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Alaska on Tuesday broadened an already long list of people eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine to include anyone 16 and older who lives or works in the state. The change makes Alaska the first U.S. state to remove eligibility requirements for the COVID-19 vaccine, state officials said Tuesday. Officials announced the milestone almost a year after Alaska marked its first case of the virus that was tied to the deaths of more than 300 Alaskans, left others with lasting health complications and wreaked havoc on the economy statewide. (Krakow, 3/9)

Alaska on Tuesday became the first state to make Covid vaccines available to anyone 16 and older who works or lives in the state, effective immediately. “This historic step is yet another nationwide first for Alaska,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a statement, adding he “couldn’t be prouder” of Alaska’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. (Ng, 3/9)

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy called the vaccination expansion a "game changer." He said eligibility requirements for the vaccinations are dropped, effective immediately. "A healthy community means a healthy economy," Dunleavy said. "With widespread vaccinations available to all Alaskans who live or work here, we will no doubt see our economy grow and our businesses thrive." (Diaz, 3/10)

Alaska has fully vaccinated 16 percent of its population, the highest rate in the country, according to a New York Times database. Adam Crum, the commissioner of the state health department, said, “If Alaskans had any questions about vaccine eligibility and criteria, I hope today’s announcement clears it up for you.” He added, “Simply put, you are eligible to get the vaccine.” (Pietsch and Gold, 3/9)

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday said he would lower the age for Covid-19 vaccine eligibility to 60 years old from 65 on March 10, as states qualify more groups in response to increasing supply from the federal government. Essential in-person workers from government agencies and nonprofits will be able to get the shots starting March 17. Public-facing building-service workers also will be eligible, Cuomo said Tuesday while visiting a vaccine site at the New York State Fair in Syracuse. This includes sanitation, motor-vehicles and election workers, county clerks, government inspectors and caseworkers. (Clukey and Young, 3/9)

Starting this Monday (March 15), people ages 60 and older in Florida will be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he was lowering the age to qualify for a shot during a press conference on Monday in Tallahassee. (Colombini, 3/9)

Minnesota is opening up vaccine eligibility to include 1.8 million more people, including those with underlying conditions and essential workers, Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday. The expansion, effective Wednesday, comes as the state hits its goal of vaccinating 70% of seniors weeks ahead of schedule. (Van Oot, 3/9)

After initially deeming that inoculating prisoners could be a “PR nightmare,” Tennessee officials on Tuesday said some inmates were receiving a COVID-19 vaccine — but only those who qualify as part of other groups the state has prioritized. The Department of Correction has ordered 2,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and 980 doses of the Moderna vaccine to be distributed to inmates who are 65 and older or have health conditions that put them in groups already given priority status by the state, department spokesperson Dorinda Carter said in an email. (Kruesi, 3/9)

In late February, Claire DiYenno opened her inbox to discover the golden ticket: An email from her doctor’s office with a subject line telling her that she was now eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine. It was welcome news, but unexpected. “I was trying to think of all the different things that maybe I could have been eligible for, because I have migraines. I’ve had recent surgery,” says DiYenno, who lives in Upstate New York. Then she opened the email and found out the real reason: Her body mass index, or BMI, was considered to be in the “obese” category. (Judkis, 3/9)

As states have begun vaccinating Americans with medical conditions that may raise their risk for a severe case of Covid-19, they are setting widely varying rules about which conditions to prioritize. The morass of guidelines has set off a free-for-all among people with underlying health problems like cancer or Type 2 diabetes to persuade state health and political officials to add particular conditions to an evolving vaccine priority list. (Harmon and Ivory, 3/9)

In the hustle to score an elusive vaccine appointment, the leftover dose has become the stuff of pandemic lore. Extra shots — which must be used within hours once taken out of cold storage — have been doled out to drugstore customers buying midnight snacks, people who are friends with nurses and those who show up at closing time at certain grocery stores and pharmacies. At some larger vaccination sites, the race to use every dose sets off a flurry of end-of-the-day phone calls. (Thomas, 3/9)

When Seattle’s largest health care system got a mandate from Washington state to create a mass COVID-19 vaccination site, organizers knew that gathering enough volunteers would be almost as crucial as the vaccine itself. “We could not do this without volunteers,” said Renee Rassilyer-Bomers, chief quality officer for Swedish Health Services and head of its vaccination site at Seattle University. “The sheer volume and number of folks that we wanted to be able to serve and bring in requires … 320 individuals each day.” (Tang and Valdes, 3/10)

Across the country, vaccination sites are coming up with creative solutions to encourage people in the U.S. to get their vaccine shots. In cities both big and small, facilities are hosting themed events to break the tension and get people excited about being vaccinated against Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus — all while having some fun. A vaccination site in Texas made headlines Saturday after hosting an '80’s-themed, 24-hour “Vax-A-Thon,” according to ABC affiliate KVUE. The Family Hospital Systems partnered with Williamson County to vaccinate 7,000 people in 24 hours at the Kelly Reeves Complex in Austin, the station reported. (Wong, 3/9)

Despite the unprecedented rollout of three COVID-19 vaccines, 25% of Americans in a new poll from Monmouth University said they are still unwilling to be vaccinated. Many experts believe that without 70% to 80% of the public gaining COVID-19 immunity through infection or vaccination, herd immunity will be difficult for the nation to obtain, especially because 24% of the population is children, who are as yet ineligible for vaccination. (Soucheray, 3/9)

