WHO ends the global health emergency for COVID-19

As the U.S. gears up to end its federal public health emergency for COVID-19, the World Health Organization just declared an end to the global health emergency. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the declaration on Friday, following a meeting of the organization’s COVID-19 emergency committee the day before.

Read More

We failed to vaccinate the world in 2021; will 2022 be more successful?

In January, COVAX set a goal that many global health advocates considered modest: delivering 2.3 billion vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries by the end of 2021. is saying it’ll deliver just 800 million vaccine doses by the end of 2021, according to the Washington Post, and only about 600 million had been delivered by early December.

Read More

Omicron variant: What we know, what we don’t, and why not to panic (yet)

On Thanksgiving, my Twitter feed was dominated not by food photos, but by news of a novel coronavirus variant identified in South Africa earlier this week. While the variant—now called Omicron, or B.1.1.529—likely didn’t originate in South Africa, data from the country’s comprehensive surveillance system provided enough evidence to suggest that this variant could be more contagious than Delta, as well as potentially more able to evade human immune systems.

Read More

Unpacking Delta AY.4.2: Are we prepared for the next variant?

Recently, a new offshoot of the Delta variant has been gaining ground in the U.K. It’s called AY.4.2, and it appears to be slightly more transmissible than Delta itself. While experts say this variant doesn’t differ enough from Delta to pose a serious concern, I think it’s worth exploring what we know about it so far—and what this means for the future of coronavirus mutation.

Read More

Booster shots exacerbate global vaccine inequity

At the end of last week’s post on booster shots, I wrote that these additional doses take up airtime in expert discussions and in the media, distracting from discussions of what it will take to vaccinate the world. But these shots do more harm than just taking over the media cycle. When the U.S. and other wealthy nations decide to give many residents third doses, they jump the vaccine supply line again—leaving low-income nations to wait even longer for first doses.

Read More