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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new eviction moratorium that would last until Oct. 3, as the Biden administration sought to quell intensifying criticism from progressives that it was allowing vulnerable renters to lose their homes during a pandemic. The ban announced Tuesday could help keep millions in their homes as the coronavirus’ delta variant has spread and states have been slow to release federal rental aid. It would temporarily halt evictions in counties with “substantial and high levels” of virus transmissions and would cover areas where 90% of the U.S. population lives. (Boak, Mascaro and Lemire, 8/4)

The 19-page order lists criminal penalties including fines and jail time if someone is found to have violated the eviction moratorium. The Biden administration had previously said it had no legal authority to extend a separate national eviction moratorium that lapsed over the weekend. A statement from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Tuesday evening pointed to the emergence of the delta variant and said “it is imperative that public health authorities act quickly to mitigate such an increase of evictions, which could increase the likelihood of new spikes in SARS-CoV-2 transmission.” (Stein, Pager, Min Kim and Romm, 8/3)

"The emergence of the delta variant has led to a rapid acceleration of community transmission in the United States, putting more Americans at increased risk, especially if they are unvaccinated," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday. "This moratorium is the right thing to do to keep people in their homes and out of congregate settings where COVID-19 spreads." The latest moratorium order could face legal challenges, after the Supreme Court determined the Biden administration couldn't extend the previous moratorium eviction through executive action. As the latest eviction moratorium was about to end last week, the White House told Congress to act, while Congress called on the White House to act. The White House said it lacked the authority to extend the moratorium. (Cordes, 8/3)

Under heavy pressure from progressive Democrats to extend the eviction moratorium as millions of Americans faced being forced out of their homes, President Joe Biden on Tuesday said his administration would announce a new "safety valve" action. Shortly afterward, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order barring evictions for 60 days in counties with "substantial and high levels" of community transmission. (Gomez, Khan, and Cheyenne, 8/3)

Cori Bush arrived in Congress as an heir to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now the political neophyte is coming into her own. Bush has led a one-woman protest on the Capitol steps over the last several days that forced the eviction crisis to the top of the nation's agenda even after the House left town without taking action on the issue. Under intense pressure from the left, President Joe Biden on Tuesday afternoon announced a short-term fix to prevent millions of families from losing their homes despite questioning the constitutionality of doing so. (Wu, Caygle and Ferris, 8/3)

An attempt by House Democrats and the Biden administration to push governors and mayors to accelerate the release of billions of dollars in rental aid is meeting a harsh reality: Most localities are ill-equipped for the moment. Among the problems that states and cities face: Untested new infrastructure rife with red tape, local officials’ fears of being singled out for awarding funds to the wrong people and the fact that millions of tenants and landlords do not even know about the emergency rental assistance program, much less how to apply for it. (O'Donnell, 8/3)

President Biden on Tuesday denounced Republican officials who have blocked efforts to mandate vaccines, as he encouraged cities and states to require that individuals show proof of vaccination to visit restaurants and other public spaces. In a notable toughening of his message, the president called out Republican governors who have banned businesses and universities from requiring vaccines or defied masking guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Pager, 8/3)

President Biden, seeking to reiterate that the rise of the highly contagious variant in the United States is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” voiced his frustration with leaders who have been slow to provide coronavirus relief or get shots in arms. Mr. Biden singled out Florida and Texas, where cases have risen sharply, criticizing the pandemic response by the governors in those states. (Rogers, 8/3)

President Biden spoke out Tuesday against Republican governors who've sought to block vaccine and mask mandates, as COVID-19 cases spike across the U.S. Biden has tried to avoid making the pandemic a partisan issue, but the Washington Post notes the White House "has grown increasingly frustrated" with Republican leaders looking to obstruct health measures. (Falconer, 8/4)

President Biden said Tuesday that he supports efforts by private businesses to require coronavirus vaccines. Biden's comments come hours after New York City announced it would demand proof of vaccination for indoor activities, including trips to gyms and restaurants. Asked whether he thought more cities and states should institute similar rules, Biden replied, "I do." (Saric, 8/3)

President Joe Biden’s administration drew up a strategy to contain one coronavirus strain, then another showed up that’s much more contagious. ... But the delta variant makes no distinctions when it comes to politics. If Biden’s pandemic response is found wanting, Republican governors opposed to pandemic mandates also face an accounting. They, too, were counting on a backdrop of declining cases. Instead unvaccinated patients are crowding their hospitals. (Alonso-Zaldivar and Miller, 8/4)

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, including current and former government workers, whose accounts of unwanted touching and inappropriate comments were corroborated in a damning report released on Tuesday by the New York State attorney general, Letitia James. The 165-page report prompted multiple calls for Mr. Cuomo to resign, including from President Biden, a longtime ally of the governor, and it cast doubt on Mr. Cuomo’s political future. The Democratic speaker of the State Assembly said on Tuesday that he intended to quicken the pace of a separate impeachment inquiry, adding that Mr. Cuomo “can no longer remain in office.” (Ferré-Sadurní, 8/3)

The Biden administration is preparing to begin offering coronavirus vaccine to migrants in U.S. custody along the Mexico border, where illegal crossings are at their highest levels in over two decades and health officials are struggling with soaring numbers of infections, according to two Department of Homeland Security officials with knowledge of the plan. Until now, only a limited number of migrants have received vaccine while held in longer-term U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. Under the broad outlines of the new plan, DHS would vaccinate migrants soon after they cross into the United States as they await processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (Miroff and Sacchetti, 8/3)

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Texas from enforcing an order from Gov. Greg Abbott that would restrict travel by undocumented immigrants. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone of El Paso said the order "causes irreparable injury to the United States and to individuals the United States is charged with protecting, jeopardizing the health and safety of non-citizens in federal custody, risking the safety of federal law enforcement personnel and their families, and exacerbating the spread of COVID-19." (Williams, 8/3)

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked an executive order by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that banned the transportation of migrants within the state by anyone other than law enforcement, an initial legal victory for the Biden administration. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso granted the Justice Department’s request for a temporary restraining order against the ban, saying the department was likely to prevail on arguments that the Texas ban unconstitutionally interfered with the federal government’s operations and conflicted with U.S. immigration law. (Kendall, 8/3)

New York City, Microsoft, Tyson Foods and the U.S. auto industry joined a cascading number of state and local governments and major employers Tuesday that are taking a hard line against both the surging delta variant and the holdouts who have yet to get vaccinated. "The goal here is to convince everyone that this is the time. If we're going to stop the delta variant, the time is now. And that means getting vaccinated right now," Mayor Bill de Blasio said in announcing that New York will demand people show proof of COVID-19 vaccination at indoor restaurants, shows and gyms. (8/3)

New York City will become the first U.S. city to require proof of at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine for a variety of activities for workers and customers — indoor dining, gyms and performances — to put pressure on people to get vaccinated, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday morning. The program, similar to mandates issued in France and Italy last month, will start on Aug. 16, and after a transition period, enforcement will begin on Sept. 13, when schools are expected to reopen and more workers could return to offices in Manhattan. Mr. de Blasio has been moving aggressively to get more New Yorkers vaccinated to curtail a third wave of coronavirus cases amid concern about the spread of the Delta variant. He is also requiring city workers to get vaccinated or to face weekly testing, and he has offered a $100 incentive for the public. (Fitzsimmons, Otterman and Goldstein, 8/3)