Some celebrated when the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out with its long-awaited guidelines for the fully vaccinated Monday. Others were hoping for more, especially about travel. With daily new cases hovering around the 60,000 mark and the threat of variants spreading, navigating the pandemic is admittedly tricky, even for the fully vaccinated. The director of the CDC made clear these guidelines will not be the last word. (Christensen, 3/9)

Thousands of vaccine appointments have gone unfilled in the last week, leading local health officials to urge opening COVID-19 vaccinations to people age 55 and older. Clark County’s two mass vaccination sites, as well as smaller sites, are operating well below capacity, Southern Nevada Health District chief health officer Dr. Fermin Leguen said Monday. “We really are struggling right now to fill our vaccination sites,” Leguen said. Both mass vaccination sites are capable of administering about 4,000 doses per day. However, Leguen said recently the Cashman Center has been administering less than 2,500 per day, and the Las Vegas Convention Center is rarely breaking 3,000. (Scott Davidson and Hynes, 3/9)

Pasadena officials on Tuesday canceled a COVID-19 vaccination clinic for senior citizens, grocery store employees and other essential workers after hundreds of people who were not eligible for the shots signed up for appointments. People who did not yet qualify for the vaccine under state guidelines claimed about 900 of the 1,500 slots at a clinic that was designed for people older than 65 and essential workers who live or work in Pasadena, city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said. Many of the appointments were booked by people who worked in the media and in Hollywood, Derderian said, including at production companies, streaming TV services and news outlets and on the sets of soap operas. (Nelson, 3/9)

Three months after Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that seniors were his top priority in the coronavirus vaccine rollout, about 1.8 million of the state’s residents 65 and older still hadn’t been vaccinated as of Monday. DeSantis is expanding vaccination eligibility next week to anyone 60 or older, adding another 1.4 million people to those vying with seniors for the often hard-to-get vaccine appointments. Health care workers, people of any age with underlying conditions and firefighters, teachers and law enforcement officers 50 and older also are eligible. (LeFever, 3/10)

As Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine continues to be disseminated to combat COVID-19, Maryland has given out more doses of the latest inoculation than any other state, according to the most recent vaccination update from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Ruiz, 3/9)

Elderly Oregonians who tried to sign up for COVID-19 vaccinations at some local pharmacies this week learned they are no longer eligible for appointments because of new national guidance from the White House that prioritizes teachers. But Oregon already prioritized teachers, authorizing vaccinations Jan. 25 even as seniors were forced to wait until Feb. 8 through March 1 for their turns. Oregon is now significantly behind states like California and Washington in its rate of vaccinations among seniors. (Goldberg, 3/9)

“One key advantage here is that these organizations are inviting in their own patients. These patients have built up trust with their doctor and nurses over years. They are now listening to the people they trust most to give them advice about the vaccine,” Philadelphia Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said last month, describing the centers as “a key part of our racial equity strategy.” The strategy seems to be working. As of Feb. 28, nearly two-thirds of the 15,863 vaccines administered by private, nonprofit health centers had gone to African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. For the city as a whole, 54% of doses have gone to whites, and only a third to those three groups. (The remainder include people whose racial identity is not known or is listed as “other.”) (Brubaker, 3/10)

Among the more than half a million Utahns who have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, 154 people had bad reactions that have been reported to a federal database. The reporting includes the deaths of four Utahns after they got a shot. Health experts caution that a person dying shortly after being inoculated does not mean vaccine caused that person’s death. Federal health officials say they found “no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths” in the cases reported to the database after COVID-19 inoculations. (Means, 3/10)

Acute allergic reactions occurred in 2.10% but anaphylaxis in only 0.025% of employees of two Boston hospitals who received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA. Scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital administered email, text, phone, and smartphone app survey links to 64,900 employees who received a dose of one of the two mRNA coronavirus vaccines from Dec 16, 2020, to Feb 12, 2021. (Van Beusekom, 3/9)

KHN: Pfizer’s Newest Vaccine Plant Has Persistent Mold Issues, History Of Recalls 

Pfizer’s management knew last year there was “a mold issue” at the Kansas facility now slated to produce the drugmaker’s urgently needed covid-19 vaccine, according to a Food and Drug Administration inspection report. The McPherson, Kansas, facility, which FDA inspectors wrote is the nation’s largest manufacturer of sterile injectable controlled substances, has a long, troubled history. Nearly a decade’s worth of FDA inspection reports, recalls and reprimands reviewed by KHN show the facility as a repeat offender. FDA investigators have repeatedly noted in reports that the plant has failed to control quality and contamination or fully investigate after production failures. (Tribble, 3/10)

White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that Covid-19 cases in the United States may plateau again at a very high level, even as the nation rapidly administers three vaccines. The decline in cases seen since early January now appears to be “going down a little more slowly,” Fauci told the Center for Strategic and International Studies during an interview Tuesday afternoon. “Which means we might plateau again at an unacceptably high level.” (Lovelace Jr., 3/9)

Detailed data released this week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services illustrates just how much the nation's hospitals have recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic's third wave. Although more than 1,500 Americans are dying from COVID-19 every day, the new data show COVID-19 patients comprising a smaller and smaller share of hospital admissions around the country, most drastically in the West and South, regions hit hard by the disease through the holidays. "Overall we are seeing the numbers of COVID patients in our hospitals at the lowest levels in more than a year," said Bart Buxton, president and CEO of McLaren Health Management Group in Michigan, in an email. "We currently have fewer than 80 patients total in our 15 hospitals with SARS-COV-2 primary diagnosis and very few of those patients are in our ICUs." (Bajak, 3/9)

