Drs. Ole Thienhaus and Michael Hamant

Ole Thienhaus, MD 
Psychiatrist
PCMS President

Michael Hamant, MD
Family Medicine and Sports Medicine
PCMS Board Member and a Past President

Pima County Medical Society is in opposition to the Executive Order 
rescinding university COVID-19 mitigation measures.

The Pima County Medical Society is strongly opposed to the Executive Order issued by Gov. Doug Ducey, which prohibits the state’s universities from instituting their evidence-based guidelines and CDC-consistent protocols for COVID-19 mitigation. The CDC guidelines can be found by clicking here.

The universities’ plan had been to require proof of vaccination or to have biweekly COVID-19 antigen testing and to require those not vaccinated to wear face masks while on campus.

The governor has taken a stance that is in opposition to science and public safety. By so doing he has not only endangered many students and faculty, but also risks a larger communitywide outbreak of COVID-19 in the fall when in-person classes resume. The vaccination rate in Arizona is not sufficient for meaningful herd immunity with the new, more contagious Delta strain of COVID-19 now spreading in our community. With low vaccination rates among the college-age cohort there is a high risk to immunocompromised members of the campus community without the planned mitigation measures in place. 

The universities have an obligation to protect their community. For instance, the universities now require MMR vaccination and will continue to do so. We agree with Cara Christ, MD, head of the Arizona Department of Health Services, that the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the COVID-19 vaccines is a technical and insignificant difference from full FDA authorization and is not a reason for suspending the universities’ COVID-19 mitigation policies.

The issue at hand is not a choice between individual freedom versus conforming to government mandates, but is about being a responsible member of society. The universities’ plan offered an accommodation to those who, for whatever personal reasons, have not been vaccinated.

We urge Gov. Ducey to allow the universities to keep in place their well-designed, scientifically driven COVID-19 protocols when classes resume in the fall. Failing to do so violates his duty to protect all citizens of the state against preventable disease.

Ole Thienhaus, MD is an psychiatrist and the President of Pima County Medical Society. Michael Hamant, MD is a family medicine and sports medicine doctor and is a PCMS board member and a Past President.

Dr. Suresh B. Katakkar

Suresh B. Katakkar, MD, FRCPC, FACP
Internist and Medical Oncologist
PCMS Member

COVID-19 A Simple Fact!

Viruses parasitize all living and are detrimental to the host. The only way they can enter humans is through the convenient portals of entry. They cannot breach the human skin and all its layers. For COVID-19 the port of entry is through nasal passage, oral and oropharynx. Viruses are constantly evolving and hone their abilities to spread from one host to the other. Fortunately for COVID-19, despite the mutations the port of entry still has remained the same as no sexual transmission or through intermediate vector transmission like dengue or yellow fever is a risk. Based on this we can still use methods of prevention, which basically block the entry of COVID-19 through the known ports of entry.

If we look at the viruses in general, they are either RNA or DNA and cannot survive outside the living host and lose their virulence if left out on inanimate objects for a length of time, such as six hours or beyond. Basically, they need entrance in the living cell as they then only can incorporate in the RNA or DNA of that cell and multiply through the cell division. Thus, in the given situation of COVID-19 the port of entry being the nasal and oral passage it is essential we denature them before they have attached to the receptors on the cell surface, within reasonable time but as much as possible in less than three to four hours after exposure. Besides as the status of the carrier stage is unknown the transmission is also unknown. Hence, every time we are out in a crowd when we return home, we can use methods to denature them at these ports of entry.

And knowing the viruses cannot stand the temperature of steam I believe we can denature them and overcome the transmission by steaming our face, nose and throat. Since the COVID-19 pandemic started I have been using the fabric steamer for two minutes after coming home from an outside trip, such as shopping, etc. I have asked my neighbors who are also elderly like me to do the same. We all have had no infection despite the outdoor essential trips in the crowded areas, especially when one cannot keep 6 feet distance all the time.

My advice to all the physicians is to use this method and avoid the infection, especially when they believe they had exposure to an infected person. On my clothes I have used ultraviolet rays by using the electronic wand. The purchase price for both the fabric steamer and the ultraviolet wand is not exorbitant. The cost is less than $100. This investment may be worthwhile not only for physicians but the population at large. Both are portable and no medication is required.

'Obamacare' survives: Supreme Court dismissed big challenge

By Mark Sherman
Associated Press

The Supreme Court, though increasingly conservative in makeup, rejected the latest major Republican-led effort to kill the national health care law known as “Obamacare” on Thursday, June 17, preserving insurance coverage for millions of Americans.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, left the entire Affordable Care Act intact in ruling that Texas, other GOP-led states and two individuals had no right to bring their lawsuit in federal court. The Biden administration says 31 million people have health insurance because of the law, which also survived two earlier challenges in the Supreme Court.

The law’s major provisions include protections for people with existing health conditions, a range of no-cost preventive services, expansion of the Medicaid program that insures lower-income people and access to health insurance markets offering subsidized plans.

“The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land,” President Joe Biden, said, celebrating the ruling. He called for building further on the law that was enacted in 2010 when he was vice president.

Click here to read the full story.

New drug could cost government as much as it spends on NASA

By Josh Katz, Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz
The New York Times

A newly approved drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease is expected to become a multibillion-dollar expense for Medicare. By one projection, spending on the drug for Medicare’s patients could end up being higher than the budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency or NASA.

There’s little evidence that the drug, Aduhelm, slows the progression of dementia, but the Food and Drug Administration approved it in June. Analysts expect that Medicare and its enrollees, who pay a share of their prescription drug costs, will spend $5.8 billion to $29 billion on the drug in a single year.

“It’s unfathomable,” said Tricia Neuman, executive director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s program on Medicare policy. “These are crazy numbers.”

Plenty of other drugs cost more than Aduhelm, which is made by Biogen and will be priced at $56,000 annually. What makes it different is that there are millions of potential customers, and the drug is expected to be taken for years.

The drug’s approval has aroused criticism from health policy experts and pharmaceutical researchers for its lack of proven effectiveness. Effective or not, if widely prescribed, it could have an overwhelming impact on Medicare’s budget because the public program covers the vast majority of the nearly 6 million Americans with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

There is little precedent for a sudden spending jolt of this size. Even at the low end of projections, Aduhelm would become one of Medicare’s most expensive drugs.

