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At first glance, U.S. Covid cases appear to have plateaued over the past two weeks, with a consistent average of around 30,000 cases per day, according to NBC News' tally. But disease experts say incomplete data likely masks an upward trend. In Washington, D.C., for example, several high-profile government figures recently tested positive, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Attorney General Merrick Garland. (Bendix and Chow, 4/10)

The rise of Covid cases in some regions of the U.S., just as testing efforts wane, has raised the specter that the next major wave of the virus may be difficult to detect. In fact, the country could be in the midst of a surge right now and we might not even know it. Testing and viral sequencing are critical to responding quickly to new outbreaks of Covid. And yet, as the country tries to move on from the pandemic, demand for lab-based testing has declined and federal funding priorities have shifted. The change has forced some testing centers to shutter while others have hiked up prices in response to the end of government-subsidized testing programs.  People are increasingly relying on at-home rapid tests if they decide to test at all. But those results are rarely reported, giving public health officials little insight into how widespread the virus truly is. (Muller, 4/10)

You’re going to the movies and eating indoors. Your kid stopped wearing a mask to school; you no longer wear one to work. After two years of Covid precautions, you finally feel normal again. Well, mostly.BA.2—a subvariant of the Omicron variant that tore through the U.S. this winter—is spreading. It’s now the dominant variant throughout the country and has triggered recent surges in Europe. If you live somewhere where local statistics suggest cases are rising but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention map still shades your county low-risk green, it can be tough to figure out what to do.  (Reddy, 4/10)

Dr. Anthony Fauci advised that individuals will need to decide for themselves their personal level of risk for events and COVID-19 exposure going forward as people learn to live with the virus. "What's going to happen is that we're going to see that each individual is going to have to make their calculation of the amount of risk that they want to take in going to indoor dinner is going to functions even within the realm of a green zone," Fauci said during an appearance on ABC’s "This Week" on Sunday. "It’s going to be a person's decision about the individual risk they're going to take." (Aitken, 4/10)

Ashish Jha, the Ivy League doctor who begins this week as President Biden’s new coronavirus czar, has never held a full-time federal job, let alone one in the political crosshairs. Skeptics question his ability to navigate the toxic politics of Washington. Those who know Jha counter with stories like how he single-handedly short-circuited a Harvard faculty revolt. Dozens of faculty members had filed into a conference room in December 2018, prepared to vote they had no confidence in the dean of the public health school, until Jha talked them out of it. As Harvard’s global health leader, Jha warned his colleagues that publicly airing their concerns would weaken confidence in the school, with consequences for them all. Instead, he took their complaints to dean Michelle Williams and attempted to quietly broker a solution, even though her removal could have opened a path for Jha to succeed her, said four people familiar with the situation. (Diamond, 4/9)

Most of the time, President Biden doesn’t wear a mask, but occasionally he’s spotted with one. Sometimes his events are in crowded indoor rooms, other times outdoors. And through it all over the past two weeks, people close to Biden — if not in “close contact” as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — are contracting covid as part of a wave washing over parts of official Washington. (Linskey and Diamond, 4/8)

Health experts say the outbreak may be rooted, in part, in outdated and confusing guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that help people assess their risk of getting the virus that causes Covid-19 or passing it on to others. (Goodman, 4/8)

Anthony Fauci said Sunday there’s no particular reason to fear that President Joe Biden will be infected with Covid-19, despite how hard official Washington has been hit lately. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” the president’s chief medical adviser said, “The protocols to protect the president are pretty strong.” While allowing that an infection was certainly possible, Fauci added: “The president is vaccinated. He is doubly boosted. He got his fourth shot of an mRNA. When we people like myself and my colleagues are in the room closely with him for a considerable period of time — half an hour, 20 minutes, 40 minutes — all of us need to be tested. Yes, he is mingling there, but we feel that the protocols around the president are sufficient to protect him.” (Cohen, 4/10)

Seventy-two people have tested positive for Covid-19 after having attended the Gridiron Dinner in Washington last weekend, including members of the Biden administration and reporters. Gridiron Club President Tom DeFrank said Sunday that the group had reported 72 cases out of the hundreds of people who attended. New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was also at the dinner, tested positive Sunday. It was the first Gridiron Dinner since 2019, before the pandemic, and guests were required to show proof of vaccination, DeFrank said. (Zhao and Roecker, 4/10)

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Saturday that he had tested positive for COVID-19, along with dozens of others who attended the annual Gridiron Club dinner last week. “I tested positive for COVID,” Vilsack tweeted. “I’m both vaccinated and boosted and thankfully my symptoms are mild. If you have yet to get vaccinated and boosted, please don’t wait.” (Folmar, 4/9)