The seven-day average for new daily coronavirus cases in the United States fell below 58,000 for the first time since mid-October, after weeks in which a steady decline in new infections appeared to have plateaued. The drop comes as the United States is administering an average of 2.15 million vaccine doses per day, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. But even as more Americans are immunized against the virus, public health experts are warning against the loosening of restrictions in states such as Florida and Texas. This month, spring break starts for tens of thousands of college students in the United States, which scientists worry could accelerate the spread of new variants. (Cunningham, 3/10)

The Florida Department of Health reported Monday that 3,312 people tested positive for the coronavirus since Sunday. The total number of people who have tested positive is 1,948,307. Florida is averaging 5,111 new cases per day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University analyzed by NPR. That’s a 12 percent drop from the week prior – and less than half of Florida’s daily average from a month ago. (Newborn, 3/9)

Higher pollen concentration is correlated with an increase in COVID-19 cases in early spring 2020, reports a study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While the data indicate that high pollen concentrations could add an extra 10% to 30% to SARS-CoV-2 infection rates, the researchers reiterate that viral transmissions will not occur unless you are exposed to someone with COVID-19.Previous studies have shown that pollen exposure can impair immunity against some seasonal respiratory viruses, and so the researchers tried to identify a relationship with SARS-CoV-2. From early- to mid-March through Apr 8, 2020, they looked at data from 130 regions in 31 countries across all inhabited continents, synthesizing pollen concentration (in density and taxa classifications) and weather conditions such as temperature and humidity with COVID-19 data, population data, and lockdown effects. (3/9)

The US and UK digital COVID-19 symptom checkers consistently suggest less healthcare contact than Singapore's and Japan's, which may cause more serious outcomes, according to a study released yesterday by BMJ Health & Care Informatics. While all four checkers failed to appropriately triage neutropenic sepsis, or sepsis in those with low white blood cell count, the US and UK checkers consistently suggested no or delayed medical care for severe COVID-19, bacterial pneumonia, and sepsis. (3/9)

Nearly one in 10 Americans -- more than 32 million people -- are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The progress offers hope that the brutal battle against the virus is slowly nearing its end. But we're not there just yet. The growing number of vaccinations is still not high enough -- and likely won't be for a few more months, according to experts -- to help suppress the spread of coronavirus. (Maxouris, 3/10)

Several new coronavirus variants have been identified in the United States in recent weeks, and scientists are grappling with whether these strains threaten the country — and, if so, how. One thing experts agree on, though, is that the available vaccines have outperformed expectations — even when it comes to what are known as the "variants of concern." "This virus is not invincible, and despite all these variants, the vaccines are working great," said Jeremy Kamil, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport. "That is really outstanding and people should be celebrating that." (Chow, 3/9)

This week marks two pandemic “anniversaries” — the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020, and former President Trump declared it a national emergency two days later... To mark these dates, I asked a range of people, from clinicians on the frontlines to virus watchers, vaccine makers, and public health specialists, to share their answers to this question: What was the moment last year when you realized we were in real trouble? (Skerrett, 3/10)

Los Angeles students are a critical step closer to a return to campus beginning in mid-April under a tentative agreement reached Tuesday between the teachers union and the L.A. Unified School District, signaling a new chapter in an unprecedented year of coronavirus-forced school closures. The agreement, which must be ratified by members, establishes safety parameters for a return to campus and lays out a markedly different schedule that still relies heavily on online learning. The school day would unfold under a so-called hybrid format — meaning that students would conduct their studies on campus during part of the week and continue with their schooling online at other times. (Blume, 3/9)

The Los Angeles Unified School District reached a tentative agreement with its teachers union that would allow some students in the nation’s second largest school district to resume in-person learning for the first time in more than a year. The deal will allow preschools and elementary schools to reopen in mid-April, though no specific start date was given. Services for students with disabilities of all ages would resume on campuses at the same time. (Mai-Duc, 3/10)

Los Angeles schools superintendent Austin Beutner says he knew the coronavirus had pushed the world to a tipping point in February 2020 when his city jumped from one confirmed coronavirus case to 14 cases in a matter of days. In an interview Tuesday with Axios Re:Cap, Beutner recalls how the second-largest school district in the U.S. prepared to shut down while making sure its most vulnerable families had the resources of more affluent classmates. (Gonzalez, 3/9)

Children nationwide will be able to receive free meals when schools break for the summer after the U.S. Department of Agriculture extended several waivers on Tuesday because of the coronavirus pandemic. The department said as many as 12 million children are currently living in households where they may not have enough to eat, meaning they may rely on meals from school. (Knutson, 3/9)

School districts across the U.S. are looking to add or expand frequent COVID-19 testing as a way to ensure in-person classes are safe. Surveillance testing is uncommon overall, but is gaining a foothold in schools as local officials look to keep kids safe and reassure nervous staff and parents. (Fernandez, 3/10)

Last September, as Covid-19 vaccine candidates were rapidly advancing, Katherine Park and six of her fellow school nurses in St. Louis County, Mo., envisioned school-based vaccination sites as an extension of the district’s pandemic response plan, which they had been working on for months. They reached out to the local health department, letting it know the district had buildings for use and more than 30 school nurses who could jump in on administering shots. (Sohn, 3/10)

KHN: What Childhood Vaccine Rates Can, And Can’t, Teach Us About Covid Vaccines

Polls show Americans are increasingly interested in getting vaccinated against covid-19, but such surveys are largely national, leaving a big question: When the vaccines become available to the general public, will enough people get it in your county, city or neighborhood to keep your community safe? Data on childhood vaccines, such as the one that protects against measles, mumps and rubella, provide hints. They show that the collective protection known as herd immunity can break down in pockets where not enough people choose to be immunized. Experts say at least 92% of the population must be vaccinated against measles to prevent it from spreading. (Bichell, 3/10)