At the high end, analysts say the new drug could cause a 50 percent increase in Medicare’s annual spending on drugs delivered in hospitals and doctor’s offices (as Aduhelm, which is given intravenously, would need to be).

The comparisons here are approximate: A third of Medicare enrollees are covered through private Medicare Advantage plans that do not release detailed information on the drugs provided in doctor’s offices. To estimate that spending, we used the drug spending data for Medicare enrollees in the traditional public program and increased it to account for the missing share.

Click here to read the full story.

Opinion: FDA has reached a new low

Decades ago, drugmakers in the United States could sell medicines without demonstrating that they actually worked.

That came to an end in the early 1960s after tens of thousands of women worldwide gave birth to children with severe birth defects after taking the inadequately tested drug thalidomide. Few of these tragedies occurred in the United States, thanks to the work of Dr. Frances Kelsey, an astute Food and Drug Administration scientist who kept the drug off the American market. The thalidomide debacle persuaded Congress to pass a law in 1962 requiring companies to test their drugs extensively before they could be sold.

Since then, American patients and doctors could assume that the medications we take or prescribe have been found to be sufficiently safe and effective by the FDA. That careful review process set the standard for drug evaluation worldwide.

But the strength of that process has been eroded, and it reached a low point recently when the FDA approved aducanumab, a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease that has not been convincingly shown to work and can cause brain swelling and hemorrhage.

In recent years, under steady pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and the patient groups it funds, the FDA has progressively lowered its standards of effectiveness and safety required for drug approvals. New drugs are now more likely to be supported by fewer studies and less adequate clinical trial designs than in the past. Worse, more than half of new drugs are now approved based on what’s called surrogate endpoints — changes in the body measured by lab tests that may not reflect clinical benefit — rather than requiring that the drug affect how a person feels, functions or survives.

For aducanumab, the evidence that its manufacturer, Biogen, submitted to the FDA showed no convincing effect on patients’ cognitive decline. Its two main trials were stopped early in 2019 because the company concluded its drug did not work. But the company later reanalyzed its data and concluded that some patients in one arm of one of the trials seemed to show some benefit from the drug, even though the other trials did not show any improvement.

The FDA worked closely with the company to study the data. But after careful review, an outside advisory committee for the agency was nearly unanimous in its ruling that the drug had failed to show strong evidence that it worked. Committee members were also concerned about the drug’s safety, since about a third of patients taking a higher dose had evidence of brain swelling. One of us, Dr. Kesselheim, was a member of that committee and has resigned as a result of the FDA’s inexcusable decision to approve the drug anyway.

In approving aducanumab, the FDA shifted the goal posts. It unexpectedly approved the drug based on a theory that it could affect amyloid protein levels in the brain. Some researchers think that amyloid buildup in the brain is a cause of Alzheimer’s disease, though others dispute this link. But lowering amyloid levels with a drug has never been shown to slow cognitive decline. Many investigational drugs have targeted amyloid levels without affecting the progression of this terrible disease.

Click here to read the full guest essay. 

Make sure PPE is designed to fit everyone

The current unisex personal protective equipment (PPE) — items such as gloves, masks, safety glasses and shoes, earplugs or muffs, hard hats, respirators, coveralls, vests and bodysuits — is designed for European males and does not properly reflect the diversity in body types, says a resolution presented at the June 2021 AMA Special Meeting.

Improperly fitted PPE sometimes or significantly hampered work for 57 percent of women, according to survey research cited in the resolution. PPE that’s not properly fitted places users at higher risk for injuries, including tripping from shoes that are too big and losing grip on items because gloves do not fit.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, studies reported health care personnel who developed pressure ulcers from attempting to form a seal with their masks and some who were diagnosed with COVID-19 were also found to have improperly fitted masks,” said AMA Board Member Willie Underwood III, MD, MSc, MPH. “By providing better fitting PPE, we can protect and preserve critically important health care personnel so they can continue to care for patients on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies.”

To address the issue, the House of Delegates directed the AMA to “encourage the diversification of personal protective equipment design to better fit all body types, cultural expressions and practices among health care personnel.”

Click here to read the full story.

Six things to tell patients about their COVID-19 vaccine card

Social media has been flooded with images of people proudly displaying their COVID-19 vaccination cards — and the impetus for doing that is understandable. While that little white card has helped bring a sense of normalcy to people across the country, one question remains: What should your patients do with their COVID-19 vaccination cards? One physician explains what to tell patients to keep in mind after receiving their vaccine card.

AMA member Purvi Parikh, MD, an allergist and immunologist as well as a vaccine researcher in New York City, shares what patients should know about their COVID-19 vaccination card.

• Cover personal information
• Have a backup copy
• Skip card lamination
• Replacement can be complicated (Click here to find out how to have your card replaced in Pima County. Scroll down to the After Vaccination section and click on UPDATED APRIL 29: What do I do if I lost my vaccine card?)
• There's no easy access to the data
• Share vaccination status with doctor

Click here to read the full story.

Arizona testing sites and numbers

Updated as of Thursday, July 8, 2021, all 15 Arizona counties have confirmed cases with a combined total of 898,908 cases across the state and 18,003 deaths and 6,590,483 vaccinations administered.* In Pima County: 118,106 cases 2,437 deaths and 880,410 vaccinations administered.* For up-to-date numbers, click here.

(According to the CDC as of Thursday, July 8, 70 percent of those 18 and older in Pima County had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 61.7 percent were fully vaccinated.)

Click here for vaccine finder locations.

Arizonans are able to access COVID-19 testing at more than 600 various sites throughout the state. Click here to find information on where to find the COVID-19 testing sites, hours of operation and information about pre-registration. If you have a testing site you would like to be included on this list, please use this form to provide information about your site.

*Vaccination numbers are displayed by the county of vaccine administration. Vaccinations administered at State of Arizona vaccination sites (PODs) are included in the state totals but not the county totals. 

State COVID-19 vaccination sites close

After administering 1.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to 875,000 individuals, the state’s mass-vaccination program officially ended Monday, June 28 with the last appointments at Gila River Arena in Glendale.

The University of Arizona state POD's last day was Friday, June 25. Thanks to the many volunteers and workers at the University of Arizona's vaccination POD (points of distribution), more than 243,000 doses were administered there.

