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By Rick Ruggles rruggles@sfnewmexican.com | May 1, 2021

Reams of evidence and data show coronavirus shots work well and come with minimal risk, public health officials say.

And yet a backdraft of skepticism persists.

Thousands of New Mexico residents still haven’t registered to obtain coronavirus shots, though the state is among the leaders in the country in the percentage of those who have acquired them.

Despite the apparent success vaccines have had in bringing down infection rates, shots, coronavirus tests and masks remain sticky subjects for some in New Mexico and nationwide.

A Santa Fe attorney who represents clients opposing mandatory shots and other coronavirus-related directives said she is convinced the vaccines harm people and that the pandemic has been overblown by authorities and the media.

N. Ana Garner doesn’t express doubt. She expresses certainty.

“No, it’s not conspiracy mongering at all,” said Garner, who opposes coronavirus-fighting tactics for many reasons, including her contention that individual rights are being trampled.

The vaccines have been rushed to the public without animal testing, she said. She noted vaccines continue to be deployed under federal “emergency use authorization.”

“I would never take an experimental product into my body,” she said. “People should not think that an experimental product is automatically safe.”

Others who say they won’t get the vaccine or have reservations aren’t as strident as Garner but offer arguments that touch on the same concerns.

Among Garner’s clients are New Mexico residents who have sued the state over public health orders. Another sued Doña Ana County over being required to get the vaccinations to keep working at the detention center there. And more lawsuits are coming, she said.

Garner called Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a liar. She said she has experts, evidence, science and research on which she bases her opinion.

“There’s no pandemic,” she said. “It’s a big, fat lie.”

A University of Arizona professor of public health chuckled as he considered some of those arguments. Dr. Daniel Derksen, director of the university’s Center for Rural Health, said the vaccines are effective and carry little risk.

“Those are the facts,” Derksen said. “They’re indisputable.”

The data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other organizations and expert-reviewed medical journals, he said, such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Derksen said the numbers are convincing. Some 32 million Americans have contracted the disease and more than 570,000 have died from it, according to federal statistics. About 235 million vaccinations have been administered in the United States alone.

“The science of diagnosis and monitoring has evolved quickly,” he said. “This has been a devastating infectious disease.”

A Santa Fe physician said that with more than 1 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines given worldwide, the ability to observe and research their effects has been unmatched in the history of vaccines.

“We are tracking this like we have never tracked anything before,” said Dr. Wendy Johnson, chief medical officer at La Familia Medical Center. “Every country around the world is studying this.”

For her part, Garner said the pandemic is “about as bad as a bad flu season.” The inaccuracy of coronavirus testing has helped boost the numbers, she said. And people who have died in hospitals with traumatic injuries and other problems have been counted among coronavirus deaths, she said, because they tested positive for the disease.

Derksen estimated the coronavirus is 10 to 20 times more deadly than the flu. Roughly 20,000 to 40,000 Americans die annually from the flu, he said, and the American death count attributable to the coronavirus is about 575,000 over somewhat more than a year.

Garner pointed to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a federal program in which doctors, patients and family members can report reactions to vaccines. The CDC said the reporting system found 3,848 deaths following coronavirus vaccinations as of April 26.

“People are being killed with this stuff,” Garner said. “They are being harmed with this stuff.”

The VAERS website says self-reported descriptions vary in quality and completeness and don’t show that the vaccine caused the deaths or side effects — only that they came sometime after the vaccination.

The CDC said: “A review of available clinical information including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records revealed no evidence that vaccinations contributed to patient deaths.” The CDC says coronavirus vaccines are safe and achieve the objective of diminishing the disease.

Johnson said the CDC and others “are analyzing all this data on literally a daily basis and have not seen higher mortality rates associated with those who get the vaccine.”

The Lancet in Britain recently published a study of 627,383 people vaccinated against the coronavirus and found headache and fatigue to be the main side effects. No deaths were mentioned.

A statement last week from the state Department of Health said the reluctance of some to be vaccinated is understandable considering “all the noise, myths, misinformation and outright lies about this and any other vaccine seen regularly on social media.”

To some degree, the vaccination program has become a political issue. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that as of March, 79 percent of Democrats had either gotten the vaccinations or wanted to as soon as possible. But only 46 percent of Republicans responded that way.