It could become more affordable for laid-off workers to keep their employer-sponsored health insurance, thanks to a provision in the Covid relief bill making its way through Congress. As part of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package, the government would pay for former employees to maintain health coverage from their old job through COBRA, or the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. (Nova, 3/9)

President Joe Biden plans to use the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill expected to pass Congress on Wednesday as a platform for a generational transformation of the economy to benefit the least well-off Americans and alleviate poverty. The passage of a bill of this scale and ambition two months into any new president's term would represent a power-affirming win. The political payoff for Biden of his first legacy achievement may be even greater. (Collinson, 3/10)

Congress is set to give the final green light to a $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package Wednesday, setting in motion another gargantuan political lift: a Washington-wide effort to administer one of the largest economic relief packages in U.S. history. Over the coming weeks, the Biden administration must send another round of one-time checks to millions of families, rethink vast portions of the U.S. tax code and dole out much-needed sums to help cash-strapped Americans, seeking to swiftly blunt an economic crisis that has left millions without jobs and falling further behind financially. (Romm, Stein and Siegel, 3/9)

As President Joe Biden's pandemic relief package steams through Congress, Democrats have hitched a ride for a top health care priority: strengthening the Affordable Care Act with some of the most significant changes to insurance affordability in more than a decade. The bill would spend $34 billion to help Americans who buy insurance on the health plan marketplaces created by the ACA through 2022, when the benefits would expire. (Huetteman, 3/9)

The sweeping COVID-19 relief bill that Democrats expect to send to Joe Biden’s desk Wednesday is not only the first major legislation of the president’s term. It could also define the 2022 midterm elections, which will be a referendum on Biden’s first two years in office. (Bowman, 3/10)

Publicly, House Democrats are largely united behind a simple message surrounding COVID-19 vaccines: Get one as soon as you can and take whichever one is offered.   Yet behind the scenes, Democratic leaders and rank-and-file members are at odds over their strategy, a disagreement rooted in growing concerns that the new, slightly less effective one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine might be sent disproportionately to vulnerable minority communities.  (Wong and Lillis, 3/9)

A teenager charged in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has been ordered released from jail after contracting COVID-19. During a court hearing on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss granted 18-year-old Bruno Joseph Cua pre-trial release, an attorney for Cua told The Hill. Cua was granted bond, and will be released into his mother's custody on March 16. (Williams, 3/9)

Six former FDA commissioners are urging President Biden to quickly nominate an FDA commissioner. The FDA, which plays a central role in the coronavirus pandemic, has been without a permanent commissioner since January and there’s no telling when that will change. Biden is already on track to nominate an FDA commissioner later in his tenure as president than his two most immediate predecessors. (Florko, 3/9)

Seemingly overnight, the Food and Drug Administration appears to be taking a more risk-averse stance on drug reviews, leaving drug makers confused and their stock prices battered. Acadia Pharmaceuticals said Monday evening that it was notified by the FDA about “deficiencies” in its application for an expanded use for its anti-psychosis drug Nuplazid. The company said the letter from the agency arrived on March 3 without any warning, exactly one month before Acadia was expecting a decision on Nuplazid’s approval. (Feuerstein, 3/9)

The Department of Health and Human Services’ watchdog is examining how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can improve the accuracy of its data on Covid-19’s toll by race and ethnicity, according to two senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the investigation. The HHS inspector general has interviewed several officials who deal with Covid-19 data over the past week and plans to continue meeting with the agency over the coming days, those sources said. Those initial conversations suggest the inspector general is focused on finding ways to get a more complete picture, particularly around vaccinations, and how the agency can more closely coordinate with states on the collection of the data, officials said. (Banco and Tahir, 3/9)

In the decade-plus since it became law, the Affordable Care Act has helped slow the explosive growth in health spending. But the United States still spends about twice as much per capita as other wealthy nations. That leaves President Joe Biden with an enormous health care challenge, beyond leading the country out of the pandemic: curbing health care cost increases that, economists warn, are unsustainable. The political obstacles will be enormous. Biden faces a Republican Party that has spent the past decade trying to destroy the ACA. There also is a remote possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will scrap Obamacare when it rules on a challenge to the law mounted by GOP state attorneys general, many legal experts say. And Biden will have to overcome the resistance of powerful medical and pharmaceutical interests that oppose price constraints. (Ollove, 3/8)

Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed Senate Bill 6 on Tuesday, enacting a near-total ban on abortions in Arkansas and prompting immediate promises of a legal challenge by abortion-rights groups seeking to block the law from taking effect. The legislation signed by the governor creates one of the harshest restrictions on abortion in the nation, allowing the procedure only in instances when the life or health of the mother is in danger. (Moritz, 3/10)

Under Senate Bill 6, abortion would only be allowed in cases where it's necessary to save the life or preserve the health of the fetus or mother. The law does not allow any exceptions in situations of rape or incest--a line that anti-abortion rights activists and lawmakers have supported in the past. The measure's supporters expect the law to be challenged by abortion rights activists. It's future is uncertain, as similar attempts to restrict access to abortion services in Ohio, Georgia, and Alabama in the last two years have failed after federal courts struck down local laws. But that's no matter, according to Hutchinson. He said Tuesday the goal of the legislation is to bring the fight over abortion to the Supreme Court. (Diaz, 3/10)

