Overnight Health Care: Biden touts incentives to get vaccinated | Kentucky accuses CVS Health of fueling opioid crisis | Israel cites ‘possible link’ between Pfizer vaccine, mild heart inflammation in young men
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Today: The White House is pulling out all the stops for a monthlong push to get millions more people vaccinated. Kentucky is suing CVS over opioid allegations, and there may be a link between heart inflammation and a COVID vaccine.
We’ll start at the White House:
Biden touts incentives, pleads with Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19
President Biden on Wednesday exhorted Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they haven’t yet, announcing an aggressive campaign to reach his goal of having 70 percent of adults with at least one shot by July 4.
During a speech at the White House, Biden highlighted the benefits of being fully vaccinated and also warned about the consequences if the country’s numbers don’t improve.
“The bottom line is this: I promise you they are safe. They are safe,” Biden said. “And even more importantly, they’re extremely effective. If you’re vaccinated, you are protected.”
Biden declared June a “national month of action” to get more people vaccinated against COVID-19.
Big picture: Biden last month set a goal to administer at least one shot of the coronavirus vaccine to 70 percent of U.S. adults by Independence Day. But we’re not there yet, and enthusiasm for getting vaccinated has waned considerably. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 63 percent of adults, but only 52 percent of the entire U.S. population, has received at least one dose.
Biden on Wednesday said 12 states have already reached the 70 percent mark, and more are expected to get there this week.
What’s happening: To speed the effort along, the White House is offering a range of incentives, including free child care. Until July Fourth, KinderCare and Learning Care Group locations across the country will offer free, drop-in appointments. More than 500 YMCAs in nearly every state will offer drop-in care during vaccination appointments, and Bright Horizons will also provide free care to more than 10 million employees it partners with.
Biden turning to Black-owned barbershops for vaccine outreach
Part of the plan to get to 70 percent: President Biden plans to turn to Black-owned barbershops and beauty salons as part of the administration’s vaccination outreach effort as he strives to reach his Fourth of July goal to get Americans vaccinated.
The president announced the “Shots at the Shop” initiative during Wednesday remarks, which will recruit barbershops and salons to mobilize their communities to get vaccinations throughout June.
Participating barbershops and salons are expected to provide and display vaccine information and educational materials, as well as host vaccination events with assistance from local partners.
“The ‘Shots at the Shop’ initiative will invite participation from across the country, with a particular focus on supporting shops in some of the hardest-hit localities still experiencing significant gaps in vaccination rates,” a fact sheet from the White House said.
Approaching deadline: The president set a target to have 70 percent of American adults receive at least one dose of a vaccine by Independence Day. About 18.5 million people still need to get vaccinated with their first dose in order to reach the goal.
The Biden administration has prioritized improving access and removing obstacles to the vaccine in the hopes of boosting vaccination numbers, particularly in minority communities.
The Kaiser Family Foundation said last week that Black and Hispanic people have received smaller shares of vaccinations compared to their disproportionate number of cases and their total population.
One of the new vaccination incentives: Free beer!
Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser, said Wednesday that it will give away free beers once the United States reaches President Biden’s goal of 70 percent of adults with at least one vaccine dose.
The partnership with the White House from the brewer is the latest incentive aimed at getting more people vaccinated, as states have turned to everything from L.L. Bean gift cards to lottery drawings for vaccinated people.
Once the U.S. reaches the 70 percent mark, people can upload a photo of themselves “in their favorite place to grab a beer” at MyCooler.com/Beer and the first 200,000 people will get a “$5.00 digital pre-paid card” that can be used to buy an Anheuser-Busch product. Seltzers and other drinks will also be available.
Biden has set a goal of reaching the 70 percent mark by July 4 and is giving a speech later Wednesday on the push, calling for June to be a “month of action” on vaccinations.
The brewer is calling the promotion its “biggest beer giveaway in history.”
Opioids lawsuit: Kentucky accuses CVS Health of fueling crisis in new suit
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) is accusing CVS Health of “fueling” the opioid crisis in the state in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
Cameron sued the health care company in Franklin Circuit Court, alleging that its “unlawful business practices” and failure to “guard against the diversion of opioids” contributed to Kentucky’s epidemic.
“As both distributor and pharmacy, CVS was in a unique position to monitor and stop the peddling of these highly-addictive drugs from their stores, yet they ignored their own safeguard systems,” Cameron said.
By the numbers: The lawsuit said CVS pharmacies in Kentucky bought more than 151 million dosage units of oxycodone and hydrocodone from its own distribution centers and third-party distributors between 2006 and 2014. That amounts to almost 6.1 percent of the dosage units in the state at the time.
Cameron specifically highlighted two CVS stores in Perry County and Crittenden County that each bought enough dosage units to supply every county resident with 26 pills and 34 pills every year, respectively.
CVS response: CVS Health told The Hill in a statement that it’s ready to defend against the lawsuit’s allegations and that it invested in fighting opioid misuse and abuse.
“Opioids are made and marketed by drug manufacturers, not pharmacies,” the statement said. “Pharmacists dispense opioid prescriptions written by licensed physicians for a legitimate medical need. Pharmacists do not — and cannot — write prescriptions.”
Israel cites ‘possible link’ between Pfizer vaccine, mild heart inflammation in young men
Israel’s Ministry of Health on Wednesday cited a “possible link” between the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and some cases of mild heart inflammation among young men who received the vaccine.
The ministry said in a statement that it concluded “there is some probability for a possible link” between the second dose of the vaccine and the emergence of myocarditis among men aged 16 to 30.
In its research, the Ministry of Health’s three teams of experts found 275 cases of myocarditis reported between December 2020 and May 2021, with 148 cases occurring “around the time of vaccination.”
Mild heart inflammation was reported in 121 cases within 30 days from the second dose’s administration, including 60 among those with preexisting conditions. The 121 cases out of almost 5.1 million vaccinations amounts to 0.002 percent of second doses.
The incidents were mostly reported among younger men aged 16 to 19, with the link weakening among older populations. Most cases, 95 percent, were considered mild, and patients spent up to four days in the hospital.
Pfizer response: Pfizer told The Hill that it was aware of the Israeli research, noting that adverse incidents are “thoroughly reviewed,” including with the Israeli Ministry of Health.
“No causal link to the vaccine has been established,” the statement said. “With more than 300 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine administered globally, the benefit risk profile of our vaccine remains positive.”
Follows: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement last month that it was looking into the “relatively few” cases of myocarditis in young people who got the vaccine.
What we’re reading
The ‘grief pandemic’ will torment Americans for years (Kaiser Health News)
Explaining HIPAA: No, it doesn’t ban questions about your vaccination status (The Washington Post)
Immunocompromised people turn to Covid-19 vaccine booster shots (The Wall Street Journal)
Ejected from a troubled plant, AstraZeneca is in talks to produce vaccine for U.S. government at a different factory (New York Times)
State by state
Michigan finalizes bias training rule for all health workers (The Associated Press)
Ohio pandemic mandates gone but health officials caution that COVID-19 remains (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
Colorado’s COVID-19 hospitalizations continue bumpy descent as new cases fall slightly (The Denver Post)
Op-eds in The Hill
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