Apply directly to the forehead

The FDA has given a “breakthrough” designation to pro2cool, a device designed to treat concussions quickly by providing “localized cooling for the head and neck to reduce blood temperature before it enters the brain.”

Athletes are the primary market according to the maker, TecTraum, but it’s also hoping to see it used by first responders and the military.

Closer and closer to an Ebola vaccine

Oxford University researchers have begun phase 1 human trials of a vaccine they hope will protect against all four species of the Ebola virus, especially the particularly nasty Zaire* version

Given the never-to-be-a-Jeopardy-clue name of “ChAdOx1 biEBOV,” it uses the same technology as the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine; results should be available mid next year.

* Grandpa called it “the Congo”

If you’re doing well, do some good, too

Meet Erica — Erica Wong, PCOM student pharmacist. She’s one of the recipients of the Georgia Pharmacy Foundation’s Carlton Henderson Scholarship — just one way the foundation is helping the next generation of Georgia’s pharmacists.

Be a part of something good. Support the Georgia Pharmacy Foundation and the future of pharmacy — right here at home.

It’s hard to find good help these days

Having trouble hiring? How about getting certain supplies? If not, count yourself lucky. A new NCPA survey (well, the results of the survey) say that ‘the majority of independent pharmacies are affected by ongoing labor and supply chain issues.’

It’s all from the ongoing ripple effects of the pandemic, so the supply chain issues are probably not permanent. As for employment … well, that’s clearly a bigger change that’s still shaking out. Polish your crystal ball.

(The above link is to the survey overview. You can read the full report (PDF) here.)

Some cool vaccine numbers

A whopping 98.5% of Americans 65 and over have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine; 85.8% are fully vaccinated according to the latest CDC data.

On the other side of the graph, within the first week of eligibility, about 900,000 kids aged 5 to 11 will have received their first shot.

We’ll get that to you eventually

Even vaccinated people are thinking about the risk of holiday travel; no one wants to be that breakthrough case that has everyone whispering behind their back.

If you’re gonna spin the Wheel of Covid Destiny, you at least want to know what the odds are. But as investigative reporter Sophie Putka points out in MedPage Today, the CDC’s vaccination-breakthrough data is still dated from early September, despite being in the age of [insert cool technology here].

Why the lag? CDC wants to wait a month after a positive test to see if the patient dies or ends up in hospital. That didn’t impress at least one epidemiologist who pointed out that real-time is kind of important.

“It should still be possible to present cases and hospitalizations by vaccination status, not instantaneously, but without a four-week lag. Without a national, coordinated surveillance system that’s publicly available, both of those are very difficult to do, and we’re basically flying blind right now.”

‘They are paying Medicare Advantage plans way more than they should’

In what is surely a shock to no one, when you let private companies create Medicare plans that the government pays for, those companies will overcharge taxpayers for billions … and then scare people away from considering cuts.

The government, you see, released Medicare Advantage billing data available for the first time just a couple of months ago. Now that the right wonks have crunched them, it turns out…

…that Medicare overpaid the private health plans by more than $106 billion from 2010 through 2019 because of the way the private plans charge for sicker patients.

Here, have a data point: “Giant insurer UnitedHealthcare, which in 2019 had about 6 million Medicare Advantage members, received excess payments of some $6 billion.”

But don’t you dare cut those companies’ profits, 13 U.S. senators told CMS. Not allowing them to feed at the government trough, they claimed, “could lead to higher costs and premiums, reduce vital benefits, and undermine advances made to improve health outcomes and health equity.”

Georgians, please don’t try to steal Covid relief funds

Looking at you, small-business owners … and you, small-city mayors.