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Federal health officials revised coronavirus guidance on Friday to acknowledge that people can get infected by inhaling very fine, aerosolized particles carrying the virus, following warnings from health experts since last year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that airborne transmission is one of several ways the virus can spread, adding that people more than six feet away from others indoors can become infected, according to the agency’s website. (Hassan, Bellware and Kornfield, 5/7)

The new focus underscores the need for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue standards for employers to address potential hazards in the workplace, some experts said. “They hadn’t talked much about aerosols and were more focused on droplets,” said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington School of Public Health and head of OSHA in the Obama administration. (Rabin and Anthes, 5/7)

The CDC said in a document published Friday that it has “repeatedly documented” instances of the virus spreading through the air to people who were more than six feet away “under certain preventable circumstances.” This marks a change for the agency that previously said most infections took place through “close contact, not airborne transmission.” “COVID-19 spreads when an infected person breathes out droplets and very small particles that contain the virus. These droplets and particles can be breathed in by other people or land on their eyes, noses, or mouth. In some circumstances, they may contaminate surfaces they touch. People who are closer than 6 feet from the infected person are most likely to get infected,” the CDC now says on its website. (Politi, 5/8)

Dr. Anthony Fauci says federal guidance on wearing face coverings indoors may change soon. Sunday on ABC News, Fauci was asked whether it's time to start relaxing indoor masks requirements. Fauci replied, "I think so, and I think you're going to probably be seeing that as we go along, and as more people get vaccinated." (Mascarenhas and Maxouris, 5/9)

White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that people may decide to wear masks during certain seasons when respiratory illnesses are more prevalent. “I think people have gotten used to the fact that wearing masks, clearly if you look at the data it diminishes respiratory diseases, we’ve had practically a non-existent flu season this year merely because people were doing the kinds of public health things that were directed predominately against Covid-19,” Fauci said during an interview on NBC Sunday program “Meet the Press.” (Macias, 5/9)

Biden administration officials said Sunday that the U.S. is entering a new phase of the pandemic in which many vaccinated Americans can begin returning to normal activities and signaled that the federal government will further relax mask-wearing recommendations as more people get shots. “I would say we are turning the corner,” Jeff Zients, President Biden’s Covid-19 coordinator, told CNN’s “State of the Union.” The administration said last week it is focused on helping hesitant and hard-to-reach Americans get shots, with a goal of having 70% of the adult population receive at least one dose by July 4. (Restuccia, 5/9)

While the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations may be slowing in the US, experts are optimistic about where the country will be in just a matter of weeks. "This summer is going to seem so much closer to normal than we've had in a very long time," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, told CNN on Sunday. "The key statistic to think about is ... what percentage of the adult population has received at least one vaccination." (Maxouris, 5/10)

Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, said Sunday that the U.S. is unlikely to see a surge of COVID-19 infections over the fall and winter like it did last year, pointing to the widespread availability of vaccines as a "game changer" that would prevent future surges. (Bowden, 5/9)

More than a year after the pandemic started, Covid-19 is still ravaging parts of the world, but now scientists are warning that another virus could be a serious threat in the coming months: influenza. This season, the flu virtually disappeared, with less than 2,000 lab-confirmed cases in the United States to date, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a typical flu season, the U.S. could see more than 200,000 lab-confirmed cases by this time of year, a tiny fraction of the true number of cases, estimated to range from 9 million to 45 million annually. (Dunn, 5/9)

Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted Sunday that America will be "as close to back to normal as we can" by next Mother’s Day if certain conditions are met. Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the White House's chief medical adviser, made the prediction during ABC’s "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, who had asked him to "give everyone a sense of what the country is going to look like next Mother’s Day." "I hope that next Mother’s Day, we’re going to see a dramatic difference than what we’re seeing right now. I believe that we will be about as close to back to normal as we can. And there’s some conditions to that, George," Fauci said during the segment. "We’ve got to make sure that we get the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated." (Pagones, 5/9)

There’s “no doubt” the U.S. has undercounted its number of deaths from Covid-19, which now stand at over 581,000, President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser said. But Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that a University of Washington analysis published May 6 that the true toll is probably over 900,000 is “a bit more than I would have thought.” “Sometimes the models are right on line, sometimes they’re a bit off,” he said. (Krasny and Czuczka, 5/9)

Long quarantines were a necessary tool to slow the COVID-19 pandemic during its first phases, but better and faster tests — plus vaccines — mean they can be scaled back considerably. Quick tests and regular surveillance methods that identify who is actually infectious can take the place of the two-week or longer isolation periods that have been common for travelers and people who might have been exposed to the virus, speeding the safe reopening of schools and workplaces. (Walsh, 5/8)

Health officials in Colorado have identified five cases of a coronavirus variant first discovered in India. The cases involve five females in Mesa County who are all from different households, according to a news release posted Thursday. Officials said all individuals are between the ages of 30 and 65 years old and that the cases were identified through the sequencing of test samples. The variant, identified as B.1.617.2, is considered a "variant of interest (VOI)." (Hein, 5/8)

Around 20 people in France have been currently detected with the variant of COVID-19 first found in India, French Health Minister Olivier Veran told LCI TV on Monday. The World Health Organisation has described the Indian COVID variant as a "variant of interest", suggesting it may have mutations that would make the virus more transmissible, cause more severe disease or evade vaccine immunity. (5/10)

Back in the fall, Tom Wenseleers made a bold claim on Twitter. He tweeted that the new coronavirus variant emerging in the U.K. was more transmissible — or could spread more quickly — than over versions of the virus. "I posted a graph [on Twitter] showing the U.K. variant had a transmission advantage over the other types of the virus," says Wenseleers, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Leuven in Belgium. At first, many scientists didn't believe his analysis. Many people thought the big COVID-19 surge in England was due to holiday travel and shopping, he says. But after many follow-up studies, Wenseleers' take proved correct. The variant first detected in the U.K., called B.1.1.7, is indeed more transmissible and likely the most contagious version of the virus known. (Doucleff, 5/7)

Returning to the pulpit after a COVID-19 outbreak infected him, his wife and 72 members of their congregation, the senior pastor of an Oregon church said Sunday that he will not kowtow to pressure to close the doors to the house of worship. Pastor Scott Erickson of the Peoples Church in Salem, Oregon, began his Mother's Day sermon by addressing the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in his church and throughout the state. (Hutchinson, 5/9)

