Overnight Health Care: A number of Republican lawmakers are saying no to COVID-19 vaccines | European AstraZeneca suspensions threaten global COVID-19 response | OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma proposes $10B bankruptcy exit

Welcome to Tuesday’s Overnight Health Care. As states move to allow fans into professional sports games, teams are (hopefully) thinking about how to keep fans safe. For the Boston Red Sox? COVID-19 fighting robots. 

If you have any tips, email me at nweixel@digital-stage.thehill.com and follow me on Twitter at @NateWeixel 

Today: GOP lawmakers are at odds over COVID-19 vaccinations, the countries pausing AstraZeneca’s vaccine could do serious harm to pandemic prevention efforts, OxyContin maker Purdue proposed a new settlement, and the FTC is going to take a hard line on drug company mergers.  

We’ll start in Congress:

A number of Republican lawmakers are saying no to COVID-19 vaccines

Republicans are at odds over the wisdom and efficacy of taking the COVID-19 vaccine, undermining national efforts to defeat the coronavirus and reinforcing the views of GOP base voters already reluctant to participate in the ramped-up inoculation program.

Although the top GOP leaders, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), were quickly vaccinated in December — and encouraged the public to follow suit — a number of high-profile rank-and-file members say they intend to ignore the advice. 

Some of those holdouts say they’re concerned the vaccine poses a greater health threat than COVID-19 itself. Others have indicated they don’t want to jump ahead of constituents in line for vaccines of their own. And still others note that, because they’ve contracted the COVID-19 over the last year, they have the antibodies to fight the disease in the future, precluding the need to be inoculated. 

Why it’s important: The hesitancy and muddled messaging arrives as the Biden administration, backed by public health experts, is urging Americans to get a vaccine as soon as they become eligible to do so. The issue, however, has become highly partisan, as a huge swath of Republican voters say they’ll refuse to do so.

Infection not an excuse: “I have not chosen to be vaccinated because I got it naturally and the science of 30 million people — and the statistical validity of a 30 million sample — is pretty overwhelming that naturally immunity exists and works,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an ophthalmologist who contracted COVID last March, frequently clashes with health experts, and does not wear a mask in the Capitol. 

But in fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends getting a shot even if you previously contracted COVID-19, because they are not sure how long the natural immunity lasts once you’re recovered. Current guidance suggests it’s only three months. 

Read more here.

European AstraZeneca suspensions threaten global COVID-19 response

European countries are pausing the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine over concerns of blood clots, colliding with expert opinion and creating a crisis of faith in the shot that could hamper progress to stop the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sweden and Latvia on Tuesday joined more than a dozen other European countries, including Portugal, Germany and Italy, that have publicly announced they are temporarily suspending use of the vaccine following reports of blood clots.

Europe’s top medical regulator is insisting the vaccine is safe, and that the benefits of preventing hospitalization and death from COVID-19 outweigh any possible side effects. 

The agency has convened a safety committee of experts from across the European Union and beyond for an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss and release the findings of its investigation into reports of rare but dangerous blood clots in the brain and abnormal bleeding.

Bad idea: The flurry of suspensions is concerning health experts, who say the decisions do not seem to be supported by medical data. Not only could the pauses set back vaccination efforts across Europe, but they could have ripple effects across the world. Even if the countries resume vaccinating people in a few days, the damage might have been done. People could lose confidence in the vaccine and decide not to get it. 

Read more here.

CDC says large employers can set up temporary vaccination sites

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidance on Tuesday saying that employers with large spaces and workforces can set up temporary vaccination sites. 

The new guidance says that employers should consider establishing workplace vaccination programs if they have a “large number of workers on site with predictable schedules” and a “location with enough space to stand up a vaccination clinic while maintaining social distancing through the entire process, from screening to post-vaccination observation.” 

The guidance also includes recommendations as to who should get priority for vaccinations and how to build up workers’ trust in the shots.

Read more here.

FTC eyes new approach to pharmaceutical mergers

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is eyeing a tougher approach to its review of pharmaceutical mergers.