Bob Graham of Santa Fe, a leader of the New Mexico Republican Party, said he blamed both political parties for a “great divide” over the matter.

“It’s unfortunate it’s become” a political issue, he said. “It shouldn’t be.”

The two parties should work together to find best practices, he said, but instead are intent on pursuing different agendas.

Graham, 68, said he hasn’t gotten his coronavirus vaccinations and hasn’t decided if he will. He said he feels “nonchalant” about it and in no rush.

“This is an issue of health and individuals’ choices,” he said. “I’m not overly concerned about it.”

A 30-year-old Albuquerque man who declined to be named because he said it could jeopardize his job mentioned several reasons for declining the vaccinations.

“It’s not that I’m against the vaccination,” he said. “I’m against being told I have to get it.”

He also said he is healthy and that he would worry the vaccine might cause severe effects years from now.

“It’s just really new,” he said. “The information keeps changing.”

He noted the science has morphed on how long the droplets on a surface might retain the virus and how close one must be to contract it from another person.

“We hear new stuff every other day,” he said.

Anthony Martinez, a 52-year-old student and employee at Santa Fe Community College, said he wears two masks but isn’t convinced that getting the shots is a good idea. The one time he got a flu shot, he said, “I was sick for three-and-a-half months.”

He also said he has no confidence that the coronavirus vaccinations will protect him. “If the strain changes, then the shot needs to change with it,” said Martinez, who doesn’t align with either party. “Will I take the shot in the future? It’s probably going to have to be a mandate.”

Mutations and variants of the coronavirus worry doctors and scientists as well. Dr. David Scrase, secretary of the state Human Services Department, said recently that variants are “an important phenomenon” to track.

“There’s a lot of concern about variants,” he said.

Louise Lasley, a 74-year-old Santa Fe resident who recently received her second shot, said it’s baffling that a segment of society takes the word of dubious sources over that of public health administrators. “I find that so hard to get my head around,” she said.

Lasley, a retired geologist and public lands official, said you can always dig around and find sources that confirm your biases. “They’re out there, I’m sure, for everything,” she said.

She expressed relief that she is fully vaccinated now. She still wears a mask to be cautious.

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Get specific details on eligibility and how to apply on the NHSC website.

» Apply here.

University of Arizona News | March 19, 2021

Researchers in the UArizona's Southwest Institute for Research on Women will study how policy changes during the pandemic have affected access to medication for opioid use disorder, especially for rural and tribal communities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, overdose deaths increased 38.4% in a 12-month period in the United States – the largest increase in the nation's history. The health crisis was especially felt in Arizona communities, which have higher overdose rates and lower access to opioid treatment providers than the national average. 

Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic also created an opportunity to improve access to medication for opioid use disorder, or MOUD, which is considered the "gold standard" treatment and includes methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone. During the pandemic, federal regulators relaxed policies to make it easier for people to access MOUD treatment without risking in-person interactions. What remains to be learned is which Arizona MOUD providers implemented these flexible policies and how that affected patient health.  

The University of Arizona Southwest Institute for Research on Women, or SIROW, received a $230,357 grant from the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts, or FORE, to study the impact of COVID-19 on MOUD access and patient health. The research team will document the effects of policy changes made as a result of the pandemic by conducting a survey of 1,000 Arizona MOUD providers and interviews with 200 MOUD patients, with a focus on rural and tribal communities.

"This is a community-based action research project to address the maldistribution of MOUD in Arizona," said Beth Meyerson, principal investigator and research professor with SIROW. Meyerson noted that the opportunity came out of a longstanding relationship with the community.

"Our partners identified this as an opportunity to create evidence to inform federal policy," she said.

"We have a short window of time to evaluate the impact of temporary policy changes related to providing medications for opioid use disorder and telehealth so we can develop longer-term, evidence-based solutions that sustain access to better and more equitable care beyond the pandemic," said Dr. Karen A. Scott, president of FORE. "We are proud to partner with the University of Arizona on this initiative, which includes an important focus on access and equity issues facing tribal, rural and remote communities, as well as other communities of color."

The study is led by a multidisciplinary research team and involves multiple UArizona centers and community partners. At UArizona, SIROW's Meyerson, Keith Bentele and Brenda Granillo will join Ben Brady, a researcher with the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and the Comprehensive Pain and Addiction Center.

