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Johnson & Johnson applied for an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for its coronavirus vaccine after releasing data last week showing it was about 66% effective in protecting against the virus. If J&J’s application is approved, it would be the third Covid-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use in the U.S. behind those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. ... The FDA has scheduled a meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on Feb. 26 to discuss the emergency use authorization. (Lovelace Jr., 2/4)

In a statement released Thursday, the company said if emergency use is granted, it aims to supply 100 million doses in the first half of 2021. Unlike Pfizer and Moderna, Johnson & Johnson's Janssen vaccine can be stored for at least three months at 36-46 degrees Fahrenheit, compatible with standard vaccine distribution channels, the company said. (Jones, 2/4)

The J&J shot is 66 percent effective broadly against moderate to severe infection but provides strong protection against hospitalization and death, according to a global study. ... But the J&J shot also proved less effective against a virulent Covid-19 strain first found in South Africa, falling to just 57 percent efficacy in a trial run in that country. Cases of the strain, dubbed B.1.351, have already popped up in the U.S. while scientists meanwhile warn that other variants, like the one first found in the United Kingdom, could soon adopt the strain’s hardiness against vaccines. (Owermohle, 2/4)

The addition of J&J’s vaccine could jump-start a U.S. mass-vaccination campaign that has been choppy since it began in December. There has been a limited supply of the first two vaccines, from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer, with its partner BioNTech SE, and distribution roadblocks have caused a slower-than-expected pace of vaccinations. J&J’s shot wouldn’t only boost the overall supply of Covid-19 vaccine doses, but also could simplify vaccinations for many because it is given in one dose. (Loftus, 2/4)

The most common injury from errant vaccine shots might no longer be paid through a federal program due to a rule change ushered in during the final days of the Trump administration. ... Federal vaccine court, established under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, handles rare cases of people who have serious side effects from a recommended vaccine. ... The court has a list of "table injuries" making people eligible for compensation if they show they received the covered vaccine and document side effects within a set period. If an alleged harm is not listed as a table injury, a person must prove a vaccine caused the injury. (Alltucker, 2/4)

State health officials debunked some COVID-19 vaccination claims after a misleading description of vaccine reactions among Alaskans spread across social media this week. On Wednesday, the day after the Alaska Watchman published a piece with the headline, “At least five Alaskans died and 111 suffered adverse reactions after COVID vaccines,” the state’s top doctor made it clear that no Alaskans — in fact, no one in the U.S. — have died because they got vaccinated. “The CDC came out very clearly this week and said that there have been no reported deaths that they have attributed to the vaccine,” the state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, said on a call with the public Wednesday. Zink said she had been getting more questions about vaccine safety but did not specifically reference the Watchman piece. (Hollander and Krakow, 2/5)

Kate Raess read the studies, talked to her obstetrician and consulted with her pediatrician. After months of consideration, the Illinois mom, who is breastfeeding her newborn son, decided she would get a COVID-19 vaccine. (Bowen, 2/4)

These early numbers reflect a national trend: Of people vaccinated nationally from mid-December to mid-January, 63% of people were women, according to federal data released Monday. Experts said the disparity in part reflects data that women live longer than men: In the five Bay Area counties that provided gender breakdowns, women over 65 outnumber their male counterparts, though women accounted for half or just over half of the total population. Also, more women work in health care in California due to the high proportion of nurses who are women. (Moench, 2/4)

The Galveston County Office of Emergency Management is seeking volunteers to help administer COVID-19 vaccinations. And, it turns out, volunteering to dish out vaccines could be the key to obtaining one yourself. The county’s vaccine hub, located at Walter Hall Park, was originally staffed by health care workers from the University of Texas Medical Branch. “As we’ve gotten more doses and moved forward, they still have jobs at UTMB to do,” said OEM spokesperson Zach Davidson. “So we’ve started reaching out to the community and the response has been incredible.” (Gordon, 2/4)

D.C. officials have a new tactic in their push to vaccinate residents in neighborhoods hit hardest by the coronavirus, while officials across the Washington region on Thursday continued to manage the ongoing fallout from the pandemic. Ensuring that the limited supply of vaccine doses is being distributed equitably among residents has been a key focus for elected officials across the region. Fairfax County is offering free transportation to vaccination sites for some residents who live farther away. Montgomery County is prioritizing residents from Zip codes with high infection rates. The District on Thursday announced its newest method to reach residents: knocking on their front doors. (Zauzmer, Natanson and Tan, 2/4)

With millions of older Americans eligible for COVID-19 vaccines and limited supplies, many continue to describe a frantic and frustrating search to secure a shot, beset by uncertainty and difficulty. The efforts to vaccinate people who are 65 and older have strained under the enormous demand that has overwhelmed cumbersome, inconsistent scheduling systems. The struggle represents a shift from the first wave of vaccinations — health care workers in health care settings — which went comparatively smoothly. Now, in most places, elderly people are pitted against each other competing on an unstable technological playing field for limited shots. (Stone, 2/4)

More than a month since the U.S. first began administering COVID-19 vaccines, many people who were not supposed to be first in line have received vaccinations. Anecdotal reports suggest some people have deliberately leveraged widespread vulnerabilities in the distribution process to acquire vaccine. Others were just in the right place at the right time. "There's dozens and dozens of these stories, and they really show that the rollout was a complete disaster in terms of selling fairness," said Arthur Caplan, who heads the medical ethics division at the NYU School of Medicine. "It wasn’t that we didn’t have consensus (on who should go first). We didn’t pay attention to logistics, and that drove distribution, not rules." (Hauck, 2/3)

