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We want extra Covid vaccine doses and it must be simpler to get them, state and native well being officers say

We need more Covid vaccine doses and it needs to be easier to get them, state and local health officials say

People wearing protective masks wait in line to receive a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a major vaccination site in Sacramento, California on Thursday, February 4, 2021.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Scientists and health officials told Congress on Friday that the federal government must increase its supply of Covid-19 vaccine doses to streamline the process for ingestion.

These two changes are crucial if federal officials want to increase the number of people who receive the shots, scientists and public health officials who have testified before the Science, Space and Technology House Committee.

“Even people who are motivated and excited about the vaccine can be put off by the slightest friction in the system, whether it is complex logistics, inconvenience or confusing instructions,” said Dr. Alison Buttenheim, Scientific Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics.

The hearing will take place when elected officials and health professionals address hesitation and disinformation related to the Covid-19 vaccine.

“Fix the simple stuff,” said Buttenheim. “In all honesty, it’s often easier to fix these problems than to change someone’s mind.”

Dr. Philip Huang, director and health department for the Dallas County Department of Health, said the county is trying to address “logistical and problematic factors” by providing online registration and phone banking for vaccine appointments, and by working with community leaders to register people for vaccinations of drive-through vaccination stations.

Keith Reed, assistant commissioner for the Oklahoma State Department of Health, said the state opened an extended timeframe to give residents more time to sign up for vaccine appointments.

“In order to vaccinate as many Oklahomans as possible, we opened the authorization to new priority groups before we fully vaccinated previous groups,” Reed said. “With this tactic we hope to extend the window of opportunity.”

Initiatives to reduce logistical barriers to those who wish to get vaccinations are particularly effective as vaccine supply in the US remains below community demand, according to panellists.

“Supply is the problem at this point,” said Huang. “We have over 650,000 people signed up on our waiting list to be vaccinated and the health department is receiving 9,000 doses a week.”

Health officials stressed that all Covid vaccines available in the US are effective at protecting people from serious illness, hospitalization and death. They urged people not to wait for the vaccination to get a particular brand of vaccine based on perceived effectiveness.

“The best vaccine is the one you can get tomorrow,” said Buttenheim.

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New York well being chief defends state’s choice to make nursing houses take Covid sufferers

Cuomo administration underreported Covid deaths in nursing homes, report says

New York Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker on Friday defended the state’s decision in March to force nursing homes to admit hospital residents with the coronavirus, blaming staff for spreading the virus.

The guideline, enacted on March 25, banned nursing homes from refusing admission or readmission to residents infected with Covid-19. The policy also banned nursing homes from testing patients prior to entry, NBC News reported. The policy was reversed later in May.

Zucker said Friday that at the time, the coronavirus hospitalization rate in New York was increasing “at an astounding rate” and capacity in the state’s intensive care units was running low. By allowing residents to return to the nursing homes, it helped protect the health system from collapse, he said.

“You can only verify a decision based on the facts you had at the time,” Zucker said during a press conference next to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. “And with the facts we had at the time, it was the right decision from a public health perspective.”

Zucker said the decision was based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued at the time, that nursing homes should accept all residents who would normally accept them, including those diagnosed with Covid-19, for as long Precautions have been taken.

A CDC spokesman was not immediately available to comment on Zucker’s remarks.

“What if we hadn’t done it on March 25? Hospital beds, which ultimately saved lives, would not have been available because they would have been occupied by someone who could have been discharged,” Zucker said. “We made the right public health decision then and, given the same facts, we would make the same decisions again.”

The Covid-19 patients who returned to the nursing homes were likely not contagious according to the CDC’s guidelines at the time and were separated from other residents. Zucker added that state law requires nursing homes to refuse residents if they are unable to properly care for them.

“We simply said that you cannot refuse admission because of the Covid status,” he said. “We never said you had to accept, we said you couldn’t deny.”

