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President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he has ordered a closer intelligence review of what he said were two equally plausible scenarios of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden revealed that earlier this year he tasked the intelligence community with preparing “a report on their most up-to-date analysis of the origins of Covid-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident.” (Wilkie and Mendez, 5/26)

After months of minimizing that possibility as a fringe theory, the Biden administration is joining worldwide pressure for China to be more open about the outbreak, aiming to head off GOP complaints the president has not been tough enough as well as to use the opportunity to press China on alleged obstruction. ... Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have promoted the theory that the virus emerged from a laboratory accident rather than naturally through human contact with an infected animal in Wuhan, China. (Miller and Madhani, 5/26)

In a statement, Biden said the intelligence community has "coalesced around two likely scenarios" — that the coronavirus either came from human contact with an infected animal, or from a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China. He said most intelligence entities don't believe there's sufficient information to reach a conclusion about the virus' origins, and the three intel entities that lean toward one explanation or another only have "low or moderate confidence" in their conclusions. (Wise, 5/26)

[President Joe Biden] wants the intelligence community to cooperate with other elements of the government, but getting to the bottom of how this disease occurred, at least in the eyes of the President dealing with obstruction from China, is now fully an intelligence operation. But that order likely poses a complicated challenge for intelligence agencies, which, as CNN has repeatedly reported, are limited in their ability to confidently answer the question of what actually happened. While the intelligence community has been actively engaged on the issue since it broke, Biden's order is a public call for more, despite the fact that it has been unable to make significant progress for more than a year. (Zachary B. Wolf, 5/26)

Calls to investigate Chinese laboratories have reached a fever pitch in the United States, as Republican leaders allege that the coronavirus causing the pandemic was leaked from one, and as some scientists argue that this ‘lab leak’ hypothesis requires a thorough, independent inquiry. But for many researchers, the tone of the growing demands is unsettling. They say the volatility of the debate could thwart efforts to study the virus’s origins. (Maxmen, 5/26)

Facebook will no longer take down posts claiming that Covid-19 was man-made or manufactured, a company spokesperson told POLITICO on Wednesday, a move that acknowledges the renewed debate about the virus’ origins. A narrative in flux: Facebook’s policy tweak arrives as support surges in Washington for a fuller investigation into the origins of Covid-19 after the Wall Street Journal reported that three scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in late 2019 with symptoms consistent with the virus. The findings have reinvigorated the debate about the so-called Wuhan lab-leak theory, once dismissed as a fringe conspiracy theory. (Lima, 5/26)

Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing increasing calls from Republican lawmakers for his termination over what they say is a shift in his position on whether the U.S. government funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the White House, told lawmakers Tuesday that the National Institutes of Health funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance with $600,000 over a period of five years. Funding to the nonprofit was eventually halted by the NIH. (Mendez, 5/26)

With coronavirus variants popping up across the globe, new questions are beginning to arise about how long the immunity from the vaccines will last, and whether booster shots will be needed to maintain protection against the mutating virus. Although vaccine companies are already in the process of conducting clinical trials for booster shots, and preparing for potential widespread distribution, a decision pertaining to if and when the updated shots will be needed in the months and years to come will ultimately be made by a team of independent scientists and U.S. government officials .But in this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, there is still very little known about COVID-19, and when a booster shot might be needed. (Mitropoulos, Ramanathan and Salzman, 5/26)

Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The findings may help put to rest lingering fears that protection against the virus will be short-lived. Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response. (Mandavilli, 5/26)

Dr. Richard Novak, professor and chief of infectious diseases at the University of Illinois Chicago’s Department of Medicine, is already getting questions from the participants of the university’s vaccine clinical trial about whether they will need a booster shot. Those participants were among the first people to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and some are anxious that, if immunity wanes, they will also be first to confront that possibility. ... It’s a question on the mind of many people who are now fully vaccinated: Will they need a booster shot to stay that way? (Buckley, 5/27)

Leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Wednesday said that he believes recipients of the coronavirus vaccine will need a booster shot, but he declined to say when. "I don't anticipate that the durability of the vaccine protection is going to be infinite," Fauci told a Senate subcommittee. "It's just not. So I would imagine we will need, at some time, a booster." He said the interval of protection from the vaccines is unknown but that it lasts at least six months and likely a year. (Smith-Schoenwalder, 5/26)

Five months after the first COVID-19 vaccine doses made their way to the nation's nursing homes, long-term care advocates are sounding the alarm about the need for a plan for a potential booster shot, out of concern that elderly long-term care residents will be the first to see the effects of the coronavirus vaccine wear off. Although vaccine companies have already begun clinical trials for booster shots, there is still not enough research to know if or when people will need them, experts tell ABC News. (Romero, 5/27)

Production of another potential vaccine against COVID-19 will begin within weeks, its developers Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline said Thursday as they launched a large trial enrolling 35,000 adult volunteers in the United States, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The study will test vaccine candidate formulas against the original coronavirus that spread from Wuhan, China, and against the variant first seen in South Africa, the pharmaceutical firms said. If the trial is successful, regulators could approve the vaccine for use in the last three months of the year, the drugmakers said in a statement. (5/27)

Two COVID-19 vaccines from China's Sinopharm showed more than 70% efficacy against symptomatic cases, but it remains unclear how much protection they provide against severe or asymptomatic cases, according to the first detailed result of a large late-stage study published to the public. A vaccine developed by a Wuhan-based subsidiary of Sinopharm was 72.8% effective against symptomatic COVID-19 at least two weeks after second injection, based on interim results, the peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed on Wednesday. (5/27)

