Coronavirus Files: Vaccines, death disparities and controversies

Image

By Lindzi Wessel

The Center for Health Journalism has begun offering a special newsletter geared to journalists as they report on one of the biggest and most complex stories of our times. Each Monday, while the pandemic runs its course, The Coronavirus Files will provide tips and resources and highlight exemplary work to help you with your work. The Center for Health Journalism’s Coronavirus Files Monday newsletter is curated and reported by science writer Lindzi Wessel. Have a suggestion or a request? Write us at editor@centerforhealthjournalism.org.

Subscribe to our twice weekly newsletter.

From the Center for Health Journalism: Are You Listening to Your Community?

Sign up for this Wednesday’s Webinar: Covering Coronavirus: Are You Listening to Your Community? When it comes to connecting with community members, few outlets have been as nimble and innovative as Southern California Public Radio under Community Engagement Director Ashley Alvarado. Alvarado will share ideas on how outlets of all sizes can better serve their audiences with innovative methods for listening and generating story ideas. Alvarado manages a team that has personally answered close to 2,000 reader questions, in addition to sending 10,000 mailers to low-internet neighborhoods, creating digital support groups and more. Sign up here for the 10-11 a.m. PT/1-2 p.m. ET webinar.

And mark your calendars for our May 6 webinar, Covering Coronavirus: What the Data Tells Us. Kaiser Health News data editor Liz Lucas will walk us through data sources that can aid informed, in-depth reporting on the overall trend of the pandemic, the infrastructure needed to survive it, and the people most vulnerable. We’ll talk about what data exists nationally, and what data you should pursue locally. Sign up here for the 10-11 a.m. PT/1-2 p.m. ET webinar.

Vaccines, Death Disparities & Controversies

The Health Divide:

Even as the racial toll of coronavirus becomes increasingly clear, leaders are struggling to access comprehensive data breaking down infections by demographics including race and ethnicity, write Kat Stafford, Meghan Hoyer and Aaron Morrison for The Associated Press. The data that is available, though incomplete, paints an increasingly stark picture of the impact on black Americans.

On April 17, “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first breakdown of COVID-19 case data by race, showing that 30% of patients whose race was known were black,” the AP team writes. “The federal data was missing racial information for 75% of all cases, however, and did not include any demographic breakdown of deaths.”

A Los Angeles Times analysis based on recently released data from California’s state health department found that even young black and Latino Californians “are dying more frequently of COVID-19 than their white and Asian counterparts relative to their share of the population.” Deaths remain highest among the elderly. But surprisingly, among blacks and Latinos, death disparities are higher in younger patient groups, while “the trend goes in the opposite direction for white and Asian patients.”

Public health officials and lawmakers have been pushing for the release of more racial demographics data for weeks, asking why the federal government has not utilized an Obama-era analytics tool based on Medicare billing data and used during the 2009-10 H1N1 to monitor racial breakdowns. “The release of demographic data for the country’s coronavirus victims remains a priority for many civil rights and public health advocates, who say the numbers are needed to address disparities in the national response to the pandemic,” the AP writes.

Not sure how to cover hard-to-reach communities and communities of color? When the data is missing, we usually turn to old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting but that’s hard to do these days. Consider taking advantage of some of the strategies spelled out by digital journalism guru Amara Aguilar in our most recent webinar, “Street Reporting without the Street,” which maps out everything from engaging sensitively with diverse communities to differences in how different communities of color use social media. 

The race for a vaccine

As the pandemic continues to ravage our society with no end in sight, our hopes are increasingly pinned on finding a vaccine. Scientists are racing to develop one and more than 70 potential vaccines are currently in development. Sadly, though, that doesn’t mean we’ll have one any time soon. Some experts hope that by channeling all our resources we can get there in 12 to 18 months, but developing a vaccine typically takes years. Extensive safety and efficacy checks are followed by a series of regulatory hurdles, and once a candidate is approved, ramping up manufacturing to meet global demand also takes time.

Desperate to lift the pandemic’s chokehold, scientists and the pharmaceutical industry are looking for short cuts. In hopes of shaving a year or more off the process, drug companies are already taking the risky and unprecedented step of producing large quantities of vaccine candidates, ahead of testing necessary to determine which will work, write Elizabeth Weise and David Heath for USA Today. Some research teams are also working on vaccine candidates based on viral genetic material instead of the more typical approach of making a vaccine that targets a specific protein on the surface of the virus. DNA- or RNA-based vaccines can be made faster and the technology has potential, write Alison Snyder and Eileen Drage O'Reilly for Axios. But, “no RNA and DNA vaccines have been approved for humans — for any virus.”

For a deeper understanding of how vaccines are made and what options are being considered for a COVID-19 vaccine, check out Science Friday’s interview with infectious disease and vaccine expert, Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Was the virus here before we thought?

New disease modeling suggests coronavirus may have been spreading through the United States undetected weeks before we knew it. Positive results from posthumous tests in two Californian patients support that theory, writes Kerry Crowley for The San Jose Mercury News. Previously experts thought the nation’s first case occurred on Feb. 27. But the California patients died on Feb. 6 and 17. It’s obvious that the original timeline for coronavirus spread in the U.S. needs to be revised, but no one knows by how long. To help get a handle on the question, California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, has instructed coroners and medical examiners to “perform autopsies on individuals who may have died from the novel coronavirus as far back as December 2019.”

