If you’re scheduling an appointment for a vaccination — whether for Covid-19, the flu or for travel to another country — make sure you’re getting a long, restful night’s slumber before you head to the doctor.

Sleeping less than six hours the night before you get the shot may limit your body’s response to the vaccine, reducing protection against the virus or bacteria, according to a new study.

“Good sleep not only amplifies but may also extend the duration of protection of the vaccine,” said senior author Eve Van Cauter, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago’s Department of Medicine, in a statement.

Read more at CNN.

Approximately one-quarter of parents lie about their child’s COVID-19 status or don’t follow public health guidelines like quarantines meant to prevent viral spread, according to survey findings published in JAMA Network Open.¹

Researchers, led by Andrea Gurmankin Levy, PhD, MBE, used a subset of data from a larger national sample of 1733 US adults to focus on survey responses among 580 parents (mean age, 35.9 years; 67% non-Hispanic White; 70% identified as women) of children younger than 18 years.

In total, 150 parents (25.9%) reported misrepresentation and/or nonadherence in at least 1 of 7 behaviors, the most common of which was not telling someone who was with their child that they thought or knew their child had COVID-19 (24.0%) and allowing their child to break quarantine rules (21.1%). Forty-seven parents (10%) said their child was vaccinated when they were not.

Read more at Clinical Advisor.

Soon after the first COVID-19 vaccines appeared in 2021, reports of rare cases of heart inflammation, or myocarditis, began to surface.

In most instances, the myocarditis has been mild and responded well to treatment, though up to four potentially mRNA vaccine-related deaths from myocarditis in adults have been reported worldwide. No known verified deaths of children have been reported based upon publicly available data. The exact number remains a topic of very heated debate because of variability in the reporting of possible myocarditis-related deaths.

Studies have largely confirmed that the overall myocarditis risk is significantly higher after an actual COVID-19 infection compared with vaccination, and that the prognosis following myocarditis due to the vaccine is better than from infection. The specific myocarditis risk varies by age and has been debated because of differing views among a small group of physicians related to risk tolerance and support for or against COVID-19 immunization for specific age groups.

Read more at The Conversation.

It’s been three years since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Now, as the pandemic begins to fade from our everyday lives, it pays to take a quick look back to remember how vital vaccines have been to keeping Americans healthy and the economy moving.  

So, here’s a reminder that FDA-approved COVID vaccines are safe and effective. What’s more, these vaccines have helped ensure the American workforce stays healthy and the economy remains open.  

COVID Vaccines Are Safe and Effective… 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.   

More than 672 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the United States. The vaccines met the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. In addition, serious side effects from COVID vaccines are known to be rare.  

Read more at U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Since COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in the spring of 2021, there has been a wide gap in deaths between the unvaccinated and vaccinated. Toward the end of 2022, though, data showed that most deaths from COVID-19 were among those who are vaccinated. But that doesn’t mean COVID-19 vaccines and boosters are ineffective. It’s quite the opposite.

The bivalent COVID-19 vaccine booster—which was first recommended last fall—protected against infection and death during the circulation of BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants. In fact, people who received the updated COVID-19 bivalent booster were 14 times less likely to die compared with those who received no vaccine. They were also three times less likely to die compared with those who received only the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In an interview, AMA member Elisa Choi, MD, an internal medicine and infectious diseases physician, shared why COVID-19 deaths among vaccinated people are happening and why boosters remain key.

Read more at the American Medical Association.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration, keeping a watchful eye on an outbreak of avian influenza that has led to the deaths of tens of millions of chickens and is driving up the cost of eggs — not to mention raising the frightening specter of a human pandemic — is contemplating a mass vaccination campaign for poultry, according to White House officials.

The bird flu outbreak, which began early last year, is the biggest in the nation’s history, affecting more than 58 million farmed birds in 47 states, as well as birds in the wild. It has already spilled over into mammals, such as mink, foxes, raccoons and bears, raising fears that the virus that causes it, known as H5N1, could mutate and start spreading more easily among people.

Read more at The New York Times.

As Colorado marks another COVID-19 anniversary, the takeaway for historians and epidemiologists is as simple as it is jarring: Americans haven’t learned the lessons from history.

Three years ago Sunday, Colorado reported its first COVID-19 case — a 30-something male skier who had traveled to Italy.

Eight days later, on March 13, an El Paso County woman in her 80s with underlying health conditions became the first in Colorado to die from the novel coronavirus. At the time, Colorado had 77 known cases.

In the days that followed, public health and executive orders shuttered businesses and schools; canceled nonessential surgeries; limited evictions and foreclosures; required face masks in public and shut-in Coloradans with stay-at-home orders.

Read more at The Denver Gazette.

Sunday marked three years since the first known COVID-19 case in Colorado.

Colorado’s first COVID-19 case was confirmed on March 5, 2020, when Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced that a Summit County visitor had tested positive.

Since March 5, 2020, there have been 1,761,324 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Colorado.

There have been 14,909 deaths due to COVID-19 in Colorado over the last three years, while 76,147 have been hospitalized, according to the State of Colorado.

Read more at 9 News.

When a measles outbreak struck Columbus, Ohio, late last year, public health officials learned the overwhelming majority of cases — 80 of 85 — were among unvaccinated children.

Investigators from Columbus Public Health went to speak to parents to ask them why they hadn’t vaccinated their children with the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) shot or why they were delaying vaccination. What they found was surprising.

“What our team heard from many parents is that they weren’t necessarily against vaccines and their children had other age-appropriate vaccines, but they were specifically putting off the MMR vaccine or waiting as long as they could before they had to get it because of fears it could lead to autism,” Kelli Newman, director of public affairs & communications for Columbus Public Health, told ABC News.

What Newman is referencing is a myth that was born out of a now-debunked paper from the U.K. in 1998, which allegedly found that MMR vaccines cause autism.

Read more at ABC.