The Americans lodging complaints against coronavirus vaccine mandates are a diverse lot — a sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina, nursing home employees in Wisconsin and students at the largest university in New Jersey. But their resistance is woven together by a common thread: the involvement of a law firm closely tied to the anti-vaccine movement. Attorneys from Siri & Glimstad — a New York firm that has done millions of dollars of legal work for one of the nation’s foremost anti-vaccination groups — are co-counsel in a case against the Durham County Sheriff’s Office. They’ve sent warning letters to officials in Rock County, Wis., as well as to the president of Rutgers University and other schools. (Stanley-Becker, 5/26)

Two Republican North Dakota state senators have requested that health officials stop calling residents and offering COVID-19 vaccine information. The Bismarck Tribune reports that state Sens. Jessica Bell and Nicole Poolman sent a Tuesday letter to State Health Officer Nizar Wehbi over concerns about the role of the government in “personal health choices” "In order for the Department to initiate these calls, medical records must be accessed without the immediate consent from the citizens of North Dakota," they wrote in their letter. (Choi, 5/26)

The state attorney general is attacking Indiana University’s decision to require proof of COVID-19 vaccinations from all students and employees as illegal under a new state law banning the state or local governments from issuing or requiring vaccine passports. That advisory opinion issued late Wednesday afternoon, however, contradicts a top Republican legislative leader who said he didn’t believe the law adopted last month applied to public universities or K-12 schools. The opinion from Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office, which is not binding, maintains that Indiana’s public universities are created by state law and that court rulings have determined them to be “arms of the state.” The opinion said the new law applies to universities since the legislature didn’t exempt them. (Davies, 5/27)

A lot of Americans are afraid of the COVID-19 vaccines. They believe the vaccines are killing people. The statistics fueling this fear typically come from a 30-year-old database known as VAERS -- the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System -- which can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. (Perry, 5/26)

President Joe Biden's goal of having 70% of American residents partially vaccinated by the Fourth of July holiday has been achieved by nine states, but others, mostly in the South, are lagging behind. Part of the problem is vaccine hesitancy, fueled especially by online misinformation. One persistent claim on social media is that COVID-19 vaccines are fake because of videos showing needles failing to appear out of a vaccinated person's arm after a shot. (Fauzia, 5/26)

Fears of side effects from the shots remain the top reason Illinois residents reject the shots, new statewide polling data shows. That, as well as persistent worries the entire process to develop the vaccine was rushed ... could have contributed to the slowdown in vaccinations that has hit the state in recent weeks, the data shows. But the data released earlier this week shows there is some progress, as only 38 percent of residents now worry about side effects, down from 53% in December. The number of Illinoisans who say they will never get a shot has dropped to 9.3 percent — a slight uptick from last month but down from 13.7 percent in the fall. (Senese, 5/27)

It was a million-dollar idea: Give every Ohio resident who gets a coronavirus vaccine a chance to win a seven-figure check. That audacious scheme to boost the state’s inoculation rate became reality Wednesday evening, when the first winners of the “Vax-a-Million” drawings were announced on live TV. Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has won national acclaim — and drawn local blowback — since unveiling the plan, which will award $1 million to five vaccinated adults and a full-ride scholarship to Ohio public colleges to five vaccinated teenagers. (Thebault, 5/27)

New York will raffle off 50 four-year scholarships to any public college or university in the state for people between 12–17 years old who receive a coronavirus vaccine from tomorrow until July 7, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday. It's part of the state's initiative to vaccinate young people after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the use of Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine in 12- to 15-year-olds. (Knutson, 5/26)

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) said the city will close walk-up vaccination sites by the end of June. Bowser issued a statement on Wednesday saying vaccinations at Arena Stage will halt on June 27, RISE Demonstration Center will close June 30, UDC will close June 24 and the Walter E. Washington Convention Center will close June 20. (Oshin, 5/26)

Two key committee chairs in the House and Senate are taking the first step toward crafting legislation to create a public health insurance option, reviving a debate between the parties on the federal government’s role in coverage and setting up a fight with the insurance industry. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., and House Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., issued a request for information Wednesday asking for input on a public option, which would establish a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers. (McIntire, 5/26)

Two Democratic committee chairs overseeing health care policy are seeking to jump-start a legislative push to craft a "public option" to compete with private insurers. House Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote a letter to interested parties Wednesday seeking their input by July 31 on how to structure a government-provided plan. (Tsirkin and Kapur, 5/26)

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden told Democratic primary voters that he “could no longer continue to abide by the Hyde Amendment” — the prohibition written into annual congressional spending bills since 1976 barring almost all federal funding for abortion. The first real test of his resolve will come when Biden sends his fiscal 2022 budget proposal to Capitol Hill on Friday. (Ollstein, 5/27)

But as President Joe Biden pushes a huge infrastructure plan and states hash out plans to fix roads and bridges and modernize highways, some critics say safety is getting short shrift. Even though the pandemic kept people off the roads in 2020, traffic fatalities rose by nearly 5%. And the number of pedestrians killed by drivers increased by about 44% between 2010 and 2019. "We need a fundamentally new approach to transportation at the federal level that makes safety the top priority overall for all projects, not just a separate program," said Steve Davis, a spokesperson for Smart Growth America, a Washington, D.C.-based urban planning advocacy group. (Bergal, 5/27)