Zipline Inc., a drone delivery service that specializes in medical supplies, announced Thursday that it plans to begin transporting COVID-19 vaccines in April. The South San Francisco-based startup said in a release that it is partnering with “a leading manufacturer of COVID-19 vaccines” in all of the markets where its drones currently operate. Zipline has been delivering medicine and supplies to rural clinics in Rwanda and Ghana since 2016 and, last year, began delivering personal protective equipment to hospitals and clinics in North Carolina. It plans to add operations in Nigeria later this year. Zipline declined to specify its vaccine partner but said it has built a system that can deliver ultra-low temperature medical supplies, including “all leading COVID-19 vaccines.” (Boudway, 2/4)

Much of the debate around vaccine prioritization hinges on one question: Who faces the greatest risk of dying if they become infected with COVID-19? Thus far, it is a question without a definitive answer. Age is one way to gauge risk, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending that people aged 75 and older be among the first members of the general public to have access to the vaccine. But in the next phase of distribution, as the CDC tries to factor in underlying medical conditions, the calculation becomes much more complex. Artificial intelligence, when applied to standard patient medical records, can help untangle that web, a new study by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard researchers found. (Moore, 2/4)

As states prepare COVID-19 inoculations for a wider swath of the population, researchers who have been mapping potential vaccine distribution sites found that, in dozens of counties across the country, Black residents are more likely than white residents to live farther away from a site. Long drives to vaccination sites may keep people from getting the vaccine, and could widen the already-significant health disparities between Black and white Americans, wrote the researchers, from the University of Pittsburgh and the West Health Policy Center. Researchers hope health departments around the country will use the mapping project to pinpoint under-served areas of their communities and open more convenient facilities like mobile clinics or mass vaccination sites at gyms and stadiums. Many counties, including in the Philadelphia region, have already begun to open such sites. (Whelan, 2/4)

At any given time, Fresno County resident Angélica Salceda has at least four websites open on her phone in hopes that one of them might tell her when it’s time for her parents to be vaccinated. Every day, she checks the health department websites for Fresno County and neighboring Madera County, where her parents live, as well as their medical provider’s page and the state’s newly launched My Turn portal. (Lozano, 2/5)

KHN: Journalists Explore Inefficiency And Inequities Of Vaccine Rollout

KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber spoke about the covid-19 vaccine rollout for WAMU’s “1A” on Jan. 29. ... KHN social media manager Chaseedaw Giles discussed racial disparities in covid vaccine distribution with NBC LX News on Feb. 3. ... KHN senior correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble discussed why President Joe Biden’s use of the Defense Production Act might not get more vaccines to market faster with NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday” on Jan. 30. (2/5)

KHN: The State Of Vaccine Supply: ‘Opaque.’ Unpredictable. ‘Hard To Pin Down.’ 

Even as the pace of vaccination against covid-19 has steadily accelerated — hitting an average of 1.3 million doses a day in the last days of January — the frustration felt by many of those unable to secure an appointment hasn’t waned. Why, they wonder, can’t I get one if 100 million shots will soon be administered? (Appleby, 2/5)

The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to release new standards for Covid-19 vaccine booster shots, tests and drugs in the coming weeks — all aimed at preparing the country to beat back fast-spreading virus variants that are less susceptible to existing shots. The agency confirmed Thursday that it plans to release draft guidance. It could come in two to three weeks, according to four people familiar with the discussion. In the meantime, federal and state officials are scrambling to track how widely the coronavirus variants first found in South Africa, Brazil and the United Kingdom are spreading in the United States. (Owermohle and Lim, 2/4)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning a rapid review process for quick turnaround of new COVID-19 booster shots if variants of the coronavirus emerge against which the vaccines do not provide protection, the agency’s top official said on Thursday. Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the FDA, said that if new variants of the coronavirus emerge that require booster shots or changes to vaccines, the agency will not require the type of large trials that were required for emergency use authorization or approval. (2/4)

Concerned about new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced late Thursday that it is developing guidance to help vaccine, drug and testing manufacturers adapt. Existing vaccines, treatments and tests still work well, emphasized the FDA's acting commissioner Janet Woodcock. But now is the time to get ready for a future when they may not. "We must prepare for all eventualities," she said in a call with reporters. Within the next few weeks, the FDA will provide draft guidance to manufacturers on how to adapt their products as needed, Woodcock said. Feedback from companies and others will help refine that guidance. (Weintraub, 2/4)

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, a longtime Democratic health policy expert, has emerged as the leading candidate to run President Joe Biden’s Medicare and Medicaid agency, according to three sources familiar with the Biden team’s discussions. The eventual head of the trillion-dollar agency will be charged with overseeing Biden’s pledge to expand Obamacare and reverse Trump-era restrictions on the health care safety net. (Roubein, Luthi and Cancryn, 2/4)

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, described low morale among staff at the agency after Donald Trump spent months downplaying the severity of COVID-19, flouting the agency’s recommendations, and sidelining public health experts. In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday, Walensky said staff at the CDC have been “muzzled, they have been beaten down, but they are still there, and they are working hard, long hours.” Walensky, formerly chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, described staff at the agency as “career public health officials, stewards of the health of this nation and really of the world” who are “doing the hard work that is about to protect the rest of the country and that has been working to protect the rest of the country.” (Kaufman, 2/4)

With more than half of America reluctant or flatly opposed to getting a COVID-19 vaccine, a VIP-filled video call on Thursday targeted the nation’s military families with an urgent plea: Get the shot. “We need your help,” first lady Jill Biden told hundreds of listeners on a call set up by Blue Star Families. ”That’s why we’re encouraging everyone to mask up, socially distance and get the vaccine when it’s your turn.” (Baldor, 2/4)