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new policy Tuesday that requires people to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination to dine inside restaurants, work out at a gym, attend a play or go out dancing. The new program to “unlock New York City” will begin Aug. 16, with enforcement set to start Sept. 13, according to City Hall. Enforcement will fall to the city health department and businesses could be fined, though the details still need to be worked out in the coming weeks, the mayor said. (Eisenberg, 8/3)

Millions of Americans have chosen not to get a coronavirus vaccine. But with the shots readily available and virus cases ticking back up in parts of the country, a growing number of employers, universities and businesses are now issuing some form of a vaccine requirement. Under many of these orders, those who remain unvaccinated, including people who can’t get a vaccine because of a disability or conflicting religious beliefs, will instead have to follow strict guidelines like regular Covid testing, masking and social distancing. (Heyward, 8/4)

Tyson Foods is requiring its entire U.S. workforce of more than 139,000 to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The move by the nation's largest meat producer comes in a bid to curtail surging coronavirus infections that shut down many processing facilities last year. Senior corporate executives at Tyson must be vaccinated by September 24, in-office workers by October 1 and all other employees by November 1, the company announced Tuesday. Less than half, or more than 56,000, of Tyson workers have been vaccinated, according to the company. (Gibson, 8/3)

Meat producer Tyson Foods' announcement Tuesday that it will require all its workers to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by November 1 is hardly the norm when it comes to vaccine rules for frontline employees. Most company mandates so far have been for corporate workers. It points to a divide that's emerging in the US workforce. Large employers from tech companies such as Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) to banks like Morgan Stanley (MS) and Jefferies (JEF) are implementing vaccine requirements for workers in office jobs. (Meyersohn, 8/3)

In a sign of growing momentum for vaccine mandates, Microsoft has reversed course and will now require employees to be fully vaccinated to enter the company’s U.S. offices and other worksites, starting next month. The Redmond-based tech giant told employees Tuesday it will “require proof of vaccination for all employees, vendors, and any guests entering Microsoft buildings in the U.S.” (Roberts, 8/3)

McDonald's will require all customers and staff to start wearing masks again while inside the restaurant in counties with high or substantial COVID-19 transmission, regardless of vaccination status, the company confirmed Tuesday. The mandate comes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated guidance recommending vaccinated people wear masks in indoor, public settings if they are in parts of the country with substantial to high transmission. (Frazier, 8/3)

Pete Parada, the drummer for the Offspring, has found out the hard way that some businesses — and even bands — are drawing a hard line on requiring vaccinations to come back to work. He posted on his social media Tuesday that he's been ousted from the group because he won't agree to get the Covid vaccine. Beyond being replaced on an upcoming tour, Parada says he's been told not to show up at the studio, either, even though he claims to have a legitimate medical reason for not getting the vaccine. (Variety, 8/3)

Roughly 1 in 3 workers back in the workplace said the return-to-office shift negatively impacted their mental health, according to a June McKinsey survey of 1,602 employed people. Workers who experienced declines in their mental health were five times more likely to report taking on reduced responsibility at work. Meanwhile, another 1 in 3 workers said going back to an office had a positive impact on their mental health, with the primary benefit being they feel more engaged upon their return. (Liu, 8/3)

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its guidance to once again recommend that even vaccinated people start masking indoors in areas of the country with high and substantial coronavirus spread. Key to their decision was a study that shows that fully vaccinated people can still transmit the Delta variant. At the same time, Disney, Netflix, Google, Walmart and the federal government announced plans to implement some type of vaccine requirement for employees returning to in-person work. (Hetter, 8/4)

With a surge of Covid-19 infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people familiar with the effort said. President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.’s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to several people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might increase public confidence and had “taken an all-hands-on-deck approach” to the work. (LaFraniere and Weiland, 8/4)

Dr. Anthony Fauci said he hopes Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine receives full approval from the Food and Drug Administration within the next couple of weeks. Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, appeared on CNN Tuesday evening to react to the news the FDA was speeding up its timetable for giving final approval to the two-dose Pfizer vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the end of the month. (Datoc, 8/3)

Just over half of Americans who remain unvaccinated against Covid-19 still believe the vaccine is more dangerous than the coronavirus -- despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a new survey published Wednesday. Unvaccinated adults still also largely believe the news media have exaggerated the severity of the pandemic, and are less likely than vaccinated adults to wear a mask in public, according to the ongoing Kaiser Family Foundation survey. (Fox, 8/4)

The KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor released Wednesday found that 53 percent of unvaccinated respondents think getting the vaccine is a bigger risk to their health than the virus itself. Seventy-five percent of people who said they would “definitely not” get the shot think the COVID-19 vaccine is a bigger risk. By contrast, 88 percent of vaccinated respondents said the virus poses a greater threat. The poll results underscore the stark differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated people’s viewpoints on COVID-19 and the vaccine. (Coleman, 8/4)

At the current pace of vaccinations, it will take until mid-February to get at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine to all eligible Americans, according to a CNN analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 90 million eligible people in the US are still unvaccinated. And though the seven-day average of people initiating vaccination each day is the highest it has been since July 4 at 446,300, many experts say the US is still not where it needs to be to get the pandemic -- and the rapidly spreading Delta variant -- under control. (Holcombe, 8/4)

While states like Missouri end a second month enduring a surge in COVID-19 cases as the more contagious delta variant spreads, public health officials across the country are hearing the same story from an increasing number of people getting the vaccine: someone they know recently caught the virus and the experience was unsettling. "We don't want to see more people getting sick as a driving force to get people vaccinated, but we know the case counts and more people in the hospital will play a role in that conversation," Dr. Sam Page, St. Louis county executive, told ABC News. (Mitropoulos and Haslett, 8/3)

KHN: ‘Wisdom And Fear’ Lead 90% Of U.S. Seniors To Covid Vaccines

Amid the latest surge in covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, the United States on Tuesday hit a milestone that some thought was unattainable: 90% of people 65 and older are at least partly vaccinated against the disease. That’s more than 49 million seniors vaccinated. Overall, 70% of adults have been inoculated, at least partly, and nearly 68% of people over 12. (Galewitz, 8/4)

KHN: Analysis: Don’t Want A Vaccine? Be Prepared To Pay More For Insurance

America’s covid-19 vaccination rate is around 60% for ages 12 and up. That’s not enough to reach so-called herd immunity, and in states like Missouri — where a number of counties have vaccination rates under 25% — hospitals are overwhelmed by serious outbreaks of the more contagious delta variant. The vaccine resisters offer all kinds of reasons for refusing the free shots and for ignoring efforts to nudge them to get inoculated. Campaigns urging Americans to get vaccinated for their health, for their grandparents, for their neighbors, or to get free doughnuts or a free joint haven’t done the trick. States have even held lotteries with a chance to win millions or a college scholarship. (Rosenthal and Kramon, 8/4)

San Francisco will provide an extra dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for people who got the single-shot Johnson & Johnson variety but public health officials aren't calling it a booster, authorities said Tuesday. In a possibly unique decision in California, the Department of Public Health said people who request it can receive a supplemental dose at city-run clinics. The second shot will be a vaccine produced by either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna. (8/3)