The highest recipients of those doses ages 16 to 34. At its peak, the site had more than 300 volunteers and staff working to operate the POD, which was just one of the many ways our community stepped up in the fight against COVID-19.

With vaccine widely available, Arizona’s focus has shifted to promoting neighborhood options such as pharmacies and doctors’ offices, supporting pop-up clinics and providing outreach to areas and populations hesitant to get vaccinated.

“We are tremendously grateful to the partners, volunteers and staff who have worked tirelessly since January to offer this convenient and efficient way to get vaccine into the community,” said Dr. Cara Christ, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS). “We are proud of what these sites have accomplished and also proud of the Arizonans who have stepped up to get vaccinated at these facilities.”

Starting Monday, Jan. 11 with the 24/7 operation at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, at a time when vaccine was in short supply and demand was extremely high, the state’s network grew to include other sites around the greater Phoenix area and in Tucson, Yuma and Flagstaff. As the temperatures warmed, ADHS and its partners transitioned most sites to indoor facilities.

The Glendale operation, which moved into Gila River Arena on April 23, administered by far the most doses among state-run sites: nearly 900,000 through Friday, June 25. State Farm Stadium, opened in partnership with the Arizona Cardinals, administered a daily record of 12,148 doses on March 28. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made a virtual visit in February, talking at length with Dr. Christ and others and calling the facility a national model for mass vaccination.

As of Thursday, July 8, 6,590,483 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to 3,594,004 individuals, including 3,186,689 who are fully vaccinated.

Click here to read the full release. Information about the UA POD was provided by KOVA. Click here to read KVOA's full story. 

Birth control access could get easier for women in Arizona

Women in Arizona may soon find it a lot easier to get birth control.

On a 32-24 vote, the House on Monday, June 28 approved allowing pharmacists to dispense certain kinds of contraceptives without getting a prescription. It would eliminate the need to first go to a doctor.

SB 1082 would have Arizona join more than a dozen states that already have eliminated the requirement for a prescription.

But the change, which still requires Senate ratification, does not mean women could simply walk in to a pharmacy and buy the birth control of their choice.

Pharmacists would first be required to screen would-be recipients to determine if they are candidates for the kinds of contraceptives that use hormones. That includes not just the birth control but also other hormone-infused devices, like a vagina ring and patches.

And only those 18 years and older would be eligible.

At the heart of the debate is how difficult it should be for women to avoid conception.

“Pregnancy should be the decision of the woman,” said Rep. Athena Salman, D-Tempe.

Click here to read the full story.

Why class of 2021 medical school graduates
are poised to become change agents our health system needs

By David J. Skorton, MD
President and Chief Executive Officer
AAMC

Every year, medical students nationwide go through a rite of passage just as I once did more than 40 years ago, completing their undergraduate medical school work and receiving their MD degrees. And every year, the ritual of a commencement speech is part ceremony, part inspiration — and also part impatience, as graduates are typically eager to move on to the next step in their careers.

But this was not a typical year, and the pomp and circumstance had a markedly different feeling. As medical students gathered across the country this spring to celebrate their graduations — a few in person but many connected only by video camera or drive-thru event — there was a feeling of relief and hard-earned achievement, which I felt clearly during the four virtual commencement addresses I delivered in May.

The most obvious impact of the coronavirus in teaching hospitals was on clinical care over the past year, given the need to quickly develop patient care protocols. For this year’s graduating class, the pandemic also brought significant obstacles for students’ learning experiences.

At schools like the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, the pandemic limited away rotations, which are essential for gaining experience across specialty fields like radiology. Existing rotations at some schools shifted to virtual learning, meaning students had to conduct patient consultations by telephone without a hands-on exam — such a crucial part of the doctor-patient connection.

Because these changes have added new stress to the transition to graduate medical education, the AAMC — led by my colleague Alison Whelan, MD, chief academic officer — has joined with several other organizations to develop a toolkit called “Transition in a Time of Disruption.” These resources can help recent medical school graduates and residency program directors identify and mitigate gaps in education and promote well-being during the transition.

At the same time, the class of 2021 has responded with ingenuity and resilience, earning monikers like UNLV’s “Battle Born” class and the University of Hawaii at Manoa John A. Burns School of Medicine’s class of “Super Heroes.” The lessons they learned as they navigated this new territory will serve them — and our health system — well as they enter the next phase of their careers.

Click here to read the full story.

You're vaccinated for COVID-19, and you just tested positive. Now what?

By Johnny Diaz
The New York Times

Like millions of Americans, Kevin was vaccinated against COVID-19 in March to protect himself. But the Tuesday after visiting bars with friends over a rainy Memorial Day weekend in Provincetown, Mass., he had a running nose and some congestion.

“I thought it was typical springtime allergies in New England,” said Kevin, 42, who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used. The symptoms worsened to headaches, body aches and sleepless nights. His doctor told him that it might be the flu but suggested a coronavirus test. The result was positive.

"You don’t think it will be you,” said Kevin, who isolated in his Provincetown townhome for 10 days.

"At the end of the day, the vaccination still worked,” he said. “I didn’t get as sick as people who got COVID prior to the vaccination being available.”

If you’re one of the small number of fully vaccinated people who later test positive for COVID-19, what should you do?

COVID vaccines have been highly effective in preventing COVID-19, especially hospitalization and death, and are generally working as expected, doctors say. The vaccines also reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

Although the risk of vaccinated people becoming infected with the virus is low, it can still happen, experts said.

“Yes, this will happen, unusual but will happen,’’ said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health.

Those rare cases are called breakthrough infections and as of April 30, there were more than 10,000 of these infections reported from 46 American states and territories, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has stopped recording such infections if there are no severe symptoms, so the number for cases, including mild ones, is most likely higher.

Click here to read the full story.

CDC director reaffirms that vaccinated people
in U.S. don't need masks in most situations

By Daniel E. Slotnik and Dan Levin
The New York Times

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday, June 30 stood by advice that people fully vaccinated against the coronavirus do not need to wear masks in most situations, but added that there are instances where local authorities might impose more stringent measures to protect the unvaccinated.

The comments came after the World Health Organization recently reiterated longstanding guidance that everyone, vaccinated or not, wear masks and take other precautions, following a global surge in infections of the highly contagious Delta variant. On Monday, June 28, Los Angeles County recommended that even fully vaccinated people wear masks indoors.

