Dec. 3 News: Biden health care team, School closings, HHS secretary frontrunner, Childhood immunization rates

Associated Press – Next for Biden: Naming a health care team as pandemic rages

Up soon for President-elect Joe Biden: naming his top health care officials as the coronavirus pandemic rages. It’s hard to imagine more consequential picks.

Associated Press – School closings threaten gains of students with disabilities

Without any in-school special education services for months, 14-year-old Joshua Nazzaro’s normally sweet demeanor has sometimes given way to aggressive meltdowns that had been under control before the pandemic.

NPR – U.S. hits 100,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations; More than 3,100 deaths

More than 100,000 Americans are in the hospital with COVID-19, at the same time the nation recorded its single-worst daily death toll since the start of the pandemic.

POLITICO – Raimondo emerges as frontrunner for HHS secretary

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo is now a top contender to be President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, according to two people close to the transition.

Kaiser Health News – Feds look to pharmacists to boost childhood immunization rates

Torey Watson is trained as a pharmacist but aims to do more than simply fill prescriptions. Pharmax Pharmacy — a small drugstore chain where Watson works as a clinical services coordinator, about an hour and 30 minutes southwest of St. Louis — will soon allow him to offer childhood vaccines to patients without a doctor’s prescription. This change came after the federal government expanded pharmacists’ ability to administer routine immunizations to children as young as 3.