A COVID outbreak has struck Baltimore’s jail even as 70% of all Maryland prison inmates have received at least one vaccine dose, according to state records and court filings by the American Civil Liberties Union. The state’s failure to provide facility-specific infection and vaccination data is hindering efforts to understand what’s happening inside the jail or hold officials accountable, the ACLU claims. The filing is the latest in a series since last April, weeks into the pandemic, seeking better protections for Maryland inmates, and is an extension of a decades-old lawsuit against the state over prisoner civil rights. (Jackson, 5/10)

Federal health officials this month decided to limit how they monitor vaccinated people who have been infected with Covid-19, drawing concern from some scientists who say that may mean missing needed data showing why and how it happens. At the end of April, more than 9,000 Americans were reported to be infected after being vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While that’s a tiny percentage of the 95 million people fully inoculated at the time, researchers still want to find out what specific mechanisms may be spurring the infections. (Chen, 5/9)

Marc Johnson saw trouble in the water. Dr. Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri, had spent much of 2020 studying sewage, collecting wastewater from all over the state and analyzing it for fragments of the coronavirus. People with Covid-19 shed the virus in their stool, and as the coronavirus spread throughout Missouri, more and more of it began to appear in the state’s wastewater. In January, Dr. Johnson spotted something new in his water samples: traces of B.1.1.7, a more contagious variant that was first detected in Britain. (Anthes, 5/7)

As New York emerged as the center of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, the overwhelmed city began storing the bodies of victims in refrigerated trucks along the Brooklyn waterfront. More than a year later, hundreds remain in the makeshift morgues on the 39th Street Pier in Sunset Park. (Shammas, 5/9)

Hospitalized men with COVID-19 had higher in-hospital death rates if they were in obesity classes 2 and 3 (body mass index [BMI] of 35 to 40 kg/m2, respectively) compared with men in a normal-weight group, according to a study yesterday in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases. (5/7)

It’s well-known now that people of color have shouldered a disproportionate burden in the Covid-19 pandemic. Now researchers and clinicians are increasingly concerned that history is repeating itself in the case of long Covid. Long Covid — one name for the mysterious multitude of problems that persist after Covid-19 infections have cleared — affects all populations to some degree; it also afflicts people regardless of whether they had mild or even no symptoms, or needed ICU care to survive. (Cooney, 5/10)

The Biden administration and state health officials are rushing to overcome logistical hurdles to get more Covid-19 shots into doctors’ offices, believing that physicians who have largely been excluded from the inoculation effort so far could be key to boosting vaccination rates. For months, doctors have lobbied the White House and states to ship them doses, but officials instead focused their efforts on mass vaccination sites and other places that could quickly immunize hundreds or even thousands of people daily. With demand for shots now slipping faster than health experts expected, officials are now trying to steer doses to smaller, local sites like doctor offices that can make targeted efforts to reach people who are hesitant to get vaccinated or have faced other obstacles like lack of transportation. (Roubein and Goldberg, 5/9)

From offers for free beer to cash incentives, states are taking new approaches to encourage more people to vaccinate against COVID-19. The moves are a stark indicator of how demand for the vaccine has significantly decreased in recent weeks. While the incentives have generated attention, the interest could be short-lived. Healthcare stakeholders say a more substantial and sustainable approach would be to shift the focus of current vaccination strategies from mass vaccination sites to increasing access within primary and outpatient care. (Ross Johnson, 5/7)

For most people, COVID-19 vaccines promise a return to something akin to normal life. But for the hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. who have a transplanted organ, it's a different story. That includes Burns, who got a double lung transplant nearly five years ago. New research published this week in the medical journal JAMA suggests many transplant recipients may not get protection from vaccination, even after two doses. "Forty-six percent of transplant patients have had no evidence whatsoever that they had an antibody response to the vaccine" after two doses, Dr. Dorry Segev says. He's a transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins and one of the authors of the study, which looked at the antibody response after full vaccination with the Moderna and Pfizer shots in more than 650 transplant recipients, including Burns. (Godoy, 5/7)

As vaccine supply starts to exceed demand in the U.S., researchers and health workers across the country are steeling themselves for what could be a rough rescue mission. A vaccine that’s thought of as “shitty,” experts told me, has little chance at being seen as truly equitable, and some of them worry that J&J’s product has already been snared in that trap. “I think it’s going to be hard to dig our way out,” Abraar Karan, an internal-medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told me. (Wu, 5/7)

Most Americans support requiring proof they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 before traveling, going to school or going to work, a recent survey by Verywell found. The idea of vaccine "passports" emerged early as a potential tool to reopen economies. But they've turned into a political flashpoint in several Republican-led states — and raised plenty of logistical challenges. (Reed, 5/7)

The Global Citizen fundraising concert advocating the importance of vaccine equity has pulled in $302 million, exceeding the goal for the organization’s campaign. Global Citizen announced Saturday that the funds raised helped procure more than 26 million doses at the “Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World.” The organization said money was garnered through several philanthropic and corporate commitments. (5/9)

As the demand for COVID-19 vaccines declines in Utah, Gov. Spencer Cox has removed the requirement that providers use all first doses of the vaccine within seven days of receiving them. The governor’s office said that rule — which was implemented through executive order early this year in an effort to speed up the state’s vaccination efforts and ensure doses weren’t going to waste — was no longer necessary, as the state enters a new phase of distribution. (Stevens, 5/7)

Appointments are no longer needed for Angelenos to get COVID-19 vaccinations at any site run by the city, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Sunday. “We stand at a critical juncture in our fight to end this pandemic, and our City will keep doing everything possible to knock down barriers to vaccine access and deliver doses directly to all Angelenos,” Garcetti said in a statement. The move is intended to give people who don’t have the time or technological resources to navigate online booking platforms a chance to get the shot. Vaccinations are free. (Wigglesworth, 5/9)

Starting Monday, all Publix pharmacy locations will accept walk-in customers who want to get the COVID‑19 vaccine, in addition to those who schedule appointments online, while supplies last. Vaccinations are provided to eligible individuals 18 and older, and walk-in customers may choose the two-dose Moderna or one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, pending availability. (Prieur, 5/8)

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy says the state is considering paying people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. "We might, I think all things are on the table frankly," Murphy told FOX 5 New York in an interview. "We have to get to our objective, which is 70% of the adult population by the end of June." Last week, Murphy launched the "Operation Jersey Summer" campaign, which is aimed at helping the state reach its vaccination goal. As part of the campaign, Murphy launched the "Shot and a Beer" program, which will give state residents age 21 years and older a free beer with COVID-19 vaccinations starting in May. The program includes thirteen participating New Jersey-based breweries. (Manfredi, 5/9)

