💉 Axios Vitals: Vaccine culture wars

Plus, world's biggest vax maker to resume COVID-19 exports | Monday, November 08, 2021

Open in app View in browser   Presented By PhRMA   Axios Vitals By Tina Reed ·Nov 08, 2021  ☺️ Good morning, Vitals readers. Today's newsletter is 673 words, or a 3-minute read. 🍺 On tap in earnings this week: Watch for Q3 earnings from value-based care companies Oak Street Health and Privia Health, as well as insurance startups Oscar Health and Clover Health and telehealth giant Amwell. What to watch: After passing the infrastructure package Friday, The House will take up a vote on its social spending bill sometime following this week's recess.     1 big thing: Vaccine mandates inflame the culture wars Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   The brewing culture war over vaccine mandates now threatens to boil over after the Biden administration set a January deadline for employers with more than 100 employees to require shots or regular testing. Driving the news: Lawsuits from 15 GOP-led states rolled in hours later. A federal appeals court on Saturday stayed enforcement of the Biden administration's private-employer vaccine mandate. Even a Democratic governor, Kansas' Laura Kelly, released a critical statement. The other side: U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy took to ABC's "This Week" on Sunday to defend the Biden administration's mandate plan as a workplace safety and economic issue. "It's good for people's health, it's good for the economy, and that's why these requirements make so much sense," he said. But, but, but: NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers took the mantle as a foil to employer vaccine mandates after it was revealed he was unvaccinated. He'd previously told reporters he was "immunized." He defended his decision not to get vaccinated on talk radio over the weekend. "They're purely trying to out and shame people," Rodgers said. The big picture: A recent Axios-Ipsos poll found six in 10 employed Americans agreed their employer should require COVID vaccinations. But they do not agree on what should happen for those who don't comply. Support for firing employees was low, at 14%. The bottom line: "People who get vaccinated can also be self-righteous, and some people who haven't been vaccinated can be belligerent," Noel Brewer, a professor specializing in health behaviors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told the New York Times. "That could really be a combustible mix." Go deeper.     2. Pic du jour: Shots for kids Photo: Jeff Kowalsk/AFP via Getty Images   A 7-year-old child receives their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Beaumont Health offices in Southfield, Michigan, on Saturday. Lines at clinics — which began offering vaccines for kids 5–11 years after the CDC's green light last week — were reported in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington.     3. Vax exports to resume from India The CEO of the world's biggest vaccine maker told "Axios on HBO" he expects low-income countries will start receiving much-needed exports of his COVID-19 vaccines this week, now that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is lifting restrictions, Axios' Jonathan Swan reports. Why this matters: Billionaire Adar Poonawalla's Serum Institute of India is the biggest supplier of vaccines to low-income countries. But for months, he was blocked from meeting his commitments to supply vaccines to the world, putting him "on the verge of a nervous breakdown." Details: Now that India has emerged from a brutal second wave, Poonawalla says he's allowed to resume exporting Covishield — his version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine — to COVAX. Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Covishield doesn't need to be stored in freezing temperatures, which makes it ideal for vaccinating people in low-income countries. "I think by the tenth of November you're gonna see the first — if not a bit sooner — you're gonna see the first doses arrive in Africa," Poonawalla said. Once shipments begin, Poonawalla said he expects to send around 30 million doses per month, to COVAX primarily. 🖥 Watch the "Axios on HBO" segment.     A message from PhRMA The hyper-partisan drug pricing plan may be detrimental to patients     It's government price setting that does little to address patient affordability and will decimate the US competitive ecosystem that has brought hope to so many Americans in the form of new medical advances. This plan could result in negative consequences for the patients with the most need.     4. A look at "The First Wave" Image: NEON   "The First Wave," a documentary of the first four months of the pandemic in New York City, is set to open in theaters on Nov. 19. The film, from National Geographic Documentary Films, NEON and Participant, features exclusive footage in one of New York's hardest-hit hospitals as health care workers struggle to save their first COVID-19 patients. What they're saying: "I felt a deep responsibility to document this unprecedented moment in time, to put people in the shoes of those who lived it on the front lines," said the film's director, Matthew Heineman, in a statement.     5. While you were weekending Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   Former FDA chief Gottlieb: "We're close to the end of the pandemic." (Axios) New COVID pill shows the need for widescale testing. (Axios) The broken U.S. data systems that struggled during the pandemic can be fixed. (Los Angeles Times) What do millennials and Boomers have in common? Health care consumer behaviors, it turns out. (Fierce Pharma)     A message from PhRMA The hyper-partisan drug pricing plan may be detrimental to patients     It's government price setting that does little to address patient affordability and will decimate the US competitive ecosystem that has brought hope to so many Americans in the form of new medical advances. This plan could result in negative consequences for the patients with the most need.   📫 Did you enjoy this newsletter? Share it with your friends! Like this email style and format? Learn more about Axios HQ. It'll help you deliver employee communications more effectively.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 1300, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? 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