A sailor assigned to the USS Tennessee battleship died Thursday in Florida from complications related to COVID-19, bringing the official number of service members killed by the coronavirus to 20. (Mitchell, 2/4)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday ordered all military personnel to wear masks while on Defense Department property or while working anywhere outside their homes for the department, a move intended to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. (Mitchell, 2/4)

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Thursday issued a new health emergency order requiring face masks in public indoor places just an hour after Wisconsin Republican lawmakers eliminated the same mandate. GOP lawmakers in the Assembly voted Thursday to repeal the statewide mask rule by ending the governor's health emergency order — the first measure passed by the Legislature in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 10 months. But Evers put the mask requirement back in place almost immediately, saying he was doing so to avoid unnecessary risk to the public's health. If Evers hadn't acted, the state may have been at risk of losing tens of millions of dollars a month in federal food assistance without an emergency order in place. (Beck, 2/4)

Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley (R) has repeatedly pushed back against imposing a mask mandate inside the legislature, saying that he cannot force lawmakers to cover their faces — just as he cannot stop someone from voting on the House floor in their bathing suit. But when one Democratic lawmaker attempted to speak during a floor debate on Tuesday — not in a bikini or one-piece but in jeans — Grassley called her out for violating the chamber’s dress code. (Armus, 2/4)

Months into the novel coronavirus pandemic, inspectors found the staff in 12 Cincinnati-area nursing home failed to properly use face masks and other protective equipment. The lapses occurred mid-July through the end of October, after the time that one expert said anti-infection precautions should have been routine among health care workers. They were revealed in a new Enquirer review of inspection reports from that time period. Inspectors found 10 nursing homes were cited for infection control gaps, many stemming from improper use or lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). At a Westwood nursing home, the Chateau at Mountain Crest Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, the problems were so severe that workers left 40 patients in a dementia care unit presumed positive for COVID-19. (Hine, 2/4)

Most experts say a cloth mask over a surgical mask is the way to go. A cloth mask can also help when worn over a KF94 mask, which are certified in South Korea to filter at least 94% of very small particles, says Dr. Marr. KF94s can be somewhat loose on the sides, so a cloth mask can help pull it tighter to your face. A second mask is generally not necessary when wearing an N95, which are certified to filter out at least 95% of very small particles, or a KN95, the Chinese equivalent of an N95. But it could help protect the N95’s material and extend its use. (Reddy, 2/4)

As lawmakers advanced President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package on Thursday, the Senate dealt a setback to a major tenet of the plan: raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. By a voice vote, senators backed an amendment from Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, to “prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic.” It was a signal that the wage hike would be difficult to pass in an evenly split Senate, where at least one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, was on record opposing it. (Broadwater, Fuchs and Tankersley, 2/4)

The Senate overwhelmingly approved a proposal led by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) barring "upper-income taxpayers" from eligibility for stimulus checks proposed by President Joe Biden, the latest sign that the next round of direct payments will be far more targeted than previous rounds. "The question before us is quite simple. Do we want stimulus checks to go to households with family incomes of $300,000? Or do we want to target the assistance to struggling families who need the help and provide a boost for the economy?" asked Collins. (Everett, 2/4)

Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Thursday released a plan to provide families with a monthly cash benefit of as much $350 for each child, embracing calls by President Joe Biden and Democrats to increase the child care tax credit to help low-income Americans struggling during the pandemic. Romney’s Family Security Act would replace the Child Tax Credit with a $3,000 yearly benefit per child — $4,200 for kids under the age of 5 — spread out in monthly installments that begin four months before a child’s due date, according to a summary of the proposal. (Rainey, 2/4)

Eleven months into a public health crisis that placed essential workers at the highest risk of contracting COVID-19, about 1.2 million of them in Virginia wouldn't be able to quarantine without sacrificing wages. That could soon change. (Moreno, 2/4)

A revised proposal that would require New Mexico employers to offer paid sick leave to their workforce is moving forward in the House after clearing its first committee. The legislation, House Bill 20, was amended Thursday to incorporate some ideas from a competing bill, and it passed 5-3 with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. Employees would accrue at least one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked. They could use up to 64 hours of earned leave in a 12-month period, unless the employer offers a higher limit. The requirement would apply regardless of the size of the business. (McKay, 2/4)

Two of the nation’s largest airlines said tens of thousands of workers again could face furloughs as demand for air travel continues to lag amid the slow rollout of coronavirus vaccines and new testing requirements for international travelers. Recent announcements by United Airlines and American Airlines come as aviation unions have begun to push for a second extension of the Payroll Support Program that has kept many workers on the job. The renewed effort, backed by the airlines, is an acknowledgment that a recovery the industry had hoped would come this spring isn’t likely to happen. (Aratani, 2/4)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, families aren't pursuing benefits they qualify for, fearing that a Trump administration rule will affect the chances of an immigrant family member to get a green card or U.S. citizenship. (Acevedo and Cervantes, 2/5)

More Americans say financial struggles have motivated them to move during the pandemic than fear of getting the virus, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Thursday. About one-third of adults surveyed in November cited financial stressors as the main factor in their decision to relocate, with 17 percent citing job loss and 15 percent financial problems other than job loss. (Silva, 2/4)

When will the pandemic end? It’s the question hanging over just about everything since Covid-19 took over the world last year. The answer can be measured in vaccinations. Bloomberg has built the biggest database of Covid-19 shots given around the world, with more than 119 million doses administered worldwide. U.S. science officials such as Anthony Fauci have suggested it will take 70% to 85% coverage of the population for things to return to normal. Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker shows that some countries are making far more rapid progress than others, using 75% coverage with a two-dose vaccine as a target. (Randall, 2/4)