The commission said in a statement Tuesday it is launching a working group with domestic and international agencies to “identify concrete and actionable steps to review and update the analysis of pharmaceutical mergers.”

“This project will ensure that FTC investigations include fresh approaches that fully analyze and address the varied competitive concerns that these mergers and acquisitions raise,” the commission said.

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democrat designated by President Biden as acting chairwoman of the FTC after he entered office in January, said in a Twitter thread the agency needs to “revamp” its approach to such mergers amid “skyrocketing drug prices and ongoing anticompetitive conduct in the pharma industry.”

The FTC will be working with the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and offices of state attorneys general as well as the Canadian Competition Bureau, the European Commission Directorate General for Competition, and the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority.

Tea leaves: The pharmaceutical industry could be in for a tough few years, with Democrats in unified control of government, and bipartisan agreement to tackle drug costs. One way to do that? Regulate some of the industry’s monopolistic tendencies.

Read more here.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma proposes $10B bankruptcy exit

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, on Tuesday proposed a $10 billion restructuring plan to exit bankruptcy and transfer its assets to a company focused on combating the opioid epidemic.

The plan, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., would require members of the Sackler family, who own the company, to pay almost $4.3 billion over a decade — a larger amount than in previous proposals.

The company announced the changes in a statement released on Tuesday.

The family would have “no involvement” in the new company, which would instead be run by a new independent board, and in exchange, would be legally released from facing opioid-related lawsuits. 

The settlement is designed to end thousands of lawsuits that blamed Purdue for helping to spark a wave of abuse, addictions, and deaths over the past 20 years.

Read more here.

Inside Africa’s world-leading coronavirus supply chain

In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, states and countries battled each other for scarce medical supplies in what governors and executives called a high-seas black market, exposing the woeful inadequacy of the global supply chain.

At the same time, a Zimbabwean billionaire and logistics experts from across the continent built what has become a one-stop shop for African nations and medical facilities in the market for everything from personal protective equipment to diagnostic test kits, ventilators and even vaccines.

“My job was to figure out how to make sure 55 countries got access to a desperately needed resource which was in extremely short supply,” said Strive Masiyiwa, a Zimbabwean telecom magnate who was named the African Union’s special envoy on supply chains.

Less than a year after its inception, the African Medical Supplies Platform hosts more than 600 suppliers selling products that can help combat the coronavirus through an interface that is no more complicated than Amazon.com. Access is limited to countries, health systems, nongovernmental organizations and donor organizations like UNICEF. Middlemen are not welcome.

Read more here.

Moderna begins testing vaccine on young children, infants

Moderna has begun testing its COVID-19 vaccine on children and infants between the ages of six months and 12 years old in a study, as the pharmaceutical company seeks to expand approval for its vaccine to children. 

Moderna announced on Tuesday that the first participants in the KidCOVE study on pediatric COVID-19 vaccinations had been dosed. Moderna is the first of the companies with vaccines authorized in the U.S. to launch testing among infants. 

The research expects to enroll 6,750 children older than six months and younger than 12 years old in the U.S. and Canada. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority will assist in the study.

“Children often need lower doses of vaccines than adults and we want to make sure we find the best dose that increases their immunity,” Jacqueline Miller, Moderna’s therapeutic head for infectious diseases, told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” 

Read more here.

What we’re reading

CDC’s Messonnier: We can’t change the Covid-19 vaccine regimen unless we know it works (Stat)

After weeks of declining cases, echoes of hot spots emerge in Upper Midwest, New York City area (Washington Post)

Biden, Fauci appear at odds over calling on Trump to urge supporters get vaccinated (ABC News)

‘Painless’ glucose monitors pushed despite little evidence they help most diabetes patients (Kaiser Health News)

State by state

Georgians scramble for vaccine slots on day 1 of expanded eligibility (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Gianforte: All Montanans eligible for COVID-19 vaccine April 1 (NBC Montana)

State Police were offered COVID-19 vaccines at work. Hundreds have declined to get them (Boston Globe)

Major donors to South Florida hospital foundation got early vaccine access (Politico Florida)