The state’s top health official comes as the Cuomo government faces bipartisan criticism of the treatment of Covid-19 deaths in the nursing home. An investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James published in late January found that the New York Department of Health signed up to 50% of deaths from Covid-19 in nursing homes.

On Friday, Cuomo and Zucker said most of the spread of the virus was not due to the Covid-positive resident, but from the staff who look after them.

“Covid came from the staff in the nursing homes. They got it at home, they got it at the supermarket, they went to work and they brought Covid with them,” Cuomo said.

However, Cuomo has aggressively defended the state’s census, stating that these deaths were counted as part of hospital deaths rather than nursing homes. The Democratic governor has apologized for “creating a void” by not providing enough information quickly enough and by not fighting against misinformation.

“Twitter, false reports, will eventually become a reality,” said Cuomo. “Social media, 24-hour news network, if you don’t correct it, it’ll repeat … and then people will think it’s true.”

In August, prosecutors under the Trump administration requested information about the deaths in New York nursing homes that Cuomo has criticized as politically motivated. The state legislature also asked for similar information, but the Cuomo government postponed that request to focus on that of the Justice Department, the governor said.

One of Cuomo’s top advisors, Melissa DeRosa, reportedly told Democratic lawmakers that the governor’s administration was “frozen” at their request because they feared the data would be used against them by the Justice Department, Associated Press reported.

DeRosa has since tried to clarify her comments, stating in a statement last week that she was trying to tell lawmakers that they need to focus on the Justice Department’s request first.

“We were comprehensive and transparent in our responses to the DOJ and had to immediately focus our resources on the introduction of the second wave and the vaccine,” DeRosa said in the statement. “As I said when I called the legislature, we weren’t able to respond to your request as quickly as anyone would have liked.”

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CVS Well being (CVS) earnings This autumn 2020

CVS Health (CVS) earnings Q4 2020

People walk past a CVS drug store in Manhattan, New York.

Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

CVS Health’s fourth quarter earnings exceeded Wall Street’s expectations as pharmacy sales increased from the provision of Covid-19 tests and vaccines.

The company’s shares rose slightly in premarket trading.

The company reported for the fourth fiscal quarter ended December 31, versus analyst expectations, based on an analyst survey conducted by Refinitiv:

  • Earnings per share: $ 1.30, adjusted versus expected $ 1.24
  • Revenue: $ 69.55 billion versus $ 68.75 billion expected

The drugstore chain posted net income of $ 975 million, or 75 cents per share, for the fourth quarter, compared with $ 1.74 billion or $ 1.33 per share a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned $ 1.30 per share, beating the analysts polled by Refinitiv, which was forecasting $ 1.24 per share.

Revenue rose from $ 66.89 billion a year ago to $ 69.55 billion. According to Refinitiv, this is above analysts’ expectations of $ 68.75 billion.

CVS offers Covid-19 tests in many of its branches. The company said it ran around 15 million tests across the country. More than 3 million Covid vaccines have also been administered in over 40,000 long-term care facilities. The drugstore chain and its competitor Walgreens signed a contract with the federal government in October to give employees and residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities the opportunity. In December, vaccinations began in the facilities.

CVS is now assuming an expanded role in providing Covid vaccines in its branches. Last week, the federal government shipped cans direct to pharmacy retail stores – including CVS stores in 11 states.

At the close of trading on Friday, CVS shares were up less than 1% over the past year. The company’s stock, valued at $ 97.13 billion, hit a 52-week high of $ 77.23 in mid-January. It closed at $ 74.21 on Friday.

This story evolves and is updated.

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New Yorkers With Many Well being Circumstances Are Now Eligible for Vaccination

New Yorkers With Many Health Conditions Are Now Eligible for Vaccination

New Yorkers with chronic illnesses they re-questioned for the Covid-19 vaccine flooded a state website and call center Sunday morning, leaving many unable to make appointments at mass vaccination centers right away.

State officials said Sunday that 73,000 appointments were scheduled by 11:30 a.m. while 500,000 people went through an online eligibility check tool that was needed to make appointments. Thousands were in virtual waiting rooms that can accommodate up to 8,000 people per vaccination station. Once these waiting rooms are full, people trying to make appointments will be encouraged to try again later.