Momentum in Congress for taking sexual assault prosecution powers away from military commanders, combined with a more flexible view by some military leaders, is pointing to a historic shift in the battle against what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin calls “the scourge of sexual assault.” The leading lawmaker voice on this issue, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, has bipartisan, filibuster-proof support for a bill that would take prosecution decisions out of the chain of command for major crimes, including sexual assault, rape and murder. The legislation is caught in a procedural struggle in the Senate that supporters see as an effort to stall the bill and water down its language. (Burns, 5/27)

Two measures introduced in Congress by lawmakers this week would overhaul the way the Department of Veterans Affairs cares for millions of former service members who were exposed to toxic substances, from atomic radiation sites in the Pacific to open-air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sweeping legislation, mostly focused on the issue of burn pits from recent wars, would compel VA to presume certain illnesses are linked to exposure to hazardous waste incineration, removing the burden of proof from veterans. (Horton, 5/26)

Mask mandates are being lifted across the US. Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are dropping. People are getting vaccinated. All these promising signs suggest the summer of 2021 could be very different from a year ago. Half of the adult population is now fully vaccinated, according to data published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the past week, the US averaged about 28,000 daily new cases, a 19% drop compared to the previous week, according to the CDC. (Elamroussi, 5/27)

The pace of new coronavirus infections in the U.S. fell by nearly 20% over the past week — the fifth straight week of double-digit declines. America’s vaccination drive is working, and as it continues to expand, the country can safely get back to many of its pre-pandemic routines. (Baker and Witherspoon, 5/27)

Only 8% of more than 25,000 German COVID-19 patients had high viral loads, one-third of whom were presymptomatic, asymptomatic, or mildly symptomatic, according to a study published yesterday in Science. High viral loads suggest greater infectiousness. Led by researchers from the Charite-Universitatsmedizin Berlin, the study involved measuring SARS-CoV-2 viral loads and estimating probability of virus cell culture isolation in 25,381 coronavirus patients, 24% of whom were identified at testing facilities, 38% of whom were hospitalized, and 6% of whom were infected with the B117 variant first seen in the United Kingdom. (Van Beusekom, 5/26)

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized a monoclonal antibody drug developed by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir as the third treatment of its kind cleared to help keep high-risk Covid patients out of the hospital. In laboratory tests the newly authorized drug, known as sotrovimab, has been able to neutralize the virus variants first identified in Britain, South Africa, Brazil, California, New York and India. The federal government, which has so far purchased the other antibody treatments given to Covid patients in the United States, has not announced any plans to purchase the new drug. (Robbins, 5/26)

Low testosterone concentrations in men with COVID-19 are associated with a greater likelihood of COVID-19 infection severity, artificial ventilation or intensive care unit (ICU) treatment, and death, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Network Open. The researchers looked at the hormone levels in an observational cohort of 152 men and women with symptomatic COVID-19 at the Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis from March to May 2020 (mean age, 63 years). Of the 143 who were admitted, hormones were also measured at days 3, 7, 14, and 28 as long as they were still hospitalized. (5/26)

As the country prepares for Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer, new numbers from federal aviation security officials showed that US air travel hit the highest daily level of the pandemic era on Sunday, the Washington Post reports, with 1.8 million passengers screened. Last year, Memorial Day weekend parties set off a summer surge of infections in swaths of the southern and western United States. But this year, widespread vaccination of  US adults means most can gather safely as long as they are fully vaccinated. (Soucheray, 5/26)

Since March of last year, cruise ships carrying more than 250 people have been prohibited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from sailing in U.S. waters. To start again, they need to follow a complex process that, in some cases, involves simulated cruises designed to test Covid-19 protocols. Hundreds of thousands of frustrated and restless cruise fans have lined up to be guinea pigs. Jennifer Juenke is one of them. (Yeginsu, 5/27)

CLEAR, a New York City-based company that specializes in biometric security and originally got its start speeding travelers through growing airport lines in the post-9/11 era, now sees a major opportunity as the country exits lockdown from the Covid-19 pandemic. CLEAR recently released a product called Health Pass that links Covid-19 health information to biometric identifiers such as your face, eyes and fingerprints. (de León, 5/26)

Boarding pass, suitcase, passport and ... digital vaccination certificate? Keen to avoid losing another summer of holiday revenue to the coronavirus pandemic, the European Union, some Asian governments and the airline industry are scrambling to develop so-called COVID-19 vaccine passports to help kickstart international travel. They're working on systems that would allow travelers to use mobile phone apps to prove they've been vaccinated, which could help them avoid onerous quarantine requirements at their destinations. (Chan, 5/26)

A broad coalition of Democrats from across the ideological spectrum plans on Thursday to begin what it promises will be a noisy and sustained campaign to pressure President Biden to include a major expansion of Medicare in his infrastructure package. More than 150 House Democrats — including Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the leader of the progressive wing in the House, and Representative Jared Golden of Maine, one of the chamber’s most centrist Democrats — have teamed up on the effort, which is all but certain to draw Republican opposition but contains proposals that are popular with a wide segment of voters. (Broadwater, 5/27)

