Those numbers aren’t getting better

Georgia is one of 10 states with the biggest jump in Covid-19 cases in the last two weeks. About 92.7 percent of the state’s ICU beds are occupied.

Governor Kemp is sending in the National Guard to help overwhelmed hospital staff. He also “issued an executive order allowing businesses to not comply with local mask or vaccine mandates meant to stop the spread of the virus.”

Cigna’s coming to Georgia

To the Georgia Obamacare marketplace, that is. The Peach State — along with the Magnolia State and the Keystone State — is one of three new states the company is adding for 2022. (It’s also adding some counties in the Grand Canyon State, the Sunshine State, and the Old Dominion.)

The most important story in this issue

Through September 5, Krispy Kreme is offering two free doughnuts to anyone who’s been vaccinated against Covid.

(Group) house calls

CMS is now offering additional payments to healthcare providers who give Covid vaccines to Medicare recipients in “smaller group homes, assisted living facilities, and other group living situations.” It allows…

… vaccine providers to receive the increased payment up to five times when fewer than ten Medicare beneficiaries get the vaccine on the same day in the same home or communal setting.

On that note, NCPA suggests that independent pharmacists reach out to care facilities and offer your services. “If you don’t contact a facility and they need help, the state health department is likely to refer that opportunity to someone else.”

ACA gap closer

Uninsured Georgians who fall in the ACA “coverage gap” — earning too little to qualify for ACA subsidies* and too much for the state’s Medicaid program — could get a break. Part of the $3.5 trillion budget plan that just passed the House includes a program that would give them coverage.

The likely plan is to first subsidize the coverage gap population to get private insurance on the ACA’s marketplaces, until sometime around 2025 or 2026, which would give time to set up the new system, aides and advocates say.

Hospitals like the idea of the subsidies, but not the creation of a Medicaid-substitute program, which would undoubtedly pay them less.

* Too little for subsidies? Yep. The ACA expected them to be covered by Medicaid, so they got left out in non-expansion states.

CVS hops on the bandwagon

CVS joins the growing list of companies requiring staff to be vaccinated. It will require corporate and most patient-facing employees to be fully vaccinated by October 31; “Pharmacists working in the company’s retail stores will have until November 30 to be fully vaccinated due to the size of this employee population.”

Potential leukemia breakthrough

Kids with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, it seems, have a particular gene turned off: TET2, which can inhibit tumor growth.

Swedish researchers figured out how it was turned off — and that the 40-year-old drug azacytidine can turn it back on. Could it be a cure? Because azacytidine is already approved (for adults with certain cancers), testing for kids can happen quickly.

Vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice, cranberry juice

A new study by Israeli biochemists finds that UVB radiation activates the p53 protein in the skin. That, they found “increases hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis hormone levels.”

More bluntly, they explained (publishing in Cell Reports): Exposure to sunlight “enhances romantic passion in both genders and aggressiveness in men,” “increases circulating sex-steroid levels,” and “enhances female attractiveness and receptiveness toward males.” The full paper is 32 pages long.