.-era suburban New Jersey as the so-called war on drugs was in full swing. That term was coined in 1971 under President Richard Nixon, and he, along with subsequent administrations — notably the Reagan administration — helped develop our current system of racist drug criminalization and mass incarceration. Like most Americans, I grew up hearing the constant refrain that all drugs were inherently bad, that we had to “just say no,” and that drug use would (and should) be punished. (Scott Wiener, California state senator, 5/27)

Scientific American: The Rise Of Neurotechnology Calls For A Parallel Focus On Neurorights 
In Chile, the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research has begun to debate a “neurorights” bill to be written into the country’s constitution. The world, and most importantly the OECD, UNESCO and the United Nations, should be watching closely. The Chilean bill sets out to protect the right to personal identity, free will, mental privacy, equitable access to technologies that augment human capacities, and the right to protection against bias and discrimination. The landmark bill would be the first of its kind to pioneer a regulatory framework which protects human rights from the manipulation of brain activity. The relatively nascent concept of neurorights follows a number of recent medical innovations, most notably brain-computer interface technology (BCI), which has the potential to revolutionize the field of neuroscience. (Nayef Al-Rodhan, 5/27)

Stat: Create The Advanced Research Projects Agency For Health Wisely 
The U.S. needs a bold initiative to achieve transformative progress in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and countless other diseases that cut lives short or hold them back. The best way to do this is by building on the incredible scientific discoveries emerging from, or funded by, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and from the nation’s biotech and pharmaceutical research centers. (George Vradenburg and Ellen V. Sigal, 5/27)