President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus relief package signed into law in March contains a huge expansion in the Affordable Care Act, possibly the biggest since it was signed into law 11 years ago. But thanks to the coronavirus, there’s another health care crisis brewing. Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund, which pays for the services one receives in hospitals, nursing facilities and more, is projected to become insolvent sooner than expected — within three to five years. (Brancaccio, Farrell, Soderstrom, and Shin, 5/26)

The Justice Department announced criminal charges Wednesday against more than a dozen people from Florida to California in a series of Medicare scams that exploited coronavirus fears to bill tens of millions of dollars in bogus claims. A common hook involved a pandemic variant of identity theft: Fraudsters allegedly offered COVID-19 tests to get the Medicare numbers of unsuspecting patients, and then used that information to bill for lucrative but unneeded genetic tests that can cost thousands of dollars. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/26)

The scammers offered COVID-19 tests in order to get the Medicare numbers of unsuspecting patients and then charged them for other expensive medical procedures. The billings exceeded $140 million. Chris Schrank, assistant inspector general for investigations with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said these schemes have "evolved to another level." (Giella, 5/26)

Congress should reject any effort by lawmakers to slash funding for Social Security and Medicare in order to reduce the nation's ballooning budget deficit, AARP said Wednesday. "Targeting Social Security and Medicare to pay down the national debt is the wrong approach and is strongly opposed by older Americans, regardless of party affiliation," the group said in a news release. It noted that 85% of individuals age 50 or older "strongly oppose" slashing those benefits in order to help reduce the budget deficit. (Henney, 5/26)

Four hospitals, including Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta, are suing HHS, hoping to invalidate a CMS ruling that they say hinders their ability to contest the amount of disproportionate share hospital payments they received. The complaint, filed May 24 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues against CMS ruling 1739-R, which requires the Provider Reimbursement Review Board to remand certain DSH payments challenges to a Medicare contractor. The CMS ruling only applies to appeals involving the Medicare Part C days component of DSH calculations. (Paavola, 5/26)

In the 12 months ending in March 2021, nearly 8.5 million more Americans enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income people, according to a new analysis by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. Nationwide, that’s a 17.7% increase since February 2020, the month before the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States. Medicaid enrollment continues to rise, according to the analysis, which includes data from 36 states as of March 2021. The biggest annual increases were in Utah (37%) and Nebraska (31%), where expanded Medicaid was offered to low-income adults for the first time in 2020. (Vestal, 5/26)

The Texas Senate failed to vote Wednesday on legislation that would increase Medicaid access for new moms and low-income children, effectively quashing both bills. The measures, which have broad bipartisan support, had easily passed the House and was sponsored in the GOP-led Senate by a Republican. The upper chamber had until midnight to act if they were to remain viable this session. This is the second straight legislative cycle that the expansions have failed to make it through the legislative process, despite broad support. Both received a boost this year from Republican leadership in the House, which included the bills in a priority package of mostly bipartisan health care reforms. (Blackman, 5/26)

With a dozen states rejecting an offer of extra federal money if they expend Medicaid, Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators are now pushing for a federal workaround. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock on Wednesday wrote a letter saying they want the federal government to find a way to provide health insurance coverage to people in Georgia and 11 other states that haven’t agreed to expand the Medicaid program. (Amy, 5/26)

Florida Medicaid director Beth Kidder has submitted her resignation from the state Agency for Health Care Administration and taken a job with a consulting firm that specializes in financing and evaluation of publicly funded health care programs. Kidder’s resignation as a deputy secretary at the agency is effective at the end of the month. Tom Wallace, assistant deputy secretary of Medicaid finance and analytics, has been named the new Medicaid director. (5/26)

After months of controversy, the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest trade group has filed a lawsuit accusing the federal government of issuing an “invalid” rule that it argues would penalize drug makers for providing financial assistance to patients. At issue are widely used promotional tools such as co-pay coupons and discount cards, and whether these should be included when calculating the so-called ‘best price’ that drug makers must offer the government to participate in the Medicaid program. (Silverman, 5/26)

Amazon is contemplating opening physical pharmacy stores, including within its Whole Foods locations, Business Insider reports. Amazon still isn't disrupting the prescription drug industry. Amazon is maybe, possibly considering a way to capture a marginally bigger piece of the extremely small slice it has. (Herman, 5/27)

Alphabet Inc.’s Google and national hospital chain HCA Healthcare Inc. have struck a deal to develop healthcare algorithms using patient records, the latest foray by a tech giant into the $3 trillion healthcare sector. HCA, which operates across about 2,000 locations in 21 states, would consolidate and store with Google data from digital health records and internet-connected medical devices under the multiyear agreement. Google and HCA engineers will work to develop algorithms to help improve operating efficiency, monitor patients and guide doctors’ decisions, according to the companies. (Evans, 5/26)

A federal bankruptcy judge in New York indicated Wednesday that he would permit Purdue Pharma’s proposal to remake itself as a nonprofit company to be put to a vote by thousands of plaintiffs, who have sued to compel the maker of OxyContin to help pay for the terrible costs of the opioid epidemic. The restructuring plan is at the centerpiece of an intensely negotiated blueprint for a collective settlement with more than 600,000 claimants who contend that for two decades the company falsely and aggressively marketed its prescription opioid OxyContin as a nonaddictive painkiller, and as a result contributed to hundreds of thousands of opioid-related overdoses and deaths. (Hoffman and Williams Walsh, 5/26)