Minnesota health officials are trying various strategies in an attempt to get people vaccinated and slow the spread of the coronavirus. Volunteer physicians are working with a brewery in St. Paul on a pop-up event that rewards those who get shots with a free beer. Vaccinations are being offered in the downtown bus depot in Duluth. An Elk River clinic is offering shots to patients who are seeking help for other health care needs. (5/9)

The results of a statewide survey conducted by Alaska’s health department in March offer some insight into Alaskans’ attitudes related to COVID-19 vaccines and will be used to inform public messaging, state health officials said this week. The results, which were published Thursday in a report compiled by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, indicated about a 36% vaccine hesitancy rate — meaning they were unsure or undecided about whether to get vaccinated — among the more than 1,000 survey respondents with Alaska area codes who answered questions via text. The survey data showed that over half of Alaskans who fell into the “vaccine hesitant” category were open to learning more about the vaccines before deciding whether to get vaccinated. (Berman, 5/9)

For Herbert and Ed Jackson, father and son, the decision to get vaccinated against COVID-19 has been complicated by fear, skepticism, and the logistics of receiving a shot. Herbert Jackson, 50, got his first dose May 3. He’s known people who died of the virus and works at a North Philadelphia paper factory, he said, and was worried about catching the virus there. “No one is masked” there, he said Wednesday afternoon, after meeting up on Hunting Park Avenue with his son, who just finished work as a security guard at Esperanza Academy Charter School. (Laughlin, 5/10)

Sluggish COVID-19 vaccination rates for Arkansas prison workers are raising concerns about the prison system’s ability to ward off disease during the pandemic’s next phase and against more-contagious variants, according to public health and incarceration experts. About 42% of the more than 4,700 Arkansas Department of Corrections employees have received at least one shot, an agency spokeswoman said. The corrections department set a goal of vaccinating 80% of employees after shots were offered on Jan. 5, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Sunday. (5/9)

Internet trolls unleashed a new wave of hate speech Thursday directed at Houston vaccine researcher Peter Hotez, a longtime nemesis of the anti-vaxx movement. The website Natural News, which promotes false conspiracy theories about 5G and Bill Gates, posted a story about Hotez at the top of its website. “Echoing the fascism of genocidal maniacs like Hitler and Stalin,” it said, “Peter Hotez displays his own brand of insanity by equating vaccine skeptics with cyber criminals and nuclear terrorism.” (Gray, 5/7)

Global allies want more clarity on how the United States plans to share its resources, know-how — and especially, its growing vaccine stockpile. Advocates say there’s no time to waste, pointing to virus surges crippling India and other countries that collectively reported more than 5 million cases in the past week. (Diamond and Pager, 5/9)

White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said it was "not at all" a mistake to place a hold on the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine, rebuffing the idea that doing so made vaccinating the country any more difficult. Speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday, Zients said if anything, the Food and Drug Administration's hold on the vaccine helped build confidence that people know that the FDA and the CDC are monitoring. (Choi, 5/9)

Nancy Messonnier, a senior health expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was the first U.S. official to warn Americans last year that a new coronavirus would upend their lives, is resigning from the agency, she told colleagues in an email Friday morning. ... Messonnier, who has been director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases since 2016, did not respond to a request for comment. During a Friday briefing, CDC director Rochelle Walensky called Messonnier a “true hero” but offered no explanation for her exit amid the most ambitious immunization campaign in American history. (Breuninger, 5/7)

Eager to the turn the page on the Trump years, the Biden White House is launching an effort to unearth past problems with the politicization of science within government and to tighten scientific integrity rules for the future. A new 46-person federal scientific integrity task force with members from more than two dozen government agencies will meet for the first time on Friday. Its mission is to look back through 2009 for areas where partisanship interfered with what were supposed to be decisions based on evidence and research and to come up with ways to keep politics out of government science in the future. (Borenstein, 5/10)

It’s not one specific thing related to Covid-19 that is keeping the economy down, but everything related to the pandemic, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said on Sunday. Speaking on CBS News' “Face the Nation,” Neel Kashkari said it was a complex series of factors that led to Friday’s disappointing jobs report, which showed that only 266,000 jobs were created in April, far below expectations. (Cohen, 5/9)

The mysterious health incidents that have affected dozens of U.S. personnel around the globe have also occurred within the United States, the White House confirmed for the first time on Friday. The source of the illnesses, known as "Havana syndrome" after the first cluster of cases at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, is still unknown. But there is growing pressure from Congress to figure out what has affected so many U.S. diplomats, spies and other officials -- and who or what is behind it. (Finnegan and Gittleson, 5/7)

The Biden administration said Monday it would provide protections against discrimination in health care based on gender identity and sexual orientation, reversing a policy of its predecessors that had been a priority for social conservatives and had infuriated civil liberties advocates. The reversal is a victory for transgender people and undoes what had been a significant setback in the movement for LGBTQ rights. (Goldstein, 5/10)

The action by the Department of Health and Human Services affirms that federal laws forbidding sex discrimination in health care also protect gay and transgender people. The Trump administration had defined “sex” to mean gender assigned at birth, thereby excluding transgender people from the law’s umbrella of protection. “Fear of discrimination can lead individuals to forgo care, which can have serious negative health consequences,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Everyone — including LGBTQ people — should be able to access health care, free from discrimination or interference, period.” (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/10)

Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill Friday banning transgender athletes from participating in school and university sports according to the gender with which they identify, making Montana the latest of several Republican-controlled states to approve such measures this year. (Samuels and Hanson, 5/7)

In a rare Saturday session, some Democrats’ intense anger at House Public Education Committee Chairman Harold Dutton flared, a day after Dutton revived a Senate-passed measure that would bar transgender children from competing in athletic contests with members of a sex different from the one listed on their birth certificates. On Friday, Dutton, who is from Houston, united with Republicans to advance the transgender sports restrictions out of his committee. It was an act of retaliation against fellow Democrats who the previous day successfully lodged a parliamentary objection stalling his bill to virtually guarantee replacement of Houston school trustees with a state-appointed board. (O'Hanlon and Garrett, 5/8)

Transgender girls would be banned from participating in female sports teams in high school or college in two bills introduced by Republican lawmakers in Ohio, which became the latest state to take up the contentious debate. The proposals, titled the Save Women’s Sports Act, would require schools and higher education institutions in the state to designate “separate single-sex teams and sports for each sex.” (Amiri, 5/7)

