About the public’s health
Trump Threatens to Leave W.H.O. and Permanently End Funding: The president repeats this threat as HHS Secretary Azar rants against the WHO at the annual World Health Assembly.
Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy has caused an ‘amplification of the epidemic’: While Sweden’s open model has been touted by some US politicians, that country has fared more poorly than its neighbors with respect to COVID-19 control.
Long-acting injectable drug prevents HIV infections: “A long-acting antiretroviral drug given as an injection every 2 months powerfully protected uninfected people from HIV in a large-scale study that was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The apparent success—the study has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal or presented to HIV researchers at a meeting—offers a potentially easier alternative to taking daily pills of other antiretrovirals, which has proved difficult for many people.”
Medicaid Clinics And Doctors Have Been Last In Line For COVID-19 Relief Funding: ”In March, Congress authorized $100 billion for health care providers to compensate them both for the extra costs associated with caring for COVID-19 patients and for the revenue that's not coming in because of interruptions in the usual sorts of care they provide. more than half that money has been allocated by the Department of Health and Human Services, and the majority of it so far has gone to hospitals, doctors and other facilities that serve Medicare patients.
Officials said at the time that this was an efficient way to get the money beginning to move to large numbers of providers. That approach, however, has left out a large swath of the health system infrastructure that serves the low-income Medicaid population and children.”
Exclusive: CDC plans sweeping COVID-19 antibody study in 25 metropolitan areas: “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plans a nationwide study of up to 325,000 people to track how the new coronavirus is spreading across the country into next year and beyond…The CDC study, expected to launch in June or July, will test samples from blood donors in 25 metropolitan areas for antibodies created when the immune system fights the coronavirus…”
WHO Director Says Even in Worst-Case Areas, Only About 20 Percent of Population Has Coronavirus Antibodies: “‘Early serology studies are painting a consistent picture: Even in the worst-affected regions, the proportion of the population with the telltale antibodies is no more than 20 percent," [WHO Director-General] Ghebreyesus said. ‘And in most places, less than 10 percent.’”
Global emissions plunged an unprecedented 17 percent during the coronavirus pandemic: “As covid-19 infections surged in March and April, nations around the globe experienced an abrupt reduction in driving, flying and industrial output, leading to a startling decline of more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That includes a peak decline in daily emissions of 17 percent in early April, according to the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. For some nations, the drop was much steeper.”
About pharma
Trump to Tap New Company to Make Covid-19 Drugs in the U.S.: “The Trump administration will announce on Tuesday that it has signed a $354 million four-year contract with a new company in Richmond, Va., to manufacture generic medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients that are needed to treat Covid-19 but are now made overseas, mostly in India and China.
The contract, awarded to Phlow Corp. by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, meshes President Trump’s “America First” economic promises with concerns that coronavirus treatments be manufactured in the United States. It may be extended for a total of $812 million over 10 years, making it one of the largest awards in the authority’s history.”