Making An Appointment For The New Covid Shot? It Has A New Nickname

CBS News: New COVID Vaccine Shots Aren’t Being Called “Boosters.” Here’s Why
“Bye bye, booster. We are no longer giving boosters, and it’s going to be very difficult to stop using that word because that word has become pervasive,” Dr. Keipp Talbot, a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s committee of vaccine advisers, said. Talbot was speaking Thursday at a webinar hosted by the Infectious Diseases Society of America titled, in part, “COVID-19 New Booster Vaccine & Variants Update.” “We are beginning to think of COVID like influenza. Influenza changes each year, and we give a new vaccine for each year. We don’t ‘boost’ each year,” said Talbot. (Tin, 9/15)

On the spread of covid —

NBC News: Covid Symptoms Are Now More Mild And Follow A Pattern, Doctors Say
Doctors say they’re finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish Covid from allergies or the common cold, even as hospitalizations tick up. The illness’ past hallmarks, such as a dry cough or the loss of sense of taste or smell, have become less common. Instead, doctors are observing milder disease, mostly concentrated in the upper respiratory tract. (Bendix, 9/16)

KFF Health News: Health Workers Warn Loosening Mask Advice In Hospitals Would Harm Patients And Providers
Nurses, researchers, and workplace safety officers worry new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might reduce protection against the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens in hospitals. A CDC advisory committee has been updating its 2007 standards for infection control in hospitals this year. Many health care professionals and scientists expressed outrage after the group released a draft of its proposals in June. (Maxmen, 9/18)

CIDRAP: $4.5 Million USDA Grant Funds SARS-CoV-2 Wildlife Sampling
Penn State researchers will use a $4.5 million grant from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to test for SARS-CoV-2 in 58 wildlife species, with the goal of tracking potential human spillback. In a news release yesterday, Penn State said the researchers will collect more than 20,000 samples from wildlife such as eastern chipmunks, gray squirrels, raccoons, coyotes, white-footed mice, moose, wolverines, three species of deer, and several bat species. SARS-CoV-2 has already been found in 29 species, such as white-tailed deer, but most species haven’t been tested. (Van Beusekom, 9/15)

Reuters: WHO Chief Pushes China For ‘Full Access’ To Determine COVID’s Origins, Financial Times Reports
The chief of the World Health Organization urged Beijing to offer more information on the origins of COVID-19 and is ready to send a second team to probe the matter, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. “We’re pressing China to give full access, and we are asking countries to raise it during their bilateral meetings — to urge Beijing to co-operate,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the newspaper. (9/17)

On the spread of misinformation —

CIDRAP: Facebook’s Policy On Anti-COVID Vaccine Content Didn’t Stop Users From Finding It, Study Suggests 
Facebook’s removal of some COVID-19 vaccine misinformation didn’t drive down user engagement with the content—likely because the social media platform’s architecture allowed users to view and interact with it and let groups boost each other’s content or repost deleted posts, suggests an analysis led by George Washington University researchers. (Van Beusekom, 9/15)

USA Today: No, Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine Doesn’t Cause ‘VAIDS’
A Sept. 12 Instagram post shows a post on X, formerly Twitter, that discusses a supposed side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine called “vaccine-induced AIDS.” It includes a photo of a child whose face is covered with sores. … The study proves no such thing. VAIDS is not a real condition, and there is no evidence linking COVID-19 vaccines to immunodeficiency, medical experts say. The study looked at the immune responses of vaccinated children, and its authors say their research was misrepresented. (McCreary, 9/16)

USA Today: Vaccines Can’t Be Sprayed In ‘Chemtrails,’ Scientists Say
The claim: Post implies researchers developed technology to forcibly vaccinate people through ‘chemtrails’ … The implied claim is wrong. The inhaled vaccine technology being developed at Yale cannot be sprayed from the sky in a “chemtrail,” as the post suggests. Inhaled vaccines require measured doses delivered directly into the nose. Experts agreed spraying a vaccine from airplanes is not feasible or ethical. (Trela, 9/15)

In research updates —

The Wall Street Journal: Neanderthal Genes Are Linked To Severe Covid Risk
The northern Italian city of Bergamo suffered one of the world’s highest Covid-19 death rates, with army trucks deployed to carry the dead out of the overwhelmed town in the early days of the pandemic. A new study carried out in Bergamo now suggests that genes inherited from Neanderthals, extinct cousins of modern humans, could help explain why some people developed life-threatening forms of the disease while others didn’t. (Stancati, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Fatigue Patient’s Case Prompts Discovery That May Help With Long Covid
Her dogged efforts lead to a new scientific discovery that may help many others with chronically fatiguing illnesses, including long covid. (Vastag, 9/17)