Tuesday, May 10, 2022 | Kaiser Health News

Bloomberg:
Covid Vaccine Boosters: Fourth MRNA Shot Provides Covid Defense In U.K. Trial

Fourth doses of messenger RNA vaccines added to the defense been given from a 3rd shot in a U.K. demo that underscores the advantages of boosters for the most vulnerable men and women. The investigate, printed Monday in The Lancet Infectious Ailments journal, discovered that fourth doses of mRNA vaccines can present a important improve in antibody amounts in individuals who gained Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine as a third dose. They’re also efficient at raising protection probably previously mentioned peak concentrations viewed soon after 3rd doses, according to the most up-to-date results from the demo. (Paton, 5/9)

Additional on the vaccine rollout —

Oklahoman:
Large The greater part Of Oklahomans Who Are Qualified For 2nd COVID Booster Have not Gotten One particular

The large the greater part of Oklahomans eligible for a 2nd COVID-19 booster have not gotten a person, facts shared by the state Health and fitness Department reveals. Of the around 446,000 inhabitants who are qualified for a next booster, only about 50,000 — or 11{6f90f2fe98827f97fd05e0011472e53c8890931f9d0d5714295052b72b9b5161} — have acquired a next booster. That data runs through April 26, and it does not include second booster doses given as a result of federal entities these types of as the Bureau of Prisons or Indian Health and fitness Support. (Branham, 5/9)

NPR:
COVID Anti-Vaxxers Refuse Vaccines Despite Evidence

West Hansen pilots his muddy Subaru through the industrial landscape of Southeast Texas wherever he grew up — past Bible churches, donut retailers and the silver industrial towers of the refineries. The longtime social employee says he is presented up hoping to make clear to his clients how safe and sound the COVID-19 vaccines are. “I’ve developed weary of it,” he says. “I’ve recognized that there’s no convincing somebody as soon as they have their intellect produced up.” He pulls up to the neatly trimmed property of a townhouse where Donna and Danny Downes are waiting for him in their residing home. She is a function-at-dwelling administrator for a fence contractor he’s a retired coverage salesman who is lawfully blind. They are devout Baptists. (Burnett, 5/10)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Vaccines, Treatment plans Give Hope For COVID-19 Pandemic’s Next Chapter

With COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics now extensively obtainable, Wisconsin wellness experts are cautiously optimistic that even if scenarios increase, they will never final result in too much to handle hospitalizations and fatalities. The perception is that even with conditions mounting in Wisconsin and nationally, the blend of vaccines, anti-viral therapeutics, at-property tests and informed individual decision-earning can all help the state close in on the intention public health and fitness officers set again in March 2020: to “flatten the curve” and stop as several men and women as attainable from ending up hospitalized or on the cusp of demise. (Shastri, 5/9)

In updates on Paxlovid —

AP:
Uncommon Cases Of COVID Returning Pose Thoughts For Pfizer Pill 

As extra physicians prescribe Pfizer’s strong COVID-19 capsule, new questions are emerging about its effectiveness, which include why a tiny number of clients appear to relapse immediately after getting the drug. … Could some individuals just be vulnerable to a relapse? Both equally the Fda and Pfizer issue out that 1{6f90f2fe98827f97fd05e0011472e53c8890931f9d0d5714295052b72b9b5161} to 2{6f90f2fe98827f97fd05e0011472e53c8890931f9d0d5714295052b72b9b5161} of folks in Pfizer’s original examine saw their virus levels rebound just after 10 times. The charge was about the very same among persons using the drug or dummy pills, “so it is unclear at this place that this is connected to drug procedure,” the Food and drug administration said. (Perrone, 5/9)

Stat:
Telehealth Aims To Crack Open Paxlovid’s Prescription Bottleneck

Right after months of shortages, pharmacies across the United States are currently being stocked with medications to treat Covid-19. Now, the bottleneck has shifted to acquiring a prescription — and patients and general public well being businesses are hunting to telehealth for aid. Past week, Massachusetts introduced totally free televisits for point out inhabitants who have tested beneficial for Covid-19, like house supply of Paxlovid, Pfizer’s oral antiviral, if recommended. New York City has stuffed more than 16,000 classes of the drug via its household shipping method, 2,100 of which started with a totally free telehealth visit with NYC Well being + Hospitals. And a developing number of digital care organizations are advertising and marketing televisits as a very first-line resource for individuals who have examined positive, promoting in opposition to Google searches for “Paxlovid” and partnering with screening providers that route clients to their companies. (Palmer, 5/10)

And in information about vaccine and mask mandates —

Bay Place Information Group:
San Jose Reinstates Mask Mandate For Metropolis Personnel As COVID-19 Conditions Rise

As the Bay Area braces for yet yet another COVID-19 surge, a couple of metropolitan areas and agencies are reinstating indoor mask mandates as the location carries on debating the truly worth of a patchwork of coronavirus-relevant health and fitness orders. Due to the fact late March, California’s case level has nearly tripled and the Bay Region — which traditionally expert a reduced scenario fee than the rest of the point out — has emerged as a COVID hotspot. Though scenarios are still a single-tenth of what they have been in the course of January’s omicron surge, the location has extra than three moments as a lot of beneficial conditions than it did 6 weeks soon after the wintertime surge. That pattern commenced in San Francisco all around mid-March, adopted by Santa Clara, San Mateo and a tiny later the other counties. (Hase, 5/9)

The Boston Globe:
Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge Educational institutions Urging Pupils To Mask Up Just after Increase In COVID-19 Cases

College officers in Arlington, Belmont, and Cambridge are recommending that students don masks indoors, adhering to the CDC’s classification of Middlesex County as having a substantial level of COVID-19 transmission. Arlington’s superintendent, Elizabeth C. Homan, despatched a letter to families on Sunday recommending the alter, and Belmont’s superintendent, John P. Phelan, notified family members on Monday. Cambridge General public Faculties verified its suggestion Monday in a separate notice to family members signed by the “CPS Workforce.” (Andersen, 5/9)

The Washington Publish:
Mask Mandates Have Fallen Out Of Favor, Even As Covid Scenarios Rise 

New York Metropolis elevated its coronavirus alert amount previous week in response to climbing conditions, triggering a advice — but not a need — that people today dress in masks in general public indoor options. In Philadelphia, officers reimposed a mask mandate past thirty day period after circumstances rose, only to scrap the rule 4 days right after it took impact. The decisions by the Democratic-run towns illustrate how mask mandates are slipping out of favor with American public wellbeing authorities in the third calendar year of the pandemic and the bar to carry them back again is finding greater, even in locations where by the prerequisites were being extended embraced as a tested way to cut down the spread of coronavirus. (Nirappil, 5/9)

The Atlantic:
How New York’s COVID War Spun Out Of Management

“I had no notion I would need police defense,” Vasan told me in his to start with community feedback about the lethal threats he and his family members have faced in modern weeks. “It is surreal. I signify, I can only use that phrase.” Vasan, a principal-care doctor and epidemiologist at Columbia College, started serving as the city’s wellness commissioner in mid-March. His early months on the job were being somewhat relaxed. Then, on the evening of April 4, about two dozen protesters assembled on his Brooklyn block. How they received his residence address remains unclear. At very first, the scene resembled scores of other pandemic demonstrations: anti-Biden flags, anti-mandate posters. A staccato chant echoed via the brownstone canyon: “We! The People! Will Not Comply!” Then the electrical power altered. A group of agitators climbed Vasan’s front steps, banged on his front door, and screamed racial epithets. Some hurled death threats. (Hendrickson, 5/9)