Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Study: If More Adults Had Shots, 90,000 People Wouldn't Have Died Since June
Approximately 90,000 covid-19 deaths could have been avoided over four months of this year if more U.S. adults had chosen to be vaccinated, a new study finds, as the disease caused by the coronavirus became the second-leading cause of death in the United States. The estimate from the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation focused on deaths of U.S. adults from June 2021 — when the report says coronavirus vaccines became widely available to the general public — through September. (Jeong, Timnsit and Paul, 10/14)
The Biden administration wants more donations to COVAX —
The federal government is demanding Moderna provide enough vaccines to the global initiative COVAX, at not-for-profit prices, a top federal official said during an intense panel event today. "We expect that Moderna will step up as a company," David Kessler, the Biden administration's chief science officer of the COVID-19 response, said, adding Moderna has additional capacity to meet these demands. "Failure to do that would be unconscionable in my view." (Herman, 10/13)
Moderna is under fire for not doing enough to vaccinate the world, particularly low-income countries — and the Biden administration is being criticized for not doing enough to force Moderna's hand. Low-income countries are desperate for more vaccine, and experts warn that higher levels of global spread will increase the likelihood of a vaccine-resistant variant emerging. (Owens, 10/14)
In other news on the vaccine rollout —
By the time vaccines for the coronavirus were introduced late last year, the pandemic had taken two of Lucenia Williams Dunn’s close friends. Still, Ms. Dunn, the former mayor of Tuskegee, contemplated for months whether to be inoculated. It was a complicated consideration, framed by the government’s botched response to the pandemic, its disproportionate toll on Black communities and an infamous 40-year government experiment with which her hometown is often associated. (Burch and Walker, 10/13)
In a 1,971-person survey conducted from March to May, about 3 in 20 Midwest HCWs were hesitant about the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a study published yesterday in the American Journal of Infection Control. Respondents were from a 465-bed University of Illinois at Chicago hospital, a 664-bed Rush University Medical Center hospital, and a 26-hospital system in Wisconsin and Illinois run by Advocate Aurora. The survey, which was based off the Health Belief Model framework, showed that 15% of HCWs had not received or were not planning to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. (10/13)
Joshua and Alexandra Price say they and their two children were mistakenly given the Covid-19 vaccine instead of a flu shot a week ago at their local pharmacy -- and they are now dealing with some adverse symptoms. The Prices took their 4- and 5-year-olds to the Walgreens in Evansville, Indiana, on October 4 for their yearly shots. About 90 minutes later the pharmacist called saying they had made a mistake. The entire family had been injected with adult doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. (Simonson and Holcombe, 10/13)