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock learned that he had tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after participating in the historic confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. In a statement posted on social media, Warnock said he learned of the result in the late afternoon on Thursday after a routine test. “I’m so thankful to be both vaccinated & boosted, and at the advice of the Attending Physician I plan to isolate,” he said. “If you haven’t gotten your shot yet, I encourage you to do so.” (Mitchell, 4/8)

In a biting letter, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. urged Congress to investigate the failures of nursing homes during the pandemic, particularly “profiteering, cold-hearted” corporations that act as landlords in the industry.  ... When USA TODAY investigated COVID-19 deaths at the country’s largest nursing home chains during the deadliest peak of the pandemic, Trilogy Health Services stood out for reporting the highest death rate to the federal government, twice the national average. The company filed a revision to reduce its official count of COVID-19 deaths by more than 40%, but its rate remains one of the highest among large chains. (Fraser and Penzenstadler, 4/8)

Ocean County, a coastal region in central New Jersey, is home to some of the state’s most exclusive waterfront communities and its fastest-growing town, Lakewood. A Republican bastion in a state controlled by Democrats, the county is largely suburban, encompassing more land than all but one other county in New Jersey. (Tully and Schorr, 4/10)

Mayor Eric Adams has tested positive for Covid-19, a City Hall spokesperson announced Sunday afternoon. Adams’ press secretary, Fabien Levy, said the mayor woke up with a “raspy voice” Sunday morning — his 100th day in office — and took a PCR test “out of an abundance of caution.” The test has came back positive. (Toure, 4/10)

Two-plus years into the Covid-19 pandemic, you probably know the basics of protection: vaccines, boosters, proper handwashing and masks. But one of the most powerful tools against the coronavirus is one that experts believe is just starting to get the attention it deserves: ventilation. "The challenge for organizations that improve air quality is that it's invisible," said Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. It's true: Other Covid tools are more tangible. But visualizing how the virus might behave in poorly ventilated spaces can help people better understand this mitigation measure. (Sealy, 4/10)

A COVID-19 patient was in respiratory distress. The Army nurse knew she had to act quickly. It was the peak of this year’s omicron surge and an Army medical team was helping in a Michigan hospital. Regular patient beds were full. So was the intensive care. But the nurse heard of an open spot in an overflow treatment area, so she and another team member raced the gurney across the hospital to claim the space first, denting a wall in their rush. (Baldor, 4/11)

Thousands of people including truckers and firefighters from across the country gathered Sunday outside Los Angeles City Hall to protest vaccination mandates designed to slow the spread of COVID-19.The crowd gathered at Grand Park to hear speakers and performers, while big-rig trucks from the “People’s Convoy” were parked on nearby streets. Members of the convoy jammed traffic during a Washington, D.C., protest earlier this year. (Dovarganes, 4/10)

Vendors hawked T-shirts with swipes at President Biden and his messages about vaccines, while volunteers walked around with petitions to recall L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón. Other volunteers handed out fliers for a variety of Republican politicians in California. “I won’t put that mask on because all I can think of is anger,” said Judy Mikovits, a virologist who espouses a litany of debunked views about COVID-19 and ailments such as chronic fatigue. (Oreskes, 4/10)

Eleven Massachusetts State Police troopers and one sergeant have been fired for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19, as required by an executive order issued last year, the state police said. State Police spokesperson Dave Procopio said in an email Sunday the 12 individuals were terminated Friday in the culmination of an internal hearing process. (4/10)

Democrat Jennifer Loughran spent the pandemic’s early days sewing face masks for neighbors [in Bridgewater, N.J.]. Last month, as a newly elected school-board member, she voted to lift the district’s mask mandate. That came four months after she voted for the state’s Republican candidate for governor. After a monthslong political identity crisis, Ms. Loughran decided her opposition to her party’s mask mandates, economic restrictions and school-closure policies outweighed her support for positions on climate change, abortion and gay rights, at least for the moment. (Bender, 4/1)

As the omicron variant of the coronavirus moved lightning-fast around the world, it revealed an unsettling truth. The virus had gained a stunning ability to infect people, jumping from one person’s nose to the next. Cases soared this winter, even among vaccinated people. That is leading scientists to rethink their strategy about the best way to fight future variants, by aiming for a higher level of protection: blocking infections altogether. If they succeed, the next vaccine could be a nasal spray. (Johnson, 4/10)

After deploying four COVID-19 shots in a little more than two years, the nation is absorbing a troubling realization: That’s a pace that’s impossible to sustain. This past week, experts began charting a path to a future that is less perfect – but more practical. It means building a vaccine that targets more than one strain of the virus. It would reduce severe disease and death, but not prevent every infection. If the design is changed, all vaccines will be updated. Manufacturers will likely offer the same vaccine formulation to everyone, rather than a mélange of different products for different people on different schedules. And the goal is to have it ready by next fall when the risk of illness is likely to soar. That’s a very tight deadline. (Krieger, 4/10)