Richard Azzopardi, a senior advisor to Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, said demand is high, but “our infrastructure is up and running and intact.” He said the state’s ability to schedule appointments depends on vaccine supplies, which are growing steadily.

Officials said the new criteria, which include chronic conditions like obesity and high blood pressure, made four million more New Yorkers eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine. They are joining a growing number of people in the state who are eligible for the vaccine despite a lack of supplies.

Eligible people now include adults with certain health issues that can increase their risk of serious illness or death from the coronavirus. Aside from obesity and high blood pressure, other conditions New Yorkers would qualify for the vaccine include lung disease and cancer, Mr. Cuomo announced this month. He also made pregnancy a qualifying condition.

Appointments for people in this group can be scheduled as early as Monday, although most people will likely have to wait a long time as vaccine doses are currently tight. New Yorkers must provide evidence of their condition with a doctor’s letter, signed certificate, or medical documentation, Cuomo said.

“While this is a big step forward in ensuring that the most vulnerable among us have access to this life-saving vaccine, it’s no secret that every time you deal with such a scarce resource there will be attempts to Committing fraud and gambling systems, ”said Mr Cuomo in a statement.

In New York state, about 10 percent of the population received the first dose, according to the New York Times. With the new criteria, around 11 million people in the state are now eligible, including people 65 and over, healthcare workers and teachers – more than half of the state’s population.

New York City recently opened mass vaccination sites at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Citi Field in Queens to better reach the communities affected by the virus. The state and federal government also announced last week that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be opening vaccination centers at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn and York College in Queens.

To verify eligibility and make an appointment, New Yorkers can do a pre-screening on the state website. You can also call the state vaccination hotline at 1-833-NYS-4VAX (1-833-697-4829) for more information about vaccination appointments.

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Biden administration to start transport Covid vaccine doses to group well being facilities

Biden administration to begin shipping Covid vaccine doses to community health centers

People wait outside a COVID-19 vaccine distribution center at the Kedren Community Health Center on January 28, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images

The White House will begin delivering doses of Covid-19 vaccine doses directly to state-qualified community health centers next week in an effort to extend reach to traditionally underserved communities, Jeff Zients, White House Response Coordinator for Covid-19, announced Tuesday .

Along with other initiatives such as government-sponsored mass vaccination centers and mobile clinics, the new program aims to ensure fair adoption of the vaccine, said Zients.

“Justice is at the core of our strategy to move out of this pandemic, and justice means reaching out to everyone, especially those in underserved and rural communities,” Zients said. “But we cannot do this effectively at the federal level without our partners at the state and local levels sharing the same commitment to justice.”

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, Chair of the White House’s Covid-19 Health Equity Task Force, noted that there are more than 1,300 community health centers across the country serving nearly 30 million people.

“Two-thirds of their patients live at or below the federal poverty line, and 60% of patients in community health centers identify as racial or ethnic minorities,” she noted. “Justice is our north star here. These efforts, which focus on direct referral to community health centers, are really about connecting with hard-to-reach populations across the country.”

When the program launches, the White House plans to send cans to at least one center in each state, with 1 million split between 250 centers over the coming weeks, Nunez-Smith said. She noted that the government is also working to increase public confidence in vaccines, “which we know are lower than the national average in underserved communities”.

The community health center program will be announced after the launch of the retail pharmacy program, where the federal government will begin shipping cans directly to a few hundred pharmacies across the country. Nunez-Smith said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with participating pharmacy companies to ensure they reach “socially vulnerable areas”.

The government also announced that it will again increase the number of doses it sends to states each week. The federal government will now ship 11 million cans to states every week, up from the 8.6 million it sent three weeks ago, Zients said.

“That’s a 28% increase in vaccine delivery in the first three weeks,” he said.

When asked whether there is an inevitable trade-off between equity and speed of vaccine distribution, Zients said, “I do not accept that premise at all.”