As coronavirus infections surged around the country in early November — and as the prospect of a long, dark winter loomed — it was not clear if any of the vaccines in development would pan out. Now, three months later, the picture is very different. Two highly effective Covid vaccines are rolling out around the country. Three others appear to be slightly less robust, but still offer strong, and in some cases complete, protection against severe disease and death. (Thomas and Robbins, 2/3)

Coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed 450,000 on Thursday, and daily deaths remain stubbornly high at more than 3,000 a day, despite falling infections and the arrival of multiple vaccines. Infectious disease specialists expect deaths to start dropping soon, after new cases hit a peak right around the beginning of the year. New COVID-19 deaths could ebb as early as next week, said the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Smith and Taxin, 2/4)

KHN and NPR: Comparing Death Tolls From Covid To Past Wars Is Fraught 

Counting the dead is one of the first, somber steps in reckoning with an event of enormous tragic scope, be it war, a natural disaster or a pandemic. This dark but necessary arithmetic has become all too routine during the covid-19 outbreak. The total U.S death toll has now surpassed 450,000. (Stone and Feibel, 2/5)

Confusion over the terms “variant” and “strain” predate this coronavirus. It seems virologists never got around to defining their terms. ... The distinction between a variant and a strain hinges on whether the virus in question behaves in a distinct way, according to Dr. Adam Lauring, who studies the evolution of RNA viruses at the University of Michigan, and Emma Hodcroft, an expert on viral phylogenetics at the University of Bern in Switzerland. (Kaplan, 2/4)

There is now real evidence that at least one coronavirus variant seems to elude some of the power of Covid-19 vaccines. What, exactly, that means for the pandemic is still being sussed out. (Joseph, 2/5)

The devastating spike in new daily COVID-19 cases in the United States has slowly begun to come down, and vaccinations are starting to protect millions of the country’s most vulnerable people. But any respite from the pandemic’s worst chapter so far could be turned back — or made worse — by new coronavirus variants that experts say may present a variety of challenges to getting the virus under control. Three specific variants have raised alarm bells so far: B.1.1.7, which was identified in the United Kingdom, B.1.351 in South Africa, and P.1 in Brazil, all of which have been detected in the U.S. Experts believe that B.1.1.7. could be as much as “50 to 70 percent more contagious” compared to past variants, which means more people are likely to get infected. (Isaacs-Thomas, 2/4)

An earlier case of pneumonia appears to be a surprisingly strong indicator of whether someone infected with Covid-19 faces a higher risk of severe disease and death, Harvard University researchers said. A prior episode of pneumonia was the second-greatest overall risk factor for death from Covid-19, according to a study of medical records from almost 17,000 patients. The top predictor of risk is age, with the risk increasing as people get older. By itself, a single pneumonia case probably doesn’t put someone at high risk, the researchers cautioned. Rather, it’s more likely an indicator of underlying chronic disease -- such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or interstitial lung disease -- that’s gone undiagnosed, they said. (Lauerman, 2/4)

In a new study, published in the journal Strahlentherapie und Onkologie, researchers at the Department of Radiation Oncology, La Milagrosa Hospital, GenesisCare, Madrid, Spain, showed the potential benefit of treating COVID-19 pneumonia with ultra-low doses of radiotherapy, called ULTRA-COVID. ... In worse COVID-19 cases, scientists believe that the cause is the body’s host response against the virus, which is mediated by a cytokine storm. ... To prevent the progression of COVID-19 to this critical stage, the research team suggests that the cytokine storm can be safely treated with a course of ultra-low-dose radiotherapy (ultra-LDRT), which can mitigate symptoms of respiratory distress to reduce disease progression and death. (Laguipo, 2/2)

Patients undergoing long-term dialysis were more than five times likelier to be infected with COVID-19 and nearly four times as likely to die than the general population, suggesting that they should be prioritized for vaccination, according to a Canadian study published today in CMAJ. In the study, researchers from the Ontario Renal Network at Western University in London, Ontario, compared disease characteristics and death rate between long-term dialysis patients with and without COVID-19 infection using linked datasets from Mar 12 to Aug 20, 2020. (Van Beusekom, 2/4)

Members of the LGBT community are at greater risk of of experiencing severe symptoms of COVID-19, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Thursday. According to the report, the CDC found that members of the LGBT community are more likely to have underlying health conditions that put them at an increased risk to contract the coronavirus and experience severe symptoms of the disease. (Vella, 2/4)

COVID-19 testing has become big business for freestanding emergency rooms in Texas. These facilities have been charging insurance plans thousands of dollars for a single COVID-19 test. Advocates say it’s driving up the cost of health care, and they want state lawmakers to step in. (Lopez, 2/4)

Dr. Robin Larabee was thrilled to start offering coronavirus testing at her pediatrics practice in Denver last fall. Testing for children is often scarce, and her new machines could return results within minutes. She quickly discovered an unexpected obstacle: a major health insurer that paid her less than the cost of the test itself. Each kit Dr. Larabee purchased for her machines cost about $41, but the insurer sent back half that amount each time she submitted a claim. (Kliff, 2/3)

or months, U.S. public health experts have called on the federal government to approve and fund cheap and fast at-home Covid-19 tests, to help bring the spread of infection under control. But when the Biden administration this week announced a $231.8 million deal to ramp up production of the first fully at-home test, the experts’ response was, to say the least, unenthusiastic. One dismissed it as “a spit in the ocean.” It’s not that home testing with a 15-minute turnaround time isn’t a good idea, they said, it’s just that the rollout of this initial kit is too little and too late, and the test too expensive and complicated, to help extinguish the raging pandemic fire. A number of experts called on the Biden administration to subsidize the home test for consumers, and said the Food and Drug Administration needs to do more to make such tests widely available. (McLaughlin, 2/5)

