Axios Vitals: Why the coronavirus vaccine rollout is behind schedule

1 big thing: Why the coronavirus vaccine rollout is behind schedule | Wednesday, January 06, 2021

Open in app View in browser   Presented By Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs   Vitals By Caitlin Owens ·Jan 06, 2021 Good morning. Today's word count is 709, or a 3-minute read.     1 big thing: Why the coronavirus vaccine rollout is behind schedule Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   Poor timing, poor planning and a lack of resources have all led to a coronavirus vaccine rollout that is going much slower than anticipated. Why it matters: The spread of the virus is vastly outpacing America's efforts to inoculate people against it. What's happening: Although the vaccination effort has sped up over the last few days, only 5 million Americans have received their first dose of a vaccine, per Bloomberg — or 1.5% of the population. That means that only about 30% of the 17 million distributed vaccines have been administered. The big picture: States have been warning for months that they don't have the resources to pull off the ideal vaccination effort, but additional federal money only started flowing to states a few days ago. Initial vaccine doses went mostly to frontline health care workers, meaning that administration of the shots was largely the responsibility of the same hospitals that are overwhelmed by a flood of coronavirus patients. Another few million doses are slotted for nursing home residents and staff, the vast majority of which haven't yet been administered. And on top of all that, the vaccine rollout coincided with Christmas and New Years, further slowing down the process. What they're saying: "It's not operating at a 24/7, flu vaccine kind of pace. It's a lot more deliberate and there's a lot more steps to getting that needle into people's arms compared to other vaccines," said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "It was all predictable, and I think there wasn't enough planning," he added. Between the lines: The rollout has also illuminated the tension between rigid adherence to priority groups — which were created for a reason — and the urgency of getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible. Go deeper.     2. Where it stands Data: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Map: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios     3. Georgia results shake up Dems' health agenda If both Democrats ultimately pull off wins in Georgia's Senate races, they'll secure a narrow Democratic majority and increase the odds that significant health care legislation could become law. Democrat Raphael Warnock defeated Republican Kelly Loeffler for one of the Senate seats, AP called early this morning. A winner has not yet been declared in the race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican David Perdue. What they're saying: The Kaiser Family Foundation's Larry Levitt yesterday tweeted a list of health policies that Democrats may enact with a Senate majority: Nullifying the pending GOP lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act Making ACA premiums more affordable Incentivizing states to expand Medicaid Allowing the government to negotiate drug prices Eliminating cost-sharing for coronavirus treatment The other side: If Republicans end up holding one of the Georgia Senate seats, there's still the possibility of bipartisan compromise. But that is an entirely different — and much narrower — policy universe.     A message from Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs Rebate Rule is the wrong prescription for lower drug prices     The Trump Administration's prescription drug "Rebate Rule" will raise seniors' premiums by up to 25%, skyrocket government spending, and will not deliver the lower drug costs that patients need. Learn more about why it should be overturned.     4. New York hospitals continue to sue patients New York's largest health system has continued to sue patients over unpaid medical bills amid the pandemic, even though most other hospitals in the state have suspended their claims, the New York Times reports. Driving the news: Northwell Health, a nonprofit hospital system that is run by one of Cuomo's closest allies, sued more than 2,500 patients last year for an average of $1,700 in unpaid bills. After the NYT article was published yesterday morning, Northwell said it would stop suing patients during the pandemic and would rescind all legal claims it filed in 2020. Richard Miller, the system's chief business strategy officer, told NYT in an interview last month that the lawsuits filed in 2020 were all regarding care provided pre-pandemic. Between the lines: New York ordered state-run hospitals to stop suing patients when the pandemic began, and almost all major private hospitals in the state followed suit. The big picture: Northwell is not the only hospital system that has continued suing coronavirus patients amid the pandemic. As I reported last summer, almost all of the roughly two dozen Community Health Systems hospitals in Florida, Texas and Arizona — some of the summer's hardest-hit states — had sued patients since the pandemic began.     5. Catch up quick Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease official, said yesterday that the U.S. could soon be giving at least a million coronavirus vaccinations a day, AP reports. In Washington on Tuesday to meet with small businesses, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told Axios that some of the survival pivots entrepreneurs have made in the past year will last past the pandemic. World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admonished China on Tuesday for delaying authorization that would allow groups of scientists from other countries to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan. 1 in 50 people in England have recently been infected with the coronavirus, per NYT. Israel will impose new restrictions in its countrywide lockdown, closing schools and nonessential businesses beginning Friday to combat surging cases of the coronavirus, government ministers voted Tuesday.     A message from Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs Premiums for seniors will skyrocket under Rebate Rule     The Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs, alongside other concerned organizations, urges the incoming Biden Administration and Congress to protect seniors from higher premiums by overturning this rule and enacting reforms that lower Rx prices. Learn more.     Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. 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