“I think we can do this in a fair, equitable and efficient way,” he said. “So efficiency and equity are at the heart of everything we do, and I don’t see any compromise between the two that I think go hand in hand.”

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US Well being Specialists: Vaccines Will Improve by Spring

US Health Experts: Vaccines Will Increase by Spring

Although more and more contagious variants are spreading in the US, the leading health authorities expressed optimism on Sunday that both the supply of vaccines and the vaccination rate will steadily increase.

“The demand currently significantly exceeds the supply,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor, on NBC’s Meet the Press program.

“I can tell you that things will get better from February through March through April because the number of vaccine doses available will increase significantly.”

The number of daily shots administered in the United States has increased recently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 2.2 million doses were given on Saturday and 1.6 million on Friday. The average for the past seven days has been 1.4 million a day, which is close to President Biden’s new target of 1.5 million shots a day.

In addition, the supply of vaccines is growing – although still well below demand. Federal officials recently increased shipments to the states to 10.5 million cans per week as Moderna and Pfizer incrementally increase production. The two companies have signed deals to provide the US with a total of 400 million doses by the summer – enough to vaccinate 200 million people.

Pfizer recently announced that it would be dispensing its doses two months ahead of schedule by May, also because an extra dose is now counted in every vial it makes. And Moderna is considering a production change that would allow it to increase the number of doses in its vials from 10 to 15.

Officials also expect the Food and Drug Administration to approve a vaccine containing a dose of Johnson & Johnson later this month. Although this company will initially only supply the US with a few million cans, it is expected to increase production significantly by April. Other vaccines from Novavax and AstraZeneca could also be approved for use in the US this spring, further increasing supply.

Officials are trying to vaccinate as many people as possible to beat more contagious variants of the virus first identified in the UK and South Africa. The variant from Great Britain known as B.1.1.7 is spreading rapidly in the USA. According to a new study, their prevalence doubles roughly every 10 days. The CDC said it could become the dominant form of the virus in the United States by March.

While this variant is of concern because it is more transmissible than previous variants, vaccine developers are more concerned about a variant discovered in South Africa, known as B.1.351, as it appears to interfere with current vaccine effectiveness. Several manufacturers have said they are solving the problem by developing new versions of their vaccines that could serve as booster shots. The Food and Drug Administration has announced that it is working on a plan to allow these new versions of the vaccine to be approved.

AstraZeneca and Oxford University developers of the vaccine announced on Sunday that they are expected to have a modified version of their vaccine available in the fall.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner and member of the Pfizer board of directors, said on CBS’s Face the Nation program on Sunday that it was possible to develop a booster that “bakes in many different variations,” we see. “

“I think there is a reasonable chance that we can be one step ahead of this virus,” he said.

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Chamath Palihapitiya-backed Clover Well being will get discover of SEC investigation

Chamath Palihapitiya-backed Clover Health gets notice of SEC investigation

Chamath Palihapitiya

Olivia Michael | CNBC

Chamath Palihapitiya-sponsored Clover Health Investments announced Friday that they have received an investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission and that they intend to cooperate.

However, Clover backed out of a critical report by the short seller Hindenburg Research, saying some of the claims in the report were “totally false”.

On Thursday, Hindenburg released a damning report calling Clover Health a “broken business”. The insurance company’s stocks fell more than 12%, the largest daily percentage decline in four months. Clover’s shares rose more than 3.5% on the Friday leading up to trading after the company released its response. Hindenburg, which has posted short selling in the past, said Thursday it had no position in Clover.

Hindenburg also said that Clover has been investigated by the Justice Department and that the investigation has not been disclosed to investors. In his response to the Hindenburg report, Clover said he had received inquiries from the DOJ, but didn’t believe the inquiries were material to his investors. The company characterized the DOJ inquiries as standard practice because Clover works with the Medicare system.