During years when the prescription opioid epidemic was spiraling out of control, corporate executives at the drug wholesaler McKesson sent at least two memos ordering employees to "refrain from using the word 'suspicious'" to describe escalating opioid orders from pharmacy chains. The documents were disclosed this week as part of a landmark federal opioid trial now underway in West Virginia, one of the states hit hardest by opioid deaths. (Mann, 5/26)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Wednesday that they sent warning letters to five companies accusing them of illegally selling dietary supplements that allegedly treat infertility and reproductive health disorders. The agencies issued the cautionary letters to the companies last week, saying that they violated federal laws by selling their products without FDA approval and by advertising the products’ abilities without evidence. The five companies that received the warnings were LeRoche Benicoeur/ConceiveEasy, Eu Natural Inc., Fertility Nutraceuticals LLC, SAL NATURE LLC/FertilHerb and NS Products Inc. (Coleman, 5/26)

Bayer AG said it will evaluate whether to continue using the active ingredient in its popular Roundup weedkiller in the residential U.S. market, in the wake of a court setback Wednesday in the company’s efforts to limit future liability over whether the product causes cancer. Bayer has said it would pay up to $9.6 billion to settle existing Roundup cases that tie the glyphosate-based product to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and another $2 billion toward future claims. The German company lost three trials between 2018 and 2019 brought by Roundup users who said the product caused their cancer and is working to resolve around 125,000 similar claims. (Randazzo and Bender, 5/26)

KHN: Enough To Wreck Their Rest: $10,322 For A Sleep Study

José Mendoza’s snoring was bad — but the silence when he stopped breathing was even worse for his wife, Nancy. The sudden quiet would wake her and she waited anxiously for him to take another breath. If too many seconds ticked by, she pushed him hard so that he moved and started breathing again. This happened several times a week. Diagnosed with severe sleep apnea 15 years ago, Mendoza was prescribed a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device to help him breathe easier. But the machine was noisy and uncomfortable. After a month, he stopped using it. (Andrews, 5/27)

When TJ Farnsworth, founder of Inception Fertility, embarked on his family’s fertility journey in 2012, he had no idea it would take him and his wife two years and multiple rounds of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to become parents. Fortunately, Farnsworth and his wife had the means to pay for doctor’s visits and fertility treatments, but cost can be an insurmountable barrier for many hopeful families. (DeMatteo, 5/26)

New guidelines released Wednesday remove a decades-old barrier to stem cell research, recommending that researchers be allowed to grow human embryos longer under limited conditions. The “14-day rule,” an international ethical standard that limits laboratory studies of human embryos, has been in place for decades and has been written into law in countries including Britain and Australia. Scientists previously have been required to destroy human embryos grown in a lab before they reach 14 days. Some researchers have favored revising the rule to further study the development process while opponents say such experiments at any stage cross a moral boundary and it’s unclear the change would advance research. (Cheng, 5/26)

An influential scientific panel cracked open the door on Wednesday to growing human embryos in the lab for longer periods of time than currently allowed, a step that could enable the plumbing of developmental mysteries but that also raises thorny questions about whether research that can be pursued should be. For decades, scientists around the world have followed the “14-day rule,” which stipulates that they should let human embryos develop in the lab for only up to two weeks after fertilization. (Joseph, 5/26)

Over the past two years, many major U.S. universities have done a better job of registering clinical trials and reporting results to a federal database, a sign that demands for greater transparency are starting to have an effect on study sponsors, according to a new analysis. Specifically, the percentage of unreported trials that were sponsored by 40 universities fell to 7% this past February from 30% in March 2019. And 17 institutions were fully compliant with reporting requirements under federal law, up from 13 two years ago. At the same time, the number of studies that were registered with ClinicalTrials.gov more than tripled to 1,500 from nearly 450 in early 2019. (Silverman, 5/26)

Late at night, in a California hospital, a brain-dead patient was being prepared to offer the ultimate gift. That May evening in 2019, she would be taken off her ventilator, and many of her organs and tissues — everything from the bladder to the lungs to muscle — would be donated to a unique project led by the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. (Molteni and Palmer, 5/27)

The results of a small clinical trial in Australia indicate that a 4-week course of antibiotics for children with a chronic wet cough offers little advantage over 2 weeks, but some children may benefit from a longer course, Australian investigators reported yesterday in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. The double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted at four Australian hospitals among children ages 2 months to 19 years of age who had a wet cough lasting more than 4 weeks and were suspected of having protracted bacterial bronchitis (PBB). Current US and European guidance for treatment of chronic wet cough with suspected PBB is 2 weeks of amoxicillin-clavulanate, extending to 4 weeks if the cough doesn't resolve, but there is some uncertainty about optimal treatment. The British Thoracic Society, for example, recommends 4 to 6 weeks. (Dall, 5/26)

Former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson launched a nonprofit organization Wednesday to raise awareness and funding for neurocognitive diseases including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and related dementia. Isakson, R-Ga., announced his diagnosis with Parkinson’s in 2015 and retired from Congress at the end of 2019, midway through his third term in the Senate. (Williams, 5/26)

Clear Labs, a California-based startup that provides rapid genetic sequencing for pathogen surveillance, will announce a new $60 million funding round this morning. Clear Labs' whole genome sequencing can identify the unique genetic code of a pathogen within 24 hours, allowing hospitals or public health agencies to track unusual variants in diseases like COVID-19 as well as food safety threats like salmonella. (Walsh, 5/26)