The San Francisco Department of Public Health and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital said Tuesday they are allowing patients who received Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine to get a second shot produced by either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna. J&J recipients can make a special request to get a “supplemental dose” of an mRNA vaccine, city health officials said in a statement to CNBC, declining to call the second shots “boosters.” J&J’s vaccine requires only one dose and recipients are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the shot. (Lovelace Jr., 8/3)

As coronavirus cases in Alabama prisons continue to rise, the state Department of Corrections is offering incarcerated individuals incentives to get vaccinated. Both inmates who get the vaccine and those who've already gotten it will get $5 in canteen credit. (Ibssa, 8/4)

Tennessee has sent nearly half a million dollars to farmers who have vaccinated their cattle against respiratory diseases and other maladies over the past two years. But Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who grew up on his family's ranch and refers to himself as a cattle farmer in his Twitter profile, has been far less enthusiastic about incentivizing herd immunity among humans. (8/3)

Young people would need parental permission now before receiving the COVID-19 vaccine in North Carolina legislation approved unanimously Tuesday by the state Senate. The bill, which now must return to the House for consideration, contains a parent or guardian requirement for vaccines approved by federal regulators for emergency use, such as the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It's currently the only coronavirus vaccine available to children as young as 12.

The spread of the delta coronavirus variant has pushed the threshold for herd immunity to well over 80% and potentially approaching 90%, according to an Infectious Diseases Society of America briefing on Tuesday. That represents a “much higher” bar than previous estimates of 60% to 70%, because delta is twice as transmissible, said Richard Franco, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. (Court, 8/3)

Scientists keep underestimating the coronavirus. In the beginning of the pandemic, they said mutated versions of the virus wouldn't be much of a problem—until the more-infectious Alpha caused a spike in cases last fall. Then Beta made young people sicker and Gamma reinfected those who'd already recovered from COVID-19. Still, by March, as the winter surge in the U.S. receded, some epidemiologists were cautiously optimistic that the rapid vaccine rollout would soon tame the variants and cause the pandemic to wind down. Delta has now shattered that optimism. This variant, first identified in India in December, spreads faster than any previous strain of SARS-CoV-2, as the COVID-19 virus is officially named. It is driving up infection rates in every state of the U.S., prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to once again recommend universal mask-wearing. (Freedman, 8/4)

South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Tuesday that it had recorded at least two cases of the new coronavirus delta-plus variant, which some experts believe to be more transmissible than the original delta variant that was first detected in India and has since thwarted plans for returning to life before the pandemic. But what do we know about “delta plus,” yet another new variant causing alarm among governments and health officials? First identified in Europe in March, the variant is also known as B. 1.617.2.1 or AY.1. (Hassan and Beachum, 8/3)

Unvaccinated Americans believe the vaccines are more dangerous than Covid-19, while vaccinated Americans believe the delta variant is worrisome enough that they continue to mask in public and avoid large gatherings. And even though almost 165 million people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated and the delta variant is raging across the country, the percentage of U.S. adults who say they oppose the Covid vaccines has remained unchanged since December, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey's findings, published Wednesday, show some of the striking differences between the two groups and the challenges facing public health officials. (Edwards, 8/4)

A majority of Americans now, once again, say the worst of the pandemic is yet to come, per new Harris polling provided exclusively to Axios. We took a brief hiatus from worrying about the pandemic, but the Delta variant and the response to it appear to have sent us back to a dark place. “It’s clear we are still far from ‘Mission Accomplished’ on COVID," said Harris Poll CEO John Gerzema. (Owens, 8/4)

Recently, a 28-year-old patient died of Covid-19 at CoxHealth Medical Center in Springfield, Mo. Last week, a 21-year-old college student was admitted to intensive care. Many of the patients with Covid-19 now arriving at the hospital are not just unvaccinated — they are much younger than 50, a stark departure from the frail, older patients seen when the pandemic first surged last year. In Baton Rouge, La., young adults with none of the usual risk factors for severe forms of the disease — such as obesity or diabetes — are also arriving in E.R.s, desperately ill. It isn’t clear why they are so sick. (Caryn Rabin, 8/3)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday downplayed a spike in COVID-19 cases that’s shattered state hospitalization records and strongly reiterated his vow not to impose a mask mandate or any business restrictions. With the much more contagious delta variant now spreading exponentially, Florida hit 11,515 hospitalized patients Tuesday, breaking last year’s record for the third straight day and up from just 1,000 in mid-June. (Spencer, Gomez Licon and Kennedy, 8/3)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that his state will not shut down again despite a record-breaking influx of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, making the Sunshine State the nation's new virus epicenter. "We're not shutting down," DeSantis said Tuesday at a press conference. "These interventions have failed time and time again throughout this pandemic, not just in the United States but abroad. They have not stopped the spread. And particularly with Delta, which is even more transmissible, if it didn't stop it before, it definitely ain't going to stop it now." (Powell, 8/3)

As COVID cases continue to rise in Florida, commercial care centers are busier than ever with an influx of patients seeking tests, WFLA reports. TGH Urgent Care medical director Dr. Nicole Frommann told the station that clinics like hers are seeing a record number of patients who want tests, and she believes larger government testing sites need to open back up. (San Felice, 8/4)

The state's top medical official says Louisiana went from its lowest to highest number of cases and hospitalizations in just four weeks, and the surge doesn't show signs of slowing. (Treisman, 8/3)

Fueled by the delta variant, a surge in Houston COVID-19 hospitalizations is growing as fast as at any time during the pandemic so far, and is projected to pass previous records by mid-August — even though roughly half of all eligible Houstonians are fully vaccinated. “We’re heading into dark times,” said Texas Medical Center CEO Bill McKeon. Already, he said, “our ICUs are filled with unvaccinated people.” (Gray, 8/3)

Idaho is suffering a surge in Covid-19 infections among babies and toddlers, prompting an urgent call for un-vaccinated adults to get jabs and “cocoon these kids. ”The current pace is 53 per 100,000 children from newborn to age 4, up from 16 per 100,000 two weeks ago, Kathryn Turner, deputy state epidemiologist at the Idaho Division of Public Health, said during an online briefing Tuesday. (Del Giudice, 8/3)

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday that reinstating a statewide mask mandate is not on the table. But with coronavirus infections and hospitalizations on the rise again, some schools, local governments and businesses are requiring Marylanders to mask up again — leading to a fractured set of rules and confusion about when and where masks should be worn. (Miller, Wood and Cohn, 8/3)

The heat and humidity were oppressive last Saturday afternoon in Northwest, population 785, in rural Brunswick County. Nonetheless, Alexis Grainger-Clemmons was certain that her fellow congregants from Spring Grove Missionary Baptist Church would turn out for a family fun day, the first since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020... The day wasn’t just for the kids though. Grainger-Clemmons had also called the county health department to bring out their mobile vaccination van. (Hoban, 8/4)

An unvaccinated Virginia man who’s been hospitalized with Covid-19 is using social media to urge others to go out and get the shot.Travis Campbell, 43, has been in the hospital for more than a week with complications from the virus, which also infected his wife and two of their children. (Ciechalski, 8/3)