Clover said it decided not to disclose the DOJ’s inquiries after consulting with its attorneys. The company didn’t say what the DOJ’s inquiries were about. On the SEC side, Clover said he received the agency’s letter Thursday after the Hindenburg report was released. The company said it was unaware of any investigation outside of the SEC’s letter it received Thursday.

The DOJ on Thursday declined to comment on any possible investigation or investigation related to Clover. The SEC declined to comment on Friday.

Clover responded to Hindenburg’s criticism of a separate company, Seek Insurance, that shares investors and governance with Clover. Hindenburg claims that Seek Insurance, a website designed to help people find Medicare plans, does not disclose their relationship with Clover, despite the fact that their website stands out as an unbiased platform for choosing a health plan. Clover said in his response that Seek Insurance is a subsidiary of Clover but is still an independent start-up.

Clover also said that Seek’s website would be updated with more information soon, and released a breakdown of the plans Seek customers are choosing. According to Clover, 13.5% of Seek customers chose a Clover plan, behind CVS / Aetna (17%), Humana (20%) and Cigna (20%).

Finally, Clover responded to Hindenburg’s claims that the company’s software was causing doctors to charge the Medicare system more than necessary, a practice called “upcoding.” According to Hindenburg, Clover’s software encourages up-coding with “irrelevant diagnoses” to “deceive” and charge the Medicare system more. Clover denied these allegations in his response, saying that doctors receive a flat fee for an office visit and that it is up to the doctor to choose the diagnosis.

Hindenburg is known for his short selling research. In particular, a report on electric car company Nikola was released last year, just days after General Motors announced an investment in the company.

Among the allegations made against the company, Hindenburg said Nikola staged a demo video of his electric vehicle, which was not powered by its own but instead rolled down a hill. Nikola denied many of Hindenburg’s claims, but not those about the truck’s demo video. GM eventually gave up its stake in Nikola.

Also of note is Palihapitiya’s commitment to Clover. The VC has built a reputation for supporting several high profile SPAC deals, including Clover and Virgin Galactic. However, Hindenburg’s report raised questions about whether or not Palihapitiya knew about the DOJ’s investigation into Clover, and whether this should have been disclosed when the company went public through the SPAC deal.

You can read all of Clover’s in-depth point-by-point answers on Hindenburg here.

–Reuters contributed to this report.

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NY will start providing photographs to folks with underlying well being circumstances this month

NY will begin offering shots to people with underlying health conditions this month

A health care worker gives a picture of Moderna COVID-19 to a woman at a pop-up vaccination site operated by SOMOS Community Care during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in New York on January 29, 2021 Vaccine.

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New York State plans to take unused Covid-19 vaccine doses from hospitals and distribute them to city and county health officials to distribute to people with underlying health conditions starting Feb.15, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday.

The state has focused on vaccinating its health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities with its initial rations of Covid-19 shots. Now, hospitals have a week to use up their doses for staff before the state transfers the vials to local health departments for people with pre-existing health conditions that put them at high risk of serious illness, Cuomo said.

“Hospitals, you still have a week to get your hospital staff to accept the vaccine and then we will focus on the comorbidities,” Cuomo said at a press conference.

Cuomo didn’t immediately state what health conditions someone would need to get a vaccine, despite saying New York officials are working with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compile a “comorbidity list.” In January, the federal government, under the former Trump administration, proposed that states open up their vaccination eligibility to people 65 and over and to those with conditions like diabetes.

Later on Friday, the governor released a list of 15 underlying health conditions that would entitle a resident to a sting. Some of these conditions include cancer, heart failure, severe obesity, pregnancy, and diabetes, among others.

The Democratic governor added that the hospitals will continue to receive adequate care to vaccinate “who to do and who to plan and which workers to convince to take it”. All doses above that amount will be given to local health authorities, he said.

To date, New York has administered more than 1.7 million first vaccine doses from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, as well as nearly 500,000 second vaccine doses, according to the Democratic governor. Around 7 million New Yorkers can currently be vaccinated.

