Weekly Edition: September 18, 2020

Wildfires’ Toxic Air Leaves Damage Long After the Smoke Clears
By Katheryn Houghton As fires burn longer and closer to cities throughout the West, researchers are trying to understand the lasting health impacts by studying a Montana town previously smothered by wildfire smoke.

Tough to Tell COVID From Smoke Inhalation Symptoms — And Flu Season’s Coming
By Mark Kreidler Respiratory symptoms stemming from coronavirus infection and smoke inhalation are too similar to distinguish without a full workup. This is complicating the jobs of health care workers as wildfires rage up and down the West Coast.

Black Women Turn to Midwives to Avoid COVID and ‘Feel Cared For’
By Rachel Scheier Midwifery was a tradition among slaves from Africa, but in more recent decades, pregnant Black women have generally shunned the approach. Now, home births and midwives are making a comeback in the Black community.

COVID Vaccine Trials Move at Warp Speed, But Recruiting Black Volunteers Takes Time
By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio The National Institutes of Health has suggested minorities should be overrepresented in COVID-19 vaccine trials — perhaps at rates that are double their percentage of the U.S. population. But efforts to recruit patients from racial minority groups are just beginning, while some trials have already advanced to phase 3.

Lost on the Frontline: Explore the Database
By The Staffs of KFF Health News and The Guardian As of Wednesday, the KHN-Guardian project counted 3,607 U.S. health worker deaths in the first year of the pandemic. Today we add 39 profiles, including a hospice chaplain, a nurse who spoke to intubated patients "like they were listening," and a home health aide who couldn't afford to stop working. This is the most comprehensive count in the nation as of April 2021, and our interactive database investigates the question: Did they have to die?

Students’ Mass Migration Back to College Gets a Failing Grade
By Victoria Knight Epidemiologists and disease modelers tried to predict what would happen when students moved back to campus. Although some universities listened to their advice, that didn’t stop outbreaks from happening.

COVID Exodus Fills Vacation Towns With New Medical Pressures
By Markian Hawryluk and Katheryn Houghton and Michelle Andrews As people leave COVID-stricken cities to settle semi-permanently in vacation communities, locals assess how these new residents are changing demands on medical services.

NIH ‘Very Concerned’ About Serious Side Effect in Coronavirus Vaccine Trial
By Arthur Allen and Liz Szabo The AstraZeneca trial is on hold in the U.S. as scientists try to unravel whether a rare neurological condition is linked to the vaccine. But regulators are frustrated by a lack of information from the drugmaker.

In Face of COVID Threat, More Dialysis Patients Bring Treatment Home
By Heidi de Marco Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, more patients are administering dialysis to themselves at home rather than receiving it in a clinic. Although home dialysis limits exposure to the virus, it comes with its own challenges.

Lack of Antigen Test Reporting Leaves Country ‘Blind to the Pandemic’
By Rachana Pradhan and Lauren Weber and Hannah Recht A KHN review found more than 20 states either don’t count or have incomplete data on the use of COVID-19 antigen tests, leaving the public in the dark about the true scope of the pandemic.

Lights, Camera, No Action: Insurance Woes Beset Entertainment Industry Workers
By Michelle Andrews Many actors, directors, backstage workers and others in the entertainment industry are often eligible for health coverage through their unions, a model that some experts promote for other gig workers. But coverage is determined by past employment, and many of these professionals aren’t working because of the coronavirus.

‘Terrible Role-Modeling’: California Lawmakers Flout Pandemic Etiquette
By Samantha Young and Rachel Bluth As California workers and schoolchildren struggled to work from home, state lawmakers met in person. And as their legislative session came to a close in late August, they broke COVID rules: They huddled, let their masks slip below their noses, removed their masks to drink coffee — and required a new mom to vote in person while toting her hungry newborn.

Urban Hospitals of Last Resort Cling to Life in Time of COVID
By Jordan Rau and Emmarie Huetteman Rural hospitals have been closing at a quickening pace in recent years, but a number of inner-city hospitals now face a similar fate. Experts fear that the economic damage inflicted by the COVID pandemic is helping push some of these urban hospitals over the edge at the very time their services are most needed.

With No Legal Guardrails for Patients, Ambulances Drive Surprise Medical Billing
By Laura Ungar Studies show that at least half of ground ambulance rides across the nation leave patients with “surprise” medical bills. And a $300-a-mile ride is not unusual. Yet federal legislation to stem what’s known as balance billing has largely ignored ambulance costs.

A Pandemic Upshot: Seniors Are Having Second Thoughts About Where to Live
By Judith Graham More than 70,000 residents and staff members at nursing homes and assisted living facilities have died of COVID-19, and others are under strict rules designed to keep the disease from spreading. That has evoked concern that living in a communal facility could be dangerous.

New Dental Treatment Helps Fill Cavities and Insurance Gaps for Seniors
By Michelle Crouch A new treatment for tooth decay is cheaper, quicker and less painful than getting a filling. Originally touted as a solution for kids, silver diamine fluoride is poised to become a game changer for treating cavities in older adults or those with disabilities that make oral care difficult.

Election Gift for Florida? Trump Poised to Approve Drug Imports From Canada
By Phil Galewitz The Trump administration is primed to approve a plan designed to help lower costs of some prescription drugs by allowing states to import them from Canada. The announcement could come before Election Day, and Florida appears to be in line to go first.

‘It Seems Systematic’: Doctors Cite 115 Cases of Head Injuries From Crowd Control Devices
By Jordan Culver, USA Today In the most comprehensive tally of such injuries to date, the Physicians for Human Rights scoured publicly available data — including social media, news accounts and lawsuits — to document and name victims of summer protests. Still, the group cautions, it's likely an undercount.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: It’s Scandal Week
President Donald Trump this week issued a prescription drug pricing order unlikely to lower drug prices, and he contradicted comments by his director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the need for mask-wearing and predictions for vaccine availability. Meanwhile, scandals erupted at the CDC, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration. And the number of people without health insurance grew in 2019, reported the Census Bureau, even while the economy soared. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Tami Luhby of CNN and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.

KHN on the Air This Week
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.

Readers and Tweeters Grapple With COVID Therapies and Forecasts
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.