WHO official decries a 'horrific' Covid mistake

As the Covid-19 pandemic entered its third year with no end in sight, STAT’s Helen Branswell once again turned to Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program, to ask if he expected the pandemic to last as long as it has, who should make the call on whether to update Covid vaccines, and what he thinks are the main mistakes the world has made. His answer to the last question: “I think for me just personally as a public health physician, the biggest tragedy has been the vaccine equity issue. It really has been horrific. Horrific. The world just has not ever come to terms with the fact that vaccinating the most vulnerable people first would have been a better bet, not only epidemiologically but just from an equity perspective.” Read more.

Forecasting the Omicron winter, reconsidering isolation rules, and what's in store for kids

What’s next for Omicron this winter? While many uncertainties remain, disease modelers have cranked out several potential visions for what the first months of 2022 may have in store, STAT’s Megan Molteni reports. Worst case: The deadliest phase of the pandemic yet. Best case: The Omicron spike leads to 50% fewer deaths compared to last year. Meanwhile:

The CDC is looking at adding a negative test to its five-day isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who catch the coronavirus, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci said yesterday, after fallout from its updated recommendations last week, the Associated Press reports.
As schools prepare to reopen after the holiday break with new policies for masks and testing, the New York Times reports that early this week the FDA is set to allow 12- to 15-year-olds to receive third doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine.

No Surprises Act could spur patient engagement

Health care is one of the only purchases people make without knowing the cost upfront, Stacy Bratcher, a vice president and general counsel at Cottage Health in Santa Barbara, Calif., writes in a STAT First Opinion. People needing care had virtually no way of knowing their expected out-of-pocket costs before deciding on care and often received unexpected expensive medical bills after the fact. With the No Surprises Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, health care providers have an opportunity to fix this, Bratcher argues, and build a closer, more trusting relationship with their patients in the process. “It forces communication about these costs among all parties that might be involved in a procedure: hospitals, community providers, pharmacies, laboratories, and the patient,” she says.

Inside STAT: What racism in medicine takes from us

(Mike Reddy for STAT)

During her freshman year of college, psychiatrist and STAT columnist Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu had to be told who the renowned philosopher Cornel West was before buying a ticket to see him speak. She’d attended a prestigious independent school in upstate New York but realized what she’d received was a white education. “ As a doctor, my education, both what I know and how I have come to know it, has continued to be shaped by the privileging of white norms and experiences. From the exclusion of Black and brown skin from dermatology textbooks to the lack of illustration of Black fetuses in OB-GYN texts, Western medicine is largely concerned with caring for white bodies, to the detriment of others,” she writes. Today, “Fighting racism will not be the central story of my personal or professional life," she writes. "I’m discovering that Black doctors deserve peace.” Read more.

Black men do better than white men with radiation therapy for early prostate cancer

Black men are more likely than white men to be diagnosed with higher-risk prostate cancer, but new research in JAMA Network Open says Black men respond better than white men to radiation therapy for localized cancer. A meta-analyis of seven studies of more than 8,800 men found that even though Black men had more aggressive disease when they started treatment, their response was better as measured by PSA testing, spread to other parts of the body, or death. That was surprising because Black men have a nearly twofold increased risk of dying from the disease, but the researchers say little attention has been paid to the impact of early treatment. A better response to early therapy could prevent the use of more aggressive treatments than might be necessary, the authors conclude.

3 x 3 to watch in 2022

In the spirit of looking ahead as the new year begins, STAT reporters forecast what’s on the horizon for global health, hospitals, and digital therapeutics in our 3 to watch series:

In global health, it’s Covid, of course, but also vaccination rates for other diseases and the fate of the WHO — all feeling the pandemic’s effects.
The digital therapeutics space saw notable advances in both regulation and funding rounds in 2021, but to get widespread adoption, digital therapeutics will need to continue to prove they work and that they can save money, secure more reliable reimbursement from health plans, and streamline patient experiences.
Entering the third year of the pandemic will test how thin hospitals can stretch scarce resources. That hinges on staffing, federal assistance, and capacity — all affected by Covid.

You can also see 3 to watch in biotech trends, pharma trends, and FDA decisions.

What to read around the web today

When they warn of rare disorders, these prenatal tests are usually wrong. New York Times
As patients fell ill with Covid inside hospitals, government oversight fell short. Kaiser Health News
A grieving family wonders: What if they had known the medical history of sperm donor 1558? Wall Street Journal
The biotech scorecard for the first quarter: 19 stock-moving events to watch. STAT+
A neuroscientist prepares for death. The Atlantic