Heated Disputes

Volunteering to be infected

As vaccine research progresses, a grave question faces society: Should we let healthy volunteers be infected with coronavirus to speed up the process? Infecting someone with a potentially deadly virus for research would normally be considered unacceptable, writes Dan Vergano for BuzzFeed. But doing so might help fast-track one slow step of the vaccine testing process. Typically, once vaccines are proven safe and effective, they “move on to Phase 3 trials involving thousands of volunteers studied for around six months. Those trials require giving one group of volunteers the vaccine and another group a placebo, then waiting for months to elapse to see how many catch the disease and how many don’t.” If, instead, researchers were to infect the participants, they could save precious time waiting and ensure the number of infected people was high enough to truly test the vaccine.

For The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf interviewed young people who’ve already added their names to a list of willing participants, in anticipation of studies to come. One 31-year-old volunteer cited her ailing grandmother and parents who are essential workers as her reasons for signing up, saying she’d rather “roll the dice for myself, and keep them from having to roll the dice—I have a much better dice to roll.”

While some researchers and lawmakers are calling for volunteers to be allowed to be infected, others urge caution, citing our incomplete understanding of the disease, which means volunteers might be at more risk than they think. Logistical complications also mean such trials could be slow to get underway, even if they were approved.

Is it safe to come out?

Throughout the country, debates are raging over when to re-open state and local economies. Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, has controversially decided that now is that moment. On Friday he gave the green light for businesses to start reopening on a “limited basis,” and he plans to lift shelter-in-place orders by the end of the month. But the state has yet to meet criteria for re-opening outlined in White House recommendations and many other state leaders and public health experts are urging Kemp to reverse course. Protesters in various parts of the country have hit the streets to demand an end to lockdowns and the White House has flamed the dispute further through contradictory messaging on the question.

The longer the economy is shut down, the longer it could take to bounce back, writes Sheelah Kolhatkar for The New Yorker, who talks about how to “strike a difficult balance between protecting people’s health and protecting their livelihoods.” For some who have lost jobs and see their business failing, that’s an even bigger fear than the virus. But moving too quickly to re-open the economy could result in a fresh wave of outbreaks, warns Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert. That would mean more lives lost and further economic damage.

The most likely answer is a staged reopening, “with different sectors switching on at different times,” write Kolhatkar. “‘If we’re able to do this well, what you should see is pumping the gas pedal and then hitting the brakes',” economist Michael Strain told her. We might see schools opening in September, for example, but then closing for a few weeks the following month if case counts start to spike.

Tips From the Frontline: Fake News & Fake Science

President Donald Trump shocked the country Thursday night by seeming to suggest that injecting disinfectant into the body might be one promising way to battle coronavirus infections (It’s not — don’t try it). In the same press conference he seemed to suggest irradiating patients’ bodies with “very powerful light,” another potentially dangerous and unfounded proposal. When a reporter questioned these statements the president responded by calling him “fake news.”

It can be tricky for health reporters to decide what kind of attention to give such falsehoods. On one hand, robust coverage of baseless claims can sometimes serve to spread those misconceptions. But letting these claims go uncorrected can also be dangerous. Shortly after Trump made them, health care workers around the country took to social media to urge people not to try any version of the suggestions at home. The manufacturer of the disinfectant Lysol joined in, quickly issuing a public statement saying that “under no circumstances should our disinfectant products be administered to the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).”

When safety is involved, “we do need to jump on that and correct the record,” says veteran health and medical reporter Robert Davis, the author of two books on how consumers can sort through competing medical claims. But he cautions health reporters against getting “unnecessarily mired in the politics,” something that can distract from other important stories and the main safety message.

“My warning would be don’t get too mired in the details of what he said exactly, what he meant and whether it was appropriate,” a focus sometimes better left to national reporters who cover the White House, he says. “The bottom line ought to be on whether this is true or false, and clearly it’s false.”

Resources

• In a fear-filled environment where scientists are being pushed to move at breakneck speed, false claims have the potential to spread just about as fast as the virus. Poynter’s #CoronaVirusFacts Alliance “unites more than 100 fact-checkers around the world in publishing, sharing and translating facts surrounding the new coronavirus.” Head over to their database of false claims if you’re looking for help with debunking a rumor.

• The World Health Organization also has it’s own myth-busters page to debunk common misconceptions about the disease.

Reporters in the field are under pressure these days, as every trip outside forces them to confront potential exposure. If you’re one of them, consider taking a look at these tips for staying safe in the field, from health reporter Giles Bruce for The Center for Health Journalism.

And Don't Miss...

• "New data on Gilead’s remdesivir, released by accident, show no benefit for coronavirus patients. Company still sees reason for hope." STAT
• "F.D.A. Warns of Heart Problems From Malaria Drugs Used for Coronavirus." The New York Times
• "WHO warns against coronavirus “immunity passports” due to reinfection concerns." Vox

"Could a 'controlled avalanche' stop the coronavirus faster, and with fewer deaths?" Los Angeles Times

Giving Back

Help us continue to serve journalists and policy leaders with new content we are developing on COVID-19. Your tax-deductible contribution to the Center for Health Journalism will advance our mission of helping journalists investigate health challenges and solutions in their communities –serving as a catalyst for change.

You can donate through the USC web portal at this link: https://bit.ly/3c8d4xs

Pressed for time? You can also text to donate! No amount is too small; just send a text to 41-444 and type the message CHJ for further instructions.