Except for a slight decrease from Mar 29 to Apr 11, 2020, emergency department (ED) visits involving drug and opioid overdoses (ODs) were 1% to 45% more frequent than in 2019, according to a JAMA Psychiatry study published yesterday. The researchers also found that the median number of ED visits per 100,000 involving mental health conditions (MHCs), suicide attempts (SAs), and suspected child abuse and neglect (SCAN) cases also increased during the COVID-19 pandemic despite the decrease in overall visits. (2/4)

A new report indicates global antibiotic consumption and resistance levels continue to rise, with many countries in the developing world facing worrisome drug resistance rates. Among the findings from the State of the World's Antibiotics in 2021 report is that, while per capita antibiotic consumption in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains lower than in wealthier nations, consumption rates are converging. (Dall, 2/4)

Ascension, CommonSpirit Health, Trinity Health and 20 other Catholic health systems have pledged to confront systemic racism in part through top-down examinations of their operations to ensure they're promoting diversity and inclusion. The systems, which together treat more than 4 million patients annually and employ almost half a million people in the U.S., unveiled the initiative Thursday alongside leaders from the Catholic Health Association. A big part of the undertaking will be addressing the disparities that led to COVID-19's disproportionately devastating impact on communities of color. They'll also ensure COVID tests are accessible in minority communities and vaccinations are prioritized for those at higher risk. (Bannow, 2/4)

Healthcare technology executives are weighing whether to attend the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's annual trade show amid the COVID-19 pandemic and following cancellation of the 2020 event. HIMSS21, which is slated for Aug. 9-13 in Las Vegas, hasn't opened registration for attendees yet. The conference and exhibition has traditionally been one of the largest gatherings of health IT professionals, drawing in tens of thousands of attendees. But some companies, like Cerner Corp., have already said they won't have a booth at the 2021 event. (Kim Cohen, 2/4)

A congressional investigation found high levels of toxic metals in several top baby food brands and called on federal regulators to set stricter standards on the food manufacturers. Gerber, Beech-Nut, Walmart Inc.’s store brand and several organic lines of baby foods contained “dangerously high levels” of arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury, according to a report by the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy issued Thursday. Consumer advocacy groups have reached similar conclusions in recent years. (Gasparro and Terlep, 2/4)

Four of the companies — Gerber, Beech-Nut, Earth’s Best Organics maker Hain Celestial and Happy Family Organics maker Nurture Inc. — shared documents. The subcommittee said Walmart, Sprout Foods and Campbell Soup Co., which makes Plum Organics baby food, didn’t cooperate. Arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury — metals that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers harmful to human health — can remain in the environment for decades from past pesticide and herbicide use, according to Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist with Consumer Reports. (Durbin, 2/4)

A congressional investigation found “dangerously high” levels of heavy metals in some baby foods. A staff report from the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy released Thursday found that some internal company standards “permit dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals.” (2/4)

The biggest factor in the death rate from the first wave of coronavirus cases was international travel, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Aberdeen. Researchers assessed death rates in the 37 hardest-hit countries, looking at factors including urban population, population density and arrivals at the border. Countries analyzed included the U.S., the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy and Brazil. According to the research, published in BMJ Open, every 1 million international arrivals was associated with a 3.4 percent spike in the mean daily increase of deaths from the virus. (Budryk, 2/4)

As Covid-19 spread across the country and local governments instituted restrictions and closures to keep infections from rising, fitness studios and gyms were often the first and hardest hit. Now, almost a year since Congress passed its first coronavirus relief package to help struggling Americans get back on their feet, one sector feels largely abandoned. (Talbot and Tsirkin, 2/4)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Covid And Kids 

Nearly a year into the pandemic, many public schools are still closed to in-person instruction. But while there is increasing evidence that schools are not a major source of infection, teachers and staffers remain concerned about going back to class before they are vaccinated. Meanwhile, people who have lost their health insurance will have another chance to sign up under the Affordable Care Act starting Feb. 15. The official enrollment period ended in December. This time, the Biden administration is planning a major outreach effort to inform millions of Americans that they may be eligible for free or low-cost coverage. (2/4)

Checkpoint inhibitors like Keytruda and Opdivo can be incredibly powerful cancer-killing drugs — when they work, that is, which is less than 70% of the time. For years, scientists have hoped to find a way to identify a combination of therapies that might help these drugs work for a larger number of people. (Sheridan, 2/4)

George McDonald, who walked away from a corporate career and spent 700 lonely nights feeding mendicants, crack addicts and runaways in Grand Central Terminal, laying the foundation for a second act as the founder of the Doe Fund, a nonprofit that has provided housing and jobs to thousands of formerly incarcerated and homeless New Yorkers, died on Jan. 26 in Manhattan. He was 76.His wife, Harriet Karr-McDonald, said the cause was cancer. (Traub, 2/4)

Google is taking a bite out of another piece of the health care pie. On Thursday, the tech giant announced plans to debut two wellness features that allow users of its Pixel smartphone to measure their heart and respiration rate using the device’s camera. (Brodwin, 2/4)

State attorneys general intensified pressure on drug companies to settle claims over the opioid crisis, following consulting firm McKinsey & Co.’s agreement to pay nearly $600 million over its advice to pharmaceutical companies to rev up sales. McKinsey’s settlements, reached with every state but Nevada, are an unexpected first source of revenue to stem from yearslong investigations into drug industry players that states say helped exacerbate an opioid epidemic. It has killed at least 400,000 people in the U.S. since 1999. (Randazzo and Randles, 2/4)

The genetics testing company 23andMe will enter the public markets via a special purpose acquisition corporation sponsored by Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, a deal that values the company at $3.5 billion. The transaction with VG Acquisition Corp. will provide a burst of capital to 23andMe as it seeks to expand its business beyond direct-to-consumer genetic testing to develop novel therapeutics. (Ross and Herper, 2/4)