In May, the CDC advised that fully vaccinated Americans could forgo masks in most settings. The agency’s director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, said during multiple television appearances on Wednesday, June 30 that local changes to masking and distancing rules were consistent with those guidelines.

“We have always said that this virus is an opportunist, and in areas where we still have rates of low vaccination, that is where the virus is likely to take hold,” she said on “Good Morning America.” “We are still seeing uptick of cases in areas of low vaccination, and in that situation we are suggesting that policies be made at the local level.”

Dr. Walensky added that the WHO’s blanket suggestion that both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals wear masks was informed by its global purview. “The WHO really does have to make recommendations for an entire world,” and many countries have far less access to vaccines than the United States, she said.

The Delta variant now accounts for about one in every four infections in the United States, according to estimates the week of June 28 from the CDC. But cases across the country have plummeted in recent months, along with hospitalizations and deaths.

Still, the average rate of U.S. vaccinations a day has decreased by about 75 percent from the peak reported in mid-April. As of Tuesday, June 29, about 46 percent of people of all ages and about 57 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, according to federal data.

Click here to read the full story. 

First lady, second gentleman visit Phoenix COVID vaccine clinic

By Meena Venkataramanan and Andrew Favakeh
Arizona Republic

First lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff visited a pop-up clinic at a west Phoenix middle school on Wednesday, June 30, posing for pictures with those getting their COVID-19 vaccines and encouraging others to get their shots.

Their visit to Isaac Middle School, in an area where the vaccine rate is lagging drew Arizona politicians and health officials, from Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego to Cindy McCain, recently nominated as President Joe Biden’s pick as the U.S. representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.

One girl who got a shot told Biden that said she likes to cook. Biden asked her if she wanted to go to culinary school. Biden moved to a second girl to chat, and they took a picture together.

“Thank you for getting vaccinated,” Biden told people in the waiting room. 

Biden and Emhoff posed for more pictures with teens getting the vaccine and with clinic workers. 

Mayor Gallego introduced the visitors to a crowd of about 100 people after they had toured the clinic.

U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego and City Council member Laura Pastor also attended.

Click here to read the full story. 

Indian police investigate whether scammers gave thousands
of shots of salt water instead of vaccine

By Hari Kumar
The New York Times

As India intensifies its vaccination effort amid fears of another wave of the coronavirus, officials are investigating allegations that perhaps thousands of people were injected with fake vaccines in the financial capital, Mumbai.

The police have arrested 14 people on suspicion of involvement in a scheme that administered injections of salt water instead of vaccine doses at nearly a dozen private vaccination sites in Mumbai over the past two months. The organizers, including medical professionals, allegedly charged between $10 and $17 per dose, according to the authorities, who said they had confiscated more than $20,000 from the suspects.

“Those arrested are charged under criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery,” said Vishal Thakur, a police officer in Mumbai.

More than 2,600 people came to the camps to receive shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured and marketed in India as Covishield. Some said that they became suspicious when their shots did not show up in the Indian government’s online portal tracking vaccinations, and when the hospitals that the organizers had claimed to be affiliated with did not match the names on the vaccination certificates they received.

Siddharth Chandrashekhar, a lawyer who has filed a public interest lawsuit in Mumbai’s high court, described the scenario as “heartbreaking.” The court said it was “really shocking that incidents of fake vaccination are on the rise.”

Medical scams are nothing new in India, where, during the country’s mammoth outbreak this spring, profiteers targeted vulnerable COVID patients with fake drugs and oxygen. The police in West Bengal state are also investigating whether hundreds of people, including a local lawmaker, received fake vaccines there.

India has administered more than 340 million vaccine doses, but less than 5 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. (This story was originally published on Sunday, July 4.) The country is reporting nearly 50,000 new cases daily and nearly 1,000 COVID deaths, numbers that are far lower than two months ago, although experts have always believed India’s official tallies to be vastly undercounted.

Click here to read the full story. 

Coronavirus in the United States

Coronavirus in the United States: The latest map and case count can be found by clicking here.  

This is a round up of COVID news,
which has occurred over the past couple of weeks. 

Latin America confronts pandemic education crisis

Deep into the second year of the pandemic, Latin America is facing an education crisis. It has suffered the longest school shutdowns of any region in the world, according to Unicef, nearly 16 months in some areas. While many students in wealthy countries have returned to the classroom, 100 million children in Latin America are still in full or partial distance learning — or some distant approximation of it.

The consequences are alarming, officials and education experts say: With economies in the region pummeled by the pandemic and connections to the classroom so badly frayed, children in primary and secondary school are dropping out in large numbers, sometimes to work wherever they can.

Millions of children in Latin America may have already left the school system, the World Bank estimates. In Mexico, 1.8 million children and young people abandoned their educations this school year because of the pandemic or economic hardship, according to the national statistics agency.

Click here to read the full story.

~The New York Times~

Study finds that Pfizer, Moderna vaccines could offer protection for years

The vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna set off a persistent immune reaction in the body that may protect against the coronavirus for years, scientists reported on Monday, June 28.

The findings add to growing evidence that most people immunized with the mRNA vaccines may not need boosters, so long as the virus and its variants do not evolve much beyond their current forms — which is not guaranteed. People who recovered from COVID-19 before being vaccinated may not need boosters even if the virus does make a significant transformation.

“It’s a good sign for how durable our immunity is from this vaccine,” said Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis who led the study, which was published in the journal Nature.

The study did not consider the vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson, but Dr. Ellebedy said he expected the immune response to be less durable than that produced by mRNA vaccines.

Click here to read the full story.

~The New York Times~

Studies show vaccines are effective against Delta variant

As the Delta variant sweeps the world, researchers are tracking how well vaccines protect against it — and getting different answers.

In Britain, researchers reported in May that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had an effectiveness of 88 percent protecting against symptomatic disease from Delta. A June study from Scotland concluded that the vaccine was 79 percent effective against the variant. On Saturday, July 3, a team of researchers in Canada pegged its effectiveness at 87 percent.

And on Monday, July 5, Israel’s Ministry of Health announced that the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 64 percent against all coronavirus infections, down from about 95 percent in May, before the Delta variant began its climb to near-total dominance in Israel.