The latest wave of Covid-19 hospitalizations is crashing into patients returning for care for other ailments, overtaxing some facilities and exhausting their doctors and nurses. Surgeries and treatments for cancer, heart disease and other common conditions have rebounded this year, filling beds at many hospitals. At the same time, other respiratory viruses, such as RSV, have re-emerged along with public gatherings, adding to hospital strain. Now some hospitals are treating more Covid-19 patients than ever before as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads, particularly where vaccination rates are lower. This new chapter of the protracted pandemic has exhausted hospital staff. (Evans and Wernau, 8/4)

In previous COVID-19 surges, Texas Children’s Hospital has taken pressure off other Houston-area hospitals by accepting non-COVID adults. But that’s not possible now, as a rise in pediatric hospitalizations could make this fourth surge worse. Texas Children’s interim pediatrician-in-chief  Jim Versalovic says the hospital now faces two challenges in serving children: an unusual summer wave of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which can be life-threatening for babies and young children; and a steady increase of COVID-19 in children of all ages. More than 25 children are currently hospitalized there with COVID, he said — more than seen in previous waves. (Gray, 8/3)

Hospitals around the country need more nurses, including in Florida, which has the most per capita hospitalizations for COVID-19 of any state and spiking COVID-19 numbers. "Because there's been a demand for nurses, we're all getting offers from agencies from around the country, from different hospitals in South Florida and throughout Florida with offers for double, sometimes triple your salary," said Betsy Marville, nurse organizer with the 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East in Florida. She worries that nurses won’t come back to some of their previous jobs, as opposed to seasonal travel jobs of years past. (Zaragovia, 8/3)

Florida’s largest hospital systems are expanding their COVID units, limiting visitors and fearing staffing shortages as they deal with the statewide surge in cases. Hospitalizations have grown tenfold statewide in just over a month as the more contagious delta variant spreads, with more than 95% of COVID patients unvaccinated. Florida is now leading the nation in per capita hospitalizations for COVID-19. Hospitals say they're seeing more young people than before, some with severe cases. (8/3)

COVID-19 intensive care unit nurse Felicia Croft shared an emotional plea with ABC News about the recent delta variant surge in her home state of Louisiana. "I can say today was probably one of the most emotionally hard days since the pandemic started, the delta wave that we're seeing now," Croft said. "People are younger and sicker, and we're intubating and losing people that are my age and younger, people with kids that are my kids' age that are never going to see their kids graduate." (Yamada, 8/3)

The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads. More than 613,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. (Shapiro and Pereira, 8/2)

The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads. More than 614,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. (Shapiro and Pereira, 8/3)

As COVID-19 cases continue to climb in Oregon, some counties — most where less than half of the area's adult population is vaccinated — are experiencing their highest hospitalization numbers during the pandemic. Statewide coronavirus-related hospitalizations increased to 379 people on Tuesday, 39 more than the previous day. Some hospital officials, including those at Oregon Health & Science University, said they are postponing some surgeries that are not urgent, KOIN-TV reported Monday. (8/3)

The words from Phoebe Putney Health System President/CEO Scott Steiner have an ominous ring: “We are now seeing COVID-21.” Steiner made the comment Tuesday while talking about the surge in COVID patients at Phoebe facilities. A count that was at seven 3 1/2 weeks ago is now at 81, 72 at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany and nine at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus. The hospital had reported 42 COVID patients last week, but, as Steiner noted, “We had 18 admissions yesterday alone. (Fletcher, 8/3)

School boards are at war with governors over masks. Superintendents are developing contingency plans on the fly. And schools that only just opened have had to shut down. Welcome to sophomore year for Covid-19. The Delta variant, which few had heard of when classes ended in the spring, is upending reopening plans across the country, threatening President Joe Biden’s promise of a more normal school year and sustained economic recovery. (Goldberg, Perez Jr. and Payne, 8/4)

One afternoon in May, Michael Joseph Smith, a pediatric infectious disease specialist, strides in baseball-patterned socks through a Duke University facility in Durham, N.C., to welcome Cameron O’Hara, a 14-year-old vaccine trial subject. Smith has been acting as co-principal investigator at one of the sites that’s been testing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in kids since last winter. O’Hara and his mother have come to the office following the “unblinding” process—in which he’d learned, to his disappointment, that he’s been getting a placebo—to get his first dose of the real thing. He crosses his sneakers and grips his mom’s hand as the needle goes into his arm. (Griffin and Ring, 8/4)

Parents in some parts of the U.S. are increasingly frustrated at their deadlocked school districts when it comes to masking policies and the few options for protecting unvaccinated kids this fall. The Biden administration's recent plea that people wear masks indoors again risks falling on deaf ears in the hardest-hit states, leaving families who are at odds with local policies in a quandary. (Fernandez, 8/3)

Last week, in what was intended to be an internal document, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a stark admission: The highly contagious Delta variant had redrawn the battle lines of the coronavirus pandemic, necessitating new public health measures like universal mask mandates. Or, as the agency put it in the document, which was obtained by The New York Times, “the war has changed.” The news came just as the first school districts were preparing to reopen; children in Atlanta and some of its suburbs head back to the classroom this week. (Anthes, 8/2)

Florida's second-largest school district on Monday said it will no longer impose a mask mandate after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) threatened to withhold funding from districts that require face coverings. Broward County Public Schools announced last week that it would require mask use after the CDC issued new guidance recommending universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students and visitors to K-12 schools this incoming school year, regardless of vaccination status. (Reyes, 8/3)

A petition drive is underway to get the St. Johns County school board to require everyone to wear face masks in school buildings for the fall semester. An executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis bars local school districts from enacting mask mandates for students.  Noncompliance could mean a loss of state funding. Still, the petition has gathered more than 1,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning. (Hoskinson, 8/3)

With the start of school only days away, both Gainesville and Hall County officials said their communities are split about whether to require masks. Officials from each district have cited the mental health of students as a reason for not requiring masks, adding that they will remain flexible and continue to follow the data. Hall County Superintendent Will Schofield said while the surge in COVID-19 cases is certainly a cause for concern, the “costs outweigh the benefits” with respect to requiring masks. (Anderson, 8/3)

The quickly approaching fall semester has America’s colleges under pressure to decide how far they should go to guard their campuses against COVID-19 while navigating legal and political questions and rising infection rates. Hundreds of colleges nationwide have told students in recent months they must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before classes begin. California State University, the country’s largest four-year public university system, joined the list last week, along with Michigan State University and the University of Michigan. Their announcements cited concerns about the highly contagious delta variant and came as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated mask guidelines based on new research regarding its spread. (Davies, 8/3)

West Virginia University is asking its students, faculty and staff to get vaccinated for the coronavirus as it tries to keep pace with the rest of the state. The university will develop additional enforcement and safety protocols for unvaccinated individuals if WVU does not reach an 80% rate of full vaccinations for its employees and students by Sept. 1. Those measures include increased testing frequency and penalties for failure to comply with COVID-19 related requirements, WVU said Tuesday in a statement. Vaccinations are not required but are strongly encouraged for WVU students and employees. (8/4)

The Senate continued to vote Tuesday on amendments to the sweeping infrastructure legislation, working through some hiccups and tension about how quickly to move to a final vote. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warned Democrats not to "speed the process" by calling a vote to end debate Wednesday, saying he would encourage Republicans to filibuster the bill if they do. (Kapur, 8/3)