Dr. Rachel Levine was not a particularly aggressive football player at the elite all-boys school she attended in Massachusetts four decades ago. She loved drama and glee club, but when it came to football, she said, “I told the coach, ‘Well, I’ll tackle, but I don’t want to hurt them.’ ”Dr. Levine returned to Belmont Hill School as a guest speaker in 2016 and offered a little life advice to the boys clad in the same blue blazer and khaki pants uniform that she once wore: “Don’t make any assumptions.” Dr. Levine, a former Pennsylvania health secretary, is now President Biden’s assistant secretary for health, the first openly transgender person ever confirmed by the Senate, and she has taken office in the middle of something of a transgender moment. (Stolberg, 5/8)

Walmart on Thursday announced it plans to acquire MeMD, a multispeciality telehealth provider, in a move that will allow the company to grow its virtual care delivery nationwide. MeMD has provided medical and mental health services to consumers online since 2010. The company will serve as a feature of Walmart Health centers nationwide, in addition to in-person care. As a result, Walmart Health will be able to include urgent, behavioral and primary care to its list of virtual services. (Gellman, 5/7)

Walmart Inc. said Thursday it purchased telehealth provider MeMD and plans to offer nationwide virtual health care services, another sign of the retail behemoth’s healthcare ambitions. The acquisition will allow Walmart to expand its Walmart Health service around the country, the company said. The retail giant didn’t disclose the financial details of the transaction. (Nassauer and Winkler, 5/6)

CMS is sending warning letters to hospitals breaking new federal rules requiring them to make public the prices they negotiate with insurers, a CMS spokesperson confirmed. The regulation took effect on Jan. 1 and forces hospitals to publish a machine-readable file online containing their payer-negotiated rates. It also requires them to make available a consumer-friendly display of at least 300 shoppable services, including 70 specified by CMS. But hospitals don't need to post a list of shoppable services if they allow consumers to use a price estimator tool to calculate their out-of-pocket costs for all shoppable services. (Brady, 5/7)

Georgia is last in the nation in conducting recertification inspections of its nursing homes, according to a recent media report. By the end of March, nearly 80 percent of Georgia facilities had gone for at least 18 months without these comprehensive inspections, said the investigation report by CNHI, a newspaper company. (Miller, 5/9)

Confidential information about patients receiving mental health and addiction treatment services was available on a Maine government website for more than three months, a state Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said Friday. At least 20 documents on the state government website contained names and, in some cases, addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers, for those receiving mental health and substance use treatment, the Bangor Daily News found last month. The documents, all from 2013, 2014 and 2015, included reports of patients’ violent and suicidal behavior, descriptions of situations that landed patients in the hospital, and some patients’ and family members’ complaints about health care providers. (Stone, 5/9)

Scripps Health said the cyberattack last weekend that took down its IT systems stemmed from malware on its computer network. San Diego-based Scripps Health, which operates five hospitals in the region, is still offline following the cyberattack on Saturday, May 1 that has significantly disrupted care and forced medical personnel to use paper records. (Landi, 5/7)

Providence St. Jude Medical Center is one of many California hospitals that in recent years have followed statewide initiatives and implemented interventions to reduce C-sections in low-risk first births — those involving single fetuses in the head-down position at 37 weeks or after. The efforts are working: A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the rate of cesareans in low-risk first births in California declined from 26 percent in 2014, before the coordinated efforts began, to 22.8 percent in 2019. By comparison, during the same period, the rate nationwide stayed the same, at 26 percent. (Stenson, 5/9)

The Biden administration plans to open applications for billions of dollars in grants for hospitals and other health care providers before the end of May after months of delay, according to three people familiar with the plans. Hospitals have pleaded with administration officials to release more funds, which Congress in December directed them to disburse. Currently, providers have only been reimbursed for a portion of their losses through June 2020. (Cohrs, 5/10)

Strong performance in Cigna Corp.'s Evernorth health services division, investment portfolio and low member medical costs at the end of last year increased the company's revenue 6.5% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2021. The Bloomfield, Conn.-based insurer generated $40.9 billion in revenue during the first quarter, up from $38.4 billion during the same time in 2020. On an investor call, Chief Financial Officer Brian Evanko said the company benefited from its recent partnership with Amazon Prime Therapeutics, and named investments in its Express Scripts pharmacy benefit manager as a potential growth area going forward. (Tepper, 5/7)

Kaiser Permanente kicked off 2021 on a high note, having drawn $2 billion in profit in the first quarter. Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser's strong net income in the quarter ended March 31 was a significant swing from its $1.1 billion net loss in the prior-year period, according to results released Friday. But the not-for-profit system noted $2 billion is still down about 60% from its net income of $3.2 billion in the first quarter of 2019, about a year before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. (Bannow, 5/7)

April brought more underwhelming employment news for healthcare employment, with nursing homes and hospitals continuing to shed jobs. Preliminary jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show the number of jobs in healthcare dipped by an estimated 4,100 in April from the prior month, largely because the agency revised upward its preliminary March total by 19,100. Although healthcare employment gains have been underwhelming in recent months, the industry's April employment total of 16 million jobs was still much higher than its 14.9 million jobs in April 2020, the height of the pandemic's first wave. Healthcare employment is down 542,000 since February 2020. (Bannow, 5/7)

Health care employment in the U.S. remained sluggish last month with a drop of about 19,500 nursing and residential care facility jobs, according to the latest labor report. It's the latest sign of the lingering economic hardship the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked on health care and, in particular, on the nursing home industry. (Reed, 5/10)

Kristen Campbell often felt like she was treating patients without all the pieces of the puzzle in front of her. As a clinical dietician at a large medical center, she usually had 15 minutes to run through their medical history  and squeeze in a new diet and exercise plan. It was only after taking a job with a virtual diabetes company — and joining a larger team of providers for patients — that she felt like she could see the whole picture. (Brodwin, 5/10)

Sirey Zhang, a first-year student at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, was on spring break in March when he received an email from administrators accusing him of cheating. Dartmouth had reviewed Mr. Zhang’s online activity on Canvas, its learning management system, during three remote exams, the email said. The data indicated that he had looked up course material related to one question during each test, honor code violations that could lead to expulsion, the email said. (Singer and Krolik, 5/9)

During a video meeting Friday, scores of people in scrubs and surgical masks populated grainy little boxes on the screen — nurses, assistants and respiratory therapists from Sinai Hospital in Northwest Baltimore. The nursing staff was attending a second virtual Nurse of the Year awards ceremony, one of a range of events organized by LifeBridge Health in recognition of National Nurses Week, which began Thursday. At Maryland hospitals, the celebrations offered an opportunity to reflect on being a nurse on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, just as many are starting to move on from the urgency. The theme was caring for the caregiver. (Mann, 5/9)