Although the range of these numbers may seem confusing, vaccine experts say it should be expected, because it’s hard for a single study to accurately pinpoint the effectiveness of a vaccine.

Click here to read the full story.

~The New York Times~

World's known COVID death toll passes 4 million

The world’s known coronavirus death toll passed 4 million on Thursday, July 8, a loss roughly equivalent to the population of Los Angeles, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

It took nine months for the virus to claim 1 million lives, and the pace has quickened since then. The second million were lost in three and a half months, the third in three months, and the fourth in about two and a half months. The number of daily reported deaths has declined recently.

Those are officially reported figures, which are widely believed to undercount pandemic-related deaths.

Click here to read the full story.

~The New York Times~

How does the Delta variant dodge the immune system? Scientists find clues

The Delta variant of the coronavirus can evade antibodies that target certain parts of the virus, according to a new study published on Thursday, July 8, in Nature. The findings provide an explanation for diminished effectiveness of the vaccines against Delta, compared with other variants.

The variant, first identified in India, is believed to be about 60 percent more contagious than Alpha, the version of the virus that thrashed Britain and much of Europe earlier this year, and perhaps twice as contagious as the original coronavirus. The Delta variant is now driving outbreaks among unvaccinated populations in countries like Malaysia, Portugal, Indonesia and Australia.

Delta is now the dominant variant in the United States. Infections in this country had plateaued at their lowest levels since early in the pandemic, although the numbers may be rising, while hospitalizations and deaths related to the virus have continued a steep plunge. That’s partly because of relatively high vaccination rates: 48 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and 55 percent have received at least one dose.

But the new study found that Delta was barely sensitive to one dose of vaccine, confirming previous research that suggested that the variant can partly evade the immune system — although to a lesser degree than Beta, the variant first identified in South Africa.

Click here to read the full story.

~The New York Times~

In reversal, FDA calls for limits on who gets Alzheimer's drug

By Rebecca Robbins and Pam Belluck
The New York Times

Facing sharp criticism for approving a controversial drug for all Alzheimer’s patients, the Food and Drug Administration has greatly narrowed its recommendation, suggesting that only those with mild memory or thinking problems should receive it.

The FDA’s turnabout, highly unusual for a drug that has only been available for a few weeks, could considerably reduce the number of eligible patients. The initial label, saying the drug could be appropriate for anyone with Alzheimer’s, encompassed about 6 million Americans. Under the revised label, as many as 2 million Americans would still likely be eligible.

Medicare and private insurers may use the new label to restrict coverage of the drug, called Aduhelm. That could alleviate the drug’s financial burden, particularly on Medicare, which is expected to shoulder the bulk of costs of the treatment, a monthly intravenous infusion. The drug’s maker, Biogen, is charging $56,000 annually for the drug, and costs for diagnostics and safety monitoring could add tens of thousands of dollars to the bill.

“Since the agency approved Aduhelm, prescribers and other stakeholders have expressed confusion regarding the intended population for treatment,” said Michael Felberbaum, a spokesman for the FDA. The agency’s new position is that “it is appropriate to initiate treatment in patients with the mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia stages of Alzheimer’s disease,” he said. This is the population who were entered into the clinical trials.

Click here to read the full story. 

Rule announced to protect consumers from surprise medical bills

On Friday, July 2 the Biden-Harris Administration, through the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Treasury, and the Office of Personnel Management, issued “Requirements Related to Surprise Billing; Part I,” an interim final rule that will restrict excessive out of pocket costs to consumers from surprise billing and balance billing. Surprise billing happens when people unknowingly get care from providers that are outside of their health plan’s network and can happen for both emergency and non-emergency care. Balance billing, when a provider charges a patient the remainder of what their insurance does not pay, is currently prohibited in both Medicare and Medicaid. This rule will extend similar protections to Americans insured through employer-sponsored and commercial health plans.

"No patient should forgo care for fear of surprise billing,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Health insurance should offer patients peace of mind that they won’t be saddled with unexpected costs. The Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to ensuring transparency and affordable care, and with this rule, Americans will get the assurance of no surprises.”

Among other provisions, the interim final rule:

• Bans surprise billing for emergency services. Emergency services, regardless of where they are provided, must be treated on an in-network basis without requirements for prior authorization.
• Bans high out-of-network cost-sharing for emergency and non-emergency services. Patient cost-sharing, such as co-insurance or a deductible, cannot be higher than if such services were provided by an in-network doctor, and any coinsurance or deductible must be based on in-network provider rates.
• Bans out-of-network charges for ancillary care (like an anesthesiologist or assistant surgeon) at an in-network facility in all circumstances.
• Bans other out-of-network charges without advance notice. Health care providers and facilities must provide patients with a plain-language consumer notice explaining that patient consent is required to receive care on an out-of-network basis before that provider can bill at the higher out-of-network rate.

• HHS Press Release
• Fact sheets on this interim final rule can be found here and here
• The interim final rule with comment period

COVID vaccine protects against Delta variant, company says

By Apoorva Mandavilli
The New York Times

The Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine is effective against the highly contagious Delta variant, even eight months after inoculation, the company reported on Thursday, July 1 — a finding that should reassure the 11 million Americans who have gotten the shot.

The vaccine showed a small drop in potency against the variant, compared with its effectiveness against the original virus, the company said. But the vaccine was more effective against the Delta variant than the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa — the pattern also seen with mRNA vaccines.

Antibodies stimulated by the vaccine grow in strength over time, researchers also reported.

The results were described in a news release, and the company said that both studies had been submitted for online publication on Thursday, July 1. One of those studies has been accepted for publication in a scientific journal. Both studies are small, and the researchers said they had released the results early because of intense interest from the public.

“The coverage of the variants is going to be better than what people anticipated,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “There was a lot of misinformation that was spreading, so we decided that we needed to get this into the public domain right away.”

Company settles New York opioid case for $230 million

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $230 million to the state of New York to resolve an opioid lawsuit that was slated to go to trial on Tuesday, June 29, as negotiations intensify with the company and three drug distributors to clinch a $26 billion settlement of thousands of other lawsuits blaming the pharmaceutical industry for the opioid crisis.

