Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Fauci And Birx Continue To Plea For Mask Wearing
Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House鈥檚 coronavirus task force, said Sunday that it鈥檚 鈥渇rustrating鈥 to hear the public 鈥減arrot back鈥 false claims about COVID-19, including that masks do not work.聽Birx told NBC News鈥檚 鈥淢eet the Press鈥 that when she travels to meet with state and local government officials, she also meets with community members who sometimes repeat 鈥渕yths鈥 about the pandemic. (Coleman, 12/6)
With a COVID-19 vaccine perhaps just days away in the U.S., most of California headed into another lockdown Sunday because of the surging outbreak and top health officials warned Americans that this is no time to let their guard down. 鈥淭he vaccine鈥檚 critical,鈥 Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said on NBC鈥檚 鈥淢eet the Press.鈥 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not going to save us from this current surge. Only we can save us from this current surge.鈥 (Groves, 12/6)
The U.S. COVID-19 outbreak will "get worse before it gets better" and the country won't see "dramatic changes" until the third quarter of next year, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Newsweek. Speaking to Newsweek, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and member of the White House COVID-19 task force said: "I think the decreases are going to start as we get into April and as more of the general population gets vaccinated. (Kim, 12/5)
Also 鈥
[Dr. Anthony] Fauci has kept a relentless pace trying to correct the country鈥檚 coronavirus course. 鈥淓ach day is different,鈥 Fauci, who turns 80 this month, told HuffPost in an interview on the day before Thanksgiving. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just, you know, drinking out of a firehose trying to keep ahead of everything that鈥檚 going on.鈥 The night before, he鈥檇 been awake until around 11 p.m. sorting through a mountain of email until he was too tired to continue. 鈥淚 get like over a thousand emails a day and when they screen it, they screen it down to those few hundred that I have to deal with,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hen you have a day that is wall-to-wall, literally.鈥 (Young, 12/5)
It鈥檚 known as the 鈥淔auci Effect,鈥 the influx of applications to medical and nursing schools as a result of the pandemic and some schools in Alabama are seeing an increase in interest. ... According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the increase in medical school applications is unprecedented, up 18% over last year. (Maxie, 12/4)
A plea from Dr. Anthony Fauci for people to 鈥渨ear a mask鈥 to slow the spread of the coronavirus tops a Yale Law School librarian鈥檚 list of the most notable quotes of 2020.The list assembled by Fred Shapiro, an associate director at the library, is an annual update to 鈥淭he Yale Book of Quotations,鈥 which was first published in 2006. Also on the list is 鈥淚 can鈥檛 breathe,鈥 the plea George Floyd made repeatedly to police officers holding him down on a Minneapolis street corner. Several quotes from the presidential campaign appear including Joe Biden telling a student: 鈥淵ou鈥檙e a lying dog-faced pony soldier.鈥 (12/7)