Coronavirus: The Hill and the Headlines, December 22 2020

NOTE:  We will not be publishing the “Coronavirus: The Hill and the Headlines” between December 28^th and January 1.  We wish you and yours a wonderful and safe holiday and a happy new year!

In Washington:

• The House and Senate both passed the $900 billion coronavirus stimulus bill on Monday with overwhelming bipartisan majorities: 359-53 in the House and 92-6 in the Senate. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the massive 5,593-page bill into law, allowing at least some of the emergency aid to start flowing quickly. President-elect Joe Biden urged Democrats to accept a compromise with top Republicans that is smaller than many Democrats would have liked. Many experts, economists, and employers feel the aid won’t be enough. With many aid programs expiring in March and the omission of many critical provisions, Biden expects to seek additional emergency relief, especially for state and local governments, in the new Congress after he takes office. The long-sought relief package was part of a $2.3 trillion catchall package that included $1.4 trillion to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

• Pfizer is in negotiations with the U.S. government that to possibly provide tens of millions of additional vaccine doses to the U.S. under a deal that would give it better access to manufacturing supplies. The company is signaling that it should be able to meet the government’s request for 100 million additional doses from Pfizer from April through June as long as it can get more access to supplies and raw materials. The agreement would help offset the vaccine shortage that could leave as many as 110 million Americans unable to get the vaccine in the first half of 2021.  

• The new coronavirus strain that was first detected in the U.K. could already be circulating in the United States without notice, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday. While the variant hasn’t been found in the U.S. yet, the CDC noted that scientists haven’t sequenced the genetic coding for many COVID-19 infections here. “Ongoing travel between the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the high prevalence of this variant among current U.K. infections, increase the likelihood of importation,” the agency said in a statement. 

• National Institutes of Health (NIH) official Dr. Anthony Fauci and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar were among Trump administration health officials and NIH frontline medical workers who received a dose of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday. Azar promised the vaccine went through “the kind of searching and independent review that they expect for any drug or vaccine at the Food and Drug Administration.”

• The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) released a report, “COVID-19 Related Goods: The U.S. Industry, Market, Trade, and Supply Chain Challenges,” highlighting sectors where supply and demand have stabilized and others where challenges persist. This report provides further evidence of existing shortages and bottlenecks, the reliance on imports for certain products and components, the benefits of increasing domestic manufacturing capacity, and the need to ensure greater supply chain resiliency. The report was requested by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee Kevin Brady (R-TX).

• Today the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (AICP) published its interim recommendations for who should be considered in the next two rounds of priority groups to receive the coronavirus vaccine. In a vote of 13-1, the panel decided people 75 and older and essential frontline workers should be next in line for the vaccine labeled category “1b.” ACIP then recommended that the next group, “1c,” include people between the ages of 65-74, people between the ages of 16 and 64 who have a high-risk medical condition, and other essential workers.

• A small but growing number of federal lawmakers are declining early access to a COVID-19 vaccine afforded to members of Congress. Among the lawmakers are Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL), Ilhan Omar (D-MN.), Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). All made a point of announcing they would refuse a vaccine before all frontline health care workers and seniors get inoculated. Most other lawmakers are getting their first of two doses and urging others to follow suit to show public confidence in the vaccine, given that nearly 40 percent of Americans are hesitant or said they would not get the vaccine. But some lawmakers question the fairness or the optics of lawmakers getting priority access.

In the News:

• Pfizer and Moderna are testing their coronavirus vaccines to see if they work against the mutated version of the virus found in the U.K. and other countries, the companies said. “We expect that the Moderna vaccine-induced immunity would be protective against the variants recently described in the U.K.; we will be performing additional tests in the coming weeks,” Moderna said.

• West Virginia is on track to administer COVID-19 vaccines at all of its long-term care facilities by the end of this year, Gov. Jim Justice (R) told CNBC on Tuesday. Despite making up less than 6 percent of the state’s coronavirus cases, nursing homes and assisted living facilities represent about 31 percent of West Virginia’s total coronavirus deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic magazine. 

• The NBA returns for its 2020-21 season on Tuesday after a successful prior season in which the league kept its athletes in a coronavirus “bubble” that prevented infections among players. The league elected to play a shortened 72-game season because of pandemic interruptions to its previous season, which ended in October instead of June like usual. 

Authored by Ivan Zapien