Overnight Health Care: US to ban most travel from India | 100 million Americans now fully vaccinated | Schumer backs Sanders on health care moves
Welcome to Friday’s Overnight Health Care. Major Biden can’t catch a break. He’s been sent away for “private training,” and now his parents are getting a cat. Apparently, this was not the president’s idea.
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Today: The U.S. is banning most travel from India amid a coronavirus surge there, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer backs some big health care changes and 100 million Americans are now fully vaccinated.
Let’s start with India:
US to ban most travel from India amid COVID-19 spike
The Biden administration will ban most travel from India starting Tuesday amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the country.
“The policy will be implemented in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating in the India,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
The move comes on top of international travel restrictions already in place requiring people to have a negative test result before coming to the United States. The move is not expected to apply to U.S. citizens.
The coronavirus outbreak in India has worsened considerably over the past weeks. New cases in the country have spiked to more than 380,000 in a single day, according to figures from Our World in Data.
Other debates on the global response: The White House has also been deliberating over a proposal backed by India to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents at the World Trade Organization, which supporters argue would give greater access to vaccines to lower-income countries.
Psaki said earlier this week the administration had not made a decision on whether to support the waiver, and was weighing how best to help provide vaccines to the rest of the world.
Big news for progressives: Schumer backs Sanders push on drug prices, lowering Medicare age
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in an interview published Friday that he supports measures to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, as well as lowering the Medicare eligibility age and creating a public health insurance option.
Schumer specifically pointed to conversations he has had with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“Bernie Sanders and I agree on this,” Schumer told The.Ink. “I believe we should be negotiating — we just talked about this at some length; he and I must talk almost every single day — Medicare negotiating with the drug companies and using that money to expand Medicare.”
Asked about reducing the Medicare eligibility age or a public option to compete alongside private health insurers for people of all ages, Schumer replied, “Yeah, I’d be for either of those, both of those.”
Details on the legislative pathway not fully clear, though: He left some wiggle room, however, on how exactly the measures would move through Congress or whether they would receive a vote in the Senate.
“Well, we’re going to push it,” he said. “It’s too early. I want to pass the biggest, boldest bill that, of course, we can pass. And we’ve got to figure all that out. We’re going to try to fight hard to try to get these in the bill.”
White House: 100 million Americans now fully vaccinated
The White House announced Friday that 100 million Americans are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, hailing it as a major achievement in the ongoing vaccination campaign.
“Today we reached a major milestone in the number of Americans who are fully vaccinated,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said at a briefing. “Today, 100 million Americans are fully vaccinated, nearly double the 55 million who were fully vaccinated at the end of March.”
He said over 300 million doses have been shipped, and 220 million shots are in arms. “This represents significant progress and cause for hope,” he said.
It could get harder, though: The next phase of the vaccination campaign will be challenging, as it moves toward trying to reach people who are less eager for the vaccine.
Zients emphasized that officials will be working to make it even easier to get a shot, and building confidence in the vaccine. For example, officials in many places are allowing people to get a shot without an appointment as supply increases.
CDC: Dozens of adverse reactions caused by anxiety, not Johnson & Johnson vaccine
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has concluded that dozens of Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients experienced adverse physical reactions because of anxiety and not the vaccine itself, according to a report published Friday.
The agency investigated clusters of anxiety-related events, with a total 64 incidents out of 8,624 doses administered, reported to the CDC by five mass vaccination sites across five different states.
Researchers said that these anxiety-related cases “can occur after any vaccination” if a person has a physical reaction within 15 minutes of inoculation due to their worries about getting the shot.
The incidents were reported between April 7 and 9, about five weeks after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its emergency authorization approval for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
These anxiety-related reactions are not related to the rare cases of blood clots that led the CDC and FDA to recommend pausing administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine across the country. The anxiety-related cases occurred before the pause, which ended last week.
Biden: Schools should ‘probably all be open’ in the fall
President Biden in an interview that aired Friday said that schools should all be open for five days a week in-person learning in the fall despite the fact that children likely will not be vaccinated by then.
“Based on the science and the CDC, they should probably all be open,” Biden said in an interview that aired on NBC’s “Today.”
“There’s not overwhelming evidence there’s much of a transmission among these people, young people,” Biden added.
And on masks: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week that fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks outdoors in small groups. NBC’s Craig Melvin asked Biden if he will no longer wear a mask outdoors.
“Sure, sure. But what I’m going to do though, because the likelihood of my being able to be outside and people not come up to me is not very high,” Biden responded. “So, it’s like, look you and I took our masks off when I came in because look at the distance we are. But if we were in fact sitting there talking to one another close, I’d have my mask on and I’d want you to have a mask on even though we’ve both been vaccinated.”
VIRTUAL EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT–THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE: BOLD BETS IN HEALTH–WEDNESDAY, MAY 5; 12:30 PM ET / 9:30 AM PT
The last year in healthcare has been one of unprecedented challenges and innovation leaps. While gaps in our healthcare system were laid bare, researchers and pharmaceutical manufacturers achieved what seemed impossible: multiple vaccine candidates in record time. What’s next? On Wednesday, May 5, The Hill hosts healthcare trailblazers to explore how we can push the frontiers of science and lean forward on innovation, all while keeping rising costs in check. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, Sen. Debbie Stabenow and more. RSVP for event reminders.
What we’re reading
White House is split over how to vaccinate the world (Washington Post)
Faith, freedom, fear: rural America’s Covid vaccine skeptics (New York Times)
Manufacturers change shipment sizes as coronavirus vaccine demand falls (CNN)
State by state
Arizona doctors’ offices will be able to directly order COVID-19 vaccine, state says (Arizona Republic)
Addiction treatment providers in Pa. face little state scrutiny despite harm to clients (Spotlight PA)
Texans remain concerned about pandemic, but they’re returning to normal, UT/TT Poll finds (Texas Tribune)
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