Overnight Health Care: Biden administration invests in COVID-19 school testing program | Health officials address AstraZeneca vaccine concerns

Welcome to Wednesday’s Overnight Health Care. The latest innovation in the fight against COVID-19? Virus-sniffing dogs. They’ve been used this season by the NBA’s Miami Heat, and now NASCAR is going to try them out at a series of races in Atlanta. 

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

Today: The Biden administration is investing big money in school COVID-19 testing, the WHO said countries should not stop using AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and the CDC is trying to do more to target vulnerable communities.

We’ll start with schools:

Biden administration invests $10B in school COVID-19 testing program

The Biden administration is investing $10 billion to ramp up COVID-19 testing in schools in an effort to increase testing across the country and help schools reopen for in-person learning.

The funding comes from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and will be distributed to states and certain cities next month by the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) as part of a strategy to help get schools open in the remaining months of this school year. 

The CDC and state and local health departments will provide technical assistance to states and schools setting up and implementing these programs. 

The money will be used to provide diagnostic tests to symptomatic teachers, staff and students, as well as “serial screening” for those who don’t have symptoms but might have been exposed to an infectious person. The idea behind serial screening testing is to help schools identify asymptomatic people who may be contagious so that prompt action can be taken to prevent transmission

Backstory: Biden has put a major focus on reopening schools this year. He urged states to prioritize teachers for vaccinations and school staff to get at least one shot by the end of March.

Questions raised: But the guidance from CDC about reopening schools does not say testing or screening is a priority. CDC says schools should offer referrals to diagnostic testing for symptomatic students and staff at all levels of community spread, but there’s not a whole lot of data showing the benefits of screening. CDC recommends it as a complementary strategy to other mitigation measures.

What does it mean? With some teachers’ unions still resisting in-person learning even after being prioritized for vaccinations, it’s not clear these extra steps will help.

Read more here.

 

CDC addresses vulnerable communities 

Included in the funding announcement for schools was a $2.25 billion initiative to address health equity issues. The grant, funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will expand health services to help reduce COVID-19 health disparities. 

CDC said the funding is the agency’s largest investment to date to support communities affected by COVID-19-related health disparities.

The two year grants will go to 108 public health departments for bolstered COVID-19 testing and contact tracing capabilities in underserved communities and populations, including racial and ethnic minority groups and people living in rural areas.

“Everyone in America should have equal opportunity to be as healthy as possible,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “This investment will be monumental in anchoring equity at the center of our nation’s COVID-19 response—and is a key step forward in bringing resources and focus to health inequities that have for far too long persisted in our country.”

 

WHO: AstraZeneca vaccine benefits outweigh risk

The latest development in the overseas AstraZeneca saga: The World Health Organization on Wednesday recommended that nations continue using the vaccine against the coronavirus created by Oxford University and the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, after some European countries halted its use over safety concerns. The vaccine is not currently approved for use in the U.S.

In a statement, the WHO said its Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety was assessing safety data, and that it was staying in touch with the European Medicines Agency, the European Union’s version of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Backstory: About a dozen nations, mostly in Europe, have paused their use of AstraZeneca vaccines after a few people who received the shot developed dangerous blood clots.

However: The WHO said blood clots are common, and that vaccination campaigns should continue.

“Vaccination against Covid-19 will not reduce illness or deaths from other causes. Thromboembolic events are known to occur frequently. Venous thromboembolism is the third most common cardiovascular disease globally,” the agency said. “At this time, WHO considers that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh its risks and recommends that vaccinations continue.”

Read more here.

 

An ominous trend: German COVID-19 cases rise amid AstraZeneca vaccine suspension

Coronavirus infections are on the rise in Germany as the country has joined more than a dozen European nations in suspending the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine over concerns of blood clots. 

The Robert Koch Institut, Germany’s center for infectious diseases, on Tuesday reported about 83.7 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people, a jump from 68 just one week prior. The institute said that this number could reach 200 by mid-April. 

Possible third wave: Dirk Brockmann, a Robert Koch Institut epidemiologist, told Germany’s ARD television that the spike in cases indicates a third wave of COVID-19 in the country that was initially praised for its early response to the pandemic. 

Brockmann specifically attributed the increase to the government’s easing of nationwide safety restrictions even as a new more transmissible variant has spread throughout the country. 

Experts warn that the increased rate of infection, as well as the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine, could delay the country’s progress toward reaching herd immunity. 

Read more here.

 

FDA official: US AstraZeneca stockpile not in danger of expiring

While Europe simultaneously wrestles with national vaccine suspensions and AstraZeneca’s own delivery shortages, the US is still sitting on a pile of tens of millions of doses. They aren’t going anywhere, and a top health official Wednesday said they’re not in danger of expiring.

“I do not believe we are at risk of throwing this out at any time in the near future,” Peter Marks, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine center, told a House panel.

The federal government preordered 300 million doses of the vaccine under the Trump administration, but issues with clinical trials have held up its authorization and the FDA is still waiting on additional data.

Officials have said the stockpile is intended to make it easier to quickly distribute the vaccine across the country if the company receives FDA clearance in the coming weeks.

Read more here.

 

All Massachusetts residents will be eligible for vaccine on April 19

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) announced that all residents aged 16 and older will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine by April 19.

Baker said on Twitter that people ages 60 and older will be eligible on March 22, as well as workers in certain fields such as transit, grocery, food and public works sectors.

Residents aged 55 and older and people with one medical condition that puts them at higher risk for severe illness will be eligible by April 5.

The vaccine will be available to the general public by April 19.

Massachusetts joins a handful of other states that have either already opened eligibility to all adults, or announced a date that’s ahead of President Biden’s May 1 deadline. Federal and state officials are expecting a major influx of vaccines in the coming weeks.

Equity issues: But a concern among many experts is that the extra supply will be outstripped by an inability to get the shots into people’s arms. The federal government has pledged to help by bringing in more vaccinators, but there’s a real concern about equity and making sure to include the people in marginalized communities and without easy access to computers for scheduling.

Read more here.

 

What we’re reading

Manchin ally emerges as a frontrunner to be Biden’s ‘drug czar’ (Washington Post)

Driven by the pandemic and ‘the Fauci effect,’ applicants flood public health schools (Stat)

Is 3 feet enough for social distancing in schools? CDC looking into relaxing guidelines (NBC News)

As the U.S. makes headway against the virus, troubling trends persist in the Northeast (New York Times)

 

State by state

Florida schools reopened without becoming Covid-19 superspreaders (Wall Street Journal)

Expert: Recent coronavirus outbreaks in New England likely caused by carelessness, not variants (Boston Globe)

With Florida requiring doctor’s note for many, pace of COVID vaccination slows in Miami (Miami Herald)