Johnson & Johnson’s New York deal removes it from a coming trial on Long Island but not from the rest of the cases it faces nationwide, including a continuing trial in California. The New York settlement includes an additional $33 million in attorney fees and costs and calls for the drugmaker to no longer sell opioids nationwide, something Johnson & Johnson said it already stopped doing.

States have been trying to re-create with the opioid litigation what they accomplished with tobacco companies in the 1990s, when $206 billion in settlements flowed into state coffers. More than 3,000 counties, cities and other local governments have also pursued lawsuits over the opioid crisis, complicating talks that have dragged on since late 2019 and that have been slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Johnson & Johnson, along with the nation’s largest drug distributors, AmerisourceBergen Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp., have been in talks with state attorneys general and plaintiffs’ lawyers for local governments to resolve the cases for $26 billion.

The company said Saturday, June 26 there continued to be progress on the nationwide deal and that it “remains committed to providing certainty for involved parties and critical assistance for communities in need.”

Click here to read the full story.

Medicaid enrollment jumped during the pandemic

By Sarah Kliff
The New York Times

Eighty million people — more than ever before in the program’s history — now carry Medicaid coverage, for which states and the federal government share the cost. The new figures demonstrate the program’s increasingly important role not just as a safety net, but as a pillar of American health coverage, with fully a quarter of the population covered under it.

“The purpose of Medicaid is for times like this, when there is an economic downturn” said Peggah Khorrami, a researcher with Harvard Chan T.H. School of Public Health, who has studied the program’s enrollment increases during the pandemic. “As people are losing jobs, that’s where Medicaid comes in and we get people insured that way.”

The Affordable Care Act transformed Medicaid from a targeted health care benefit meant to help certain groups of people — expectant mothers, for example, and those with disabilities — to a much wider program that provides largely free coverage to most people below a certain income threshold. The exception is in 12 states, mostly in the South, that have resisted expanding Medicaid under the health law to cover all adults with income up to 138 percent of the poverty level, which would be $17,774 for an individual this year.

Click here to read the full story. 

Hot Topics in Risk Management

Our Risk Management Team is here to help you minimize and mitigate Medical Professional Liability risk. 

Still no shoes, no shirt, no mask, no service — an update

In 2021, as vaccination percentages increase and total COVID-19 cases decrease, state and municipal mask mandates are disappearing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) recently announced that fully vaccinated individuals can resume activities without a mask or physical distancing but continues to recommend the use of face coverings in all health care settings. In addition, the Arizona Attorney General’s office is contacting health care professionals to investigate mask-related discrimination complaints filed by patients who claim they were denied care because they were unable to wear a mask. As a result, mask-related calls to the MICA hotline are up, just as they were in summer 2020 when ambulatory practices first implemented CDC-recommended mask requirements for patients and clinic visitors. Consider the following updated guidance as a supplement to the August 2020 Hot Topic, No Shoes, No Shirt, No Mask, No Service Service.

Click here to read the full Hot Topic.

Senior Risk Management Consultants are ready to help with questions and provide more information. You can reach a Consultant Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. MST at (800) 352-0402  Ext. 2137, (602) 808-2137, or rm_info@mica-insurance.com.

Mutual Insurance Company of Arizona (MICA) is a Friends of the Society member.

MICA webinar: Terminating the Physician-Patient Relationship

Monday, July 14, 2021

12:15-12:45 p.m. MST

MICA has opened this webinar to non-MICA members. It is not a requirement to attend this webinar, just an invitation for PCMS members. 

Physicians and their practices often ask how to appropriately terminate a physician-patient relationship when the relationship is no longer effective. These situations require proper consideration and management to prevent medical professional liability claims and licensing board complaints.

Join MICA's Risk Management Services Supervisor, Jeremy M. Hodder, and Senior Legal Risk Management Consultant, Jeanne Varner Powell for this important discussion plus live Q&A. During the webinar, they will:

• Explain how these situations can turn into a lawsuit or board investigation
• Cover various patient scenarios
• Offer ways to appropriately manage the termination process

To register for the webinar, you will need to simply create a sign-in on our new webinar platform powered by BlueSky. This webinar is open to MICA members and those who are interested in MICA, so feel free to forward this invitation along to your colleagues and network.

If you are interested in this webinar but can’t attend the live event, please register and the webinar recording will be e-mailed to you when it is available. This usually happens within a week of the event.

Click here for more information and to register.

Mutual Insurance Company of Arizona (MICA) is a Friends of the Society member.

Standing vaccination PODs

The county has expanded COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to those 12 and older. (Pfizer is for ages 12 and older. Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are for those 18 and older.) 

While there are no more restrictions on eligibility other than age, only the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for 12 and older. Pfizer is available at county health clinics, mobile vaccination clinics and at local pharmacies.

Those younger than 18 who are getting vaccinated need a parent or legal guardian with them to complete the consent forms. The only exception is if an accompanying adult brings a notarized letter stating that the parent allows the accompanying adult to complete the consent forms.

County shifts vaccine distribution to static sites

With 70 percent of people older than 18 having received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, county officials are shifting their focus to static sites such as pharmacies, doctors’ offices and clinics to vaccinate the remaining members of the population. (Statistics provided by the CDC.)

Vaccination rates among those 65 and older stood at almost 93 percent with 83 percent fully vaccinated, according to the CDC’s data tracker.

Those increasing vaccination rates have led to the closure in the last week of standing PODs (Points of Distribution) at the University of Arizona, Udall Center (operated by Tucson Medical Center), El Pueblo Library and Tucson Mall. The POD at the County’s Kino Event Center, which closed Friday, July 2 and shifted to the third floor of the Abrams Public Health Center, 3950 S. Country Club Road, which was effective Tuesday, July 6.

Other partners played a vital role in getting the community vaccinated. Many lent space so that the county and its contracted vaccinators could take doses directly to where people were congregating, from churches and schools to shopping malls and sporting events. Many of those events were held on evenings and weekends to boost attendance and will continue well into the summer.

Click here to read the full news release.

County supervisors rescind COVID-19 emergency resolution

The Pima County Board of Supervisors, in a 3-2 vote Tuesday, July 6, rescinded a resolution from March 19, 2020, that declared a state of emergency because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The emergency declaration authority had allowed the Board to take immediate and urgent actions that included regulating businesses, limiting gatherings and requiring mask wearing in public as cases began to rise, eventually peaking in late December/early January. All those restrictions had already been lifted by state or local actions before the vote.