A bipartisan group of senators unveiled legislation on Tuesday aimed at improving the U.S. government’s sprawling investigations of and response to the mysterious brain injuries affecting hundreds of American officials and personnel around the world. The bill, introduced by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), represents Congress’s latest bid to boost the Biden administration's efforts to get to the bottom of what has been dubbed “Havana syndrome” — so named after dozens of U.S. officials there were afflicted with suspicious ailments. The bill comes after POLITICO first reported earlier this year that U.S. officials were sounding the alarm to Congress about Americans’ increasing vulnerability to these incidents, which officials have struggled to understand. (Desiderio, 8/3)

Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department said that two more officers who responded to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have died by suicide. That raises to four the known number of suicides by police officers who defended the complex after supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, temporarily interrupting the certification of President Biden’s victory in the November election. The toll comprises three officers from the Metropolitan Police Department and one officer from the Capitol Police. (Corse, 8/3)

The US once again ranked last in access to health care, equity and outcomes among high-income countries, despite spending a far greater share of its economy on health care, a new report released Wednesday has found. The nation has landed in the basement in all seven studies the Commonwealth Fund has conducted since 2004. The US is the only one of the 11 countries surveyed not to have universal health insurance coverage. (Luhby, 8/4)

If you are uninsured or you've been on unemployment benefits this year, new financial help — passed by Congress this year — means you might be eligible for free health insurance. A special enrollment period put in place by the Biden administration ends on Aug. 15, so consumers will need to act fast to sign up for one of these plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. (Simmons-Duffin, 8/3)

More than 150,000 Oklahomans have qualified for Medicaid under an expansion of the program approved by voters, and state health officials say they suspect many more Oklahomans are eligible but haven’t yet applied. The Oklahoma Health Care Authority reported Monday that 154,316 Oklahomans have qualified for the additional health benefits. Of those, nearly 91,000 live in urban areas and about 63,000 in rural Oklahoma. About half are between 19 and 34 years old. (8/3)

Medicaid expansion is associated with a reduction in surgical hospitalizations among the uninsured, a new study shows. Research published in Health Affairs examined state-level data across 44 states and patient-level data across four states to compare such hospitalizations in expansion and non-expansion states. Patients admitted for surgery largely first presented to the emergency department, and in 99% of cases their care would likely result in catastrophic visit costs, according to the study. In states that expanded Medicaid, the rate of uninsured discharges for these surgeries was lower, at 7.85 per 100,000. (Minemyer, 8/3)

The Colorado Regional Health Information Organization and Health Current in Arizona have completed a merger they initiated last year, they announced Tuesday. The two health information exchanges will now operate as a combined not-for-profit regional HIE dubbed Contexture. CORHIO and Health Current disclosed plans to merge in late 2020 and signed an affiliation agreement earlier this year. Contexture will serve roughly 1,800 healthcare organizations in Colorado and Arizona. (Cohen, 8/3)

Private equity firm, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, launched a platform Tuesday that funnels money into healthcare providers and payers using value-based care payment models. The firm has invested an initial $300 million in the portfolio company named Valtruis. "We believe Valtruis is well positioned to leverage WCAS's longstanding relationships and history of building market-leading healthcare businesses... to accelerate the adoption of value-based care," said David Caluori, general partner at WCAS, in a statement. (Gellman, 8/3)

A lab test company turned hospital operator may owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to former employees of a rural Tennessee hospital it abruptly shuttered. A class-action settlement agreement between West Palm Beach, Florida-based Rennova Health and former employees at Jamestown Regional Medical Center in Jamestown, Tennessee, is scheduled for final court approval Sept. 10. (Bannow, 8/3)

UnitedHealth Group subsidiaries Optum and Advisory Board on Monday prevailed over a class action lawsuit where workers claimed the company misclassified them as independent contractors and underpaid them. A Minnesota federal judge decertified the class action, saying the Optum and Advisory Board consultants' experiences across Maine, New York and Maryland are too different to be combined in litigation. (Devereaux, 8/3)

A Chicago-based SPAC looking for healthcare deal raised $250 million. Healthwell Acquisition is led by healthcare executive Alyssa Rapp, who previously led private equity-backed Surgical Solutions and teaches at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Healthwell's board includes former Playboy Enterprises CEO Christie Hefner and former Deloitte senior executive Carl Allegretti. Olufunmilayo Falusi Olopade, a top U of C cancer researcher, is an adviser. (8/3)

For all the explosive controversy over the approval of the first treatment for Alzheimer’s disease in nearly 20 years, hardly any patients have actually gotten it yet. The drug’s eye-popping, $56,000 annual price and questionable benefit to patients have been a shock to the bureaucracy that makes the health care system run — and that’s having a clear effect on uptake. (Joseph and Cohrs, 8/4)

Sales of Abbvie's blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug Humira have declined internationally, as cheaper copycats known as biosimilars gain more traction in Europe. But Humira sales continued to rise in the U.S. last quarter because Humira biosimilars are locked out of the country until 2023. Cheaper versions of Humira exist, but Americans don't have access to them due entirely to AbbVie's "legal strategy" of delaying entry. (Herman, 8/4)

What do weed killer, engine antifreeze coolant, dry wall repair products, and active pharmaceutical ingredients have in common? They were all stored in the same room at Syntec Pharma, which imports active ingredients and up until recently, was also repackaging them. Not only that, the company also comingled personal food items and some “unidentified” products in unlabeled aluminum bags in a refrigerator used to store – yes, you guessed correctly – active ingredients and chemicals. (Silverman, 8/3)

A single-center study of terminal cancer patients found a high rate of antibiotic use within the last 30 days of life, with significantly lower use among those who asked for limited antimicrobial treatment, researchers reported yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Despite uncertain benefits and the risk of adverse events and antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial use in patients with terminal cancer is frequently continued after transition to comfort care and discontinued less than 1 day prior to death. To determine whether completing a Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form and an accompanying antimicrobial preferences document had any relationship with antimicrobial use at the end of life, researchers from the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center conducted a retrospective study of patients who died at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance from Jan 1, 2016, through Jun 30, 2019. (8/3)

A retrospective study of patients in Kentucky suggests antibiotic stewardship interventions may safely cut antibiotic use in COVID-19 patients, researchers reported yesterday in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. Among 173 patients who received antibiotics for COVID-19 from June through July 2020 at a community healthcare system in Louisville, 91 (52.6%) met criteria for early discontinuation of antibiotics, and 82 patients (47.7%) were in the late-discontinuation group. The decision to discontinue antibiotics in COVID-19 patients without bacterial co-infection was made by trained clinical pharmacists who were part of the hospital's antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) team. (8/3)

Advocates are citing growing mental health concerns during the pandemic and the implementation of a 2020 law for a new national suicide hotline as reasons to attach suicide prevention resources to an infrastructure or appropriations bill. A bipartisan 2020 law designated the three-digit phone number 9-8-8 as the new number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a 24/7 crisis hotline that will connect callers with immediate counseling or referrals for local mental health services. (Raman, 8/4)

