Sources and updates, October 17
COVID-19 data sources and updates for the week of October 17 include new vaccination analyses on the CDC dashboard and mask diplomacy in Latin America.
Read MoreMonth: October 2021
Another COVID-19 endgame take
Trevor Bedford, computational virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center—and widely regarded expert on coronavirus variants—wrote a useful Twitter thread this week. In the thread, Bedford provides his take on the “COVID-19 endgame.” In other words, what will happen once the virus reaches endemic levels?
Read MoreUnreliable population numbers hinder vaccination rate analysis
An excellent article in the Financial Times, published this past Monday, illuminates one major challenge of estimating a vaccine campaign’s success: population data are not always reliable. Health reporter Oliver Barnes and data reporter John Burn-Murdoch explain that, in several countries and smaller regions, inaccurate counts of how many people live in the region have led to vaccination rate estimates that make the area’s vaccine campaign look more successful—or less successful—than it really is.
Read MoreBooster shots: What we’ve learned—and what we still don’t know
This week, the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee had a two-day meeting to discuss booster shots for Moderna’s and Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccines. From the outside, these meetings may have appeared fairly straightforward: the committee voted unanimously to recommend booster shots for both vaccines. But in fact, the discussions on both days were wide-reaching and full of questions, touching on the many continued gaps in our knowledge about the need for additional vaccine doses.
Read MoreNational numbers, October 17
COVID-19 cases continue to drop across the U.S., slowly but surely. We’re now reporting about 85,000 new cases a day, down from 97,000 new cases a day last week, down from 108,000 new cases a day the week before last.
Read MoreCOVID source callout: Booster shot trends
Since August 13, the CDC’s dashboard says, about 7.3 million Americans have received a third dose. These booster shots are obfuscating the country’s vaccination trends. Over one million people have been vaccinated every day for the past week, but roughly half of those people were getting their booster shots.
Read MoreFeatured sources, October 10
Featured sources for the week of October 10 include vaccine effectiveness and children who lost their parents to COVID-19.
Read MoreNebraska’s dashboard is back… Or is it?
Last week, I called out the state of Nebraska for basically demolishing its COVID-19 vaccination data. While I was correct in writing that Nebraska’s weekly update is now incredibly sparse, I missed that the state has, in fact, brought back its COVID-19 dashboard—kind-of.
Read MoreNew study demonstrates potential for measuring breakthrough risk
Adults with substance use disorders have an increased risk of breakthrough cases, according to a new study published this week in the journal World Psychiatry. Though the chances of a COVID-19 case after vaccination were very low in this group, these patients’ odds of a breakthrough case were about twice as high as the odds for adults without substance use disorders, researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found.
Read More12 Long COVID stats that demonstrate the importance of vaccination
Though it’s now been well over a year since the first Long COVID patients were infected, there is still so much we don’t know about the condition. For example, we don’t know a very rudimentary number: how many people in the U.S. are struggling with Long COVID. We also don’t have a clear, detailed picture of Long COVID symptoms, or how these symptoms arise from a coronavirus infection, or how they impact the daily lives of Long COVID patients.
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