When consumer genetics firm 23andMe announced Thursday that it will go public through a deal with the special purpose acquisition corporation VG Acquisition Corp, STAT hopped onto a Zoom call with two of the most prominent and colorful people in the business world: 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki, who has run the company from its start, and Richard Branson, the billionaire idea-man behind everything emblazoned with the word Virgin. (Herper, 2/4)

Kenneth Frazier is stepping down as the CEO of Merck, leaving a giant hole in the fabric of the pharmaceutical industry. The decision, announced Thursday, has been telegraphed for more than a year, but is still a landmark moment. (Herper, 2/4)

Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck, will be retiring from his post effective June 30. Frazier, who was one of the few Black CEOs of a Fortune 500 company, will continue to serve on Merck’s board of directors as executive chairman for a transition period. (Williams, 2/4)

California workplace safety regulators announced Thursday that a state prison rocked by one of the nation’s worst coronavirus outbreaks has been hit with by far its largest pandemic-related fine yet against an employer. The $421,880 fine against San Quentin State Prison is several times higher than any others levied by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, commonly known as Cal/OSHA. Only a few others exceed $100,000, and most are several thousand dollars. (Thompson, 2/5)

KHN: California’s Rural Counties Endure A Deadly Covid Winter

Covid-19’s fierce winter resurgence in California is notable not only for the explosion in overall cases and deaths in the state’s sprawling urban centers. This latest surge spilled across a far greater geographic footprint, scarring remote corners of the state that went largely unscathed for much of 2020. In the past two months, covid-related infection and death rates have jumped exponentially in California’s least populated counties. (Reese, 2/5)

Somerville in January became the first jurisdiction in Massachusetts to move toward decriminalizing plant-based psychedelic drugs, with city leaders voting unanimously to recognize the medical uses of natural entheogens — including psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms” — and make them among the lowest enforcement priorities for local police. Fresh off that victory, advocates for decriminalizing such drugs are now bringing their fight to Beacon Hill. State Representative Mike Connolly, whose district includes large swaths of Somerville and Cambridge and who has been working with the reformers, told the Globe he is planning to file a preliminary bill that would create a committee of public officials, scientists, criminal justice experts, and others to study whether Massachusetts should decriminalize natural psychedelics and legalize their administration in therapeutic settings statewide. (Adams, 2/4)

Amy Acton, the former director of the Ohio Department of Health, said Thursday she was stepping down from her position at a nonprofit and will “carefully consider” her future amid speculation that she may run for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Rob Portman (R). (Axelrod, 2/4)

KHN: As Demand For Mental Health Care Spikes, Budget Ax Set To Strike

When the pandemic hit, health officials in Montana’s Beaverhead County had barely begun to fill a hole left by the 2017 closure of the local public assistance office, mental health clinic, chemical dependency center and job placement office after the state’s last budget shortfall. Now, those health officials worry more cuts are coming, even as they brace for a spike in demand for substance abuse and mental health services. That would be no small challenge in a poor farming and ranching region where stigma often prevents people from admitting they need help, said Katherine Buckley-Patton, who chairs the county’s Mental Health Local Advisory Council. (Volz, 2/5)

Up to 100 children a week are being hospitalised with a rare disease that can emerge weeks after Covid-19, leaving them in intensive care, doctors have said. In a phenomenon that is worrying paediatricians, 75% of the children worst affected by paediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome (PIMS) were black, Asian or ethnic minority (BAME). Almost four out of five children were previously healthy, according to an unpublished snapshot of cases. (Campbell and Bannock, 2/5)

The U.K. will require travelers from coronavirus hot spots to quarantine starting Feb. 15, the government said, adding flesh to a policy first announced last month. Arrivals from countries on the U.K.’s travel ban list will be required to isolate for 10 days in government-approved accommodation, the Department for Health and Social Care said Thursday in a statement. The government said it’s seeking bids from hotels near airports and ports to support the program. The announcement comes after days of confusion over how soon the government would implement a policy it announced last month as a key tool to stop mutations of the coronavirus that may be more resistant to vaccines from entering the country. (Morales, 2/4)

Canada is banning all cruise vessels in Canadian waters until Feb. 28, 2022.Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced Thursday cruise vessels carrying 100 or more people will remain prohibited from operating in Canadian waters. Alghabra said they pose a risk to health care systems. Vessels carrying more than 12 people are will also stay prohibited from entering Arctic coastal waters. (Gillies, 2/4)

When Spanish player Carla Suarez Navarro had stomach pains and sickness last summer she suspected it was COVID-19. After tests, however, the news was far worse than she could have imagined as she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer, and would need months of chemotherapy. The former world number six, known for one of the best backhands in tennis, had already decided earlier in the year to retire, but this was not how she wanted to bow out. A few months since that anxious September news she has made a strong recovery and is targeting a proper farewell to the sport at the re-scheduled Tokyo Olympics. (2/3)

World Health Organization investigators looking for clues into the origin of the coronavirus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan said that the Chinese side has provided a high level of cooperation, but cautioned against expecting immediate results from the visit. “I keep saying that we need to be realistic, a short mission like this one will not have all the answers but it helps advance the understanding of the #virusorigin #wuhan,” Hung Nguyen-Viet, co-leader of the Animal and Human Health Program of the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, said in a tweet Thursday. (Fujiyama, 2/4)

Government officials in China believe that boys are getting more effeminate and want to toughen them up. In the latest attempt to tackle what academics and news outlets call a “masculinity crisis,” the Education Ministry has proposed emphasizing the “spirit of yang,” or male attributes, by hiring more sports instructors and redesigning physical education classes in elementary and secondary schools. (May, 2/5)

