Trump administration

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he did not agree to be featured in a campaign ad praising President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response, which included comments from a March interview where Fauci said he “can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more.” Fauci said he was referring broadly to the efforts of federal public health officials and that his comments “were taken out of context” in the 30-second ad, also noting that he has never publicly endorsed a political candidate over his nearly five-decade public career.

• Trump defended his handling of the pandemic at his first rally since being diagnosed with COVID-19, saying his administration was “delivering a safe vaccine and a rapid recovery like no one can even believe” and declaring himself “immune” to the coronavirus.

• Senior White House officials cited a declaration arguing for a “herd immunity” approach to the coronavirus pandemic that rejects “lockdown policies” and allows “those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection.” Many health experts disagree with the declaration’s positions and say herd immunity is still far-off in the United States, and research indicates about 85 to 90 percent of Americans are still vulnerable to the virus.

• The White House directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to edit coronavirus safety guidelines for churches in May, prompting Dr. Jay Butler, an infectious disease specialist who was heading the CDC’s pandemic response, to tell colleagues in an email that he was worried “there will be people who will get sick and perhaps die because of what we were forced to do,” according to an investigation chronicling the agency’s blunders during the pandemic.

Drug companies

• The COVID-19 treatment remdesivir did not substantially affect mortality in a global trial of more than 11,000 people sponsored by the World Health Organization, meaning the cheap steroid dexamethasone is the only drug proven to improve COVID-19 survival rates.

• Pfizer Inc. won’t apply for emergency authorization of its coronavirus vaccine before the third week of November, because while the drugmaker could have preliminary data on the vaccine’s efficacy by the end of October, it will need time to collect safety and manufacturing data, Chief Executive Dr. Albert Bourla said in a statement. The timeline rules out Trump’s assurances that a vaccine would be available by the Nov. 3 election, given Moderna Inc., AstraZeneca PLC and Johnson & Johnson, which all have vaccines in late-stage trials, have said it’s more likely their vaccine candidates will be ready later in the year.

• Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine trial was paused after “an unexplained illness in a study participant,” according to a document sent to outside researchers running the 60,000-patient study.

• Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. will provide the federal government with about 300,000 doses of its antibody cocktail treatment through a $450 million contract the company won in July, but with demand for coronavirus treatments outstripping supply, the Trump administration will have to “figure out ways to ration this,” Regeneron founder and chief executive Dr. Leonard Schleifer said.

• A clinical trial testing whether adding Eli Lilly & Co.’s antibody drug to Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir would help hospitalized COVID-19 patients was temporarily paused for a potential safety concern at the recommendation of an independent data safety monitoring board, Lilly confirmed. The safety board said it would review data from the trial, which had enrolled 326 patients since August, and make a recommendation about whether enrollment should resume at its Oct. 26 meeting.

• Inmazeb, an antibody cocktail made by Regeneron, became the first therapeutic approved by the Food and Drug Administration to specifically treat Ebola, joining Merck & Co.’s Ervebo vaccine and representing a major breakthrough to battle the extremely deadly infection.

Supreme Court and the ACA

• The Affordable Care Act loomed large during Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), the party’s vice presidential nominee, saying the dismantling of the ACA would result in “millions of people losing access to health care at the worst possible time, in the middle of a pandemic.”

• Barrett said her personal views on health care and abortion would not affect her decisions if confirmed to the Supreme Court, though she deflected questions about how she would rule in such cases and said she didn’t view Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion, as a “super precedent” that cannot be overturned. Under questioning from Democrats, who have made health care access central to her confirmation battle, Barrett said she was not “on a mission to destroy the Affordable Care Act,” though she has criticized a previous Supreme Court decision to uphold the 2010 health care law.

• The Senate is scheduled to be in a state work period until Nov. 6, though the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to serve as an associate justice on the Supreme Court on Thursday. The House is scheduled to be in a district work period until Nov. 16.

• The House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Oversight will hold a hearing on health insurance enrollment featuring United States of Care’s Andy Slavitt at 12 p.m. on Tuesday.

• The Milken Institute’s Global Conference will host a conversation with FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn at 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday.

• The FDA will hold an advisory committee meeting on coronavirus vaccines at 10 a.m. on Thursday.

1) Covid-19 herd immunity, backed by White House, is a ‘dangerous fallacy,’ scientists warn
Erika Edwards, NBC News

2) White House embraces a declaration from scientists that opposes lockdowns and relies on ‘herd immunity.’
Sheryl Gay Stolberg, The New York Times

3) The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Outpatient Care: Visits Return to Prepandemic Levels, but Not for All Providers and Patients
Ateev Mehrotra et al., The Commonwealth Fund

4) The pandemic isn’t keeping the health care industry down
Bob Herman, Axios

5) Scientists Confirm Nevada Man Was Infected Twice With Coronavirus
Rebecca Hersher, NPR News

6) Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine study paused due to unexplained illness in participant
Matthew Herper, Stat News

7) Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Vaccine Guidance Most Likely to Encourage Voters to Get Vaccinated
Gaby Galvin, Morning Consult

8) Day-Care Centers Are Very Low Risk for Covid-19 Transmission, Study Says
Robbie Whelan, The Wall Street Journal

9) Trump still doesn’t have a plan to replace Obamacare if the Supreme Court kills the law. But one of his top advisors is sharing these clues about what would happen next.
Kimberly Leonard, Business Insider

10) The inside story of how Trump’s COVID-19 coordinator undermined the world’s top health agency
Charles Piller, Science