Gabriel de Erausquin first began to worry about the long-term impact of COVID on the brain when he read early reports out of Wuhan, China last January that survivors had lost two of their give senses--smell and taste. Worry turned to alarm when one of his medical assistants, a young mother who had come down with COVID-19 and had to be quarantined for a month, told de Erausquin, a neuroscientist, that she "couldn't care less" about being separated from her children. Loss of smell, emotional detachment and other cognitive disorders among COVID-19 survivors has in recent weeks become an urgent medical issue. Some patients experience psychotic breaks. Others report strange neurological symptoms—tremors, extreme fatigue, phantom smells, dizziness and bouts of profound confusion, a condition known as "brain fog." In one early study of more than 200 patients in Wuhan, neurological complications were identified in 36 percent of all cases and in 45 percent of severe cases. Another study in France in the New England Journal of Medicine reported neurological symptoms in 67 percent of patients. (Piore, 8/3)

Most children with Covid-19 recover within a week, but a small percentage experience long-term symptoms, according to a new study of more than 1,700 British children. The researchers found that 4.4 percent of children had symptoms that last four weeks or longer, while 1.8 percent have symptoms that last for eight weeks or longer. The findings suggest that what has sometimes been called “long Covid” may be rarer in children than adults. In a previous study, some of the same researchers found that 13.3 percent of adults with Covid-19 had symptoms that lasted at least four weeks and 4.5 percent had symptoms that lasted at least eight weeks. (Anthes, 8/4)

In response to an unprecedented spike in gun violence this year, one district in Miami launched a summer camp program to protect at-risk children and teenagers. SafeSummers partnered with seven local community-based organizations to offer full-time summer programming to nearly 400 children and teens in District 8 of Miami-Dade County, an area with high crime and poverty rates. Violence is up 15% in the first half of 2021 compared to last year, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department. (Choi, 8/3)

Grown-ups tend to recall their adolescence as a highlight reel (or maybe, in some cases, it's a lowlight reel): the first leg or face shave, the first kiss, the first bra, the first ejaculation or menstruation, and the first time you walked into a room and were treated like an adult. It can flip quickly through our brains, a series of events -- part humiliating, part liberating -- accounting for one of our greatest stages of metamorphosis. Perhaps it's the trauma that has compressed the experience. Or maybe it is that, once the final product -- our adult selves -- is realized, it is hard to trace it back to the starting point. (Strauss, 8/3)

Even as the delta variant is causing higher COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations across the United States, President Joe Biden continued his push to help get people around the world vaccinated, highlighting in remarks Tuesday that the U.S. has already shipped 110 million doses abroad. "As of today, United States has shipped over 110 million doses of U.S. vaccines to 65 countries that are among the hardest hit in the world," Biden said. (Kolinovsky and Stoddart, 8/3)

The figures come about a month behind the White House’s June goal of delivering 80 million doses overseas, part of a greater vaccine-donation drive by the U.S. in the coming months. Mr. Biden marked the vaccine-sharing milestone in remarks from the White House about the status of global vaccination efforts amid growing concerns about the highly contagious Delta variant both at home and abroad. “In the fight against Covid-19, the United States is committed to be the arsenal of vaccines,” Mr. Biden said, emphasizing that all of the doses had been donated with “no favoritism and no strings attached.” (Siddiqui, 8/3)

These initial U.S. donated doses are just a first step for the projected 11 billion vaccines needed to vaccinate 70% of the world's population and bring the pandemic under control, according to the World Health Organization. And providing doses to other countries is a quasi-Herculean task. "Sharing vaccine doses isn't quite as easy as just putting them on a plane and calling somebody at the other end and telling them when they'll arrive," said Gayle Smith, the global COVID-19 response coordinator at the State Department. (Keith and Stone, 8/3)

Mr. Biden marked the milestone in remarks delivered from the White House, during which he also detailed efforts to boost vaccination rates in the U.S., which is experiencing a surge in infections and hospitalizations driven by the highly contagious Delta variant. "We have a pandemic of the unvaccinated," Mr. Biden said, stressing the vaccines' effectiveness in preventing hospitalizations and death due to COVID-19. "This is a tragedy. People are dying and will die who don't have to die." (Quinn, 8/3)

In the battle against the coronavirus, few places seemed as confident of victory as China. The country of 1.4 billion people had eradicated the virus so quickly that it was one of the first in the world to open up in spring last year. People removed their masks and gathered for pool parties. The government has swiftly stamped out fresh outbreaks by mobilizing thousands of people to test and trace infections. That model is now looking increasingly fragile. (Wee and Chen, 8/4)

China’s worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic a year and a half ago escalated Wednesday with dozens more cases around the country, the sealing-off of one city and the punishment of its local leaders. Since that initial outbreak was tamed last year, China’s people had lived virtually free of the virus, with extremely strict border controls and local distancing and quarantine measures stamping out scattered, small flareups when they occurred. (8/4)

China is facing pockets of resurgence in major cities from Beijing to Wuhan, and authorities have imposed mass testing and widespread travel restrictions in some areas. Daily Covid-19 cases are rising again as the delta variant spreads across the country. China’s National Health Commission said it confirmed 96 Covid cases on Wednesday — the third straight day it reported 90 cases and above. Of the newly confirmed cases, 71 were locally transmitted, said the health commission. (Lee, 8/4)

In a dramatic move reminiscent of the first days of the coronavirus in China some 19 months ago, flights and trains in and out of Wuhan have been halted amid a rise in COVID-19 cases linked to the highly infectious delta variant of the virus. Authorities have also ordered mass testing in the city of 11 million, where the virus was first detected before it spread around the world. Panic-buying by worried residents followed new lockdowns there. (Neuman, 8/3)

The latest Covid-19 resurgence in China is putting imports of frozen food back under intense scrutiny as authorities act on a controversial claim that it’s possible to contract the virus from food packaging. Cities including Zhengzhou and Haikou will tighten inspection of imported frozen food to prevent virus transmission, according to local media reports. Frozen pork bone and beef ribs originating from the U.K., Brazil and Canada were seized from a hot pot restaurant in Nantong city as the operators couldn’t provide disinfection certificates or nucleic acid test reports. (Cang, 8/3)

Israel announced Tuesday it will tighten public health measures due to surging in COVID-19 case numbers. The latest restrictions come as Israel saw nearly 4,000 new daily cases reported on Tuesday, the highest count so far since the country began experiencing an uptick last month, the AP reports. The fresh measures include allowing only vaccinated people to attend indoor gatherings of 100 people or more, and requiring face masks at outdoor events with the same capacity, per AP. (Saric, 8/3)

European nations have been among the most successful in the world at getting their residents vaccinated against the novel coronavirus. Now, some will be among the first to dole out booster shots. The small but growing group that is planning additional shots for the fully inoculated includes some of the continent’s richest and most populous countries, potentially setting a precedent and marking a new phase of the vaccination campaign. (Thebault and Brady, 8/3)

It looked like a rolling disaster: England lifting almost all coronavirus restrictions just as the highly transmissible delta variant was sending infection rates skyrocketing. But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's gamble could well pay off, at least in the short term, providing a lesson to other countries desperate for any light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. (Smith, 8/4)

In the wake of one of the most devastating moments in Haiti's arduous history, there has been a bright spot. One week after Haiti's president was assassinated, the country's first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines finally arrived. (Beaubien, 8/3)