Among scientists around the world, Eli Broad’s name will forever be tied to the role the institute he founded played in helping the Boston and Cambridge area emerge from the global pandemic, and the foundation it provided for researchers who are seeking to identify and contain variants of the Covid-19 virus. But Broad, who died April 30, also will be remembered by families, such as the Chakrabartis in Cambridge, for what the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has done on an individual level, bringing the intellectual clout of a major research institute to bear on a rare illness. (Marquard and Saltzman, 5/8)

She was a mother of the mountains. For decades, Eula Hall cared for her people in Appalachian Kentucky, helping heal the sick and give voice to the vulnerable. From the day nearly a half-century ago when she started her Mud Creek Clinic in Grethel until her death on Saturday at age 93, her mission was to improve health in Eastern Kentucky from the ground up. And that was no easy task in one of the most impoverished places in America, where people die of cancer, heart disease, addiction and other ailments at some of the nation's highest rates. She was an Appalachian legend, described as a "saint" by a congressman — recognizable by the halo of gray and white hair framing her face. (Ungar, 5/9)

In a significant step toward greater transparency, the World Health Organization and the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities are urging drug makers to publish clinical study reports for new medicines and vaccines without redacting any confidential information. The agencies released a joint statement in which they explained their goal is to ensure research results are publicly accessible so that decision makers — notably, health authorities and physicians — have greater understanding about drugs and vaccines. The agencies also argued releasing trial information that is not redacted would boost public confidence in medical products. (Silverman, 5/7)

Alzheimer’s among U.S. Latinos is forecast to grow almost 600% in the next 25 years, but they’re chronically under-enrolled in clinical trials of drugs to treat the disease, according to the National Institutes of Health. U.S. Latinos are more likely to have Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia than white non-Hispanics, according to the organization UsAgainstAlzheimer’s. (Franco, 5/8)

An Australian company that recently began selling a rapid at-home COVID-19 test plans to open its first U.S. production plant in Maryland later this year. Ellume plans to announce today that it will make the test kits in Ballenger Creek, just south of Frederick, and eventually employ 1,500 people to make up to 19 million test kits a month. (Cohn, 5/10)

Oklahoma has secured a $2.6 million refund for a malaria drug purchase once touted by former President Trump as a treatment for COVID-19, the state's attorney general announced Friday. Trump repeatedly promoted hydroxychloroquine last year despite health officials warning that the drug should not be prescribed for treating COVID-19 outside of research or hospital settings due to serious side effects. Oklahoma purchased 1.2 million hydroxychloroquine pills in April 2020, per AP. (Chen, 5/7)

Field Trip Health is not an ordinary clinic. Opening on May 10, the River Oaks facility will house Houston’s next ketamine-enhanced psychotherapy clinic. Here, patients can take psychedelic therapy in a space designed just for it. It’s located at 4310 Westheimer Road, Suite 220. While Ketamine is currently a schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act and is approved for use in hospitals and other medical settings as an anesthetic, FTH administers a ketamine-derived nasal spray drug called Esketamine that recently earned FDA-approval for those with treatment-resistant depression. (Nickerson, 5/8)

Biocryst Pharma did it. Aurinia Pharma did not. The “it” is a successful, commercial drug launch. Biocryst reported a better-than-expected $10.9 million in sales for its drug Orladeyo in the March quarter — the first public assessment of the medicine’s marketing progress since it was approved last December. (Feuerstein, 5/7)

Accusers in a lawsuit alleging opioid wholesalers have fault in the Cabell County and Huntington drug crisis used a “heroine,” scientist, historian, social worker and health expert to stitch together pieces of a quilt they say will eventually explain how the area was left in carnage. Huntington Fire Chief Jan Rader, who rose to fame for her role in the 2017 Oscar-nominated documentary “Heroine;” Dr. Corey Waller, an addiction medicine specialist; historian David Courtwright; Connie Priddy, program coordinator for Huntington’s Quick Response Team; and West Virginia’s former chief health officer, Dr. Rahul Gupta, testified about what they saw before, during and after 80 million pills were shipped to the area over an eight-year period starting in 2006. (Hessler, 5/9)

Two major Nashville venues will soon lift capacity restrictions as the city continues to reopen from implementing limitations on businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. News outlets report that Nashville Soccer Club will open at near capacity for its May 23 match. Face coverings will still be encouraged, but not required for outdoors. Meanwhile, Grand Ole Opry will begin weekly performances at full capacity on May 14 for the first time in more than a year. The indoor mask mandate will remain in place. (5/10)

Large event venues including TD Garden, Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium will be allowed to double their current capacities starting on Monday, and amusement parks will be permitted to reopen at half capacity as the state relaxes its COVID-19 restrictions. The state is scheduled to move to the next step in its reopening plan, allowing large indoor and outdoor venues to increase capacity from 12% to 25%. Gov. Charlie Baker announced the shift last month, saying the state’s coronavirus cases had fallen 20% since March. (5/9)

Walt Disney World Resorts announced this week that it will begin to phase out temperature checks at parks and facilities before the end of the month. The theme parks and related resorts will end temperature screenings for cast members on May 8 and for visiting guests on May 16, according to an announcement on Disney's website. The change comes as Florida begins to make adjustments to its local coronavirus regulations. (Vaughn, 5/7)

After more than a year of being shut out, cashiers, food vendors, guest greeters and other workers are making their way back to America’s most beloved baseball stadiums, amusement parks and concert venues — but the great return is being met with changes and conflicting feelings of anxiety and excitement as tens of thousands of fans and visitors also make their way back. “You don’t know what’s going to happen,” said beer vendor Heidi Hashem, 46, at the beginning of the 2021 season. (Messenger and Pandise, 5/8)

Last Mother’s Day, they celebrated with bacon and eggs over FaceTime. This time, Jean Codianni of Los Angeles flew to New Jersey to surprise her 74-year-old mother, now that both have been vaccinated against the disease that has stolen uncountable hugs and kisses around the world. “You forget how your mom smells, how she looks. It’s like, she never looks as beautiful as the last time you saw her,” Codianni said. “We understand how privileged we are, how lucky we are. Hundreds of thousands of people don’t get to celebrate Mother’s Day, or are celebrating it under a veil of grief.” (Lauer, Liu and White, 5/9)