Pima County Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francisco Garcia told the Board before the vote that this signals a new phase of the pandemic recovery – but that it is not over.

"We have had substantial and sustained improvement in Pima County," Dr. Garcia said.

"I believe it would be safe to lift the emergency declaration. The cases that we're seeing are cases among unvaccinated individuals, and we continue to work on that population very vigorously and we will continue to move that further. I'm not saying the pandemic is over."

According to the CDC as of Thursday, July 8, 70 percent of those 18 and older in Pima County had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 61.7 percent were fully vaccinated – meaning two weeks past their second shot of Pfizer or Moderna, or two weeks after the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Click here to read the full news release. 

Health Department awarded $4 million
to enhance equitable response to COVID-19 health literacy

The Pima County Board of Supervisors Tuesday, July 6, accepted an award of $4 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) for the Pima County Health Department as a part of a national two-year initiative to identify and implement best practices for improving health literacy to enhance COVID-19 vaccination and other mitigation practices among underserved populations.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on disparities in health literacy within our community,” said Dr. Theresa Cullen, Health Department director. “It is important to address and remedy this and empower people to understand their own health, the health of their loved one and the overall health of our community.”

Health literacy is a person’s ability to find, understand and use information and services to help them make health-related decisions for themselves and others. Health literacy is a central focus of the Healthy People 2030 blueprint for improving the health of the nation, which is sponsored by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.

Healthy People 2030 has elevated health literacy within one of its overarching goals: Eliminate health disparities, achieve health equity and attain health literacy to improve the health and well-being of all.

“The Advancing Health Literacy initiative is a vital part of the HHS efforts to help communities hardest hit by the pandemic access and understand COVID-related information,” said Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr. Rachel L. Levine, MD. “This funding, and the partnerships with local and community entities across the country, will help our national efforts to continue to tackle health disparities surrounding COVID-19 vaccination, testing and treatment.”

Over the next two years, the health department will work with local community-based organizations to develop a health literacy plan to increase the availability, acceptability and use of COVID-19 public health information and services by racial and ethnic minority populations. The projects will also focus on other populations considered vulnerable for not receiving and using COVID-19 public health information.

Click here to read the full news release. 

Dr. Pearl Mao Tang, doctor who stanched rate of infant deaths
in Phoenix, is dead at 99

By Richard Ruelas
Arizona Republic

Pearl Mao Tang, MD, the first Asian female doctor licensed in Arizona, who started prenatal clinics in the 1950s that were credited with stanching a high rate of infant deaths in the Phoenix area, has died. She was 99.

It is impossible to know how many Arizonans survived the first year of their lives because of Dr. Tang’s work, but her legacy is borne out in statistics.

In 1950, approximately 41 out of every 1,000 children in Phoenix would die in the first year of their life, a number that was the highest of any large city in the United States. By 1970, that number had dropped by two-thirds, a statistic the federal government cited as unique in the nation.

Dr. Tang’s idea was starting prenatal clinics in areas of metro Phoenix that didn’t have ready access to medical care, areas where data showed most of the infant deaths were occurring. She and her nurses learned Spanish to better communicate with their patients who spoke limited English.

Dr. Tang, while working for the Maricopa County Health Department, also started programs that provided Pap smears for women to screen for uterine cancer and led a drive to require that schoolchildren were vaccinated.

"A lot of people living today who are now between the ages of 45 and 65 are alive as a direct result of her work to reduce infant mortality," said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association.

"She was one of the public health people that you measure your career against. She just was so tenacious."

Arizona budget blocks certain health measures

By Jonathan J. Cooper
Associated Press

Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday, June 30 signed into law a $12.8 billion budget for Arizona that includes a significant tax cut primarily benefiting the wealthy, fulfilling a long-held priority for the Republican governor who promised to drive taxes as low as possible.

In addition to the tax cuts, Ducey and Republican lawmakers stuffed the budget with a laundry list of conservative priorities new and old, along with efforts to limit the power of elected Democrats.

Among them, the budget:

Blocks public health measures, including vaccine or mask mandates meant to control the coronavirus in schools and universities. Mandatory testing will also be outlawed, except in cases of outbreaks in dormitories and only with approval from Ducey’s administration. In future pandemics, local governments won’t be able to order their own public health measures, such as business closures or mask mandates and the governor won’t be able to require people to be vaccinated.

Click here to read the full story.

White Coat Ceremony

Congratulations and Welcome Class of 2025!

• What: Class of 2025 White Coat Ceremony
• When: Friday, July 23, 2021 from 5:30-7:30 p.m.
• Where: Centennial Hall

The White Coat Ceremony calls on students to incorporate the humanistic ideals of medicine in their future care of patients. Each year, approximately 120 outstanding scholars have the honor of joining one of the most prestigious and leading medical institutions in the country when they are formally welcomed as the University of Arizona’s newest class of medical students at the annual White Coat Ceremony. These students will become a part of the legacy of thousands of alumni whose contributions to medical science have resulted in advances that have expanded the boundaries of knowledge, alleviated untold suffering and saved the lives of countless individuals.

New medical students gather in the presence of their families, guests, faculty members and college leaders to formally receive the cloak of their future profession: the white coat.  This event marks each student's entry into clinical medicine — a milestone in the education of a medical student.

The Arnold P. Gold Foundation, a public foundation dedicated to fostering humanism in medicine, furnishes each White Coat participant with a pin that symbolizes a shared commitment to providing compassionate and competent patient care. These pins are placed on the coats prior to the ceremony.

Notice: As information regarding the global outbreak of COVID-19 continues to evolve, please keep in mind this event is subject to change.

Click here to read more. 

Click here to make a gift to this year’s White Coat Scholarship Campaign.

COVID-19 vaccine reduces severity, length, viral load
for those who still get infected, data from AZ HEROES study shows

University of Arizona Health Sciences 

People who contract COVID-19 even after vaccination are likely to have a lower viral load, experience a shorter infection time and have milder symptoms than those who are unvaccinated, according to research that includes data from ongoing University of Arizona Health Sciences studies.

