READY OR NOT — In two long years that have let off a volley of scary, confounding moments, millions of Americans find themselves in yet another. Omicron is fading. Concerts are packed. Officials urge us to move on, shed our masks and get back to normal. And yet, there’s that number — the number that tells us we’re nowhere near what anyone would have called normal two years ago. On March 11, the number was 1,487 : That’s how many Americans are dying every day from Covid-19, while the country moves on. And then there’s the latest from Pfizer’s CEO, who got out ahead of the FDA on Sunday and said another Covid-19 booster shot would be needed, a message that will inevitably cause some boosted Americans to wonder exactly how well they’re protected today. Advocates for some of those most vulnerable to Covid-19 — people living with chronic conditions and the immunocompromised — have raised concerns with the Biden Administration about the rush to ditch Covid-19 restrictions and have been left frustrated, POLITICO’s Rachael Levy writes. “The pandemic is not over,” Elena Hung, co-founder of Little Lobbyists, an advocacy group for chronically ill and disabled children, said. “What the CDC is doing is leaving out immunocompromised and disabled people.” Then, of course, there are the kids. Parents are staring into uncharted territory as schools lift mask mandates with no vaccine for children under 5 and a new study showing the Pfizer vaccine offered only middling protection against Omicron infection to kids 11 and younger. This week in Washington, public schools, like others across the country, will lift their mask mandate. Unsurprisingly, there are strong feelings. And so we parents, like so many families with vulnerable members across the nation, start the week braced to leap into the great unknown — again. SEWAGE OVERSIGHT FALTERS WITH STATES — Wastewater surveillance gained popularity during the pandemic as some state and local health officials showed they could detect the coronavirus in their community’s sewage systems before residents developed symptoms. But there’s a big problem with nationalizing surveillance, POLITICO’s Katherine Ellen Foley and Megan Messerly report: Few states are on board. The landscape: Roughly 18 months into the wastewater effort, only a dozen states routinely submit data to a federal program. Even among those participating, several have only clusters of collection sites in major population centers. Others are unsure how large their programs will be, while some don’t plan to participate. Why it matters: Surveillance can help public health officials more quickly identify and respond to clusters of coronavirus or other viruses. But lackluster participation leaves gaping holes in what public officials intend to be a comprehensive early-warning system, according to Katherine’s and Megan’s interviews with state health officials and wastewater experts across 17 states. What are the issues? Some areas have grappled with privacy concerns and logistical challenges like how to coordinate dozens of treatment plants routinely submitting sewage samples to a handful of labs. The federal government paid LuminUltra, a private commercial lab, more than $6 million to assist states that couldn’t monitor sewage on their own, but the company struggled to build trust with local operators. NIH GRAPPLES WITH COVID FUNDING CUTS — Scientists at the National Institutes of Health are scrambling to decide whether all its coronavirus research and development can continue after Congress dropped new funding from its sweeping budget bill, Sarah scooped Friday. The stakes: There are immediate implications for government trials on Covid-19 therapies, tests and vaccines that run out of funds as soon as this month, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO. “We would like to understand which March activities can be delayed, de-scoped, paused, etc. and what the consequences are of choosing this option,” Health and Human Services Department program analyst Thomas Libert wrote. The budget crunch comes after House Democrats cut $15.6 billion in coronavirus relief spending from the omnibus bill earlier this week amid caucus complaints that their states’ assistance would decline to pay for the new relief spending. What’s next: Libert warned that top officials assume there would be no new coronavirus funding in the 2023 fiscal year and that “agencies should be prepared to use base funding to continue any COVID activities” in the next year: “No new activities should be funded at this time.
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