For several days, Carmelita Murphy felt short of breath and her legs were swollen. She had given birth to a son, DJ, just two weeks earlier, so she figured those symptoms were part of the deal. Then came the really bad headache. After promising her mother that she would get it checked out, she went to bed that night in her Atlantic City apartment. But at 1 a.m., when she heard the baby cry and tried to get up, she felt dizzy and passed out. Murphy, then just 20 years old, had a condition normally seen in people many decades older: heart failure. (Avril, 5/9)

Whether through anger, denial, depression or guilt, everyone goes through their own ways of coping with the loss of someone they loved. For a few, they find the strength to transform that grief into ensuring that others don’t have to suffer the same loss they went through. The Power of Will, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to funding research and assisting families with loved ones suffering from sarcoma, was founded by the family of Will Hudson, a 26-year-old Auburn native who died in August 2020 after years of battling cancer. (Hosey, 5/9)

KHN: How Schools Can Help Kids Heal After The Pandemic’s Uncertainty 

Kai Humphrey, 9, has been learning from home for more than a year. He badly misses his Washington, D.C., elementary school, along with his friends and the bustle of the classroom. “I will be the first person ever to have every single person in the world as my friend,” he said on a recent Zoom call, his sandy-brown hair hanging down to his shoulder blades. From Kai, this kind of proclamation doesn’t feel like bragging, more like exuberant kindness. (Turner and Herman, 5/10)

KHN: From Covid Coverage To ‘Public Option’ Plans, Journalists Delve Into Details

KHN senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed changes in insurance coverage for covid-19 care on Newsy on Thursday. ... KHN senior correspondent Mary Agnes Carey discussed Connecticut’s legislative efforts to pass a “public option” insurance plan on WNPR’s “Where We Live” on Wednesday. (5/8)

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has revealed he has Asperger's syndrome while appearing on the US comedy sketch series Saturday Night Live (SNL). It is thought to be the first time Mr Musk has spoken about his condition. ... "I don't always have a lot of intonation or variation in how I speak... which I'm told makes for great comedy," he joked in his opening monologue. (5/9)

Nearly 2,000 police overhaul and accountability bills in all 50 states and the District of Columbia have been filed this session as federal and state lawmakers face mounting pressure to respond to continued police shootings and nationwide protests. Mental health advocates and professionals say passing such laws is necessary, but they argue strongly for additional measures to address the trauma Black people face because of policing issues. They’re pushing for more affordable and accessible mental health care, trauma-informed training for law enforcement officials and financial support for Black mental health professionals and community organizations. Mental health advocates also want to help Black people overcome any fear or distrust of the medical system. (Wright, 5/7)

KHN: The Making Of Reluctant Activists: A Police Shooting In A Hospital Forces One Family To Rethink American Justice

The beer bottle that cracked over Christian Pean’s head unleashed rivulets of blood that ran down his face and seeped into the soil in which Harold and Paloma Pean were growing their three boys. At the time, Christian was a confident high school student, a football player in the suburbs of McAllen, Texas, a border city at the state’s southern tip where teenage boys — Hispanic, Black, white — sung along to rap songs, blaring out the N-word in careless refrain. “If you keep it up, we’re going to fight,” Christian warned a white boy who sang the racial epithet at a party one evening in the waning years of George W. Bush’s presidency. And they did. (Varney, 5/10)

Scientists are currently testing more than 100 water treatment plants in North Georgia for a group of chemicals linked to cancer and other serious illnesses. It’s part of a massive water monitoring program initiated earlier this year by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division targeting perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS for short. (5/8)

Walt Disney World and AdventHealth are teaming up to offer a new emergency room and primary care facility on the Disney campus. The AdventHealth Emergency Department and Primary Care Plus will be located at Flamingo Crossings Town Center, near the Western Gateway at Walt Disney World. AdventHealth Central Florida CEO Randy Haffner says both will offer Disney guests, workers and community members urgent and primary care minutes from the parks, seven days a week. (Prieur, 5/7)

A nonprofit in Montana plans to open a slaughterhouse that will kill and process cattle donated for food banks. The $2.5 million Producer Partnership plant outside Livingston will be able to process 300 animals per month by next year, the Billings Gazette reported. Ranchers who donate cattle for food banks will have access to the processing plant for their own retail sales. (5/9)

Lisa Evans remembers a man in Little Rock who did not want to be around his family members because he was afraid they might hurt him. With the help of Little Rock police, the Crisis Stabilization Unit at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where Evans is the director, was able to get the man, who was struggling with psychosis and paranoid thoughts, the mental health care he needed and to reunite him with his family in a matter of days. "We feel most successful when we get someone like that, [when] we get them stabilized and get them into a housing environment," she said. (Vrbin, 5/10)

A year after tackling what state finance officials projected would be a record budget shortfall, California’s government is rolling in so much money that it could be forced to give some cash back to taxpayers. Bolstered by federal aid and an economy that has recovered faster than anticipated, particularly for the wealthiest Californians, Gov. Gavin Newsom will reveal his revised budget plan this week. The announcement kicks off a final negotiation with lawmakers over the multibillion-dollar surplus that’s expected to surpass rosy estimates from January. At stake is major spending on homelessness, health care for undocumented immigrants and the worsening drought. (Koseff, 5/9)

Many of the nation’s medical marijuana holdouts are giving in as pot activists make inroads this year with conservative strongholds — and are poised to notch more wins in the coming weeks. Medical marijuana bills are advancing in the Republican-controlled legislatures of North Carolina, Alabama and Kansas for the first time. Efforts to expand limited medical programs in bedrock conservative states like Texas and Louisiana also appear close to passage. (Zhang, Demko and Fertig, 5/9)

Proponents and opponents of legalizing recreational marijuana are both mounting a furious last-minute lobbying effort ahead of a potentially decisive vote Monday on a bill before Louisiana’s conservative House of Representatives. The state’s sheriffs, who enjoy huge influence at the State Capitol, are asking lawmakers to vote “no” on Rep. Richard Nelson’s House Bill 699, which would legalize the drug for recreational use by adults over 21. They claim the measure, which has shown surprising viability, is rushed and ignores the downsides of legalization other states have experienced. On Saturday, the Louisiana Republican Party, which rarely wades into legislative issues, issued a "call to action" urging people to contact their lawmakers to get them to vote down the bill. (Karlin, 5/10)

