Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Study Finds Lost Sense Of Smell, Taste Could Last A Year After Covid
COVID-19 survivors who lost their sense of taste and smell may have to wait up to a year to fully recover, a new study found. Researchers followed 97 COVID-19 patients who lost their sense of taste and smell for an entire year and asked them to complete a survey every four months, according to the study published Thursday in JAMA Network Open.Out of 97 patients, 51 of them also were asked to undergo objective testing to corroborate the self-reported surveys. At eight months, 49 out of the 51 patients had fully recovered their sense of taste and smell. (Rodriguez and Rice, 6/25)
KHN: Covid’s Lingering Effects Can Put The Brakes On Elective Surgeries
The week before Brian Colvin was scheduled for shoulder surgery in November, he tested positive for covid-19. What he thought at first was a head cold had morphed into shortness of breath and chest congestion coupled with profound fatigue and loss of balance. Now, seven months have passed and Colvin, 44, is still waiting to feel well enough for surgery. His surgeon is concerned about risking anesthesia with his ongoing respiratory problems, while Colvin worries he’ll lose his balance and fall on his shoulder before it heals. (Andrews, 6/28)
In other news about the spread of the coronavirus —
In the final days of the Trump administration, the Justice Department issued a memo saying inmates whose sentences lasted beyond the “pandemic emergency period” would have to go back to prison. But some lawmakers and criminal justice advocates are urging President Biden to revoke the rule, use his executive power to keep them on home confinement or commute their sentences entirely, arguing that the pandemic offers a glimpse into a different type of punitive system in America, one that relies far less on incarceration. (Kanno-Youngs and Turcotte, 6/27)
When 76 veterans died last spring of COVID-19 in the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, the need to get to the bottom of what happened and why, and who was to blame, could hardly have been more clear. So when Governor Charlie Baker tapped a private attorney to conduct an independent investigation, it seemed like the moment for one of those no-stone-unturned independent probes that have made history here. But a Boston Globe Spotlight Team review of Baker’s arrangement with former prosecutor Mark Pearlstein — including communications between the governor’s office and Pearlstein — raises troubling new questions about whether the investigation was truly independent. The legal contract between the Office of the Governor and Pearlstein’s law firm created an explicit attorney-client relationship, which could be used to keep their communications and other materials private and suggested Pearlstein was working for Baker, not the public. (Estes and Ostriker, 6/26)
A vaccinated person was among the eight deaths caused by COVID-19 reported Sunday by the Utah Department of Health. Of those deaths, seven occurred prior to May 27, and none of the people was hospitalized. This, despite the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 rising to 215 on Sunday, a 14-person jump over Saturday and the highest number of hospitalizations since early March. One of the eight was a “breakthrough case,” which is defined by the UDOH as “someone who has a positive test [more than] 14 days after they have completed the full series of an approved COVID-19 vaccine.” Four fully vaccinated Utahns have now died of COVID-19. (Jag, 6/27)
