POLITICO NIGHTLY: Surgeon general’s warning: Kids get Covid, too

 

BY DAN GOLDBERG With help from Renuka Rayasam Surgeon General Vivek Murthy testifies during a Senate Finance hearing. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images FOLLOWING THE SCIENCE TO A STOP SIGN — Surgeon General Vivek Murthy tweeted this morning that his 4-year old daughter tested positive for Covid-19. “I wish a vaccine was available for my child and for all kids [under] 5,” Murthy wrote. “It would protect kids and help parents. Unfortunately, more data is still needed from clinical trials for the FDA to make a full assessment.” Murthy wondered in his thread whether he could have done more to protect his little girl or whether her positive result was somehow his fault, expressing the angst and guilt so many pandemic parents feel every day. The FDA stunned scientists, parents and possibly the White House when it announced Friday that it would wait for data on how well three doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine protected children younger than 5 before deciding whether to authorize the first two shots. The decision, which means roughly 18 million children will have to wait a little longer before they are eligible, was especially devastating for some parents because a vaccine — and all that immunity might mean — seemed, at last, so close. I have a 19-month old and have never been a parent without a pandemic. Murthy said his daughter will likely be fine. Statistically that’s true, but in his thread, he hit on something all parents know: Statistics aren’t reassuring when your child has a fever, or cough or, in his words, “isn’t her usual bubbly self.”  “Few things are worse than worrying about your child’s health,” he wrote. “In these moments, it doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor or Surgeon General. We are parents first.” Which is why the FDA’s delay hit so hard. “It’s a baffling sequence of events,” said Jason Schwartz, associate professor of health policy and a vaccine expert at the Yale School of Public Health. “The FDA went from not being comfortable with the two-dose data to being comfortable enough with it to take an unprecedented approach, to then, hours before the meeting, pulling the plug on that approach,” Schwartz said. The whiplash and the lack of transparency — we still don’t know what the data showed or what led to FDA’s decision — leaves the door open for people to spin the news in ways that make the vaccine seem dangerous and increases hesitancy, said Govind Persad, an assistant professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, where he focuses on health law, and a Greenwall Foundation faculty scholar in bioethics. Some had hoped the FDA would authorize a two-dose regimen while waiting to assess the efficacy of a third dose. But William Schaffner, a professor of infectious disease at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a longtime adviser to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, argued that waiting for all the data is more likely to convince more parents that the vaccine is safe and effective than scare them because it was delayed for a short time. “‘We don’t know the whole story yet but bring your child in to get vaccinated’ — that made me very uneasy,” he said. “If you go to parents and say, ‘Our recommendation is to vaccinate your children,’ you need to have the whole story.” But most kids will be fine, right? Yes, it is true that very few children under 5 die or suffer serious complications from Covid-19, but that doesn’t mean it’s no big deal for kids to get Covid. A child who tests positive and shows up in the emergency room with a croup-like barking cough may not get admitted to the hospital, but a midnight run to the emergency room is nothing to take lightly. And when some cavalierly suggest that most kids will be fine, they gloss over how a positive test means quarantining from daycare or preschool. For two working parents this can be a lot to juggle, and for single-parents it can be impossible. Parents who are paid by the hour and who are low-wage workers are the ones least likely to have paid-sick leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And America’s youngest children are more likely to be people of color and are more likely to live in poverty than older Americans. When children are home from school, it’s more likely to be mom who stays home with them, a pandemic problem that has exacerbated pay gaps and disparities in the workforce. “The effects aren’t borne equally in all sorts of ways,” Persad said. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at dgoldberg@politico.com, or on Twitter at @DanCGoldberg.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     AROUND THE WORLD A DAY OF HEDGING — “Partially pulling back.” “Cautious optimism.” “Not on the agenda.” The language out of Washington, Brussels and Moscow today was uncertain, buoyed by Russian remarks that indicated a desire to continue seeking diplomatic options, but guarded by the reality of 150,000 troops surrounding Ukraine. President Joe Biden, while sending warnings to Russian President Vladimir Putin over targeting Americans and dangerous cyberattacks, urged a continued push to prevent war: “As long as there is hope of a diplomatic resolution — that prevents the use of force and avoids the incredible human suffering that would follow — we will pursue it.” In other Russia-Ukraine developments: — Ukrainian Ministry of Defense websites hit by cyberattack: The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said in a tweet that the websites were down, and that it was likely being targeted by a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack. A separate Ukrainian agency, the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, said the website of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had also been attacked. — A ‘swift’ and ‘unified’ sanctions slam on Russia? Not exactly: Behind the scenes, U.S. and European officials are still hammering out the details of how hard to hit Moscow with sanctions, and when . The ongoing talks — both transatlantic and among European states — suggest that repeated statements by Biden and his top aides that Russia will face “swift,” “severe” and “unified” consequences from Washington and its allies are overly optimistic, and that the reality will be more messy. — Russia’s parliament urges Putin to recognize separatist republics in Ukraine: The Duma, the Russian parliament’s lower house, asked Putin to recognize the independence of two Russian-backed breakaway regions in Ukraine, a move that could threaten diplomatic efforts to avoid a broader war between the two countries.   