The second Covid Olympics now underway

Seven years ago, the two final contenders to host the 2022 Winter Olympics were China and Kazakhstan, the Associated Press reminds us. China’s arid mountains surrounding Beijing were a concern then — and may still be — but few could imagine the health threat now facing the host country (and the world). Here’s how the second Covid Olympics is playing out (amid a diplomatic boycott, too) as opening ceremonies unfold:

China’s “closed-loop” system (aka bubble) means all participants will be tested for Covid daily and placed in isolation if they test positive. No one will be allowed out of the hotels and venues cordoned off from the city and mountains where the Games will take place.
More than 30 new Covid-19 cases are being detected daily. A total of 287 cases have been recorded since Jan. 23, the IOC said, and at least 11 people have been treated at a hospital but none were serious cases.
A JAMA paper published yesterday says measures taken at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics "worked well to prevent Covid-19 clusters inside the Village, despite a surge in new Covid-19 cases recorded in Tokyo during that time."

'Modest'? Eric Lander calls the new cancer moonshot 'audacious'

A more modest cancer moonshot? Not so fast, Eric Lander tells STAT’s Lev Facher. The White House science adviser pushed back on calling the new effort smaller and less ambitious than the 2016 effort. Even though it makes no mention of cancer “cures” and doesn’t call for new research money, the new plan is “audacious,” Lander argues. “This is more ambitious by far than could have been done in 2016, for lots of reasons,” he said. “Maybe most dramatic of all is setting a hard goal: Slash the death rate by 50%.” While cancer research advocates welcomed the announcement, many fretted it wouldn’t achieve much without new government investments in research. But those requests could come soon, Lander said. Read more in STAT+.

Covid therapeutics 'fairly priced,' cost-effectiveness analysis says

Prices charged for several medicines used to treat people with mild to moderate Covid-19 are reasonable based on the value they offer patients, according to a preliminary assessment from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. The different therapies — two antiviral pills, one monoclonal antibody treatment, and a decades-old antidepressant — met cost-effectiveness thresholds and averted hospitalization costs for Covid-19 patients at high risk of developing severe illness. Throughout the pandemic, STAT’s Ed Silverman notes, questions have been raised about pricing for vaccines and therapeutics, especially where government funding was provided to companies for research or manufacturing work.“We would say these drugs are fairly priced for the benefits we can perceive,” ICER’s Steve Pearson said. STAT+ subscribers can read more here.

Closer look: Heavily represented in biomedical research, Asian scientists rarely win top prizes

Yuh Nung and his wife and lab partner, Lily Jan, are no strangers to prestigious awards, but he undertook the study to highlight the widespread invisibility of Asian scientists in the U.S. (courtesy noah berger)

Some see it as a symptom of a discriminatory “bamboo ceiling” in academia: Despite making up making up more than 20% of the biomedical field’s researchers, Asian scientists are rarely granted the field’s top research prizes. A new analysis, published in Cell, finds less than 7% of recipients of some of the most coveted U.S. scientific prizes are Asian, while other prestigious awards in biology have yet to be given to a single Asian recipient. Asian women scientists have fared far worse, receiving less than 1% of the prizes. “Frankly, the numbers are pretty appalling,” Yuh Nung Jan, a professor of physiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Francisco, told STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling. “What kind of message are they sending?”

Rural-urban divide in how people rate their health persists, study says

People are pretty good judges of their own health, researchers have learned, with self-assessment lining up with later illness and even premature death. A new CDC report turns to self-reports to explore differences between people who live in rural areas or small cities and big-city residents. Last year, working-age Americans who lived in rural or small urban counties rated their health as worse than people living in large urban counties. The 2021 survey matches older research and it also aligns with socioeconomic differences: People living in more rural counties had lower education, household income, and probability of employment. “Policies addressing intersecting socioeconomic factors, including those that increase access to livable wage jobs, especially for those without a college degree, likely would reduce rural-urban health disparities,” the authors conclude.

Biden administration takes a closer look at telemedcine to see who’s benefiting

Telemedicine companies will tell you the pandemic has ushered in a new era of connected health across America. But the Biden administration wants a closer look at whether technology is the thing making the strongest connection. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy launched a roundtable series yesterday to examine which pandemic-driven innovations are worth keeping and which may only reinforce the divide between the haves and have-nots. The conversation comes at a key inflection point, as digital health companies raise ever-increasing sums of money on thin evidence so far that their products are improving outcomes. And a growing body of research shows that telemedicine, while improving access to care overall, is also exacerbating disparities, especially for the 25 million people living in the United States with limited English proficiency. STAT's Casey Ross has more for STAT+ subscribers.

What to read around the web today

Once struggling, anti-vaccination groups have enjoyed a pandemic windfall. NBC News
In New York City sewage, a mysterious coronavirus signal. New York Times
Lawmakers grill key FDA official over controversial Alzheimer’s drug approval. STAT+
With Alzheimer’s drug sales weak, Biogen offers a disappointing financial outlook for 2022. STAT+
Therapists say a new law requiring upfront cost estimates could discourage patients. Kaiser Health News