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday signed into law legislation banning nearly all abortions in the state, a sweeping measure that supporters hope will force the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its landmark Roe v. Wade decision but opponents vow to block before it takes effect later this year. The Republican governor had expressed reservations about the bill, which only allows the procedure to save the life of the mother and does not provide exceptions for those impregnated by rape or incest. Arkansas is one of at least 14 states where legislators have proposed near outright abortion bans this year. Hutchinson said he was signing the bill because of its "overwhelming legislative support and my sincere and long-held pro-life convictions." (3/9)

A Texas lawmaker has filed a bill that would abolish and criminalize abortions, leaving women and physicians who perform the procedure to face criminal charges that could carry the death penalty. The legislation, filed Tuesday by state Rep. Bryan Slaton, does not include exceptions for rape or incest. It does exempt ectopic pregnancies that seriously threaten the life of the woman “when a reasonable alternative to save the lives of both the mother and the unborn child is unavailable.” (Najmabadi, 3/9)

When the electric grid went down in Texas last week, it temporarily closed at least 17 out of 21 abortion clinics in the state, sparking a reproductive health crisis that will take weeks to recover from. ... In total, thousands of people across Texas had to delay their appointments for a range of services, including STI treatment, birth control, hormone therapy, and abortion. (Solis, 2/26)

Two bills aimed at making abortions illegal in Oklahoma are now moving to the state Senate. Both were heavily contested in the House. If one of the bills passes, abortions would be effectively illegal in the state. House Bill 1102 would allow the state to revoke the medical license of physicians performing abortions. House Bill 2441 would prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. (Ellis, 3/10)

Abortion providers in Ohio sued Tuesday to block a state law requiring that fetal remains from surgical abortions be cremated or buried, arguing a lack of rules makes complying “impossible.” Clinics and their lawyers at ACLU of Ohio filed suit against the Ohio Department of Health and others in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. They asked the court to block the law as an unconstitutional hurdle to women’s legal right to an abortion. (Smyth, 3/10)

Hawaii lawmakers have advanced a bill that would allow nurses to perform abortions. The decision on Thursday by the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee will advance the legislation to the full state House for consideration. The measure would allow advanced practice registered nurses to end a pregnancy by medication or aspiration, a medical procedure that uses suction to conduct an abortion. Nurses must have prescriptive authority, specialize in the medical practice and have a valid license, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. (3/7)

A federally appointed task force recommended a major increase in the number of Americans eligible for free screening for lung cancer, saying expanded testing will save lives and especially benefit Black people and women. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent group of 16 physicians and scientists who evaluate preventive tests and medications, said people with a long history of smoking should begin getting annual low-dose CT scans at age 50, five years earlier than the group recommended in 2013. The group also broadened the definition of people it considers at high risk for the disease. (McGinley, 3/9)

The advice, published on Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA, differs in two major ways from the task force’s previous guidelines, issued in 2013: It lowers the age when screening should start, to 50 from 55, and it reduces the smoking history to 20 years, from 30. (Grady, 3/9)

The inclusive criteria are expected to increase eligibility from 6.4 million adults to 14.5 million, according to an editorial by the University of North Carolina School of Medicine professors published in JAMA Tuesday. “There’s a huge need to diagnosing patients early,” said Dr. David Carbone, an oncologist and lung cancer specialist at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, who is unaffiliated with the editorial. “When you don’t do screening exams, most lung cancer patients are diagnosed when they're incurable.” (Rodriguez, 3/9)

Lung cancer is the nation’s top cancer killer, causing more than 135,000 deaths each year. Smoking is the chief cause and quitting the best protection. Usually, lung cancer is diagnosed too late for a good chance at survival. But some Americans who are at especially high risk get an annual low-dose CT scan, a type of X-ray, to improve those odds. (Neergaard, 3/9)

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has acquired the vial that contained the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the United States as part of its plans to document the global pandemic and “this extraordinary period we were going through.” The acquisition, along with other materials related to that first vaccine dose, was announced by the museum on Tuesday to mark the upcoming one-year anniversary of the pandemic. Associated Press journalists were given an exclusive backstage look at the newly obtained materials, which include vials, special shipping equipment and the medical scrubs and ID badge of the New York City nurse who was America’s first coronavirus vaccine recipient. (Khalil, 3/19)

Early research suggests that face masks used to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus are safe to use even during intense exercise, and could help to curb the spread of COVID-19 at indoor gyms. In a paper published this week in the European Respiratory Journal, researchers with the Monzino Cardiology Centre (CCM) in Milan and the University of Milan studied the breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels of 12 healthy people, six women and six men, as they rode exercise bikes. They studied these levels in three rounds, while the participants did not wear a mask, while they wore a surgical mask, and while they wore an FFP2 mask, which is similar to the N95. (Farber, 3/9)

KHN: For Covid ‘Long Haulers,’ Battling For Disability Benefits Adds Aggravation To Exhaustion

Rickie Andersen took a brief break from work in March after she fell ill. Her cough, fever and chills were typical covid-19 symptoms, but coronavirus tests were so scarce she could not obtain one to confirm the diagnosis. After Andersen returned to her job as an information systems project manager in the San Francisco Bay Area, she struggled with profound fatigue, cognitive difficulties and other disabling complaints. For six months, she tried to keep awake during meetings and finish basic tasks that took much longer than before. (Tuller, 3/10)