Before the vaccination clinic opened its doors at the Farmworker Association of Florida, Teresa was waiting outside. She was first in line for her COVID-19 booster vaccine. ... The farmworker association is just one of many community groups fighting for COVID-19 resource equity for Latinos. The quick spread of misinformation, language and cultural barriers, medical accessibility for rural and low-income populations, as well as a historically complicated relationship with the medical system have resulted in a perfect storm for the Latino community, which trailed behind the white population in vaccination rates in 2021. Latino population now achieving a higher vaccination rate than other racial and ethnic groups. (Feito, 4/8)

Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a sweeping abortion bill Friday that would have banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, restricted access to medication abortion and made it more difficult for a minor to obtain an abortion in the state. House Bill 3 places a number of restrictions on drugs used in a medication abortion, such as mifepristone. Under the bill, the drug can’t be given to a patient without obtaining their “informed consent” at least 24 hours prior, which includes signing a document “created by the cabinet.” (Musa, 4/8)

The Idaho Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a law modeled after one in Texas that relies on ordinary citizens to enforce a ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy as a way of sidestepping challenges to its constitutionality. The court’s order prevents the law, which would allow family members of what it calls “a preborn child” to sue the abortion provider, from going into effect until the court can further review it. The law was scheduled to go into effect on April 22, one month after Gov. Brad Little signed it. (Patel, 4/8)

Republicans have already sharply criticized Beshear’s veto on the legislature’s abortion ban, with state GOP spokesperson Sean Southard saying on Friday that the governor’s veto was “the latest action in his ideological war on the conservative values held by Kentuckians”. The bill will probably surface as an issue again next year when Beshear runs for a second term in Republican-trending Kentucky. Beshear condemned the bill for failing to exclude pregnancies caused by rape or incest. (Aratani, 4/9)

Maryland lawmakers voted over the weekend to override Gov. Larry Hogan's veto of a bill that would allow health practitioners outside of physicians — including nurse practitioners, midwives and physician's assistants — to perform abortions. Maryland House members voted 90-46 on Saturday to reverse the governor's decision, while state Senate members voted 29-15. Hogan is a Republican, while the majority of both the state's chambers are Democrats. The bill will now become law and take effect on July 1. House Bill 937, known as the Abortion Care Access Act, says that "qualifying providers" include those whose medical licenses or certifications include the performance of abortions. (Archie, 4/11)

In a sudden turn of events, Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez announced in a news release Sunday that his office is dismissing the indictment against Lizelle Herrera, who was arrested Thursday and charged with murder on accusations of a “self-induced abortion.” “The issues surrounding this matter are clearly contentious, however based on Texas law and the facts presented, it is not a criminal matter,” Ramirez said in a statement. (4/10)

The woman stared up at the ceiling, taking slow, deep breaths, as the doctor examined the flickering dot on the ultrasound screen. “What’s going on?” she asked .The gut-wrenching news came in two parts: The flickering was a sign of cardiac activity, which meant the woman could not get an abortion under Texas’ six-week ban. And while the doctor, Alan Braid, said he would refer her to a sister clinic in Oklahoma, where he has sent hundreds of other patients since the law took effect last year, she would need to hurry. Lawmakers there were close to passing a law just as strict as the one in Texas. The woman cried as the reality sank in. (Kitchener, 4/9)

As restrictions on accessing an abortion in Missouri have steadily tightened, nearly 9,800 Missourians travelled to Kansas and Illinois to receive abortions in 2020, compared to only 167 procedures that occurred within state lines that year. That number could drop even further if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion — causing a Missouri law to kick in that would ban the procedure except in medical emergencies. And after years of limiting access to abortion in Missouri, lawmakers are now eyeing policy for a world in which the constitutional protections for the procedure are no more. “Nationally, everybody is looking to a post-Roe world,” said Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold. “In Missouri, we’re almost already there.” (Weinberg, 4/9)

Four out of 10 births in the U.S. are paid for by Medicaid, the public health insurance program that covers nearly 79 million people nationwide. Women who are normally disqualified from Medicaid because of an income cut-off but don’t make enough to afford other insurance are granted special eligibility during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, most people who gave birth under Medicaid lost their coverage 60 days after delivery, if they didn’t otherwise qualify to stay in the program. This is especially true in the 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. But when the Trump administration declared the coronavirus a public health emergency, people on Medicaid received continuous coverage, so they did not have to worry about re-enrolling or potentially losing their health insurance in the middle of the pandemic. (Santhanham, 4/8)

The founder and director of Jamaa Birth Village in Ferguson began seven years ago working to improve maternity care and address the disparate health outcomes for Black families in the St. Louis region. That effort has grown from struggling moms meeting in her living room to last week purchasing land to build a new birth center and postpartum retreat in Ferguson. Okunsola M. Amadou will officially announce plans for construction of the 5,000-square-foot facility at a news conference Monday before supporters and officials representing the city of Ferguson, St. Louis and St. Louis County. After it opens, women will be able to give birth in one of the center’s three birthing suites under care of a midwife, and they can continue to receive care after delivering their babies in four to six villas built around the center. (Munz, 4/10)