With the viability of the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo still in serious doubt because of the coronavirus pandemic, the opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing is now just a year away—and Covid-19 looms large over those Games, too. In recent days, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has lavished praise on Beijing Olympic organizers, while International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has called the preparations in Beijing “almost a miracle.” (Cheng and Bachman, 2/4)

The promise of summer vaccinations means that Americans can confidently plan for the end of the pandemic. The crisis is softening now, and America could crush it by autumn. What happens in between? The pandemic’s medium-term future remains the biggest outstanding question: March to May is the mystery. The outlook is not all rosy. A consensus is developing that this window may be large enough to allow for another surge in cases, Kristian Andersen, an immunology professor at the private medical institute Scripps Research, told me. In fact, he expects such a surge, he said: The increased transmissibility of the U.K. variant makes any other outcome “unrealistic.” (Meyer, 2/2)

The coronavirus test center on A Street was bustling on a recent morning. Michael Duey was in line, as usual, with his teenage son. Margery Hayes waited for her wife in the parking lot. Dr. Elizabeth Pham hustled her children in for a quick pit stop. Inside, each received a five-minute screening for the virus, administered and paid for by the University of California, Davis. Yet none of them is associated with the school. (Hubler, 1/30)

Even in a year of horrendous suffering, what is unfolding in Brazil stands out. In the rainforest city of Manaus, home to 2 million people, bodies are reportedly being dropped into mass graves as quickly as they can be dug. Hospitals have run out of oxygen, and people with potentially treatable cases of COVID-19 are dying of asphyxia. This nature and scale of mortality have not been seen since the first months of the pandemic. This is happening in a very unlikely place. Manaus saw a devastating outbreak last April that similarly overwhelmed systems, infecting the majority of the city. Because the morbidity was so ubiquitous, many scientists believed the population had since developed a high level of immunity that would preclude another devastating wave of infection. On the whole, Brazil has already reported the second-highest death toll in the world (though half that of the United States). As the country headed into summer, the worst was thought to be behind it. (Hamblin, 2/1)

During the early stages of the pandemic, the big story in the United States was testing: The federal government’s initial failure to produce a working test and scale up its production meant that the country struggled for months to keep up with the virus’s spread. In May, the Harvard Global Health Institute estimated that the U.S. needed to perform 1 million tests a day to contain the outbreak by identifying cases before they spread, a mark we didn’t surpass until late September. After that, testing finally picked up speed: By late November, the seven-day daily-testing average had jumped to more than 1.8 million. But lately, daily tests have plateaued. After nearly breaking the 2 million mark in mid-January, daily tests today remain stuck at about 1.8 million. The stall-out is a mix of good and bad news: Although more testing would give us a clearer view of the outbreak, lower testing numbers reflect a pandemic in retreat, as demand for testing tends to rise with the spread of the virus. (Moser, 2/3)

As soon as this city began offering Covid vaccines to residents 65 and older, George Jones, whose nonprofit agency runs a medical clinic, noticed something striking. “Suddenly our clinic was full of white people,” said Mr. Jones, the head of Bread for the City, which provides services to the poor. “We’d never had that before. We serve people who are disproportionately African-American.” (Goodnough and Hoffman, 2/2)

Rebecca Bartles got the call late in the day on Jan. 20, 2020: One of the first novel coronavirus cases to arrive in the U.S. had shown up at Providence health system in Washington. Bartles, who leads infection prevention efforts for the entire 51-hospital Providence health system, believed Providence was ready to respond after exercises based on previous outbreaks of Ebola and H1N1. What caught her completely off-guard? The breakdown in the hospital supply chain across the U.S. that left doctors and nurses dangerously exposed to the virus. (Landi, 2/1)

On paper, Ursula von der Leyen is uniquely qualified to lead the European Union through the coronavirus crisis. A medical doctor with a masters in public health, the president of the European Commission has the backing of her native Germany as well as France, a powerful combination that catapulted her to the vaunted role less than two years ago. But her handling of a growing crisis over vaccine supply shortages to the European Union, which culminated in a major gaffe that threatened to upend delicate relations with Britain, a former member of the bloc, has shaken her steely image and pitted senior bureaucrats — the very people she depends on — against her. (Stevis-Gridneff and Erlanger, 2/1)

When social workers in Oregon’s foster care system sent a 14-year-old to Utah, they were trying to find a place that could help. But instead the girl, who has an intellectual and developmental disability, endured an increasingly difficult stay at Provo Canyon School. Over roughly three months, employees pinned down her arms and legs nearly 30 times, some restraints lasting as long as a half-hour. Fellow students beat her up at least four times, including once when she was punched in the face while she was asleep. Staff injected the girl with sedatives 17 times — a number so alarming that child welfare officials from Oregon flew in to investigate. Those officials got her on a plane and took her back to Oregon in March 2019. (Miller, 2/4)

Over the past 20 years, there has been a huge focus on the importance of nutrition for elite athletes. Hundreds of clinical studies support the importance of food for stamina, endurance and postgame recovery. The National Football League has 27 full-time dietitians who put that research into play by offering customized plans based on an athlete’s individual needs. {Buccaneers quarterback Tom] Brady’s diet is famously part of his brand. ... At age 25, [Patrick] Mahomes is almost 20 years younger than Brady and takes a less-restrictive approach to diet, though the Chiefs quarterback is not eating ketchup all the time. (Rosenbloom, 2/3)

A smart pill detects an athlete’s body temperature and transmits it to an external device, so coaches can look for spikes that might impair performance. Biosensors measure a cyclist’s glucose to help optimize fuel levels. Smart goggles allow a swimmer to monitor speed, heart rate and stroke rate. And, of course, a smart ring conveys the most valuable information in sports, at least in 2021: whether an athlete might be infected with the coronavirus. Data collection in sports is booming, ushering in an era of the “hyperquantified athlete,” as a recent report from consulting giant Deloitte described it. (Busca, 2/2)