DON’T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO’s new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.     WHAT'D I MISS? People gather along with truck drivers to block the streets during an anti-government and anti-vaccine mandate protest in Ottawa, Canada. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images — Ottawa’s police chief resigns on day 19 of trucker protest: Since the start of the crisis in the core of Canada’s capital city, Peter Sloly and his department have come under fire from city councilors and Ottawa residents for failing to respond decisively to demonstrations that have attracted global attention. Police have been unable — and have mostly appeared unwilling — to dislodge a trucker convoy that has clogged downtown Ottawa with big rigs and transformed the foot of Parliament Hill into an unwanted street party. — Rice says she won’t seek another House term, the latest exit on Long Island: Rep. Kathleen Rice will not run for reelection in November, she announced today, making her the third of four House members on Long Island to announce they are leaving at the end of their terms. She becomes the 30th House Democrat nationwide to announce they would not run this fall as the party hopes to retain the majority in the midterm elections. — Senate confirms Califf for FDA: In a 50-46 vote, the Senate confirmed Robert Califf to lead the Food and Drug Administration, installing permanent leadership after a 13-month holding pattern atop an agency critical to the pandemic response and responsible for regulating roughly 20 cents of every dollar spent by U.S. consumers. — New Hampshire GOP fundraiser draws 2024 hopefuls: A slew of potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates are headlining an upcoming New Hampshire Republican Party fundraiser, an illustration of how contenders are gearing up ahead of the party’s upcoming nomination process. The host committee for the March 30 event includes Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, among others. NIGHTLY NUMBER As much as 1 foot The amount sea levels along U.S. coasts will rise by in the next 30 years as climate change accelerates, leading to a “dramatic increase” in millions of Americans’ exposure to flooding, scientists warned in a federal report published today. Climate change driven largely by burning fossil fuels will raise average sea levels adjacent to the U.S. shoreline as much in the next 30 years as they rose in the previous century, according to the study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. PARTING WORDS PROBING QUESTIONS — Expect many more months of headlines from John Durham’s wide-ranging probe into the investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 election, even as some recent stories have been thoroughly debunked. So far Durham, tasked in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr with looking into possible legal violations in the Trump-Russia probe, has charged three people with making false statements: former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith; D.C. cybersecurity attorney Michael Sussmann of Democrat-connected firm Perkins Coie; and Russian-born foreign policy researcher Igor Danchenko. Clinesmith pleaded guilty and got a year of probation. Sussmann and Danchenko pleaded not guilty and are set for separate trials later this year. Nightly’s Renuka Rayasam chatted with Josh Gerstein, a senior legal affairs reporter for POLITICO, over Slack today about where the investigation heads from here. This conversation has been edited. What is Durham investigating? The exact scope of the probe has never been publicly defined. The indictments so far suggest that Durham is trying to tell a story of how specious information about Trump and his circle was taken too seriously by the U.S. government. The question defense lawyers are posing is whether these cases and their dockets are an appropriate place to lay out that narrative, which goes well beyond the core issues in those cases. In December, I asked Attorney General Merrick Garland whether these filings followed DOJ policies and he declined to answer, but he said in essence that a special counsel gets more wiggle room under the rules. Garland has vowed that he will release as much as possible of any final report Durham produces. How solid are these two cases? Numerically speaking, the Sussmann case seems tenuous because it is a single false-statement count based on Sussmann allegedly saying that he wasn’t representing a client when he met with FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016 to relay concerns about a possible digital trail between someone in Trump Tower and Russia’s Alfa Bank. There’s no recording of the meeting and Baker has given varying accounts of exactly what Sussmann said. Sussmann’s trial is set for May. If it happens, that will be a huge test for the Durham probe for whether it can deliver in court. And of course it’s another opportunity for the Durham team to air its assessment of whatever wrongs it thinks were committed in the lead-up to the 2016 election. Danchenko faces five counts, but he’s not a native English speaker, so may be able to argue that he didn’t fully understand the FBI or they didn’t understand him. I think the concerns about Durham’s actions go beyond the charges, though, and more to the way they’re being pursued. For instance, the indictment of Danchenko says an associate of his told another person that Danchenko was likely working for Russian intelligence. That kind of statement probably wouldn’t be admissible in court, isn’t essential to the indictment and I don’t think it would be included in a typical indictment DOJ filed in a typical case. How does this probe end? There’s no time limit that I know of, although technically Garland could dismiss Durham at any time for “misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause.” Danchenko’s trial isn’t scheduled until October, so it seems it runs at least through then, unless there is some deal or resolution in his case. Some observers think Durham may be trying to stack up building blocks here to go after more prominent players, including people who played key roles in Clinton’s campaign. But often these kinds of investigations peter out in ways that some find unsatisfying: with some bit players being charged and perhaps convicted, while others at a higher level remain legally unscathed. Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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