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With Robert King

SIGN OF THE TIMES — Ashish Jha is stepping down from his role as White House Covid-19 response coordinator on June 15, POLITICO’s David Lim and Adam Cancryn report. He’ll return to his earlier job as dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, the White House confirmed Thursday.

His departure had been long planned and came weeks after the federal government shifted into a new phase of the pandemic by declining to renew the Public Health Emergency.

And he leaves at a time when Covid is relatively under control: The number of Covid hospitalizations in the past week was 7,643, the lowest total since early in the pandemic.

Jha, who was brought on in April 2022, was touted as an effective health communicator as the administration tried to boost vaccination rates and keep the public informed of emerging variants.

He has remained optimistic about the impact of their work not just on the Covid-19 pandemic but also on building up the country’s capacity for controlling and treating infectious diseases.

But the future of that work is still nebulous.

The White House still seeks a permanent director to run its newly established pandemic preparedness office, leaving Biden without a Covid response chief in the West Wing for the first time in his administration. The details of the office itself are still being confirmed as the administration tries to determine its role in the current public health system.

Still, Jha’s departure is another reminder of the new phase of Covid in the country, with the administration at once touting its public health successes and trying to prepare for future pandemics.

“[Jha] has effectively translated and communicated complex scientific challenges into concrete actions that helped save and improve the lives of millions of Americans,” Biden said in a statement. “We are a stronger and healthier nation because of his contributions to public service.”

WELCOME TO FRIDAY PULSE. The early months of the pandemic meant lockdowns for humans — and that meant wild animals roamed more freely.

New research has found that mammals traveled farther in spring 2020 than they did in earlier years, showing how the level of human activity can affect animal behaviors.

Have any unusual animal sightings? What about a big health story that hasn’t been reported yet? Let me know at [email protected].

TODAY ON OUR PULSE CHECK PODCAST, host Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with Carmen Paun about the skepticism that HHS Secretary Xavier Becerras expressed about future funding for Covid vaccines at this week’s POLITICO Health Care Summit.

CASH FOR VALUE-BASED CARE — CMS announced an experimental pilot program Thursday that seeks to give doctors money to ease the transition to a new system that pays them based on the value of care delivered, Robert reports.

The agency announced the Making Primary Care payment model that will be rolled out in eight states starting in July 2024. The model is part of a larger effort by CMS to get doctors who treat patients in rural and underserved communities into value-based payment arrangements.

“Ensuring stability, resiliency, and access to primary care will only improve the health care system,” said Liz Fowler, head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which will oversee the model, in a statement.

Under a value-based care system, doctors are paid based on how well they meet spending and quality targets, and some of Medicare’s savings are shared with physicians. Currently, Medicare reimburses doctors for each item or service, creating a disincentive to deliver the best value to patients.

However, the startup costs for transitioning to value-based care are high, and some doctors in underserved areas who operate on thin margins have long voiced concerns.

The model will run for 10 and a half years and be made up of three tracks. The first track gives financial support to doctors new to value-based care, and the others enable doctors to save more once they’re comfortable in the program.

ANOTHER SPEAKER SQUEEZE — As if House Speaker Kevin McCarthy didn’t have enough to worry about with the party’s conservative wing openly rebelling, centrists are frustrated with leadership — partly over abortion proposals, POLITICO’s Olivia Beavers and Sarah Ferris report.

Behind closed doors Wednesday, McCarthy’s Nos. 2 and 3 briefed about a dozen Republicans — mostly battleground-seat members — on their plan to take up two bills next week: Rep. Andrew Clyde’s (R-Ga.) bid to nix a Biden administration gun regulation and a separate proposal bill to strengthen limits on taxpayer funding for abortion.

The reception wasn’t great.

“Why the hell are we doing this?” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) asked Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), according to two House Republicans familiar with the meeting.

Mace has argued that Republicans are losing the battle for public opinion on abortion — but her takes on the issue have frustrated other Republicans. Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.) confronted Mace for taking to TV to blast other Republicans for their positions on abortion.

It’s another example of the fall of Roe being just the beginning of a new era of politically charged policymaking around abortion.

CAN A PILL PREVENT LONG COVID? A study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases on Thursday suggests that a drug commonly used to treat diabetes could reduce the risk of long Covid. It’s among the first research to point to potential preventive measures for the syndrome.

The research, which included about 1,100 overweight and obese people in the U.S. who tested positive for Covid, found taking metformin was associated with a reduced risk of long Covid by about 40 percent compared with people taking a placebo.

The drug, used to control blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, was taken by participants in the first three days of testing positive. Long Covid treatment wasn’t assessed in the study.

About 10 percent of the control group reported long Covid diagnoses within 10 months of the positive test compared with about 6 percent of the group taking the medication.

The authors, which included researchers from the University of Minnesota, the University of North Carolina and Northwestern University, suggested further study of the drug, particularly focusing on its effects on people with lower weight ranges.

STI STRATEGY — The Biden administration has a new plan to reduce the record rates of sexually transmitted infections, POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein reports.

The initiative sets goals for increasing the number of children and teens vaccinated for HPV, aiming to lower rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis and boosting condom use among high school students.

Infection rates are already at record levels and could get worse. The CDC recorded 2.5 million reported cases of STIs in 2021, though public health officials say that’s likely an undercount with access to testing disrupted by Covid-19.

The strategy will run through 2025 and focuses on the populations at the highest risk of infection and poor health outcomes. And it looks to create a more integrated approach to treatment instead of pushing people to go to separate clinics instead of their primary care doctor for treatment.

Many public health officials and advocates support the plan but warn that funding cuts imposed by the recent debt ceiling deal could undermine its chances of success. They particularly fear that the deal’s clawback of Covid-19 relief funds will strip state and local public health departments of resources they were counting on to combat mpox, syphilis and other infectious diseases.

Andy Kilianski has been named program manager at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. He previously worked at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

ProPublica reports on the forces behind the racial disparity in amputations.

KFF Health News reports on the Congressional committee worrying public health experts.