For decades, nitrous oxide has been widespread at raves and music festivals, used as a quick buzz. The drug doesn’t have the death toll of the opiate disaster or the widespread popularity of marijuana, but it’s widely sold — legally — all over the country, though its consumption outside medical facilities is illegal in many states. But the inhalant’s use and misuse seems to be on the rise, fueled by the stress and isolation of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also in the spotlight this week after the death of Tony Hsieh at 46, the former chief executive of the online shoe empire Zappos, in a house fire in November. (Marcus, 1/30)

The year since the first Covid-19 case was identified in the United States has been one of unthinkable losses and inexcusable failures. From the beginning, testing was marred by glitches, rigid rules, and delays. Public health experts were sidelined. And the risks of the disease were downplayed. (Michelle A. Williams, 2/5)

Among the ways in which science-based public health evidence has been dismissed in the US is the replacement of highly experienced experts advising national leaders with persons who appear to have been chosen because of their willingness to support government officials’ desire to discount the significance of the pandemic. A leading example was the elevation of Scott Atlas, MD, a neuroradiologist, who left a position in academic medicine in 2012 to become a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution (a public policy think tank affiliated with Stanford University), to the White House Coronavirus Task Force. (Philip A. Pizzo, David Spiegel, Michelle M. Mello, 2/4)

If you are the child of elderly parents in parts of the United States right now, and if you are trying to get them a COVID-19 vaccine, you are living in a shortage economy, a world of queues and rumors, a shadowy land of favoritism and incompetence—a world not unlike the world of the very late, very stifling, Brezhnev-era Soviet Union. Picture the scene: We’re on opposite sides of the country, but at 3:59 p.m. eastern time, my sisters and I are sitting in front of our respective laptops, poised to start clicking refresh, refresh, refresh on the website of Holy Cross Hospital in Montgomery County, Maryland. Every few days at 4 p.m.,the site releases a new batch of COVID-19 vaccine appointments, and we’re hoping to score two for our parents. (Anne Applebaum, 2/5)

Figuring out how to combine science with fairness in Covid-19 vaccine distribution is a tricky puzzle. Science can help predict how to distribute limited doses to minimize overall deaths, but that means acting fast, which might compromise fairness. That’s how we end up with outrage when hospital administrators get shots ahead of nursing home residents, or, as The Atlantic reports, offspring ahead of their elderly parents. Perfection is impossible. But there’s a way to do justice to both science and ethics: Focus vaccines on geographic hot spots and the elderly. Experts say both are important — and getting the vaccines to the hard-hit areas could correct racial disparities that are already appearing in the early rollout. (Faye Flam, 2/4)

Whenever the government is in charge of allocating a scarce good in high demand, there will be rationing and political jockeying. So it is with vaccines as political brawls are breaking out in states over who should be next in line for shots. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended prioritizing shots based on occupation and health factors, but its guidelines are arbitrary and states don’t have to follow them. After nursing-home residents and health-care workers, the CDC says priority should go to those over age 75 and an expansive list of “frontline essential workers. Then come people 65 to 74 years old, as well as ages 16 to 64 with unspecified “underlying medical conditions which increase the risk of serious” complications plus “essential workers.” (2/4)

While the richest countries in the world are grappling with shortages of Covid-19 vaccines, some of the poorest worry about getting vaccines at all. Yet a solution to both problems may be hiding in plain sight: vaccines from China and Russia, and soon, perhaps, India. Chinese and Russian vaccines were initially dismissed in Western and other global media, partly because of a perception that they were inferior to the vaccines produced by Moderna, Pfizer-BioNtech or AstraZeneca. And that perception seemed to stem partly from the fact that China and Russia are authoritarian states. But evidence has been accumulating for a while that the vaccines from those countries work well, too. (Achal Prabhala and Chee Yoke Ling, 2/. )

Each stage of the American Covid-19 pandemic has been marked by a singular public-health message that crowded out all other perspectives. From early calls to “crush the curve” with shutdowns and pleas to stay at home, then to claims that face masks would end the pandemic, these messaging strategies have sowed unrealistic expectations and delayed public acceptance of reality. The most recent message is “universal vaccination,” an aspiration whose unattainability may further delay the country’s return to social and economic normalcy. How did we arrive at this point in the pandemic? (Joseph A. Ladapo, 2/4)

One of the cruelest aspects of Covid-19 is the danger it poses for joyous group gatherings that bring together people of all ages and backgrounds. The Thanksgiving and December holidays, for example, contributed to a surge in transmission that led to an all-time high in case counts in the U.S. The Super Bowl could do the same. (Zach Binney and Kathleen Bachynski, 2/4)

Remember outings in elementary school or at camp? You were probably paired with another kid about your age and size whose hand you held. The buddy system made losing someone much less likely to happen. (Lloyd I. Sederer, 2/5)

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says schools can reopen safely even if teachers aren’t vaccinated. So does California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Southern California pediatricians are calling on Los Angeles-area schools to switch, now, to in-person learning. In other words, it is time to start reopening California schools. As much as reasonably possible, teachers and other staff who are in daylong contact with students should be given more access to COVID-19 vaccines. Now that Blue Shield is in charge of dispensing doses, it should consider earmarking some of those for school districts. But at the moment, there isn’t enough vaccine for all the teachers, nor the many other essential workers in agricultural fields, supermarkets and the like who have worked their jobs in person since the beginning of the pandemic. That’s not to mention the people whose age, health or living conditions put them at special risk. (2/5)