A bipartisan duo of senators is done waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to finalize a regulation that will finally let companies sell hearing aids over the counter. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill Friday that would mandate that the Biden administration release the FDA’s long-stalled hearing aid regulation within 30 days. The new bill is the latest sign of frustration in Washington over the FDA’s work on hearing aid access; Grassley and Warren’s passed legislation to pave the way for cheaper, over-the-counter devices five years ago, in 2017. (Florko, 4/8)

KHN: Refurbished Walkers And Wheelchairs Fill Gaps Created By Supply Chain Problems

Michele Lujan needed a wheelchair for her 52-year-old husband who had been hospitalized with covid-19. But she had lost her job, and money was tight. Insurance wouldn’t cover the cost, and she didn’t see the use in buying something to meet a temporary need. So she turned to a loan closet not far from her home in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch. At South Metro Medical Equipment Loan Closet, crutches hung from the walls, knee scooters lined the floor, and shower seats and toilet risers overflowed from the shelves. She found a wheelchair she could borrow for free. (Ruder, 4/11)

On Wednesday, 5-year-old Mary Stegmueller will reach a major milestone. She will have outlived her predicted life expectancy. Twice. At age 4, Mary, a rambunctious animal lover from Northglenn, Colorado, was given nine  months to live. A devastating brain tumor was spreading its tentacles through her brain stem, the area that controls breathing, heartbeat and other essential functions. The tumor, called a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma strikes 300-400 Americans each year, mostly children, and several thousand more worldwide. (Weintraub, 4/10)

While CAR T-therapy has cured some people with blood cancers, this form of immunotherapy has so far produced lackluster results for solid tumors like lung or kidney cancer. But a new early-phase clinical trial presented on Sunday at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) conference suggests that CAR T-cells may be able to shrink some solid tumors — as long as it gets a boost from an mRNA vaccine from BioNTech. (Chen, 4/10)

Doctors will soon have new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how and when to prescribe opioids for pain. Those guidelines – currently under review as a draft – will serve as an update to the agency's previous advice on opioids, issued in 2016. That advice is widely blamed for leading to harmful consequences for patients with chronic pain. Federal officials have acknowledged their original guidance was often misapplied; it was supposed to serve as a roadmap for clinicians navigating tricky decisions around opioids and pain — not as a rigid set of rules. (Stone, 4/9)

Whither accelerated approval? Amid the hubbub over new Medicare coverage restrictions for Alzheimer’s treatments, a key issue may not be fully appreciated: There is now bona fide pushback against accelerated approval, a controversial strategy used by regulators and companies to get new drugs to market faster than usual. On its face, this suggests potentially wider — and sobering — implications for the pharmaceutical industry and patients, because they may one day have to wait longer for new medicines to get out the proverbial door. (Silverman, 4/9)

KHN: Journalists Discuss Insulin Costs And Ethical Questions Surrounding A North Carolina Rehab Program

KHN Midwest correspondent Bram Sable-Smith discussed insulin costs on NBC’s LX on April 6. ... KHN correspondent Aneri Pattani, joined by North Carolina Health News’ Taylor Knopf, discussed some of the ethical questions raised by TROSA — a substance misuse recovery organization in North Carolina that provides free room and board for those in recovery in exchange for free work — on WUNC’s “WUNC Politics” podcast on April 6. (4/9)

History was made Friday as a local doctor carried out a procedure that had never been performed in a Houston hospital. The advanced prostate cancer treatment called transurethral ultrasound ablation is now being offered at Houston Methodist Willowbrook, the hospital announced this week. “This is the first time the TULSA procedure has been performed in a hospital setting in the Houston area, giving patients with prostate cancer or an enlarged prostate a significant opportunity to maintain their lifestyle,” Steven Sukin, MD, said in the announcement. (Feuk, 4/8)

Joyce Ares had just turned 74 and was feeling fine when she agreed to give a blood sample for research. So she was surprised when the screening test came back positive for signs of cancer. After a repeat blood test, a PET scan and a needle biopsy, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. “I cried,” the retired real estate broker said. “Just a couple of tears and thought, ‘OK, now what do we do?’” The Canby, Oregon, resident had volunteered to take a blood test that is being billed as a new frontier in cancer screening for healthy people. It looks for cancer by checking for DNA fragments shed by tumor cells. (Johnson, 4/11)