Germany is making the one-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine available to all adults as it did with the AstraZeneca vaccine, though the bulk of the expected deliveries is still some way off. Germany has recommended the AstraZeneca shot mainly for over-60s because of a rare type of blood clot seen in an extremely small number of recipients. But amid a push to get as many people inoculated as possible, the government decided to allow doctors’ offices to vaccinate any adults with it -- putting aside a priority system under which the oldest and most vulnerable have been vaccinated first. (5/10)

The European Union is effectively turning away from the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, after the Anglo-Swedish manufacturer fell behind on its delivery targets and amid concerns over the vaccine’s efficacy against some variants of the coronavirus. “We did not renew the order after June. We’ll see what happens,” European Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said on French radio over the weekend. (Schemm, Hassan and Noack, 5/10)

Several countries have shifted their guidance in recent days on who should receive the AstraZeneca PLC vaccine, as public-health officials continue to weigh the risk of the vaccine against the prevalence of Covid-19 cases. The AstraZeneca shot hasn’t been cleared for use in the U.S., unlike Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. But in some wealthy countries where the supply of those vaccines has been more constrained, AstraZeneca doses have been offered to people as young as 30, showing the wide variation even among wealthy countries in vaccination campaigns. (Mackrael, 5/9)

The European Union and Pfizer-BioNTech have signed a deal for up to 1.8 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The bloc's biggest contract to date would cover its entire population, marking a significant ramp up in its fight against the coronavirus. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the deal in a tweet, writing it is for a " for guaranteed 900 million doses (+900 million options)." Von der Leyen says other contracts and vaccines are coming for the 27-member bloc with a population of around 450 million. (Held, 5/8)

Spaniards took to the streets during the early hours of Sunday morning to celebrate the end of 202 days of nationwide coronavirus restrictions that had limited travel between regions, largely barred social gatherings and subjected citizens to curfews since last fall. In scenes that recalled pre-COVID New Year’s Eve celebrations, thousands gathered in the central squares of most of the country’s cities to ring in the end of the “state of alarm” measures adopted by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government on October 25 last year. (Hernandez-Morales, 5/9)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out on Monday the next phase of lockdown easing in England, giving the green light to “cautious hugging” and allowing pubs to serve customers pints inside after months of strict measures. Aided by one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the world, Britain's daily case and death numbers have dropped sharply - reporting just two fatalities on Sunday - enabling it to emerge from a lockdown imposed in January to tackle a second wave. (Faulconbridge and Holton, 5/10)

An emeritus professor of bacteriology in the United Kingdom is predicting COVID-19 could be "eradicated" in the country by winter because of the success of the vaccine rollout, according to reports. "I don't see any reason of why we should need to go into lockdown again," Hugh Pennington told The Sun. "We are now getting close to China and Taiwan in effectively eradicating it within our own territory." A total of 1,770 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the United Kingdom on Sunday, with the week’s total of 14,659 cases down by 4.3% compared with the previous week, Reuters reported. (Miles, 5/9)

European leaders ramped up their criticism of the United States' support for a proposal to waive certain patent protections for coronavirus vaccines, with European Council President Charles Michel saying Saturday that a waiver is not "the magic bullet,” AP reports. The leaders instead pressed President Biden to lift U.S. export restrictions on vaccines, arguing it would have a greater impact on vaccine production and distribution. (Knutson, 5/8)

The castle said to have helped inspire Bram Stoker's "Dracula" will now offer COVID-19 vaccines. Bran Castle in Romania, often referred to as Dracula's Castle, will have free Pfizer vaccines for visitors every weekend in May, the BBC reports. (Siese, 5/9)

Denmark has seen a dramatic increase in survival from heart attacks after it began recruiting volunteers and arming some of them with smartphone technology that alerts them to nearby cardiac emergencies and helps them locate automated external defibrillators, or AEDs. The volunteers are then asked to enter residences and perform CPR until an ambulance arrives. (Sorensen, 5/9)

Calls grew for India to impose a nationwide lockdown as new coronavirus cases and deaths held close to record highs on Monday, increasing pressure on the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The 366,161 new infections and 3,754 deaths reported by the health ministry were off a little from recent peaks, taking India's tally to 22.66 million with 246,116 deaths. (5/10)

India is testing and vaccinating its citizens at a lower rate compared with recent months even as infections and deaths surge, a portent for the fight against the coronavirus in the world’s second-most populous nation. Cases have risen 3.6 times in the last one month and deaths 6.3 times, while testing has increased only 1.5 times and daily vaccine doses fallen 38%, Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, wrote on Twitter. (Pradhan, 5/10)

Eli Lilly and Co said on Monday it had signed licensing agreements with three Indian generic drugmakers to expand the availability of its arthritis drug baricitinib in the country for treating COVID-19 patients. The agreements will bolster India's arsenal of drugs to battle its catastrophic second wave of the pandemic, which has led to an acute shortage of coronavirus medicines including remdesivir and tocilizumab. (5/10)

Amazon told CNBC Thursday it is delaying its annual Prime Day sales in Canada and India as both countries struggle to control surges in new coronavirus cases. In an email reviewed by Bloomberg, the company said the delay was needed to protect "the health and safety of our employees and customers," though Amazon didn’t give a rescheduled date in either country. (Knutson, 5/7)

India released grim new daily COVID-19 figures on Sunday, reporting more than 400,000 new cases and 4,000 new deaths in what has become the world's worst surge of the coronavirus. Among those trying to help is a doctor from New York, who's sending over some of the supplies that helped his state survive its own catastrophic surge. There was a welcome sight at Mumbai International Airport tarmac as a shipment of much-needed medical aid and life-saving supplies arrived. Among them were ventilators that have been hard to come by.  (Chen, 5/9)

Several Asian countries are facing new coronavirus waves, with some struggling to keep up with some of the worst outbreaks since the beginning of the pandemic. While India accounted for half of the global infections this past week, per the World Health Organization, cases are surging in countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Cambodia, CNN reports. (Gonzalez, 5/8)

Taiwan will quarantine all pilots for its largest carrier China Airlines Ltd for 14 days as it tries to stop an outbreak of COVID-19, the health minister said on Monday, impacting a lifeline for the island's trade-dependent economy. (5/10)

China will draw a “separation line” atop Mount Everest to prevent the coronavirus from being spread by climbers ascending Nepal’s side of the mountain, Chinese state media reported Monday. A team of Tibetan mountaineering guides will set up the separation line at the peak before climbers attempt to reach the summit from the Chinese side, state-owned Xinhua News Agency said. (5/10)