A number of U.S. colleges and universities say they've seen a surge of students who say the COVID-19 crisis inspired them to pursue the public health field, and crisis communication in particular. The pandemic exposed the need for and challenges of well-executed public health messaging — particularly in a time rife with misinformation campaigns and polarizing politics. (Fernandez, 5/27)

One sign of the severity of Georgia’s nurse shortage can be seen in the bonuses offered to experienced RNs to join a hospital workforce. Some health systems in the state are paying bonuses of more than $10,000 to attract nurses. And Piedmont Healthcare, which is rapidly becoming Georgia’s biggest health system, said it has offered bonuses of up to $30,000, a figure that has startled local health industry officials. (Miller, 5/27)

In a May to June 2020 survey, about 1,200 US health workers relayed frustrations with unsafe and devaluing working conditions, according to a George Washington University press release. Most respondents worked in a hospital setting, and many were nurses. While some said they had employers who were trying their best to provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), more said that they felt unsafe because of the lack of it, and many reported retaliation or bullying in response to any workplace concern. Additionally, the constantly changing guidelines from their employer or federal agencies left them frustrated. (5/26)

Dr. Stephanie Ho, a family medicine physician in Fayetteville, Arkansas, said she’s had state legislators in her exam room before. Ho, who has provided gender-affirming care to transgender people in the state since 2015, is also an abortion provider, so she is familiar with lawmakers' restricting the care she provides. She said she wasn’t surprised when the Legislature overrode Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto of a bill last month that would ban puberty blockers, hormones and surgery for transgender minors. (Yurcaba, 5/27)

The last year has been one marked by collective trauma. Covid-19 brought on a wave of loss, anxiety, stress, fear, economic instability and isolation across the country, creating, within the pandemic, a mental health crisis. Images of Black people shot and killed by police, mass protests, the shock of the Capitol riot and the opening up of the deep, systemic wounds of racism have brought on another level of trauma. Through it all, Black therapists, who are disproportionately underrepresented in their field, have been in high demand. (Gaines, 5/27)

A children’s hospital in Colorado has declared “a pediatric mental health state of emergency” after an unprecedented number of children 8 and older have reported needing immediate treatment, mostly for suicidal thoughts and attempts. Children’s Hospital Colorado CEO Jena Hausmann said the facility is overrun with “kids attempting suicide and suffering from other forms of major mental health illness.” Hausmann issued a call to action on Tuesday to Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, state lawmakers and agencies to prioritize mental health services for children, release more funding for suicide prevention, recruit more providers and reduce bureaucracy in enabling children to access services, The Gazette reported. (5/27)

Montgomery County leaders are taking steps to add mental health to the list of valid reasons to be absent from school, saying that the move is especially important after the inordinate toll of the pandemic. The change would begin in the fall, when students in Montgomery County are expected to return to full-day in-person classes five days a week. A majority of students in the state’s largest school system have been learning virtually during the past 14 months. “Student mental health has been a challenge this year, through the pandemic, and we believe it is a wise decision,” Patricia O’Neill, a school board member, said as she introduced the change at a meeting Tuesday. (St. George, 5/27)

A curious thing happened during the Covid-19 pandemic: With masks, social distancing, and Purell galore, we kept most other germs at bay. Flu vanished. Cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which in a normal winter puts nearly 60,000 children under age 5 in the hospital, were nonexistent. Most of us appeared to sidestep the soup of bugs that cause colds. But as masks come off, schools reopen, and some travel resumes, we should expect a resurgence of these viruses — perhaps a big one. Some experts fear we’re in for a nasty cold-and-flu season or two, pointing to a combination of factors that could make for a rough re-entry to the mixed microbes world. (Branswell, 5/27)

Workplace mass shootings are rare, but the killing of eight people by a fellow employee at a Northern California rail yard on Wednesday marks the third such rampage in under two months. That could foreshadow a rise in this type of violence after the nationwide shutdown of businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, says Jaclyn Schildkraut, associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York at Oswego. (Romo, 5/27)

Over and over, the pandemic has reinforced the reality of racial disparities in the U.S. health system. But that story remains difficult to see in the data, which is still inconsistently collected and reported across the country. On Wednesday, a coalition of researchers and advocates launched a tool they hope will fill some of those gaps: the Health Equity Tracker, a portal that collects, analyzes, and makes visible data on some of the inequities entrenched in U.S. medicine. (Palmer, 5/26)

The average temperature on Earth is now consistently 1 degree Celsius hotter than it was in the late 1800s, and that temperature will keep rising toward the critical 1.5-degree Celsius benchmark over the next five years, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization. Scientists warn that humans must keep the average annual global temperature from lingering at or above 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid the most catastrophic and long-term effects of climate change. Those include massive flooding, severe drought and runaway ocean warming that fuels tropical storms and drives mass die-offs of marine species. (Hersher, 5/26)

The decision of whether to have a child can be hard even under the best of circumstances. For those with a family history of debilitating disease, it’s often gut-wrenching. If only there were some way to answer the all-important question: Will my child be healthy? To those potential parents, a San Francisco startup is offering a solution: a genetic test of their embryos so they can select the one with the lowest risk of disease. (Peterson, 5/26)

A Colorado bill would provide free contraceptives and reproductive care to people living in the U.S. illegally. The legislation, heard by the House Health and Insurance committee Wednesday, aims to create a reproductive health care program within the state health department to provide contraceptives, management of birth control products or devices and counseling to people who do not qualify for Medicaid because of their citizenship or immigration status. Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo, one of the bill’s sponsors, cited medical studies that show access to contraception leads to declines in maternal and infant mortality and higher graduation rates among young women. (Nieberg, 5/27)