Men who use anabolic steroids to build muscle for that "perfect bod" may be harming their testicular function for years after they stop taking the drugs, according to a new study of nonathletic bodybuilders. "It has been unclear whether illicit use of anabolic steroids caused a long-lasting or even persistent impairment of the testosterone production in the testicles," said study author Dr. Jon Rasmussen, a scientist at Rigshospitalet, a highly specialized hospital affiliated with the University of Copenhagen. "These results suggest a long-lasting testicular dysfunction," Rasmussen said via email. (LaMotte, 3/9)

KHN: Texas Winter Storm Exposes Gaps In Senior Living Oversight

When the big, red and extremely loud fire alarm went off in Maria Skladzien’s apartment, the 74-year-old ventured into the hallway with fellow residents of her Houston-area senior living community. The brutal winter storm that swept through Texas had knocked out power, which, in turn, disrupted water to the four-story building. The blaring alarms raised fears of fire. The building’s elevators were unusable without power. Dependent on her wheelchair, Skladzien went back inside her second-floor apartment. She watched as residents gathered in the subfreezing temperatures outside, wondering if she would have to “throw herself out the window” to survive. (West, 3/10)

An "unprecedented" drop in patient volumes stemming from pandemic-related shutdowns coupled with higher supply and labor costs has made Providence the latest health system to post an operating loss in 2020. Renton, Wash.-based Providence lost $306 million on $25.7 billion in operating revenue last year, a 1.2% loss margin. The 51-hospital system's margin was an already slim 0.9% in 2019, when the system made $214 million on $25 billion in revenue. Providence's 2020 revenue includes $957 million in federal stimulus grants, without which its loss would have been much higher. (Bannow, 3/9)

The Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida reports that revenue collections have returned to pre-COVID projections, and the state has more cash on hand than ever. But the group is still concerned about cuts to Medicaid. (Miller, 3/9)

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs denied UnitedHealthcare's motion to dismiss on Monday. In March 2020, a court dismissed an individual claim on behalf of Kate Weismann, who paid $95,000 out-of-pocket for proton beam therapy to treat her cervical cancer. The court said that she would have to sue under a different provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA. While Weismann accused UnitedHealthcare of breaching its fiduciary duty, the judge said she should have sued the insurer for denial of benefits. Weismann amended her complaint and the court eventually consolidated her case with two others accusing UnitedHealthcare of wrongfully denying proton beam therapy for cancer treatment. (Tepper, 3/9)

Northern Light Health paid a Bangor psychologist less than 60 percent of what her male colleagues made while she was working at Acadia Hospital, but it was not because of her sex, the hospital system said this week in a court filing. The court filing came in response to a lawsuit Clare Mundell, who is also a Bangor School Committee member, filed in U.S. District Court in Bangor on Jan. 5. Mundell is seeking unspecified damages for unequal pay, sex discrimination and retaliation. (Marino Jr., 3/9)

The pandemic has significantly impeded the careers of women in academic science, technology, math, and medicine fields, according to a new report. STAT spoke with Eve Higginbotham, chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee that wrote the report, about the significance of this negative trend in fields where women are already underrepresented. Higginbotham is also an ophthalmology professor and vice dean of inclusion, diversity, and equity at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. (Gaffney, 3/9)

Of all the everyday priorities that changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, few became more crucial than the need to stay connected — to the internet, to teachers and to doctors. Efforts to expand broadband internet access, and especially systems that could connect individuals to their health care providers, have long benefited from bipartisan support, even if Republicans and Democrats disagree over exactly how to best achieve those expansions. Broadband and telehealth were often discussed but rarely prioritized, the rare instance in which both parties agree on something, only to have it overshadowed by unrelated disagreements. Not so once the pandemic hit. (DeChiaro, 3/9)

If you go to the grocery store and pick up something wondering what's in it, that nutrition label is there because of rules from the Department of Health and Human Services. If you show up at an emergency room needing medical care, you have to get treated because of these rules. You're also able to drink bottled water knowing it doesn't contain arsenic because of rules, too. All of those rules — and thousands of others — could disappear without warning because of the Trump administration's Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations Timely or SUNSET rule, finalized the day before President Biden's inauguration. A lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court argues that that rule is a "ticking time bomb" designed to tie up the current administration in bureaucratic knots. (Simmons-Duffin, 3/9)

Modern hospitals and antibiotic treatment alone did not create all the antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria we see today. Instead, selection pressures from before widespread use of antibiotics influenced some of them to develop, new research has discovered. By using analytical and sequencing technology that has only been developed in recent years, scientists from Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Oslo and University of Cambridge have created an evolutionary timeline of the bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis, which is a common bacterium that can cause antibiotic resistant infections in hospitals. (3/9)

Maryland will lift capacity limits on certain businesses starting this Friday per Gov. Larry Hogan (R)'s latest order issued Tuesday. Restaurants, bars and other businesses will no longer be required to reduce capacity, though customers must social distance and the state's mask mandate will remain in effect. Large outdoor and indoor venues, like conference halls, will still have to limit capacity. (Knutson, 3/9)

Ana’s 9-year-old son was the first in the family to come down with symptoms that looked like COVID-19 last March. Soon after, the 37-year-old unauthorized immigrant and three of her other children, including a daughter with asthma, struggled to breathe. (Dawson, 3/9)

Inmates in North Carolina prisons will now receive testing and treatment for hepatitis C, as well as education about how the virus spreads, according to a federal class-action lawsuit settlement on Monday. In 2018, three state inmates sued the Department of Public Safety saying they were denied treatment for their hepatitis C virus because they weren’t sick enough to receive medication under the prison system’s former criteria. (Knopf, 3/10)