Pfizer Inc. vaccine partner BioNTech SE said it would set up a new Asia headquarters in Singapore to produce its Covid-19 vaccine and other medicines, as global demand for the lifesaving shots continues to grow. The new factory, which is supported by Singapore’s Economic Development Board, a government agency, is expected to become operational in 2023, BioNTech said. The company didn’t release any information regarding the cost of the project and the scale of government support. (Pancevski, 5/10)

A handful of athletes from as far away as the U.S. and the U.K. came to Tokyo for a track and field competition Sunday that served as a rare on-site test for a pandemic-constrained Olympics. Nine athletes who live outside Japan were granted an exception and permitted to enter the country, which is generally closed to visitors. Their movements were limited to their lodging and the National Stadium, which was empty except for staff and journalists. (Landers, 5/9)

American sprinter Justin Gatlin was among 420 athletes to participate in a Tokyo test event with pandemic precautions in place Sunday ahead of this summer's delayed Olympic Games. No spectators were present during the event at Tokyo's Olympic Stadium as the city remains under a COVID-19 state of emergency due to a spike in coronavirus cases. (Falconer, 5/9)

Covid-19 related deaths in India are expected to double in the coming weeks. People across socioeconomic classes are being cremated en masse in large holes in the ground. The ordeal doesn’t even end with death. Medical bills are piling up, a burden large enough to tip working-class families into multi-generational poverty. Younger adults desperate for vaccines are effectively being forced to pay for them, while those most at risk aren’t adequately insured. The state’s threadbare safety net has all but collapsed. (Anjani Trivedi and Andy Mukherjee, 5/9)

The Covid-19 pandemic is not over, but it is already clear that Lord Rees, Britain’s astronomer royal, has won his 2017 bet with the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker that “bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event within a six-month period starting no later than Dec. 31, 2020. ”Last year, according to Johns Hopkins University, the SARS-CoV-2 virus claimed the lives of 1.8 million people. The global death toll could exceed 5 million by Aug. 1 — or 9 million, if one accepts the drastic new upward revision by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. It could have been worse, of course. In  March 2020, some epidemiologists argued that, without drastic social distancing and economic lockdowns, the ultimate death toll could be between 30 and 40 million. Yet the cost of such nonpharmaceutical interventions has been enormous — for the U.S. alone, an estimated 90% of GDP. (Niall Ferguson, 5/9)

The Pandemic fortunes of the world have flipped. At the outset, the United States and Europe suffered intensely, while much of the global south was relatively unscathed. Now, the United States is tasting recovery, thanks to highly effective vaccines, while infection, sickness and death ravage the less developed world. South Asia and Latin America are being swamped by the coronavirus. This cries out for a more generous and ambitious response than has been forthcoming. (5/8)

As a field producer covering vaccine hesitancy in rural America, I've been hearing from people who sit on the extremes of the vaccination hesitation spectrum. Last week in rural Oregon, a woman of advanced age breathlessly explained to me how she was never taking the vaccine because Covid-19 "is just the flu." A 26-year-old waitress told me she was hesitant because the vaccines are too new, and since she and her fiancé are fit and eat a balanced diet, she didn't think they needed it. A local health official said one person in his county declined the vaccine because they said it would turn them into a Democrat. (Julia Jones, 5/7)

Could today’s version of America have been able to win World War II? It hardly seems possible. That victory required national cohesion, voluntary sacrifice for the common good and trust in institutions and each other. America’s response to COVID-19 suggests that we no longer have sufficient quantities of any of those things. In 2020 Americans failed to socially distance and test for the coronavirus and suffered among the highest infection and death rates in the developed world. Millions decided that wearing a mask infringed their individual liberty. (David Brooks, 5/10)

Millions and millions of vaccine doses have been administered to Americans in a matter of months. This Herculean effort has brought peace of mind back to workers, students, teachers, families and entire communities, pushing us closer than ever to what health experts call “herd immunity. ”Herd immunity can be reached through vaccinations and the antibodies developed from contracting COVID-19, and when we reach herd immunity, this nation can finally return to normal. Hallelujah! (Richie Butler, 5/9)

The Central Valley is home to hundreds of thousands of rural, immigrant farmworkers. Like all essential workers during this pandemic, our farmworkers have weathered the dangers of infection while supplying our nation’s kitchen tables with fruits, nuts and vegetables. Recent evidence suggests that agricultural work ranks among the deadliest occupations of the pandemic, increasing the risk of death by upwards of 40%. In late January, the California Department of Public Health reaffirmed its commitment to our farmworkers — regardless of immigration status — by including agricultural work in Phase 1B of its vaccine allocation guidelines. Although several of California’s 58 counties have since transitioned to Phase 1B, there is still a shortage of vaccine doses to meet demand. (Ivan Marquez, 5/8)

In our nation, babies are born into a system of well-child care—a series of planned health care visits designed to protect their health from day one through age six. But what about their mothers? No such system exists for them after the postpartum visit. Our fragmented health care system offers no bridge across the chasm that separates maternity care and ongoing primary care. This chasm harms many mothers; for Black and Indigenous people, the gap in care too often means the difference between life and death. The U.S. maternal mortality rate is the highest among affluent nations, and Black and Indigenous mothers are 3.5 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than are white mothers. One-third of these deaths occur between one week and one year postpartum (in the chasm); and for every maternal death, there are at least 100 near misses. When complications, such as hypertension and diabetes, are not followed by primary care after pregnancy, chronic illness can develop. (Lois McCloskey, Ann Celi and Chloe Bird, 5/9)

Expectant mothers tend to spend time fine-tuning their baby registries and decorating their nurseries. I did some of that, but also spent time getting my blood pressure checked and drafting a will with an estate lawyer. As a Black woman, I embody the high risk of dying during or soon after giving birth. As a Black OB-GYN, I know that Black women in the U.S. are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. (Joy Cooper, 5/9)

The current state of Black maternal health in the United States is a grim indication that we as a country have lost our way. The U.S. ranks last overall among industrialized countries with a maternal death rate of 20.1 per 100,000 pregnancies, and the rate is rising. The crisis for people of color in this country is even more acute. Despite advances in reproductive technologies and safe motherhood initiatives, hospitals do not keep Black women and people who are pregnant or recently gave birth safe during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. (Karen A. Scott and Monica R. Mclemore, 5/9)

Like any brilliant idea, this one emerged from a personal incident. Because I have arthritis in my knees, and my frequent bending down to tend to my dog, or to retrieve fumbled items, I’ve lately been wearing knee pads. Turns out that my joints love their protection, and along with the lessening of knee pain, the pads stabilize my legs. When wearing them, I feel as sturdy as a bouncer at a bar. (Elaine Soloway, 5/7)