Weekly Edition: February 12, 2021

Health Workers and Hospitals Grapple With Millions of Counterfeit N95 Masks
By Christina Jewett Masks imitating the real thing are flooding U.S. ports, and authorities can hardly keep pace.

Counterfeit N95 Scam Widens as Senator Demands FTC Investigation
By Christina Jewett and Jay Hancock Authorities seized 1.7 million fake masks in New York and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell called for a national probe.

Community Health Workers, Often Overlooked, Bring Trust to the Pandemic Fight
By Michele Cohen Marill As the pandemic brings long-standing health disparities into sharper view, community health workers are being asked to help the public health response. This fast-growing workforce helps fill the gaps between health care providers and low-income communities by offering education, advocacy and outreach.

Vaccine Equity Is ‘North Star,’ Feds Say, and Clinics Are Key to Fair Distribution
By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio Community health clinics are key to getting more Black and Hispanic Americans vaccinated, federal officials say. In Nashville, a vaccination push at federally funded clinics is underway.

Tech Companies Mobilize to Schedule Vaccine Appointments, But Often Fall Short
By Miranda Green Techies and startups have thrown together vaccine appointment websites to address the chaotic rollout of covid shots. But software can’t replace vaccines, and for many people the sites are just another piece of the vaccination “Hunger Games.”

Farmworker Camps to Urban Tent Cities: Tailoring Vaccine Info to Where It’s Most Needed
By Aneri Pattani Concerns arising in western North Carolina provide a window into the challenges facing health workers across the country as they seek to persuade vulnerable populations to be inoculated against covid.

Scalise’s Claim That Unauthorized Immigrants Are Getting Priority for Vaccination Misses the Point
By Victoria Knight Congressman Steve Scalise claimed during a Fox News interview that President Joe Biden was allowing immigrants to “jump the line” ahead of Americans for vaccination. But the administration merely has said everyone should have access to the vaccine, regardless of immigration status, and get vaccinated when eligible.

Vaccine Hesitancy vs. Vaccine Refusal: Nursing Home Staffers Say There’s a Difference
By Aneri Pattani It’s becoming increasingly clear that decision-making about the covid vaccine is complicated and multifaceted, which means persuading people to say yes will be, too.

California’s Smallest County Makes Big Vaccination Gains
By Hannah Norman In rural Alpine County, where snowbound mountain passes isolate small towns, distributing the covid vaccine is a community effort. Unlike in many urban areas where residents jockey for limited appointments, the pace of vaccinations here is strong and steady.

S.D. Governor Gives State High Marks in Handling the Pandemic. Are They Deserved?
By Carmen Heredia Rodriguez While South Dakota is excelling in vaccine distribution and in keeping its economy intact, some health measures show the state is also dealing with one of the highest per capita covid death rates in the country.

Lack of Covid Data on People With Intellectual Disabilities ‘Comes With a Body Count’
By Katheryn Houghton People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to have medical conditions that make covid especially dangerous. But a lack of federal tracking means no one knows how many people in disability group housing have fallen ill or died from the virus.

Why the U.S. Is Underestimating Covid Reinfection
By JoNel Aleccia Hundreds of Americans suspect they contracted covid early in the pandemic and recovered, only to get infected again months later. But because the U.S. does so little genetic sequencing of covid samples, we don’t know much about reinfection rates.

As Pandemic Surged, Contact Tracing Struggled; Biden Looks to Boost It
By Steven Findlay Reaching people who may have been in contact with covid patients has helped cut the number of infections, but these tracing efforts become less effective as the number of cases grows.

Schools Walk the Tightrope Between Ideal Safety and the Reality of Covid
By Laura Ungar and Samantha Young Across the country, politics have muddied the question of when and how to reopen schools. Even though teachers continue to fear for their safety, lawmakers and parents are demanding that schools take advantage of declining infection rates to open safely and quickly.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: All About Budget Reconciliation
Even while the Senate is busy with Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, the House has gotten down to work on a covid relief bill using the budget reconciliation process. Meanwhile, the watchword for covid this week among the public is confusion — over masks, vaccines and just about everything else science-related. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, the panelists recommend their favorite “health policy valentines” along with their favorite health policy stories they think you should read, too.

As Drug Prices Keep Rising, State Lawmakers Propose Tough New Bills to Curb Them
By Harris Meyer The measures would impose taxes on increases in the price of drugs that don’t reflect improved clinical value and set the rates paid by state-run and commercial health plans to a benchmark based on prices in Canada.

Flurry of Bills Aim to Set Limits on Transgender Kids – And Their Doctors
By Cindy Loose Lawmakers across the U.S. are pushing bills to restrict transgender kids from participating in sports and ban doctors from treating them.

Pandemic-Fueled Alcohol Abuse Creates Wave of Hospitalizations for Liver Disease
By Eli Cahan Hospitals across the country are seeing rising admissions for alcoholic liver disease, which encompasses hepatitis, cirrhosis and other conditions.

Gene Screenings Hold Disease Clues, but Unexplained Anomalies Often Raise Fears
By Christina Bennett Multiple-gene panel tests are frequently offered to patients at risk for diseases such as cancer that can assess more than 80 genes. But in screening a wide variety of genes, doctors might see a variant that hasn’t yet been deciphered and be unable to explain its significance, leaving patients with concerns and no answers.

Native Americans Use Technology to Keep Traditions, Language Alive During Pandemic
By Sara Reardon Tribes across the U.S. have turned to social media and the internet as leaders worry about covid-19’s threat to their culture and elders.

After Nearly 60 Years of Marriage, This Missouri Couple Stayed Together to the End
By Cara Anthony Arthur and Maggie Kelley of St. Louis died 30 days apart. Maggie died of complications of dementia in November. Arthur, who had moved into her nursing home to be with her, died a month later of covid. Their family held a double funeral.

Health Policy Valentines to Warm the Heart
Tweeters lit up our timeline in recent days with Health Policy Valentines about a variety of health topics. Here are some of our favorites.

Journalists Broach Topics From Vaccines and Super Bowl to True Love
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.