Cuomo said the state has used almost all of its allotted doses and is now waiting for next week’s supply.

In mid-January, Cuomo expanded the pool of people eligible for vaccines in New York aged 65 and over, as well as those in certain key industries such as teachers, police and transit workers. However, some residents struggled to sign up for appointments in New York due to limited availability.

“We don’t have an offer that can reach everyone, we understand that,” said Cuomo. “So the prioritization is to reach those people who are most at risk or most important for this period.”

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Well being Care Staff Hit Arduous by the Coronavirus Pandemic

Health Care Workers Hit Hard by the Coronavirus Pandemic

Thousands of healthcare workers have already paid the highest price for their daily dedication. Since March, more than 3,300 nurses, doctors, social workers and physiotherapists have died of Covid-19, according to a balance sheet by Kaiser Health News and the Guardian.

Experts say the death toll is most likely far higher. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention count 1,332 deaths among medical personnel. This is noteworthy in that its sister agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, lists roughly the same number of deaths only among nursing home workers – a small fraction of those employed by the country’s hospitals, health clinics, and private practices.

A number of studies suggest that medical professionals accounted for 10 to 20 percent of all coronavirus cases in the first few months of the pandemic, despite making up about 4 percent of the population.

Christopher R. Friese, a researcher at the University of Michigan, said the government’s failure to track down health care workers has most likely contributed to many unnecessary deaths. Without detailed, comprehensive data, the federal health authorities are limited in their ability to identify patterns and develop interventions.

“The number of health care worker deaths in this country is staggering, but as shocking and terrifying as they are, we shouldn’t be surprised with some very basic tools for dealing with the crisis on the shelf,” said Dr. Friezes. Who runs the School’s Center for Improving Patient and Population Health?

Acknowledging the limitations of their coronavirus case data, Jasmine Reed, a spokeswoman for the CDC, noted that the agency relies on reporting from state health departments and that each state determines what type of information should be collected and communicated to federal agencies. At least a dozen states don’t even participate in the CDC’s case reporting process, she said.

Many medical workers who have survived Covid-19 face more immediate challenges. Dr. Bial, the Boston pain specialist, is still plagued by fatigue and lung dysfunction.

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Well being care unions amplify the voices of frontline staff overwhelmed by pandemic circumstances.

Health care unions amplify the voices of frontline workers overwhelmed by pandemic conditions.

The unions that represent health workers in the country have emerged as increasingly powerful voices during the still raging pandemic.

With more than 100,000 Americans in hospital and many infected in their ranks, nurses and other health workers remain on a precarious front against the coronavirus and have reached out to unions for help.

Nurses from various unions across the country take part in dozens of strikes and protests. National Nurses United, the largest registered nurses union in the country, held a “day of action” on Wednesday with demonstrations in more than a dozen states and in Washington, DC as negotiations began in hospitals, major systems like HCA, Sutter Health and belong to CommonSpirit Health.

“It’s so overwhelming. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, ”said Erin McIntosh, a nurse at Riverside Community Hospital in Southern California, a part of the country that in some cases has been hit hardest by the surge. “Every day I’m waist-deep in death and dying.”

Hospitals said the unions were playing public health policy during a public health emergency, saying they had no choice but to ask more of their workers.

However, healthcare workers are bitterly disappointed with the response of their employers and government agencies to the pandemic. Lack of staff, inadequate and persistent supplies of protective equipment, limited virus testing and work pressure even when they might be sick have led many workers to turn to the unions as their only ally. The virus has killed more than 3,300 healthcare workers across the country, according to a census.

“We wouldn’t be alive today if we didn’t have a union,” said Elizabeth Lalasz, a nurse and steward at National Nurses United in Chicago.

Despite the decade-long decline of the labor movement and the low number of unionized nurses, labor officials have used the effects of the pandemic to organize new chapters and contract negotiations for better terms and benefits. National Nurses organized seven new negotiating units last year, compared to four in 2019. The Service Employees International Union, which Ms. McIntosh represents, also said interest has increased.