Buried in President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill is a provision intended to entice 12 holdout states to extend health coverage to more low-income adults by expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Although Congress has not yet passed the legislation, Biden’s strategy appears to be working. A key Wyoming Senate committee this week approved a measure that would extend Medicaid benefits to all poor adults—not just older adults, those with disabilities and pregnant women. The bill now moves to the Wyoming Senate floor. If it passes, the law would add about 24,000 Wyoming residents to the Medicaid rolls, according to estimates released by the state’s Department of Health last month. (Ollove, 3/9)

Environmental advocates are calling for Governor Daniel J. McKee to adopt state regulations for “forever chemicals” that can contaminate drinking water. The calls follow a new study that shows the main drinking water sources for tens of thousands of people on Cape Cod contain elevated levels of the toxic chemicals, which can come from firefighting foam, Teflon, and food packaging. Harvard University scientists report that watersheds around Mashpee have 40 times more PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) than new Massachusetts rules allow. (Fitzpatrick, 3/9)

The U.N. health agency and its partners have found in a new study that nearly one in three women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes, calling the results a “horrifying picture” that requires action by governments and communities alike. The report released Tuesday from the World Health Organization, based on what the agency called the largest-ever study of the prevalence of violence against women, also found such violence starts early. It says a quarter of young women who have been in a relationship were found to have experienced violence by an intimate partner by the time they reach their mid-20s. (3/9)

The numbers are stark – and startling. Around the world, almost 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime, according to a new report released by the World Health Organization. That number has remained largely unchanged over the past decade, WHO said. The report, which WHO says is the largest-ever study of the prevalence of violence against women, draws upon data from 161 countries and areas on women and girls age 15 and up collected between 2000 and 2018. So it does not account for the impact of the pandemic. Lockdowns and related restrictions on movement have led to widespread reports of a "shadow pandemic" — a surge in violence against women and girls around the world, as many found themselves trapped at home with their abusers. (Godoy, 3/9)

Russia has signed a deal to produce its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Italy, the first contract in the European Union, the Italian Russian Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday. The deal was signed with Adienne Srl, the Italian subsidiary of a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company, and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Production of a planned 10 million doses this year is set to launch in July. (Barry and Litvinova, 3/9)

Mexico announced a huge bet on Chinese vaccines Tuesday, without making public any information about their efficacy. Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the Mexican government has signed agreements for 12 million doses of the yet-unapproved Sinopharm vaccine and increased to a total of 20 million doses its contracts for the Coronavac dose made by China’s Sinovac. (3/10)

This Thursday marks one year since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Coronavirus vaccine rollouts are accelerating in the U.S. and elsewhere. The WHO remains concerned about disparities, with rich countries snapping up doses. The pandemic has had a huge economic impact, with much of the world locking down to prevent the virus' spread. Governments have been providing relief packages and are looking to reopen safely. (Falconer, 3/10)

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota sued now-incarcerated Martin "Pharma Bro" Shkreli on Thursday, alleging the company intentionally monopolized the market and illegally jacked up the price of a "gold-standard" drug. The Eagan, Minn.-based insurer filed a proposed class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, saying Vyera Pharmaceutical and its parent company Phonexius strategically cornered the market to increase the price of Daraprim by more than 4,000%. Vyera Pharmaceutical, formerly known as Turing Pharmaceuticals, did not respond to an interview request. The suit also names Shkreli, Phoenxius and Phoenxius' ex-chairman Kevin Mulleady as defendants. Dr. Craig Samitt, president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shie (Tepper, 3/5)

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota filed a class-action lawsuit against Vyera Pharmaceuticals — the rebranded company of Martin Shkreli's Turing Pharmaceuticals — and its parent Phoenixus for allegedly illegally pricing its antimalarial medication. The complaint, filed March 4 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses Vyera of intentionally monopolizing the pharmaceutical market for its antimalarial drug Daraprim, only to increase prices by more than 4,000 percent. Daraprim is used to treat the parasitic disease toxoplasmosis, which can be deadly to those with HIV/AIDS, cancer or compromised immune systems, BCBS of Minnesota said. (Haefner, 3/5)

In the Manhattan federal court suit, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, said Shkreli — and his company Vyera Pharmaceuticals — created the monopoly on the drug Daraprin in 2015 by, among other tactics, preventing “competitors from obtaining the Daraprim samples they needed to launch a generic product.” Shkreli and his company then covered up the scheme, according to the suit, by publicly denying the effort to block competitors from taking samples. With no competition, Shkreli hiked the price of the drug — which is used to treat toxoplasmosis and also given to HIV patients with compromised immune systems —from $17.50 to $750 in 2015. (Feuerherd, 3/4)

Shkreli, 37, was sentenced to prison for securities fraud in 2017. "While incarcerated, Defendant Shkreli has continued to direct Defendants’ operations, communicating with Vyera executives and Phoenixus’s board of directors, including Defendant Mulleady, via a contraband cellphone and email and telephone services managed by the Bureau of Prisons," the complaint states, adding that he "transacts or has transacted business in this District and throughout the United States." (Conklin, 3/6)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada and the U.S. have worked together to keep North Americans safe. We have teamed up on treatments, trials, and testing; ensured production of personal protective equipment and other critical supplies; kept shelves stocked; and dealt with shortages of essential and critical care medications. Even before COVID-19, Canadians and Americans on both sides of the border worried about medication shortages and rising costs. (Ariel Delouya, 3/5)

