The new vaccine campaign is one of the country’s last remaining strategies, as masks have fallen away and quarantines have diminished. So far, the rollout is methodical but muted.

It was vaccination time at Ethel Brown’s long-term care home in the Bronx. Again. Ms. Brown, 95, had already gotten four Covid shots, and while she was happy to submit to a fifth, this latest booster prompted a few questions.

“Why are we getting another one?” Ms. Brown asked, as she and other residents waited for their shots on Wednesday. “Will this be the last booster shot?”

With a jumble of confusion, eagerness and vaccine fatigue, America embarked in earnest last week on a sprawling new campaign to get Omicron-specific boosters into the arms of a pandemic-weary country.

Read more at The New York Times.

If you’re thinking of getting an omicron-specific Covid booster shot, you might be wondering what its side effects are — and how severe they might be. 

Rest assured: They’re not expected to be much different from what you may have experienced with previous vaccine and booster doses.

“We just don’t have any data on this [yet], essentially giving two vaccines in one shot — but biologically, I just wouldn’t expect the side effects, severity or the safety profile of the shots to be different from the current mRNA vaccines and boosters,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and member of an independent advisory group to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, tells CNBC Make It.

The reformulated shots from Pfizer and Moderna are bivalent, which means they target both the original Covid strain and omicron’s BA.5 and BA.4 subvariants. Side effect data isn’t available yet because the new boosters were approved by the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before fully completing their clinical trials.

Read more at CNBC.

One of my earliest memories, perhaps the earliest of all, goes back to when I was about four years old, in 1946, living in the Bronx borough of New York City. I awoke to a searing headache and fiery fever, aching all over. I remember a tube being inserted into my privates, to help withdraw urine. I awoke again, I don’t know how much later, hours or days, in a hospital ward. In the bed next to me was a man engaged with a terrifying contraption I now know was an iron lung, to help him breathe.

I could breathe OK, and the terrible fever and headaches had subsided. But I couldn’t move my legs.

My disease, I soon learned, was called infantile paralysis, poliomyelitis, or just polio. I had a relatively mild version. Within two or three weeks, when the acute stage ended, I was taken across the Hudson River to a rehabilitation hospital in a place called Haverstraw, New York. Over a period of months there, helped by a determined staff, I gradually regained some strength in my legs. I could walk but not yet run. Still, I could go home to our apartment in the Bronx, reconnect with my brother and parents, and start kindergarten, on time, with my age mates.

Read more at The Guardian.

Fall and winter are around the corner, which means not only is it time to get your flu shot, but US health officials are urging everyone who is eligible to get their updated Covid-19 booster, too.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the updated Covid-19 vaccine boosters this month, after the US Food and Drug Administration’s authorization. The updated Pfizer/BioNTech booster is authorized for people 12 and older, and Moderna’s is authorized for 18 and older.

At the same time, health officials stress the recommendation to get your seasonal flu vaccine. Some disease forecasters worry that the upcoming flu season could be a tough one for North America, as nations in the Southern Hemisphere that already had their flu seasons — like Australia and New Zealand — saw higher-than-average peaks in cases. So, the United States could see flu make a comeback while Covid-19 is still circulating at higher levels.

Barring any new and concerning coronavirus variants, some officials predict that the updated Covid-19 shots could be the start of recommended boosters for Americans each year, similar to how updated annual flu vaccines are given.

Read more at CNN.

Mass, state-run vaccination sites have returned to Colorado, that includes in El Paso and Pueblo County. This time, the sites will distribute COVID-19 vaccines specific to the omicron sub-variant.

On opening day for two vaccine sites in Southern Colorado, 13 Investigates asked the state why these sites are necessary after they closed on March 31 and Colorado Governor Jared Polis announced his “Roadmap to Moving Forward” campaign on February 25.

“Our goal here is to increase access to the new Pfizer and Moderna omicron vaccine,” Heather Roth, CDPHE Immunization Branch Chief, explained.

Read more at KRDO.

The U.S. monkeypox outbreak is slowing as vaccines have become more available and there’s broader public awareness about what actions individuals can take to lower their risk of infection, according to White House health officials.

Demetre Daskalakis, deputy head of the White House monkeypox response team, said it took 25 days for cases to double in August, down from eight days in July. California, New York, Illinois and Texas have all seen significant declines in new cases over the past month, Daskalakis said.

“The positive trends that we’re seeing in this data also speak to the actions of individuals taken across the country to protect themselves against the virus that includes changing their behaviors and seeking out testing and vaccines,” Daskalakis said.

Read more at CNBC.

With the arrival of new bivalent booster shots that target omicron subvariants of COVID-19, Colorado is reviving nearly a dozen community vaccination sites from the Front Range to the Western Slope.

The governor announced the sites Wednesday afternoon as Gov. Jared Polis rolled up his sleeve to get the shot himself. According to a release from the governor’s office, community sites will be opening up starting next week. The Ball Arena site is already up and running with 207 appointments filled up out of the 400 doses available.

Read more at KDVR.

During the long months of COVID-19 restriction, work and school patterns were upended, routine healthcare visits were delayed and many children fell behind on recommended immunizations. 

Those desperate early days of the pandemic have passed, but another threat is now emerging — too many children, especially those who are uninsured or underinsured, have not caught up on missed vaccinations and are falling further behind, giving preventable diseases the chance for a dangerous comeback. 

In July, the New York State Department of Health reported the first case of polio in the United States in almost a decade. Weeks later, health officials found polio virus in wastewater samples, prompting a warning that hundreds of people may be infected. 

Read more at Healthcare Dive.

Ahead of what may be an intense flu season, the American Academy of Pediatrics urged parents on Tuesday to make sure their children are vaccinated against the flu this fall, adding that some kids may need more than one flu shot.

The recommendation that some children need two flu shots is not new, but experts say it’s particularly important after two years of the Covid pandemic.

Children ages 6 months through 8 years old who’ve either never received a flu shot or who’ve only ever had a single flu shot should get two this year, a month apart, for maximum protection.

Read more at NBC.

A new shot designed to protect against the newest variants of COVID-19 is now available across Colorado.

They were authorized by the FDA and approved by the CDC at the end of August. As of Aug. 31, the previous boosters for Moderna and Pfizer are no longer authorized for use for anyone age 12 or older.

Now, experts recommend getting this new shot at least two months after your previous dose. This can be taken after your original two shots or your most recent booster.

Unlike previous shots, which only have one component designed to fight the original strain of the coronavirus that started the pandemic, these new shots are bivalent. That means they include two components: one to fight the original strain and another to fight the newest BA-4 and BA-5 variants of Omicron. These are the dominant variants across the U.S.

Read more at KKTV.