The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were 4% fewer U.S. births in 2020 than in 2019, an acceleration of a long, slow decline. The report keeps getting picked up in the news, in part because conventional wisdom has generally been that it’s important for generations to replenish themselves.
Axios Re:Cap digs into this report, how we think about birth rates and the economy, and whether a country can sustain its economy without sustaining its birth rate with Axios business reporter Hope King and with report coauthor and CDC statistician and demographer Brady Hamilton.
Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the United States are now among those who are unvaccinated, the Associated Press reports.
Why it matters: A recent AP analysis using government data from May found that "breakthrough" infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for only 0.1%, or 1,200 of more than 853,000 hospitalizations in the country.
Mental health care provider LifeStance Health has traded publicly for two weeks, and its stock has soared 57%from its $18 IPO price, giving the company a $10.6 billion valuation.
Why it matters: LifeStance's business rests on the idea that future demand for mental health services will continue to grow in the wake of the pandemic.
Prescription drugs — which represent just 10% of national health spending — have remained a persistent issue on Capitol Hill for a reason.
The big picture: The 10% number doesn’t tell the full story. Retail drug spending represents 18% of health benefit costs for large employers, even after taking rebates from drug manufacturers into account.
A little more than a year after federal funding became available for gun injury research, scientists and advocates say they've seen flood of interest. The recipients of this new federal funding say their research will be critical start to understanding gun violence and injuries in the U.S.
Why it matters: Gun violence is the least researched of the 30 leading causes of death, largely because Congress had banned such research. But $25 million was made available last year.
Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) are leading an effort urging the Biden administration to coordinate with the Defense Department to donate supplemental COVID-19 vaccine doses to U.S. embassies and consulates.
Why it matters: Millions of Americans living in countries where they are not considered eligible for the vaccine or those living in places where vaccines are not being authorized by the FDA or the World Health Organization may have to wait for months or even years to receive a vaccine.
Researchers at Oxford University said Thursday they developed a method for predicting the efficacy of coronavirus vaccines by a blood test.
Why it matters: The model "can be used to extrapolate efficacy estimates for new vaccines where large efficacy trials cannot be conducted," the researchers said in their paper, which was submitted for peer review for publication in a scientific journal on Thursday.
An industry centered around unproven stem cell therapies is flourishing due to misinformation.
Why it matters: Stem cells offer a tantalizing potential to address a large number of diseases, like Parkinson's, ALS, cancers and bodily injuries. But only a small number of therapies have been found safe and effective through clinical trials, while misinformation continues to proliferate.
COVID-19 deaths were associated with a decline in U.S. life expectancy by more than a year in 2020, according to new research published Thursday.
Driving the news: The study, published in the journal, JAMA Network Open, found that people of color were disproportionately impacted. Compared to white people, the reduction in life expectancy is three times larger for Latinos and twice as large for Black people.
The United Kingdom reported 16,703 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the highest daily case count since early February, Reuters reports.
Why it matters: Thursday's high means the U.K. marked two peaks in new infections within a span of a week. On June 17, the kingdom hit a four-month high with 11,007 new daily cases.
The World Health Organization anticipates vulnerable populations will need to get an annual COVID-19 booster shot to be protected against variants, while the general population may need one every two years, Reuters reports, citing an internal document.
Why it matters: The WHO forecasts that the need for boosters in wealthier countries could push poorer nations, which have barely received any vaccine, to the back of the line and further widen the gap of vaccine inequality.
Eli Lilly plans on filing an application for an "accelerated approval" of its experimental Alzheimer's treatment, donanemab, with the FDA later this year, the pharmaceutical company said today.
Why it matters: The FDA possibly set a new precedent for more unproven Alzheimer's drugs to gain the agency's stamp of approval, after it gave a controversial conditional approval to Biogen's Alzheimer's drug earlier this month.
With an already high-pressure job — made exponentially more stressful amid the pandemic — physicians around the U.S. faced soaring levels of mental distress in the last year and a dearth of resources to help them, Vox reports.
Why it matters: The providers who are often the first line of defense in caring for patients with mental health crises face major hurdles — including fear of harm to their career and lack of support from employers — to getting help themselves.
Children, like adults, are at risk of developing "long COVID." But experts are still struggling to understand what, exactly, that risk level is.
Why it matters: As the work to determine how common certain coronavirus vaccine side effects are in children, it's important to balance these risks against the risk of children remaining unvaccinated — which includes their risk of long-term health issues if they get infected.
A tech company is announcing a new health app Thursday that it says will help employers bring their employees back to the office safely by verifying their COVID-19 vaccination status.
Why it matters: The app, or others like it, could be a sign of how employers can enforce vaccination requirements without relying on the honor system or hand-checking CDC vaccine cards.
The City of San Francisco announced Wednesday that it will require all of its roughly 35,000 employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 — and impose penalties that may include getting fired on workers who refuse.
Why it matters: San Francisco is the first major city in the U.S. to announce plans for a coronavirus vaccine mandate.
Some Democrats representing border districts want President Biden to vaccinate migrants crossing into the U.S. — especially if he lifts public health restrictions that have prevented them from claiming asylum on American soil.
Why it matters: Inoculating migrants treads a fine line of protecting the U.S. population while possibly incentivizing more migration with the offer of free COVID-19 vaccines. Republicans are likely to pounce on that.