SB 734 will lower the costs of prescription drugs in this state by tens of millions of dollars. It will result in lower out-of-pocket expenses, reduced insurance premiums and huge savings for taxpayers. As former President Donald Trump recognized when he made a similar proposal, it is unfair that we pay more for the same drugs than the citizens of other countries. Drug manufacturers charge Americans more, and then subsidize health care for people in other countries, like Canada, where drugs cost 200% less on average than they do in the U.S. For example, the arthritis drug Humira is $2,442 in Oklahoma, versus $564 in Canada. The authors claim the bill will result in rationing, but health care is already rationed when Oklahomans can’t afford the drugs they need because drug companies inflate prices in the United States so they can sell them cheaper in Canada. (Republican Oklahoma Sen. Greg McCortney, 3/7)

The pandemic has driven many of us to watch more television including the accompanying onslaught of drug advertisements, thanks to the FDA’s approval of direct- to-consumer advertising. Skyrizi (risankizumab) is being heavily marketed for moderate to severe psoriasis. My fear is that those with milder psoriasis, which readily responds to inexpensive topical steroid creams, will want to use Skyrizi too. What’s the problem? The retail cost of the drug is $40,477 for an injection every three months. If the price is not enough to scare you away, the list of possible side effects, including serious infections, should be. (Dr. Bob Newman, 3/8)

President Biden is poised to put his signature to what is arguably the largest expansion of the welfare state since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. And if past is prologue, liberals are poised to take credit for any positive trend lines that follow implementation, regardless of whether credit is warranted.Even the Biden administration has come around to acknowledging that its Covid-19 relief package—the “most progressive piece of legislation in history,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki bragged the other day—has little to do directly with Covid. The Journal reports that only $50 billion, or 7% of the $1.9 trillion price tag, is directed at testing and contact tracing, and only $16 billion is earmarked for vaccine distribution. Most of the rest consists of state bailouts, student-debt relief and various income-redistribution schemes involving tax credits, health-insurance subsidies and unemployment benefits. (Jason L. Riley, 3/9)

Nearly every week for the past two years, I have gotten on the phone with a director of suicide prevention at a very large mental health system in the United States, and we review cases of suicides. For the dead, we go over their demographics, psychiatric diagnoses, how they died by suicide and all of their interactions with the mental health system, from clinic intakes to the last notes from their final therapy sessions. It is grueling and depressing research for a book I am writing on suicide. Some people’s files are filled with no-show appointments or drop-ins for medication refills. Others contain information from inpatient stays and crisis calls. (Jason Cherkis, 3/10)

When the pandemic first exploded last year, it was common to hear that covid-19 would be a “great equalizer.” After all, no one had ever been exposed to the disease before, so everyone was vulnerable. We were all in it together. Within weeks, it became clear that far from being an equalizer, covid-19 instead preyed upon and exacerbated existing disparities in the United States — particularly along racial and ethnic lines, with Black people, Latinos, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders more than twice as likely as White people to die of the disease. (Karen Bass, Marc Morial and Cheryl Grills, 3/9)

As fentanyl drives opioid overdose deaths ever higher in Philadelphia, the public health system needs as many tools as possible to fight back. Washington is able to offer long-term help, based on lessons learned from the pandemic, but it needs to act now. To help limit coronavirus spread, federal regulatory agencies made a special exception to let patients start buprenorphine—one of the best ways we have to treat opioid use disorder—after a first visit using telemedicine. The rules usually require an in-person visit. Now one of these agencies says that only Congress can extend this flexibility once the public health emergency is over. As regulatory experts, we disagree. While we welcome a legislative fix, our new report finds that the agencies can go it alone to extend this life-saving relief. (Bridget C.E. Dooling and Laura E. Stanley, 3/9)

New audio-only social networking app Clubhouse is known for hosting billionaires like Elon Musk and Bill Gates in a not-so-formal setting—where 10 million users listen to wisdom, dating advice and heated debates on their iPhones. The app is now estimated to be worth $1 billion. Aside from Clubhouse making headlines, some medical professionals have found the app to be a lifeline during the pandemic. The authentic, trusting atmosphere created by real time audio has allowed Clubhouse rooms to be places of sanctuary and support for doctors to share everything from COVID treatment experience, coping skills for handling long working hours and even time-saving cooking tips. Clubhouse can be a blueprint for how frontline workers can use social media to increase their capacities and abilities, and a reminder of how important communication tools are in helping individuals and countries adapt to varying crises. (Shaz Memon, 3/9)

Finding out you can't have a child without fertility treatment is devastating enough. Trying over and over again to get pregnant is taxing -- emotionally and financially. But going through these motions during a pandemic is a surreal, disorienting and intensely lonely experience. There are so many unknowns. (Dalia Hatuqa, 3/9)

Just 50 years ago, the diagnosis of kidney failure was a death sentence. With the advent of dialysis, patients with kidney failure can live and have the opportunity to receive a kidney transplant. Dialysis treatments to remove excess fluid and waste from blood require a treatment session lasting three to four hours, usually in an outpatient facility, three times each week. In 1972, because of this life-saving procedure, Medicare began to support dialysis programs. Today, more than 800,000 patients in the United States have kidney failure and the vast majority, more than 70 percent, receive dialysis. The remainder live with a kidney transplant. A disproportionate number of minority patients have kidney failure, which affects Black and Hispanic persons at excess rates. Texas has a disproportionate share of the U.S. kidney failure population with 73,000 patients, 55,000 on dialysis and 18,000 having received kidney transplants. (Paul Klotman and Wolfgang Winkelmayer, 3/10)