The cars lined up by the strikingly modern mosque and were guided to parking bays where the drivers soon got jabs. The brisk pace at the Houghton mosque COVID-19 vaccination center is seeing 700 people per day getting shots and is expected to soon reach 1,000 a day. “This is exciting! We’re vaccinating more people than we expected,” said Yaseen Theba, chairman of the Muslim Association of South Africa a day after the vaccination center opened last week. “We created this drive-thru site to accommodate as many people as possible, in a situation where they are comfortable. And it’s working! We’ll keep it going as long a people need to get vaccinated.” (Meldrum, 8/4)

As Tunisia faces a surge of COVID-19 cases, demand for life-saving oxygen has grown higher than the supply, leaving patients desperate and family members angry at the government as they say they are forced to find oxygen on their own. As the misery grows, traders have seized on an opportunity for profit, buying supplies of oxygen and other treatments and then renting them or selling them at higher prices. The profitable enterprise that is growing online has prompted citizens to call on authorities for intervention. (El Arem, 8/4)

The Lazio region of Italy, which includes Rome, has been unable to offer vaccination appointments online for three days because of a cyberattack on its website over the weekend, part of what the authorities said was probably Italy’s most serious ransomware case to date. Ransomware attacks, in which criminals break into a computer system, encrypt the data it contains and demand money to release it, have struck health care systems in many countries, paralyzing hospitals, clinics and testing centers from California to Ireland and New Zealand. The attack in Italy is one of the largest to affect a vaccination campaign, raising alarms about its potential impact. (Bubola, 8/4)

Health authorities in South Korea reported the country's first two cases of the delta plus COVID-19 variant on Tuesday, according to local reports. Delta plus is a "subvariant" of the delta variant, which health authorities have blamed for the current rise in infections across the United States, and has now been diagnosed in more than 20 countries. (Beaman, 8/3)

British coronavirus vaccine developer Sarah Gilbert has many science accolades to her credit but now shares an honor with Beyonce, Marilyn Monroe and Eleanor Roosevelt: a Barbie doll in her likeness. Gilbert, a 59-year-old professor at Oxford University and co-developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, is one of six women in the COVID-19 fight who have new Barbies modeled after them. (8/4)

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un was recently photographed out in public with what appeared to be a large green spot on the back of his head, once again fueling speculation about his health — long a topic of global fascination. Another image showed him sporting an oblong bandage over the mark. The bruise and bandage appeared toward the right side of the 37-year-old dictator’s head during a military meeting held July 24-27, per NK News, a platform dedicated to covering the secretive country. The site added that the mark was visible at other events held between July 27 and 29. (Hassan, 8/3)

Pope Francis resumed his routine of holding weekly audiences with the general public a month after he underwent bowel surgery, and during the much-awaited appearance Wednesday he recalled the anniversary of the devastating Beirut port explosion and expressed the desire to someday visit Lebanon. Francis walked unaided to the center of the stage of a Vatican auditorium before taking his seat in an upholstered chair and then addressing an audience of several hundred pilgrims and tourists, who wore masks as a precaution against COVID-19. (D'Emilio, 8/4)

Japan warned on Wednesday that coronavirus infections were surging at an unprecedented pace as new cases hit a record high in Tokyo, overshadowing the Olympics and adding to doubts over the government's handling of the pandemic. The Delta variant was leading to a spread of infections "unseen in the past", Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said as he defended a new policy of asking patients with milder symptoms to isolate at home rather than going to hospital. (Kihara, 8/4)

The Greek synchronized swimming team has withdrawn from the Olympics because four of its members tested positive for the coronavirus, requiring the entire team to leave the athletes’ village in Tokyo. The Hellenic Olympic Committee said in a statement that “there will be no Greek representation” in the duet or group events in synchronized swimming. All members of the team were transferred to a quarantine hotel, the committee said. (Bengali, 8/3)

Canadian soccer star Quinn is one of at least three transgender and/or nonbinary athletes to compete in the Tokyo Games — along with New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard and the American skateboarder Alana Smith — but Quinn will be the only one to leave with a medal. The color of the medal, however, will depend on Canada’s championship game against the Swedish women’s soccer team Friday. (Yurcaba, 8/2)

Simone Biles' withdrawal from Olympics gymnastics events generated significant public interest in mental health, according to exclusive data from NewsWhip. The Tokyo Games offered the ultimate platform for the topic to get global attention, with much of the world watching the same story. Biles sparked a bigger conversation about mental health than either Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's interview with Oprah or Naomi Osaka's withdrawal from the French Open — both of which generated significant international interest. (Rothschild, 8/4)

Missing from this year's Olympics was tennis superstar Rafael Nadal. A foot injury forced him to sit the games out, but now he's aiming to score a record 21st Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open. His road to the tournament starts in Washington, D.C., where he is back, wowing crowds with his forehand and incredible spin. (CBS News, 8/3)

U.S. Olympic heptathlete Annie Kunz says tracking her monthly cycles and learning she needs to eat more and get more naps when she's fatigued has already improved her athletic performance. (Mertens, 8/3)

Eli Lilly and Co. said on Tuesday it plans to seek U.S. approval for its experimental Alzheimer's disease drug by year end and believes the treatment could be favored by doctors once it becomes available to patients. Eli Lilly shares were up 4%. A landmark U.S. approval of Biogen Inc.'s Alzheimer's drug in June has boosted the chances for other medicines that clear plaques from the brain. (Mishra and O'donnell, 8/3)

The pricing of prescription drugs — which account for the largest share of health insurance premiums — has sometimes been compared to a “black box” that leaves consumers and other payers in the dark. North Dakota is one of a growing list of states, including Minnesota, that are taking steps to pry open that black box so the public has more information about the factors that drive prescription drug prices. (Springer, 7/30)

Drug prices overall are not expected to increase meaningfully in 2022, although the number of specialty medications and drugs without biosimilar competition are projected to grow, according to Vizient, a group purchasing organization. For the most part, costs will stay in line with the pharmaceutical industry's downward inflation trend. Vizient's latest Pharmacy Market Outlook—which forecasts what its hospitals and health systems might pay for drugs after discounts and rebates between in 2022—predicts that pharmaceutical costs will increase by 3.1%. (Devereax, 7/30)

Rep. Scott Peters, a low-profile California Democrat now serving his fifth term in the House, two years ago supported a landmark bill that would have substantially lowered the cost of life-saving drugs for Americans. Now he's the apparent leader of a group of centrist Democrats who oppose that very same bill, and who have collectively received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry.  Peters' apparent flipflop, reported by Stat last week, centers on H.R. 3, a Democratic House bill that would save American consumers billions of dollars on costly drugs for life-altering diseases like cancer, diabetes and multiple sclerosis. (Skolnik, 7/29)

One of the most pressing flaws in our healthcare system today is the outrageously high costs that pharmaceutical firms charge for prescription medications. Here in New Jersey, the burden of prescription drug prices is particularly heavy, and many people simply can’t afford the medications they need. In 2019 alone, more than 104 million prescriptions were filled in New Jersey at a cost of nearly $11.5 billion dollars. In recent years, prescription drug costs jumped 58%, price hikes that have resulted in New Jerseyans incurring the fifth-highest healthcare bills per capita in the country. Forty-nine percent of people in the Garden State reported worrying about how to afford the cost of their drugs, and one-fifth of New Jerseyeans were forced to ration or completely stop taking much-needed prescriptions due to exorbitant costs in 2020. (Democratic Rep. Carol Murphy, 7/29)

