From the Delta variant front, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met today. It turns out that the principal topic at the meeting was reviewing the Food and Drug Administration’s final marketing approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. ACIP ratified that decision, which was a foregone conclusion.

The Wall Street Journal adds

Health experts advising the U.S. government on vaccines expressed initial support for giving booster shots to people vaccinated against Covid-19, starting with healthcare workers, nursing-home residents and others immunized earliest.

Members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, on Monday indicated their agreement with the Biden administration’s plans to offer the extra doses. Yet they said the priority should remain increasing vaccinations of unvaccinated people, and that boosters shouldn’t distract or impede from doing that.

When giving boosters, some panel members added, the priority should be preventing severe disease in people at highest risk of becoming sick with Covid-19, as opposed to preventing infections.

For more information, here’s a link to the presentation slides for today’s ACIP meeting.

OPM helpfully sent FEHB plan carriers the following standard guidance to FEHB carriers today about Hurricane Ida:

Due to Hurricane Ida impacting the Gulf Coast and connecting states, we remind you that under Section 2.2 BENEFITS PROVIDED, you are authorized, “To pay for or provide a health service or supply in an individual case which does not come within the specific benefits provisions of the contract, if the Carrier determines the benefit is within the intent of the contract, and the Carrier determines that the provision of such benefit is in the best interest of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.”

If you decide to apply Section 2.2, we ask that you demonstrate maximum flexibility, including the following:

·         Relax certain provisions such as pre-certification requirements that the plan must be notified within 2 business days of an emergency admission.

·         Relax requirements about notification and levels of benefit payment if victims are taken to non-plan and/or non-PPO hospitals or other treatment centers.

·         Allow certain FEHB members to get additional supplies of medications as backup, if necessary.

·         Though charges for work-related injuries sustained by Federal workers are payable by the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP), we are encouraging FEHB plans to provide immediate payment and seek subsequent reimbursement from OWCP.

Today, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the establishment an Office of Climate Change and Health Equity. The Wall Street Journal notes that “The new office is likely to spur initiatives touching on many aspects of healthcare, HHS officials announced Monday. It is expected to offer protections for populations most at risk—including the elderly, minorities, rural communities and children, and the office could eventually compel hospitals and other care facilities to reduce carbon emissions.”

STAT News identifies three trends divined from research on telehealth utilization by Medicare beneficiaries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The FEHBlog’s attention was drawn to this trend:

Telemedicine use has not varied substantially by race and ethnicity. Many commenters * * * have expressed concern that telemedicine will widen disparities of care. Surprisingly, this has not by borne out by the data. Through the end of 2020, we observed no substantive differences in the proportion of beneficiaries using telemedicine by race and ethnicity: 51% of non-Latino white beneficiaries, 55% of Black beneficiaries, and 56% for both Latino and Asian beneficiaries.

This pattern may in part reflect the fact that people of color are more likely to live in urban areas, where the use of telemedicine is higher. Beneficiaries living in large metropolitan counties were substantially more likely to use telemedicine than those living in rural areas.

STAT News also offers a fascinating peak inside Pfizer’s Pearl River (NY) Research Center where a “team of “variant hunters,” as they call themselves, race to track changes in the fast-mutating SARS-CoV-2. A “virus farmer” grows the latest variants so researchers can test how they fare against the vaccine. And a colleague known as the “graphing unicorn” converts the data into intelligible results overnight.” Extraordinary.