Christopher Abert, executive director  of the Southwest Recovery Alliance, or SWRA, and Danielle Russell from Sonoran Prevention Works are the community-based co-investigators. The project will be directed by a statewide MOUD Patient and Provider Advisory Board, and patient interviews will be conducted by trained community members.

"It means a lot to us that FORE and SIROW have chosen to advance patient-centered, evidence-based solutions," Abert said. "This study will ensure that people living with opioid use disorder can be co-creators of evidence to influence policy changes and address health inequities."

"This project represents the community-based action research that SIROW is known for," said Josephine Korchmaros, director of SIROW, which is housed in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. "This is an opportunity to create policy and system changes that will impact people's lives for years to come."

Arizona's Native American population has been hit disproportionately hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Native Americans make up about 5% of Arizona's population but at least 8% of the state’s deaths from the virus. But since vaccines started rolling out across the state, Native Americans have been getting vaccinated at higher rates than the general population. Agnes Attakai, a member of the Navajo Nation and director of Health Disparities Outreach and Prevention Education at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is interviewed.

Listen to the interview with Agnes Attakai:
3/9/21 | KJZZ-FM (NPR) Phoenix, AZ
3/9/21 | Fronteras

By Jacob Holter | Cronkite News | Feb 25, 2021

WASHINGTON – Health officials confirmed COVID-19 in another 1,310 Arizonans Wednesday and reported that 43 more people died from the disease, according to the latest numbers from the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Depressing numbers – but a vast improvement from just six weeks ago, when the daily average of new cases in one week was 9,742 people and deaths were averaging 154 a day. And an indication, experts said, that the state may have finally turned a corner.

“I think we’ve definitely seen the worst of this pandemic,” said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association. “I think the worst of the worst will end up being that first two weeks of January.”

It comes as the national death toll topped 500,000 and the number of Americans infected with the disease passed 28 million. But it also comes as hospitalization rates have plummeted and vaccination efforts have started to take hold, with 65 million doses administered nationwide and almost 1.6 million in Arizona.

“We are getting much better at getting the COVID-19 vaccinations in people’s arms,” said Dr. Daniel Derksen, director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health. “We have certainly seen that in the large-population counties like Maricopa and Pima, who have been particularly effective in these things like State Farm Arena.”

Both Humble and Derksen said that, with vaccination efforts continuing to rise, they do not expect to see spikes again like the one the state saw in January. Humble blamed that surge on holiday parties and family gatherings that spread the virus, which showed up in new cases in early January.

Since the first of the year, cases in Arizona have risen from 520,196 to 808,895 and deaths have skyrocketed, from 8,864 to 15,693. Just over 60% of intensive-care unit beds in the state were occupied by COVID-19 patients, a number that would rise to 66% less than two weeks later.

But all the numbers have pointed down since then. Just 25% of ICU beds are now occupied by COVID-19 patients, the lowest percentage since mid-November, while deaths and new cases continue to drop.

There are still challenges ahead. A vaccination site at Chandler-Gilbert Community College will close for four days next week as it shifts from county to state management. And new coronavirus variants continue to pop up, presenting a new type of threat.

Winter storms that wreaked havoc in the South delayed delivery of some vaccines, Derksen said, with multiple county health departments telling the state health department they had to cancel appointments as a result. Coconino County said in a statement last week, for example, that “some vaccination sites must cancel and reschedule first dose appointments scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 18, and Friday, Feb 19.”

But Derksen said Arizona appears to be back on track.

More than 1.1 million Arizonans – 15.5% of the state’s population – have received at least one dose of vaccine so far, and 438,534 have received both doses to be fully immunized. The Chandler-Gilbert Community College site will be the fourth mass vaccination site when it reopens next week, and a new one-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson appears to be on the verge of approval.

Humble worries that the state may be rushing to open the pool of vaccine-eligible Arizonans too quickly to younger people, in a push to vaccinate essential workers.

“If you throw essential workers into the pot at this point, you dilute our ability to protect seniors, and they are the ones that are at the highest risk of having a bad outcome, filling our hospitals, and dying,” Humble said.

Despite their optimism, both Derksen and Humble stressed that this is not the time to let our guard down. They repeated the health care workers now-common refrain, urging people to continue social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands and staying home when sick.