On a screen at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) conference here on Saturday, one of Jinming Gao’s graduate students squirted an acid into a test tube in their lab at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Almost immediately, fluid at the end of the tube began to glow as a white star under infrared light, visible on a surgical monitor. When the student squirted it with a base, the light winked out. Inside the tube is a nanomaterial that, on the molecular level, looks like a cluster of strings — polymers — organized into a sphere. Gao, a biomedical engineer working in cancer applications and a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, calls it a micelle, and it has several unique properties that experts say other labs have struggled to achieve. In particular, micelles can carry a therapeutic payload and deliver it only at the precise acidity of a cancer tumor. (Chen, 4/10)

Genomics has made significant inroads into mainstream medicine — DNA data are now routinely used to tailor cancer treatments, for example. But the reference genome created by the Human Genome Project, which has underlain so many of the scientific and clinical advances of the last 20 years, was never really finished. Technology at the time couldn’t resolve the last 8% — vast gaps spread across the genome that together add up to the equivalent of missing an entire chromosome. If you imagine a world map, that’s about the size of Africa. That means doctors have always been flying with a sizable blindspot. If a patient has a disease-causing mutation in any of those portions of the reference genome that are missing or contain errors, there’s no way to test for it. Which is why there was so much excitement last summer when a team of almost 100 scientists announced it had deciphered those pesky, previously unmappable regions and unveiled the first ever, truly complete human genome. (Molteni, 4/8)

At 12:08 p.m. on a Monday, a Sky Lakes Medical Center employee tapped an email link. Within minutes, that click cracked open the Oregon hospital’s digital infrastructure for cybercriminals to infiltrate. By the time IT staff started looking into it, “everything was being encrypted,” said John Gaede, director of information services. On a note discovered in a server, the attackers  announced the 100-bed Klamath Falls hospital had been hit with ransomware. (Renault, 4/11)

The Montana State Hospital is set to lose its federal reimbursement funding on Tuesday after repeated failures to meet standard health and safety conditions, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a letter to the state on Friday. The letter does not say how much money the state hospital will no longer receive once the federal government stops payment for services provided to Medicare and Medicaid patients. There were 142 patients in the main hospital as of April 4, though it's not clear how many patients are insured by Medicare and Medicaid. (Larson, 4/11)

Wellstar Health System’s announcement that it is turning the only emergency room in Fulton County south of Interstate 20 into an urgent care clinic is raising concerns among some officials in metro Atlanta. WellStar said Wednesday it will close the ER and hospital beds at Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center South in East Point outside Atlanta in May. It will turn the facility into a 24-hour urgent care and rehabilitation clinic, news outlets reported. (4/10)

BayCare Health System has agreed to pay $20 million to settle a federal case in which it was accused of filing false claims for Medicaid funds, according to a release from the Department of Justice. In an email to WUSF, BayCare denied any wrongdoing and said it settled to avoid litigation. The case involves donations that BayCare made to the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County between October 2013 and September 2015. (Ochoa, 4/8)

Before the pandemic, on average, 3.2% of healthcare workers reported turnover, compared with 5.6% in the beginning of the pandemic and 3.7% in the following 8 months. More people left the workforce than were unemployed for every group throughout the study period, except in the latter period among people who were multiracial or of an "other" race. (Van Beusekom, 4/8)

Dr. Ken Turley is a 1982 Sheridan High School graduate who is a professor at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. Over the last 13 months, he’s helped to launch the country’s first master’s degree program in cardiac function and interventional technology. The program aims to equip graduates and those already in the field to develop technologies to treat patients with cardiac disease and improve their quality of life. Turley has been at Harding for the past 25 years and has taught a variety of courses in the exercise science department. The master’s program will be offered for the first time in the fall semester. (Cook, 4/8)

A part of Alex Gregor’s childhood was spent growing up in Buncombe County, near Asheville, where he and his family enjoyed canoeing and hiking. “I think that’s probably the origin of my environmental consciousness …those experiences with family and friends, outdoors,” he recalled recently. After college, Gregor held several jobs before deciding to pursue a medical degree. One particular job was in the “social enterprise sector with a focus on global development issues.” He said his passion for the outdoors and his experience working on global issues carried from that career to his new one. (Atwater, 4/11)

Less than two months after a baby formula recall, retailers are reporting shortages with some stores rationing sales. Nearly 30% of popular baby formula brands may be sold out at retailers across the U.S., according to an analysis by Datasembly, which assessed supplies at more than 11,000 stores. That's a higher level than other products, said Ben Reich, CEO of the Tysons, Virginia-based research firm. (Snider, 4/9)

In the years following the 1994 start of the Safe to Sleep campaign, which urged parents to put their babies on their backs at bedtime and keep their cribs free of pillows, bumper pads, blankets, stuffed animals and anything soft that might pose a suffocation risk, cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) plummeted by more 50 percent. But then, the decline stopped. Some 3,400 babies under age 1 still die suddenly and unexpectedly each year. Of these, the number of infant deaths officially attributed to SIDS is probably an underestimate, experts say. In most cases, parents simply find their baby unresponsive in the crib — and autopsy practices are not standardized — so most of these heartbreaking deaths remain mysteries and are not always classified as SIDS. (Cimons, 4/10)

The Department of Health and Human Services will release Happy, Healthy, Lead-Free Me!, a new children's book about lead poisoning prevention. The book has 23 pages of illustrations and emphasizes the importance of bringing a kid to an annual medical examination, in part to prevent lead poisoning. The book also gives parents a closer look at why lead can become a danger. “Research has shown a book is more effective than conversations and pamphlets to bring prevention messaging to parents,” said Gail Gettens, co-author of the book.She and co-author Knatalie Vetter are mothers who have dedicated part of their careers to educating families about lead. (Lozada, 4/8)

The nation's flu activity rose again last week, with the levels highest in central and southeast states and increasing in the Northeast, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly update. The percentage of outpatient visits for flulike illness, a key marker, rose slightly, to 1.9%, but is still below the national baseline. One state—New Mexico—reported high flu activity, another measure of clinic visits for flulike illness. Four states reported moderate activity: Kansas, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Utah. (4/8)

Italian confectionery giant Ferrero said Thursday it had recalled certain varieties of its Kinder chocolates from retailers in the United States due to possible salmonella contamination. The move follows recalls earlier this week in the United Kingdom and several European countries over concerns around products from Ferrero's factory in the Belgian town of Arlon, although no Kinder products have so far been found to contain the disease. (4/8)

“The risk of clinically significant exposure to emergency responders is extremely low,” said Dr. Kathy LeSaint, a medical toxicologist and assistant professor of emergency medicine at UCSF. Last month, six people, including five West Point cadets, reportedly overdosed after taking cocaine laced with fentanyl. But two said they overdosed — going into cardiac arrest — administering CPR to the others, rather than by voluntarily ingesting the opioid themselves. While she said she does not know the specific details of the West Point cadets incident, it seems unlikely to her, as an emergency medicine physician who has seen overdose patients receive CPR, that someone could become intoxicated that way. (Echeverria, 4/9)

Americans were more vulnerable to serious illness and death from COVID in part because of our poor health status heading into the pandemic. Now, preparations for future public health emergencies have to include chronic diet-related illnesses, including those stemming from the obesity crisis, health experts say. Obesity and related diseases like diabetes were closely linked with a far higher risk of serious illness and death from COVID. That was particularly true among older adults, communities of color, and disadvantaged communities, Anand Parekh, chief medical adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Axios. (Reed, 4/11)

If you aren’t a senior, but still experiencing ‘senior moments,’ you are in good company, according to recent Wall Street Journal report. "Our brains are like computers with so many tabs open right now," said Dr. Sara C. Mednick, a neuroscientist and professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. "This slows down our processing power, and memory is one of the areas that falters." ‘Senior moments,’ otherwise known as fleeting bursts of forgetfulness, are becoming more commonplace, according to memory experts. (Sudhakar, 4/10)

KHN: It’s Your Choice: You Can Change Your Views Of Aging And Improve Your Life

People’s beliefs about aging have a profound impact on their health, influencing everything from their memory and sensory perceptions to how well they walk, how fully they recover from disabling illness, and how long they live. When aging is seen as a negative experience (characterized by terms such as decrepit, incompetent, dependent, and senile), individuals tend to experience more stress in later life and engage less often in healthy behaviors such as exercise. When views are positive (signaled by words such as wise, alert, accomplished, and creative), people are more likely to be active and resilient and to have a stronger will to live. (Graham, 4/11)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a health warning about an outbreak of meningococcal disease in Florida, which the agency said is mainly affecting gay and bisexual men, including those living with HIV. The CDC urged gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men to get the MenACWY vaccine if they live in Florida. It also recommended that those planning to visit Florida talk with their health care provider about getting the vaccine. (Rai, 4/9)

A government watchdog has found a “substantial likelihood” the federal Bureau of Prisons committed wrongdoing when it ignored complaints and failed to address asbestos and mold contamination at a federal women’s prison in California that has already been under scrutiny for rampant sexual abuse of inmates. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel now wants Attorney General Merrick Garland to step in to investigate the allegations after multiple whistleblower complaints were filed earlier this year. The office detailed its findings in a letter this past week and has asked Garland to submit a report within 60 days. (Balsamo and Sisak, 4/9)

The Alaska House of Representatives this week rejected a $495,000 legal settlement with two former Alaska Psychiatric Institute doctors illegally fired by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and his former chief of staff in 2018. The House voted 20-17 on Thursday to strip the money from a state budget line item for settlements. The decision is not yet final and would not revive a lawsuit brought by the doctors, but if the amendment is adopted by both the House and Senate, it would leave the doctors without financial compensation. “If this amount is not appropriated, the settlement would not be paid, which means the doctors would not receive the payment that was part of the compromise of the settlement,” said assistant attorney general Grace Lee, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Law. (Brooks, 4/8)

Nevada’s largest university is going smoke-free, going beyond the state’s existing law against smoking in most indoor public places by expanding it to include outdoor areas. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas policy announced Friday and taking effect Aug. 15 in time for the fall 2022 semester also applies to vaping. (4/9)

A large wellness fair focusing on physical, mental and spiritual well-being — as well as activities for kids — is scheduled from 3-7 p.m. Wednesday at the Pearson Community Center in Las Vegas. “Wednesday Wellness Health Fair” will include blood-pressure checks and cholesterol screenings, as well as COVID-19 vaccinations and testing. There will be presentations and vendors. The event, at 1625 West Carey Ave., will include a food truck sponsored by Desert Winds Hospital. (Hynes, 4/9)

National data shows nearly a third of people between the ages of 18 and 25 experienced a mental health condition during 2020. A national program called This is My Brave that is coming to the University of South Florida in Tampa this month aims to improve these statistics. Students who take part in the program use creative performances to talk about mental health and addiction openly and break down the stigma surrounding the topics. Ten USF students who applied to be in the program in January will take the stage April 22, using poetry, stand-up comedy, creative monologues and music to share real-life experiences about depression, anxiety and trauma. (Bruner, 4/8)

Ridership boomed during the Utah Transit Authority’s pilot program, “Free Fare February,” the effort to make public transportation more accessible and the air quality improved. That’s according to a final report released by UTA this week about the ridership and environmental outcomes of the monthlong initiative. “About 68 tons of pollution was kept out of the air, which is about a 21% improvement in pollution savings compared to the previous month,” said UTA Board Trustee Jeff Acerson, who represents Tooele and Utah counties. “That’s why transit is such a critical piece of that because you’re getting more people on a [transit] system rather than more cars on the highways.” (Bojórquez, 4/8)

KHN: Profit Strategy: Psychiatric Facilities Prioritize Out-Of-State Kids 

South Carolina children who need immediate, around-the-clock psychiatric care risk being stranded for days — even weeks — waiting for help, only to be sent hundreds of miles away from home for treatment. When no psychiatric residential treatment beds are open in South Carolina, some children must travel across the Southeast to facilities in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, or Kentucky — anywhere a bed might be available. (Sausser, 4/11)

The world of global health leadership is still very much a man's world – that's the conclusion of a new report published by Global Health 50/50. The title: "Boards for All?" The report looked at the gender and geography of more than 2,000 board members across 146 global health organizations. Among the findings: Only 1% of board members were women from low-income countries, and nearly half the organizations evaluated had boards composed entirely of people from high-income countries. (Lu, 4/8)

Queen Elizabeth II, after her own recent bout with COVID-19, empathized with patients, doctors and nurses at a London hospital last week as she listened to their stories about life on the front lines of the pandemic. The monarch spoke to patients and staff at the Royal London Hospital during a virtual visit that marked the official dedication of the Queen Elizabeth Unit, a 155-bed critical care facility built in just five weeks at the height of the pandemic. "It does leave one very tired and exhausted, doesn't it?'' she told recovering COVID-19 patient Asef Hussain and his wife, Shamina. "This horrible pandemic." (4/11)

Hong Kong’s number of daily Covid cases dropped to the lowest in almost two months as the city ends a voluntary citywide testing exercise that has uncovered more than 2,000 infections. Health officials said on Sunday that there were 1,921 new daily cases, 18 of them imported, and 65 virus-related deaths. Residents have reported 2,202 Covid infections via rapid antigen tests distributed to households last week as part of the government’s three-day program, Albert Au, principal medical and health officer at the Department of Health, said at a briefing. (Zhao and Chen, 4/9)

India will distribute fortified rice through various government-run food programs to tackle acute malnutrition among children and women in the world’s second-most populous nation. The initiative, which will cost about 27 billion rupees ($356 million) a year, will be funded by the federal government and completed in phases by June 2024, according to an official statement released after the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the plan. (Pradhan, 4/8)

Shanghai is locked down and some of its residents are running out of food. As China battles its largest-ever Covid outbreak, the discourse swings between two extremes: The country must accept Covid Zero and sporadic, disruptive lockdowns; or it must live with the virus western-style —  and endure all deaths that ensue. For Chinese authorities, the former may no longer work but the latter is unacceptable. But there’s an alternative: China should look to what can be learned from its neighbor Japan. (Gearoid Reidy, 4/10)

In recent days, Matthew Broderick has become infected with COVID-19. So has Sarah Jessica Parker. And Daniel Craig. Those star names all are appearing in Broadway shows at present and their cases are illuminating not just due to their celebrity but because they are working in rigorously tested environments where infections are detected fast and public disclosures made. (4/8)