Maine officials are not planning to develop a statewide vaccine passport system for COVID-19 shot recipients. Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew said such a system would be a challenge because of questions such as how it would work across state lines and how the state would protect residents’ privacy. She said Wednesday the state isn’t looking to create one. The state supports private businesses that want to request coronavirus vaccine verification, Lambrew said. She said businesses should make sure any verification systems they use are in line with state laws. (5/27)

The federal government has allocated over $300 million in COVID-19 relief funds to San Diego County through the American Rescue Plan. San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond wants to allocate $40 million of those funds to a grant program for first responders and military families. He announced the plan at a Tuesday morning news conference.Desmond’s proposal would provide up to $6,000 or three months of back rent or back mortgage payments to first responder and military households. (Mae, 5/25)

Pasco and Citrus county officials are urging residents to protect themselves against mosquitoes. Sentinel chickens in both counties have tested positive in recent weeks for Eastern Equine Encephalitis, a rare but deadly mosquito-borne illness. Only a very small portion of people bit by a mosquito carrying the virus develop the disease. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about a third of those die and many survivors suffer brain damage. (Colombini, 5/26)

Lingering confusion, personal anger and legal questions still surround the subject of COVID-era visits by relatives and caregivers to North Carolina’s long-term care homes. And much remains to be resolved — likely with pending legislation — following the havoc and heartbreak that COVID-19 brought to an ill-prepared system, said N.C. speakers brought together by NC AARP for an update. Rebecca Chaplin, associate state director of AARP’s Mountain Region, called the issue “a hot topic with lots of confusion.” (Goldsmith, 5/27)

KHN: Confronting Our ‘Frailties’: California’s Assembly Leader Reflects On A Year Of Covid

When his 20-month-old daughter developed a rash earlier this month, Anthony Rendon did what many other parents do when their child is sick: The speaker of the California Assembly took Vienna to her pediatrician — but he did so via video from the comfort and safety of his home. Many Californians have relied on telehealth to connect with their health care providers during the covid-19 pandemic, but the option isn’t available to everyone. That imbalance is just one of the “frailties” in America’s health system that Rendon says lawmakers must address. (Young, 5/27)

Japan's government will decide Friday whether to extend a state of emergency across much of the country, nearly two months before the planned start of the delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics. The country reintroduced emergency measures in April as it grappled with a fourth wave of coronavirus cases -- one that has yet to diminish. (Kobayashi, Nishiyama and Jozuka, 5/27)

With less than two months until the Tokyo Olympics begin, a group of US public health experts are among the latest to warn that pushing forward with the rescheduled 2020 Games puts athletes -- and the public -- at risk amid the pandemic. The experts, including Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy among other scientists, call for "urgent action" to assess the Covid-19 risks associated with the Games and the additional measures that could be put in place to mitigate those risks. (Howard, 5/26)

A physician representing a Japanese medical body warned Thursday that holding the postponed Tokyo Olympics in two months could lead to the spread of variants of the coronavirus. Dr. Naoto Ueyama, chairman of the Japan Doctors Union, said the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government had underestimated the risks of bringing 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes into the country, joined by tens of thousands of officials, judges, media and broadcasters from more than 200 countries and territories. (Wade, 5/27)

Facing Taiwan’s largest outbreak of the pandemic and looking for rapid virus test kits, the mayor of the island’s capital did what anyone might do: He Googled it. “If you don’t know, and you try to know something, please check Google,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je quipped. Praised for its success at keeping the virus away for more than a year, Taiwan had until May recorded just 1,128 cases and 12 deaths. But the number of locally transmitted cases started growing this month and it soon became clear that the central government was ill prepared not only to contain the virus, but to even detect it on a large scale due to a lack of investment in rapid testing. (Wu, 5/27)

Dominic Cummings, the former chief strategist to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, delivered bombshell testimony Wednesday on the British government's early response to the coronavirus, apologizing for falling "disastrously short" in a way that cost thousands of lives. Cummings, a controversial figure known as the architect behind the Brexit campaign, has become one of Johnson's most troublesome critics since resigning from government after a bitter power struggle last year. (Basu, 5/26)

The European Union took on vaccine producer AstraZeneca in a Brussels court on Wednesday and accused the drugmaker of acting in bad faith by providing shots to other nations when it had promised them for fast delivery to the EU’s 27 member countries. During an emergency hearing, the EU asked for the shipment of missing doses to the region and accused AstraZeneca of postponing deliveries so the Anglo-Swedish company could service others, and Britain in particular. AstraZeneca lawyers denied any wrongdoing and said the pharmaceutical firm has always done its best to fulfill delivery commitments. (Petrequin, 5/26)

British health minister Matt Hancock will face a grilling from lawmakers on Thursday after the prime minister's former chief aide accused him of lying and said he should have been sacked for repeated failings over the COVID-19 pandemic. Dominic Cummings, who was Prime Minister Boris Johnson's right hand man until late last year, delivered a withering attack on his former boss and Hancock during seven hours of testimony before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, saying their ineptitude led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths. (5/27)

