Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
CDC Denies Native American Tribes' Requests For Coronavirus Data That Is Freely Available To States
Federal and state health agencies are refusing to give Native American tribes and organizations representing them access to data showing how the coronavirus is spreading around their lands, potentially widening health disparities and frustrating tribal leaders already ill-equipped to contain the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has turned down tribal epidemiologists鈥 requests for data that it鈥檚 making freely available to states. Authorities in Michigan and Massachusetts since early spring have also resisted handing over information on testing and confirmed cases, citing privacy concerns, and refused to strike agreements with tribes on contact tracing or other surveillance, eight tribal leaders and health experts told POLITICO. (Tahir and Cancryn, 6/11)
Americans have been keeping their distance from one another since late March. But new data suggests that those habits are coming to an end for more than 10 million people. According to an NBC News analysis of cellphone location data provided by the analytics and marketing company Cuebiq, people in more than 450 counties across the country have started to come near one another more frequently. And as people begin to gather in greater numbers, health officials are watching for a new round of coronavirus spikes. (Chiwaya, 6/11)
Experity Inc., a company that sells software for urgent-care walk-in clinics, has had to quickly build new tools to meet customer demands during the coronavirus pandemic. The Machesney Park, Ill., company accelerated the development and launch of a telemedicine application and also built a feature to allow Covid-19 patients to check in to their urgent-care appointments. Both tools debuted in March. 鈥淲e had to respond very quickly for our clients,鈥 said David Stern, Experity鈥檚 chief executive. (Castellanos, 6/11)
China has stepped up its effort to spread misinformation on Twitter, creating tens of thousands of fake accounts that discussed protests in Hong Kong and the Communist Party鈥檚 response to the coronavirus, Twitter said on Thursday. The company said it had discovered and removed 23,750 accounts that were 鈥渉ighly engaged鈥 in a coordinated effort to spread misinformation. Twitter said it also took down about 150,000 accounts that were dedicated to boosting China鈥檚 messages by retweeting and liking the content. (Conger, 6/11)
On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered Amazon and eBay to stop selling certain pesticide-containing products, many of which claimed to fight off and disinfect from the coronavirus. The orders also bar the e-commerce giants from selling products that contain toxic chemicals like chlorine dioxide and methylene chloride, which is federally regulated as a toxic substance. (Hagemann, 6/11)