“As we get more vaccinations done, and as people continue to take care of themselves by wearing masks, social distancing, and the other things that we have been trying to do for some time, we need to continue those because we are still in the first phase of immunizations and we really need to get those vaccinations to the general public,” said Derksen.

He is confident that if the state can keep up the pace of vaccinations, it will be in good shape. And once a majority of Arizonans are vaccinated, the population will be better protected against variants that may present themselves in the future.

But they caution that it will not happen overnight.

“I think we can really reduce the impact of this and get back to the new normal as they have been calling it,” Derksen said. “We are all eager for that to happen, but we still have a few months to go before we can get close to that.”

» Video and more at link below:

By Sarah Oven | Cronkite News | February 15, 2021 

WASHINGTON – Health advocates welcomed Monday’s reopening of enrollment for Affordable Care Act coverage, saying the opportunity for more people to get or renew their health insurance could be “really good for Arizona.”

The normal period for Americans to sign up for coverage ended Dec. 15, but President Joe Biden called for this special 90-day open enrollment period in response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

The change could open the door to subsidized health insurance for thousands in Arizona, where as many as 900,000 people may not have health insurance, according to Dr. Dan Derksen, director of the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health. Derksen said as many as half of those people could get covered under the ACA.

“This extension of the open enrollment period Is a way that we can get more information out there so that people understand what they might be eligible for, and then get enrolled,” Derksen said Monday, the first day of open enrollment.

Matt Eyles, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, praised the decision to reopen the enrollment period as a “timely and targeted” solution that is “exactly what Americans need.”

“Every American deserves access to affordable health coverage and high-quality care, and that is especially true during a pandemic,” Eyles said. “We appreciate the Biden administration for providing this additional opportunity for hardworking American families to enroll in coverage for their health and financial security as they continue to fight to overcome the COVID-19 crisis.”

The move also allows for further gains in enrollment under the ACA – also known as Obamacare – after years of steady declines under the Trump administration. Enrollment fell from 9.6 million nationwide in 2017 to 8.2 million in the open enrollment that ended in December. In Arizona, the numbers fell from 203,066 to 154,504 over the same period.

Advocates said the declines, which leveled off last year, were due to an “erosion” of support under President Donald Trump, including fewer staff to help people navigate the marketplace, shorter enrollment periods and a decrease in outreach resources.

The special open enrollment period, which is open until May 15, is the second move in two weeks by the Biden administration to reverse Trump administration policy in regard to the ACA.

The Supreme Court in November heard arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of the ACA, and the Trump administration had sided in that case with opponents of the law. But the deputy solicitor general wrote the court on Wednesday to say the Biden administration “has reconsidered the government’s position” and now argues that the law is constitutional and should stand, even if the court finds part of it is flawed.

The reversals are not surprising, said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, who called the Trump administration a “little hostile” to the ACA.

“I think we have people who are making decisions to use the funds that they currently have and ways to actually try to motivate and engage people in the marketplace, which was not the case under the Trump administration,” Humble said. 

That was echoed by Derksen, who said that most people “realize that with the change in leadership at the national level there would be a renewed interest in the Affordable Care Act coverage availability.”

Health insurance in the ACA marketplace is open to anyone, but the plans are designed to provide low-cost or no-cost coverage based on patients’ income.

Advocates said many will find they can get coverage through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which in Arizona go by the names Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System and Kids Care, respectively. People who exceed the income limits for those programs may still be eligible for tax rebates to make the coverage affordable.

Interested people should go to Healthcare.gov for more information about their eligibility for coverage. In Arizona, a good place to start is CoverAZ.org, where people can get free advising on their eligibility and the best plan for them, said Marcus Johnson, director of state health policy and advocacy at Vitalyst Health Foundation.

“If you don’t have health insurance right now, if you recently lost your job during the pandemic or if you’ve never had health insurance, this is a great opportunity for people to shop for quality and affordable health insurance coverage,” Johnson said.

He said it is important to realize that whatever the Supreme Court rules in the ACA case, it will have “no bearing on this current open enrollment opportunity.”

“Now is the time to jump on board and see what you qualify for if you don’t have health insurance coverage,” Johnson said Monday.

» View complete article with graphs at link/PDF below: