Thursday Miscellany

David Ermer–COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccine, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

Yesterday’s HHS COVID-19 booster plan for all of the U.S. has generated expert opposition as reported in STAT News and Forbes. From STAT, for example

“I would have preferred that this had been vetted a little bit more,” said Paul Offit, a vaccine expert from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who is on an expert committee that advises the FDA on vaccines. “This just seems to be a declaration without the kind of vetting you would like to have seen.”

Offit thinks boosters may eventually be needed. But he’s not convinced they are needed now. Almost all the evidence to date suggests protection against severe disease is still holding and may well last several years, he said.

“So the notion that we are trying to get ahead of it by boosting after eight months I think is premature,” he said, also arguing that using more doses in the U.S. will inevitably slow vaccination in low-income countries.

Forbes adds

The impending rollout of booster doses in the U.S. could thwart vaccine export and donations to nations which are in desperate need of inoculating their most vulnerable residents, experts worry. “To me it just essentially shows that here is another rich nation that is really prioritizing its own population before thinking about the global response,” says Rupali Limaye, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who studies vaccine inequity and hesitancy.

The FEHBlog hopes that the HHS experts have not gotten too far out in front of their skis on this issue.

In other vaccine news, CVS Health announced today

Flu shots are now available at all CVS Pharmacy and MinuteClinic locations across the country. Both CVS Pharmacy and MinuteClinic, the retail health clinic of CVS Health inside select CVS Pharmacy and Target stores, offer convenient options for people of all ages to get their flu shot, seven days a week with expanded evening and weekend hours.

“Getting your flu shot is a great way to be proactive about your health and the health of your community,” said Angela Patterson, DNP, FNP-BC, NEA-BC, FAANP, Chief Nurse Practitioner Officer, MinuteClinic and Vice President, CVS Health. “It’s an easy way to protect yourself and those around you who may be more vulnerable to serious complications from the flu, such as infants and young children, older adults, and people with certain chronic health conditions.”

In health plan coverage news, Fierce Healthcare informs us that

Most insurers are no longer waiving cost sharing for COVID-19 treatments as healthcare use rebounded from lows exacerbated by the pandemic, a new analysis found.

The analysis, released Thursday from the Kaiser Family Foundation, found 72% of large health plans are no longer providing cost-sharing waivers as of this month. Another 10% of plans expect to phase out the waivers by the end of October. * * *

An earlier analysis from Kaiser found that large group enrollees hospitalized for pneumonia, which requires similar treatment costs to COVID-19, paid out an average $1,300 out-of-pocket.

“Although this is a large amount to most patients, and could be an incentive to get vaccinated, it still only represents a fraction of the cost born to society for these largely preventable hospitalizations,” the analysis said.

In encouraging news, STAT News reports that Michael Segel and Blake Lash, two scientists who work in the lab of CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang at Boston’s Broad Street Institute, have discovered a new CRISPR related technology. “This new method of delivering different RNA payloads, called SEND, for Selective Endogenous eNcapsidation for cellular Delivery, was reported today in Science. It has the potential to address significant and longstanding limitations to translating powerful gene editing and gene replacement technologies, as well as mRNA — the guts of the most successful Covid-19 vaccines — into broadly useful therapies.” The article concludes “It’s too soon to say whether SEND will ultimately challenge lipid nanoparticles and viral vectors as the dominant methods for delivering gene editing treatments and gene therapies. But it does offer some distinct advantages.” Bravo.

From the miscellany department

  • AHIP’s Blog discusses the rise of social media influencers in healthcare.
  • Fierce Healthcare reports that by closing on its deal to acquire Kindred at Home, Humana has become the largest provider of home healthcare in our country. “Kindred will be folded into the insurer’s Home Solutions business arm and will adopt Humana’s payer-agnostic health services branding, CareWell, under which it will operate as CenterWell Home Health beginning next year.”
  • Healthcare Dive reports that the American Hospital Association has “sent a letter Wednesday to top officials in the White House, HHS, Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission defending health system M&A and attempting to shift Washington’s rising antitrust focus from providers to commercial health plans.” After all the best defense is a strong offense. But Healthcare Dive adds that “The letter included an updated AHA-funded study on the benefits of hospital mergers, which was previously criticized by outside experts for cherry-picked data, among other methodological weaknesses.”