In Congress, policy negotiations often center on a couple questions: how much does the bill cost and how much does the bill save? But the intense focus on these matter-of-fact numbers can have the effect of distancing congressional members from the real-world impact policies will have on Americans. Congressional caucuses, like the Rare Disease Congressional Caucus which Joe co-founded in 2009, provide members opportunities to hear from people who confront life-altering decisions on a daily basis. Hearing directly from people affected by rare diseases changes the way members consider legislation. It also allows members to lower their political hackles for a moment and get to know each other on a human level. (Bill Shuster and Joe Crowley, 8/1)

If you’ve had trouble paying for prescription medicine for yourself or family members -- regardless if you are insured or not -- you aren’t alone. Americans pay three times more for medications than people in other countries. As the cost of lifesaving medications like insulin skyrocket, Pennsylvanians face impossible tradeoffs, like deciding whether to pay rent or to purchase the medications that keep them alive. As a doctor, I see examples of this almost every day.One of my patients was a diabetic man in his mid-thirties who relied on insulin to stay alive -- it was literally a life-saving drug for him. When the prescription cost of insulin rose, he was no longer able to afford his insulin due to being uninsured and being unable to pay the out of pocket price. As with so many other patients I’ve seen, he began to ration his medication to disastrous effects. This young man in the prime of his life developed diabetic ketoacidosis which led to kidney failure and a reliance on dialysis, completely altering the course of his life. (Meaghan Reid, 7/28)

The only consistent aspect of drug pricing in the United States is that the breadth of its variations and fluctuations are inexplicable to the consumer. We recently analyzed internal data on three common insulin drugs to see how prices differed and fluctuated among regional areas. Our data suggests that Humalog is the most prescribed and the lowest price option among the three. (Kumar Srinivas, 7/28)

As calls for the Food and Drug Administration to fully approve Covid-19 vaccines grow louder, the agency itself has little to say. This is a mistake. The agency insists it is “working as quickly as possible” and has suggested that full approval may come for at least one vaccine by the end of summer. The public is left wondering: What’s taking so long? This isn’t just a minor nuisance. It undermines trust in the vaccines and damages the FDA’s most valuable asset — its credibility. (8/3)

When you go to the airport, you see two kinds of security rules. Some apply equally to everyone; no one can carry weapons through the TSA checkpoint. But other protocols divide passengers into categories according to how much of a threat the government thinks they pose. If you submit to heightened scrutiny in advance, TSA PreCheck lets you go through security without taking off your shoes; a no-fly list keeps certain people off the plane entirely. Not everyone poses an equal threat. Rifling through the bags of every business traveler and patting down every preschooler and octogenarian would waste the TSA’s time and needlessly burden many passengers. (Juliette Kayyem, 8/3)

The New York vaccine passport simply acknowledges what public health experts have understood since early in the pandemic, crowds of people, indoors, without masks create an epidemiological powder keg just waiting for a spark. The real questions to ask are whether this provides enough safety, and if so, should it be implemented nationally? Will it Work? We knew from the outset that the SARS CoV-2 vaccines dramatically reduce rates of infection, rates of symptoms and disease severity. But that was alpha. This is delta. (Robert D. Morris, 8/3)

I was sitting on an examination table at an urgent care clinic in Timonium, giving my history to a physician’s assistant. An hour later, she would call me to confirm that I was positive for COVID-19. Given the way that I felt, it was what I expected. But it wasn’t supposed to happen: I’ve been fully vaccinated for months. (Allan Massie, 8/3)

“Be first, be right, be credible,” are among the most important principles for health authorities to follow in a crisis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shared in a pamphlet on crisis communication in 2018. To meet those goals, the report advises, avoid sending mixed messages from multiple experts, releasing information too late, taking paternalistic attitudes, failing to counter rumors and myths in real time and engaging in public power struggles and causing confusion. (Zeynep Tufekci, 8/4)

As new variants — delta, and then probably epsilon and whatever comes next — bring us more waves of Covid-19 in the fall and winter, policymakers and citizens in all developed countries should say out loud and in unison: This time, let’s save our kids. This means, yes, offering youngsters vaccinations if the parents agree, as Germany just decided to do for children older than 12, even while a commission of scientists still dithers about recommending this step. (Andreas Kluth, 8/4)

We are at a crossroads with respect to COVID-19 and its impact on children. Over the first year of the pandemic in the U.S., fewer than 6 percent of COVID-19 cases occurred among children, and most produced only minor symptoms. Unfortunately, the new delta variant of COVID-19 appears to be a game changer. Having practiced and done research in pediatric infectious diseases for more than 35 years, traveling the world studying and treating HIV/AIDS and many other epidemic infectious diseases, I am worried. (Mark W. Kline, 8/3)

Few of us have fond memories of our teenage years, myself included. Now imagine being 16 again during a pandemic and not seeing friends in person for more than a year. Plus, you’re glued to a device that tells you all about the bad stuff happening in the world … or the amazing, curated lives that look so different from yours. We know that teens face a growing mental health crisis—and that this is a critical time to intervene. About half of all lifetime mental illnesses develop by age 14 and 75% by the age of 24, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Globally, depression is the fourth leading cause of illness and disability among adolescents ages 15 to 19 years, according to the World Health Organization. (Chrissy Farr, 8/2)

This summer, surgeons at University Hospitals in Cleveland transplanted a donor kidney into the wrong patient, while the patient the kidney had been destined for had to go back on the waiting list for another one to become available. The most surprising thing about the story is not that a serious medical error occurred, but that it found its way into the news. (Michael J. Saks and Stephan Landsman, 8/4)

Even by the cynical standard of contemporary politics, it’s stunning to see the way that public-health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been politicized and demagogued. It’s as if we are watching a limbo contest as certain Republicans shimmy lower and lower as they pander to those who believe that their choice to go unvaccinated or unmasked includes an inalienable right to be spared any inconvenience based on the risk their decisions present to others. (Scot Lehigh, 8/3)

In 2018 I visited twins in Bangalore, India who had recently underwent cochlear implant surgery. Their surgery had taken place the previous month and their implants had been activated, or turned on, a few weeks after the surgery. When I met them, they were fiddling with the processors that sat behind their ears and they massaged their still-tender scalps. They wanted to show me the big cardboard box that had held their processors, and that still held extra cables, magnets, and microphone covers to eventually be used. (Michele Friedner, 8/3)

As with everything else covid-related, vaccine passports were a political flash point even before New York City announced Tuesday that it would mandate proof of vaccination for many indoor settings. Liberals are enthusiastic, while conservatives have variously derided them as “Jim Crow,” “authoritarianism” or “un-American” — and denounced as a quisling anyone on the right who seems to support them. (Megan McArdle, 8/3)

When people seek health information, they expect what they get to be reliable and accurate. But these expectations can be dashed, especially by digital health devices, many of which are not reviewed the Food and Drug Administration or other regulatory body. (Ryan Knox and Cara Tenenbaum, 8/3)

When I reflect back on the past 18 months, two themes emerge—tragedy and triumph. Tragedy is seen in the unimaginable suffering and death we continue to experience in our nation and across the globe, claiming the lives of more than 600,000 Americans and 4 million worldwide. The physical and emotional toll on families and individuals, whether they lost someone to the virus or contracted it themselves, will also continue to mount. (Chip Kahn, 8/2)