India on Thursday scrapped local trials for “well-established” foreign coronavirus vaccines to fast-track imports as it battles a devastating second wave of the pandemic that has killed tens of thousands of people. India recorded its highest COVID-19 death toll since the pandemic began last year in May, accounting for just over a third of the overall total. India has been inoculating its people with the AstraZeneca vaccine produced locally at the Serum Institute, Covaxin made by local firm Bharat Biotech, and has begun rolling out Russia's Sputnik V. (Arora and Ravikumar, 5/27)

Russia will not make Covid vaccines compulsory for its citizens, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, adding that people should see the necessity of immunization on their own. Some officials in Russia had proposed making vaccination mandatory, but Putin said Wednesday that the controversial measure would be “counterproductive.” (Ellyatt, 5/27)

Let’s begin with a quick quiz question: What’s the highest-return investment you can think of? Private equity? A hedge fund? Here’s something with a far higher return: a global campaign to vaccinate people in poor countries against the coronavirus. So far the United States and other Group of 7 “leading” countries haven’t actually shown leadership in fighting the pandemic globally. American vaccine nationalism means that we are hoarding both vaccines and the raw materials to make them, in ways that lead to unnecessary deaths abroad and also undermine our own recovery. (Nicholas Kristof, 5/26)

The announcement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that fully vaccinated people do not have to wear face coverings indoors, unless specified by their states or local jurisdictions, triggered a backlash from public health experts. They called the new guidelines premature — rightly so — and said that the coordination and rollout should have been better planned with the states and the rest of the Biden administration. While the criticism is accurate, the guidelines reveal another deep problem that the CDC can’t fix on its own: Americans don’t trust each other, and around half don’t fully trust the CDC. (Abraar Karan, 5/27)

Pharmaceutical company executives have been hinting for months that booster shots will be necessary to maintain the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. A study of such boosters is already underway. But the companies that stand to profit from these shots shouldn’t get to unilaterally determine the need for a repeat mass vaccination campaign without scientific questioning. Moreover, focus groups among the vaccine-hesitant have shown that talk of boosters can decrease the likelihood of people getting a vaccine now. Bodies of scientific research indicate that your immune system should offer you long-lived protection from reinfection if you’ve been vaccinated, even with the emergence of more infectious variants. (Monica Gandhi, 5/25)

Big myths about COVID vaccines are showing real staying power among unvaccinated Americans. While misinformation isn't the only factor fueling hesitancy, it's an ongoing problem the media, health leaders and trusted messengers need to chip away at. (Drew Altman, 5/26)

[President Joe Biden] wants the intelligence community to cooperate with other elements of the government, but getting to the bottom of how this disease occurred, at least in the eyes of the President dealing with obstruction from China, is now fully an intelligence operation. But that order likely poses a complicated challenge for intelligence agencies, which, as CNN has repeatedly reported, are limited in their ability to confidently answer the question of what actually happened. While the intelligence community has been actively engaged on the issue since it broke, Biden's order is a public call for more, despite the fact that it has been unable to make significant progress for more than a year. (Zachary B. Wolf, 5/26)

A growing storm over the origins in China of Covid-19 has explosive political implications for the United States at home and abroad, as well as the dueling legacies of two presidents that will be defined by the pandemic. President Joe Biden on Wednesday told Americans he had ordered US intelligence agencies to report in 90 days on whether the virus originated not in animals and spread to humans but might have escaped from a Chinese laboratory. (Stephen Collinson, 5/27)

The hack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline has most Americans worried about threats to the nation's computer network. According to a recent survey by Rasmussen Reports, 85 percent of Americans are at least "somewhat concerned" about the safety of the nation's computer infrastructure.Their concerns are not idle ones—they exist across vital sectors of the economy. Over the last decade, the health care industry has become increasingly vulnerable to ransomware attacks like the one we've just been through in the energy sector. Experts have been raising the alarm but thus far their warning cries have not received the attention they deserve. (Peter Roff, 5/26)

Like many Americans, we share concerns with giving the government too much control over health care. But we also know that too many American families are choking on their doctor and hospital bills and wondering how they can pay for their next prescription. That includes a vast number of working people who make too much to qualify for federal aid but too little to afford the high cost of private insurance, with its ever-growing premiums and deductibles. (5/27)

America’s successful COVID vaccine rollout is having profound short-term effects, leading more cities and states to reduce restrictions and reopen parts of their economies—and most recently, leading the CDC to relax its guidance on wearing masks. It’s also likely to have lasting effects that could change how millions of people live their lives. One of those will be what prescription medicines people choose to take. In a new survey, my company, M Booth Health, found that a seismic shift has already begun. People are changing the ways they talk to their doctors about all of their medicines, and in particular, which prescription medications they accept or reject. (Mark Westall, 5/26)

The U.S. needs a bold initiative to achieve transformative progress in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and countless other diseases that cut lives short or hold them back. The best way to do this is by building on the incredible scientific discoveries emerging from, or funded by, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and from the nation’s biotech and pharmaceutical research centers. (George Vradenburg and Ellen V. Sigal, 5/27)

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden followed through on a major campaign promise to the abortion lobby — and broke with decadeslong bipartisan consensus — by signing a massive stimulus bill without pro-life Hyde Amendment protections. In the guise of COVID-19 relief, the so-called American Rescue Plan was the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion since Obamacare. Now with the administration’s budget proposal expected this week, a slew of life-saving policies modeled after Hyde could also be on the chopping block. (Marjorie Dannenfelser, 5/25)