Dr. Eric Coe jumped at the chance to help test a COVID-19 vaccine.

At his urging, so did his girlfriend, his son and his daughter-in-law. All received shots last week at a clinical research site in central Florida.

“My main purpose in doing this was so I could spend more time with my family and grandchildren,” Coe said, noting that he’s seen them only outside and from a distance since March.

“There’s a lot less risk to getting the vaccine than contracting the virus,” said Coe, 74, a retired cardiologist. “The worst thing that can happen is if I get the placebo.”

The Coes’ eagerness to offer up their bodies to science reflects the widespread public interest in participating in the pivotal, late-stage clinical trials of the first two COVID vaccine candidates in the United States.

Those trials began rolling out July 27. During the next two months, vaccine makers … Read the rest

Hi, I’m back with a revamped Friday Breeze, tackling a few hot health care topics of the week and some news you may have missed. Here’s what the Breeze blew in this week, in these dog days of our COVID-constrained, socially distant summer:

Schools Reopen: No Easy Answers for Keeping Kids Healthy

It’s back-to-school time, which means pencils, books, hand sanitizers and, for some, a visit from Vice President Mike Pence. The vice president visited a campus of Thales Academy in Apex, North Carolina, saying, “We’ve got to open up America’s schools, and Thales Academy is literally in the forefront.” Unfortunately, a few days later, Thales suffered a setback when a fourth grader at its Wake Forest campus tested positive for COVID-19.

Things weren’t much better in other states, either. Groups of students and teachers in Indiana, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee have been forced into … Read the rest

Para un mundo paralizado por el coronavirus, la salvación depende de una vacuna.

Pero en los Estados Unidos, en donde al menos 4,6 millones de personas se han infectado y casi 155,000 han muerto, la promesa de esa vacuna se ve obstaculizada por otra epidemia anterior a COVID-19: la de la obesidad.

Los científicos saben que las vacunas diseñadas para proteger al público de la gripe, la hepatitis B, el tétanos y la rabia pueden ser menos efectivas en adultos obesos que en la población general, dejándolos más vulnerables a infecciones y enfermedades.

Agregan que hay pocas razones para creer que será diferente con una vacuna contra COVID-19.

“¿Tendremos el año que viene una vacuna para COVID adaptada a los obesos? Seguro que no”, dijo Raz Shaikh, profesor asociado de Nutrición en la Universidad de Carolina del Norte-Chapel Hill.

“¿La vacuna funcionará en personas obesas? Nuestra predicción es que no”.… Read the rest

Despite strong opposition from Republicans and rural voters, Missouri on Tuesday joined 37 states and the District of Columbia in expanding its Medicaid program. Voters in Missouri approved creating a state constitutional amendment that will open Medicaid eligibility to include healthy adults starting July 1, 2021.

Voters approved expansion by a margin of 6.5 percentage points.

Missouri joins five other mostly conservative states that have passed Medicaid expansion via ballot initiatives — most recently, Oklahoma, on June 30. Most of the remaining 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid are Republican-leaning states in the South.

Nika Cotton, owner of Soulcentricitea, a new tea shop in Kansas City, Missouri, woke to the news on Wednesday morning. Cotton, whose children are 8 and 10, said she will qualify for health care coverage under the expansion.

“It takes a lot of stress off of my shoulders with having to think about how … Read the rest