Renewed vaccination rates overshadowed by Delta concerns
August 3, 2021With Rachel Roubein
Editor’s Note: POLITICO Pulse is a free version of POLITICO Pro Health Care's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
— While vaccination rates are resurging, reports of breakthrough cases present a messaging challenge for health officials stressing the shots are still effective.
— The challenge has officials turning to private briefings with major media outlets to underline vaccine benefits.
— The majority leader says senators stay in Washington until the bipartisan bill, with its accompanying health provisions, gets done. It could still take awhile.
WELCOME TO TUESDAY PULSE — Just over half of Americans back re-masking in a new poll, a sign of divisive debates ahead. Send tips to [email protected] and [email protected].
RENEWED VACCINATION RATES OVERSHADOWED BY DELTA CONCERNS — Coronavirus vaccination rates are springing back amid case surges and Delta variant fears. In the last seven days alone, 3 million Americans have gotten their first shot — the highest seven-day total since July 4.
But breakthrough infections are also on the rise, potentially muddying the major selling points for vaccine holdouts. Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci stressed in a Monday press briefing that these cases are largely mild and should be expected to some degree. But the administration is privately worried that media reports of breakthrough infections will dampen vaccine enthusiasm and harden hesitant Americans (a portion of the 30 percent of adults still unvaccinated) against the shot.
Sen. Lindsey Graham became one of Washington’s most high-profile breakthrough cases with a series of Monday tweets urging people to get vaccinated. “I am very glad I was vaccinated because without vaccination I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now,” the South Carolina Republican wrote.
The booster question also looms large(r). Officials for weeks have insisted that additional vaccinations aren’t needed, at least not yet. While CDC Director Rochelle Walensky underscored that recommendation Monday, she also said the government is tracking people’s booster vaccinations.
“We are just starting to gather data” and “can discern people who have gotten second and third shots,” she told reporters, though she didn’t specify how (for instance, there are ongoing trials with volunteers). “We have the capacity and are looking at those data right now.”
WHITE HOUSE COURTS MAJOR MEDIA TO TAMP DOWN DELTA ALARM — The Biden administration is privately ramping up outreach to major media outlets after a spate of alarming reports about the Delta variant and breakthrough infections that officials worry will slow their vaccination campaign, Christopher Cadelago reports.
The White House began a series of briefings Monday and into Tuesday with all the major TV networks — including Fox News — as well as other newsroom leaders about their recent Covid coverage, according to three sources familiar with the meetings.
The “deep background” briefings are led in part by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and focus largely on variants and vaccination, one source told POLITICO.
What has officials worried: The concerning headlines and reports emphasized the number of breakthrough infections. Administration officials feared the news stories and social media posts promoting them would further hamper their efforts to convince unvaccinated people to get the shots. The officials first pushed back on Twitter, and then later in a CNN report where aides aired their frustrations.
A seven-slide deck used by the administration for the media briefings and obtained by Christopher stresses that the virus the country is battling today is much different than before: The Delta variant spreads much more easily than others, but vaccines are still extremely effective.
The message is clear: According to one slide, the administration is telling news producers and reporters in the briefings that while breakthrough infections are expected, they are rare, and nearly all are mild cases.
“The greater the percentage of people vaccinated, the higher the absolute number of breakthrough infections,” a key passage in one slide reads. “This does not necessarily mean that there is a greater proportion of breakthrough infections.”
SCHUMER THREATENS AUGUST IN D.C. TO MOVE INFRASTRUCTURE PACKAGE — With the upper chamber closing in on President Joe Biden’s long-sought, $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure plan and readying a budget to set up a companion $3.5 trillion domestic spending plan, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has a simple weapon: Keeping senators in Washington until they finish the job.
Setting the schedule is one of Schumer’s most valuable tools in a 50-50 Senate, writes Burgess Everett. Still, the August schedule was mired in new uncertainty on Monday after bipartisan bill backer Graham tested positive for a breakthrough Covid infection following several days close to some of his colleagues.
Next weekend could be spent in session to continue grinding through the Senate's to-do list, Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill clocks in at 2,702 pages, and legislation of that complexity would typically take several weeks on the Senate floor. The budget resolution normally takes the better part of a week to pass, with 50 hours of debate and the possibility of unlimited amendments being offered.
“I don’t see any way this winds down at the end of the week,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). Still, he conceded that senators will get sick of each other “probably pretty fast.”
BIDEN ADMIN TO REQUIRE HOSPITALS REPORT VACCINATIONS — CMS finalized a plan requiring hospitals and long-term care hospitals to report the vaccination rates of workers in their facilities starting Oct. 1.
The move would let patients see the vaccination rates of health care personnel in the medical centers they visit, and comes as pressure grows on facilities to mandate vaccines for health workers. Last week, nearly 60 medical groups urged hospitals and nursing homes to mandate shots for their employees.
HHS WATCHDOG PROBING MIGRANT CHILD FACILITY — The HHS inspector general is opening a review of the facility for unaccompanied children at Fort Bliss, following whistleblower complaints about the site’s poor conditions.
The site was one of about a dozen emergency facilities contracted by the health department earlier this year to manage a record influx of migrant children. But it’s since come under fire over reports of sparse conditions and concerns about the mental health of thousands of children held there, with Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) at one point calling the prolonged stays for some of the kids “alarming.”
“We take seriously the concerns raised by individuals regarding the quality of case management at Fort Bliss Emergency Intake Center and the potentially negative impact on children’s health, safety and well-being,” an IG spokesperson said.
The office is expected to conclude its review before the end of the year.
FLORIDA GOV DOWNPLAYS COVID SURGE — One in every five new Covid-19 cases is reported in Florida, according to federal health officials. But Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is downplaying the threat and resisting broader public health measures.
“We recognize that cases and hospitalizations have shifted to a younger demographic because we have been so successful with vaccinating seniors,” said DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw, who added that the vaccinated made up 6 percent of new infections last month.
DeSantis has maintained a strict “no-mandate” approach to the virus, which has included prohibiting school districts from requiring masks in K-12 facilities and promising to fight local mask mandates or lockdowns.
But case numbers are skyrocketing: The Florida Hospital Association on Monday reported 10,389 Covid-19 hospitalizations, the most statewide during any point in the pandemic.
NONPROFIT: VACCINES FOR AFRICA BEFORE BOOSTERS — The United States and other wealthy countries must share more Covid-19 vaccines to quell new variants, even—and especially—as booster talks brew in many of those nations, the global nonprofit ONE Campaign said in a Monday memo.
“Initially, one of the biggest challenges facing efforts to scale up Covid-19 vaccination globally was supply…That dynamic is changing quickly” in many of the richest countries, the organization wrote. Roughly 1.5 percent of Africans are fully vaccinated against the virus, while related deaths increased 80 percent this past month.
Sen. Graham’s breakthrough Covid-19 infection came after a weekend party on a house boat belonging to Sen. Joe Manchin, who hosted a bipartisan get-together Saturday, The Wall Street Journal’s Lindsay Wise reports.
Domestic violence reports have risen during the pandemic as people find themselves stuck at home, isolated from others and dealing with economic and health stressors, California Health Report’s Claudia Boyd-Barrett writes.
An open question (among many) is how often breakthrough infections of Covid-19 can lead to long-haul symptoms, some of the least understood effects of the virus, writes Slate’s Yasmin Tayag.
Source: https://www.politico.com/