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A gathering in Providence of public health officials from eight states this week could lead to a new regional collaboration positioned to supplant the Trump administration’s oversight of some major public health services. Massachusetts health officials had already discussed the possibility of coordinating vaccine recommendations with neighboring states, rather than relying on federal health agencies for guidance. But in the wake of the meeting in Providence, officials said, participating states also considered how they could work collectively to maintain effective disease tracking and emergency response services in the face of the Trump administration’s damaging funding cuts and changing health priorities. (Laughlin, 8/22)

The millions of Americans who are used to getting their Covid-19 vaccines at a local pharmacy may face new hurdles this fall depending on where they live and whether federal health officials have decided they qualify. Pharmacists’ authority to vaccinate individuals varies across state lines. In some places, it’s dependent upon a federal advisory process that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended. (Gardner, 8/22)

The man who attacked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention probably tried to enter the agency’s Atlanta campus days before the shooting, investigators believe. The shooter, identified by authorities as Patrick Joseph White, appears to have been captured in security camera footage trying to enter the campus visitor’s center late in the afternoon on Aug. 6, according to an internal email to CDC staff, reviewed by STAT. The email said “the likelihood is very high” the person in the video is White. Investigators believe White “was conducting reconnaissance” for the shooting, which he carried out two days later, the email states. (Payne, 8/21)

There will be some 300,000 fewer federal workers on the government payroll by the end of December than there were in January, according to the Trump administration’s top human resources official. That amounts to the loss of about one in eight federal civilian workers, and would be the largest single-year reduction since World War II. But in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, Scott Kupor, painted the coming few months as a period of relative stability after a time of tremendous upheaval. (Sullivan, 8/22)