Doomed from the start. That phrase neatly describes the Apollo 13 mission, which launched this day in 1970, and the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination effort in the U.S. Yet both can be seen as “successful failures.” When astronauts James Lovell, John “Jack” Swigert, and Fred Haise blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center, they were anticipating mankind’s third trip to the surface of the moon. Two days into the mission, a defective oxygen tank exploded when they were some 200,000 miles away from Earth, imperiling their lives and making it impossible to complete their mission. Around-the-clock efforts by teams on the ground, imbued with NASA ingenuity, helped the astronauts return safely to Earth in what was nothing short of a miracle. “Our mission was a failure,” Lovell wrote later, “but I like to think it was a successful failure.” (Christopher M. Worsham and Anupam B. Jena, 4/11)

The Biden administration is proposing a rule that would fix the so-called family glitch, an obscure issue of wording buried deep in the law’s text that prevents a shockingly large number of people from getting cheaper health premiums. The law provides people government subsidies for health insurance plans, but only if their employers do not offer them affordable health coverage. The law deems an employer-sponsored plan unaffordable if premiums would top about 10 percent of an employee’s household income. So, if workers would have to pay sky-high premiums for their employer-sponsored plan, they could always seek coverage on the Obamacare marketplaces and receive assistance from government subsidies. (4/9)

I'd never cried in a doctor's office. But there I was, a few weeks back, sobbing in the exam room.As a new resident of Fort Myers, Florida, I was trying to establish a relationship with a local primary care physician. From the start, the doctor's focus was her computer, not me. She stared at a screen, while I stared off into space (Christine Bechtel, 4/10)

Mass General Brigham didn’t become the medical behemoth it is today by not knowing the first rule of health care poker — know when to fold ’em. Faced with a wall of opposition to its proposed three new suburban outpatient surgical centers — not the least of which included a critical staff report by the Department of Public Health — the organization formerly known as Partners HeathCare cut its losses. In the end, MGB settled for partial wins on expansion plans on the main Mass General campus and at its Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital. (4/11)

Effective talk therapy is premised on complete privacy and trust between the patient and therapist. These are the foundations for the open, candid and difficult conversations necessary to get to the root of personal issues. But during many of my recent sessions, it’s felt as if there were more than two of us in the room. The overreach of cancel culture from across the spectrum is making its way into therapy offices, and that is worrisome for clinicians and patients alike. (Maggie Mulqueen, 4/9)

Michigan, though one of the most tightly fought swing states in the country, is also a place where support for access to abortion is strong. Nearly 70 percent of voters in one recent poll expressed support for the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing abortion as a constitutional right. However, if the court does what many people expect it to do in an upcoming Mississippi case and overturns Roe, the law governing abortion in Michigan will revert to one of the most extreme in the country: a 1931 measure, unenforceable after Roe but still on the books, that makes it a felony to provide the procedure, except where necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman. (Karen Tumulty, 4/10)

Systemic racism is built into every facet of our society, including sexual and reproductive health. In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade affirmed the constitutional right to abortion, barring states from banning abortion before the point of fetal viability. But too many states, especially in the South, interpreted and applied the decision as strictly as they could get away with, disproportionately affecting women of color. (Monica Simpson, 4/11)

During the first full week of April each year, the American Public Health Association (APHA) coordinates the observation of National Public Health Week as a time to recognize the contributions of public health and highlight issues that are important to improving our nation’s health and safety. This year’s theme – "Public Health is Where You Are" – demonstrates that where we live impacts our communities’ health. (Greg Kesterman, 4/9)

An internal March 14 newsletter announced the new policy on dual employment, according to a Star Tribune story. The "unclear relationship between health care and law enforcement, is impacting the ability of some to feel safe seeking care,'' Dr. Daniel Hoody wrote in the newsletter. The medical center will also end a "medical instruction" contract with the Minneapolis police. In an interview with an editorial writer, CEO Jennifer DeCubellis underscored the need for the medical center to unambiguously be a place of healing. (4/10)

Words matter in medical records. The most recent reminder of this truism comes from studies in Health Affairs and JAMA Network that have drawn attention to the potential for racial and ethnic bias in physician documentation. (Dr. Bobbie Byrne, 4/8)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued on Thursday its hotly debated final decision on whether to cover aducanumab (Aduhelm), the first FDA-approved treatment for Alzheimer’s that slows the disease’s biological progression rather than just temporarily easing its symptoms. We believe it made the wrong choice. The agency, which regulates the public insurance programs that collectively serve about 135 million Americans, decided it will cover the cost of Aduhelm only for the tiny subset of people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease who choose to enroll in CMS-approved clinical trials of the drug. (Dennis J. Selkoe and Jeffrey Cummings, 4/9)