"If you get vaccinated, about 90 percent of the time you're not going to get COVID-19," said Dr. Jeff Burgess, associate dean for research and professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and principal investigator of the Arizona Healthcare, Emergency Response, and Other Essential Workers Surveillance study, otherwise know as AZ HEROES. "Even if you do get it, there will be less of the virus in you and your illness is likely to be much milder," Dr. Burgess, a PCMS member, said. 

While the COVID-19 vaccines are proving to be highly effective in preventing COVID-19 infection, no vaccine is 100 percent effective, and breakthrough infections do occur. Among 3,975 participants in two studies, SARS-CoV-2 infections were identified in five participants who were fully vaccinated and 11 who were partially vaccinated, as well as in 156 unvaccinated participants. Approximately half of the participants were from Arizona study sites.

Researchers found that study participants who were partially or fully vaccinated with the Pfizer and Moderna messenger RNA vaccines at the time of infection had a viral load that was 40 percent less than that of unvaccinated participants. Viral load – the amount of SARS-CoV-2 virus found in a test sample – is not an indicator of how contagious an individual is, though early COVID-19 research suggests viral load could play a role in disease severity and secondary transmission.

Click here to read the full story. For more information, click here. 

UA researchers will study border children
to see what role germs play in asthma rates

By Carmen Duarte
Arizona Daily Star

A UA research center has received a $15.3 million grant to study Hispanic children’s susceptibility to asthma in Tucson, compared to Nogales, Sonora, where it is much less prevalent.

The study will enroll 250 Mexican-American pregnant women in Tucson, and 250 Mexican pregnant women in Sonora and evaluate them and their newborns until they are 5, said Dr. Fernando Martinez, director of the University of Arizona Health Sciences Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center. Dr. Martinez is a principal investigator for the project.

“We have a very significant asthma epidemic in the United States, and many children who develop asthma can be burdened for a lifetime. My goal is to prevent asthma in children by building their immune system,” Dr. Martinez, a PCMS member, said.

About 25 personnel, including physicians, scientists and staff will work on the Binational Early Asthma and Microbiome Study, or BEAMS, which will examine how the “hygiene hypothesis” affects the children and their risk of asthma.

The hygiene hypothesis suggests reduced exposure to germs keeps a child’s immune system from developing the ability to naturally fight infectious organisms, Dr. Martinez said.

Click here to read the full story. 

New UA Health Sciences undergraduate degree
to help prepare students for health care careers

Health care occupations are among the fastest-growing segments of the job market, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the University of Arizona Health Sciences, students soon will be able to take advantage of expanding employment opportunities and meet the increasing demand for trained health care professionals through a new Bachelor of Science in Medicine degree program offered through the College of Medicine – Tucson.

Todd Vanderah, PhD, says the new degree with give undergraduate students the opportunity to learn about and explore a multitude of careers in the health care field.“It's really about expanding the options that students have to pursue a degree in health-related professions, including medicine,” said Kevin Moynahan, MD, FACP, a member of PCMS, and professor of medicine and vice dean of education at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson. “We look at this as a new opportunity for students to get involved in the health profession at an earlier stage and learn firsthand about some of the options while they're an undergraduate.”

As an increasingly aging population places greater demands on health care systems and services, the need for well-trained health care professionals is rapidly rising, with projections of job growth exceeding 30 percent over the next 10 to 20 years. A bachelor’s degree in medicine is designed to prepare students to enter in-demand careers in health care support positions and pursue other health-related careers, such as medical administration, biomedical engineering or medical technology. Graduates also will be ready to continue their education in advanced degree programs such as medicine, nursing, physical and occupational therapy and pharmacy, for example.

Students in the four-year undergraduate program will gain human medical science knowledge and clinical reasoning skills in four areas of emphasis: medical technology; basic medical sciences; medicine and society; and integrative and practice-focused medicine.

Click here to read the full news release.

WHO urges fully vaccinated to continue wearing masks

By Roni Caryn Rabin, Abdi Latif Dahir, Aina J. Khan and Dan Levin
The New York Times

World Health Organization officials, concerned about the Delta variant, have urged even fully vaccinated people to continue wearing masks and taking other precautions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on the other hand, told fully vaccinated Americans in May that they no longer needed to wear masks indoors or to stay six feet from other people. The agency also eased advice about testing and quarantine after suspected exposure.

Asked on Monday, June 28 about the WHO’s cautions, a CDC spokesman pointed to the existing guidance and gave no indication it would change.

The Delta variant, a highly infectious form of the virus that has spread to at least 85 countries since it was first identified in India, is now responsible for one in every five COVID-19 cases across the United States. Its prevalence here has doubled in the past two weeks, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, has called it “the greatest threat” to eliminating the virus in the United States. Public health experts generally agree that getting vaccinated offers the best protection against any type of the virus.

Though fully vaccinated people are largely protected, studies suggest the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy against the Delta variant is slightly lower than against other variants, and significantly lower for individuals who have received only one dose.

Britain — where some two-thirds of the population have received at least one dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine and just under half have received two — has seen a sharp rise in cases driven by the variant. And Israel, with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, has partially reimposed mask mandates in response to an uptick in cases.

Click here to read the full story. 

2021 Southwestern Conference on Medicine®

Friday, October 1, 2021-Sunday, October 3, 2021–LIVE
(View the presentations on-demand through Sunday, October 31, 2021)

We’re celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Southwestern Conference on Medicine® with a very special gift for DOs!

20 AOA CATEGORY 1A CREDITS – FREE OF CHARGE!

Tucson Osteopathic Medical Foundation is proud to announce this one-time-only, online-only Southwestern Conference on Medicine® will take place this October with participation options that include tuning in for the live-stream October 1-3 or viewing the presentations on-demand through October 31.

Click here to register today!

Registration Fee: $0

This event is designed to bridge practice gaps between primary care providers’ current knowledge and performance and the ever evolving standards of care in modern medicine. Tucson Osteopathic Medical Foundation (TOMF) is accredited by the American Osteopathic Association to provide osteopathic continuing medical education for physicians. TOMF designates this program for a maximum of 20 AOA Category 1A credits and will report CME and specialty credits commensurate with the extent of the physician’s participation in this activity.

Please Note: Medical professionals who are not DOs may participate, but should consult with their licensing board(s) regarding whether the AOA Category 1A credits awarded will meet specific licensing requirements.

For a listing of education opportunities, visit Pima County Medical Society's CME page by clicking here or Programs/Events page by clicking here.