In the latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), researchers summarized data provided by local and state vaccination programs for kindergarteners across 49 United States (US) and the District of Columbia (DC) and provisional admissions or grace periods of admission across 27 US states between 2021 and 2022.

Local- and state-level vaccinations can prevent diseases among students. Despite almost entirely resuming in-person learning following coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related disturbances, vaccination programs continue to document the impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections on vaccination coverage and evaluation. Follow-up assessments with under-vaccinated children are critical to increasing vaccine distribution to pre-COVID-19 levels and protecting pediatric individuals from developing diseases.

Read more at News Medical.

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended that the agency should approve the first vaccine to protect infants from RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. But some of the experts expressed reservations about the adequacy of data in support of the vaccine’s safety.

In a two-part vote, the experts voted unanimously, 14-0, that the available data support the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in preventing severe RSV-related respiratory illness. They then voted 10-4 that the data supports the vaccine’s safety.

RSV is a leading cause of infant hospitalization in the U.S. From 58,000 to 80,000 children younger than 5 years old are hospitalized each year with RSV infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infants 6 months old and younger are at elevated risk for severe RSV illness.

Read more at NPR.

Now that state and federal officials have declared the COVID-19 public health emergency is over, we checked in with some top doctors in Colorado who’ve dealt with the virus first-hand over the last three years and asked them for the most current thinking about the virus: vaccination recommendations, predictions about future spread, long COVID and masking.

Our panel of experts includes Dr. Diane Janowicz, who specializes in infectious disease at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Grand Junction; Dr. Anuj Mehta, an ICU pulmonologist at Denver Health who has advised the state on vaccine allocation; and Dr. Ken Lyn-Kew, a critical care pulmonologist at National Jewish Health in Denver.

Answers have been edited slightly for clarity.

Have we moved from a pandemic to the endemic stage of the virus? 

Read more at CPR.

Americans remain steadfast in their belief in the overall value of childhood vaccines, with no change over the last four years in the large majority who say the benefits of childhood vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) outweigh the risks, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Still, the survey finds that alongside broad support for childhood vaccines there are signs of some concern – especially among those closest to the decision-making process of vaccinating children. Parents see the risks of MMR vaccines as a bit higher than other Americans, and about half of those with a young child ages 0 to 4 say the statement “I worry that not all of the childhood vaccines are necessary” describes their views at least somewhat well. Concerns tend to be higher among mothers than fathers: Roughly half of mothers with a child under 18 rate the risk of side effects from MMR vaccines as medium or high – 15 percentage points higher than the share of fathers who say this.

Read more at Pew Research.

Researchers for a universal flu vaccine based on mRNA technology are beginning to enroll volunteers in an early-stage clinical trial.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center has started to enroll volunteers at the Duke University for its Phase 1 trial of the mRNA-based vaccine, which uses the same technology as the COVID-19 vaccines. The study will have 50 “healthy volunteers” ages 18 to 49 enrolled in the trial who will receive check ups up to one year after their vaccination.

Read more at The Hill.

International passengers traveling to the United States no longer have to show proof of vaccination against Covid as of midnight Thursday, when the coronavirus health emergency officially ended.

The Biden administration dropped its requirement for coronavirus testing last June but kept in place its vaccination policy for foreign travelers. In February, the House of Representatives voted to end the last remaining pandemic restrictions on May 11.

“As we continue to monitor the evolving state of Covid-19 and the emergence of virus variants, we have the tools to detect and respond to the potential emergence of a variant of high consequence,” President Biden said in a proclamation published on May 1.

Read more at The New York Times.

The federal government declared a public health emergency as the ramifications of COVID-19 first began to set in more than three years ago.

That formal declaration expires Thursday.

For many Coloradans, the sunsetting of the public health emergency won’t have a ton of tangible effects. But the end of the emergency order will leave some of Colorado’s most vulnerable even more at risk. Here’s how access to vaccines, testing and other COVID-19 measures will be affected by the emergency declaration’s expiration. 

Vaccines and other treatments won’t be immediately affected, but that could change

All Coloradans, regardless of insurance status, should have some form of access to COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, even after the emergency expires. 

Read more at CPR.

Colorado is preparing for the end of the COVID pandemic federal health emergency which expires on May 11. The state has authored a plan titled “Roadmap to Moving Forward” as a way to navigate the changes. 

According to the State of Colorado, “The Roadmap is the state’s plan for a sustainable, proportional, and continued response to COVID-19 that includes partnership between public and private entities to address the health care needs of all Coloradans.”

Free COVID vaccines are available to everyone ages 6 months and up across the state through May 11. State officials said that even though free vaccines end on Thursday, Coloradans are urged to keep up to date on their vaccinations. 

Read more at CBS Colorado.

Recent discussions around the mass distribution and application of vaccines, long a stalwart of public health programs, have mainly targeted COVID-19 these last years. A perusal of news sites and social media, especially in the United States and Europe, would suggest that COVID-19 vaccine campaigns are uniquely unsettling—that previous campaigns for widespread inoculations were neither emphatic nor divisive. Yet this is far from the first time doctors, public health officials, and members of the public have clashed over the necessity and matter of vaccine distribution.

The concept of bestowing immunity through a small amount of infectious material has existed for centuries; often, it has meant exposing well persons to sick ones. While the process may have occurred as early as 200 BCE, the first widely known and coordinated vaccination campaign began with English physician Edward Jenner in the second half of the eighteenth century. Having observed that milkmaids, among other cases, exposed to cowpox seemed to have greater protection against contracting smallpox, Jenner inoculated a young boy with material from a cowpox sore and then exposed him to smallpox. By doing so, Jenner established the idea of a standardized vaccination and began writing and speaking on its promotion.

Read more at JSTOR Daily.

Starting this week, at-home tests for COVID-19 will no longer be free, but other changes from the end of the federal government’s public health emergency won’t be as obvious.

The public health emergency, declared in January 2020, will lapse Thursday, but many people may not notice a difference. Despite the association between the public health emergency and measures like mask mandates in many people’s minds, nearly all anti-COVID precautions already have been lifted. The end of continuous Medicaid coverage during the pandemic also is no longer linked to the end of the public health emergency, and the state has already started determining who still qualifies.

There will be some changes, however. A rule requiring insurance companies to cover eight at-home tests monthly for each member will end, though Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program will cover tests through September 2024. Emergency regulations allowing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collect more data will also expire, meaning that the picture of how the virus is behaving will become fuzzier.

Read more at The Denver Post.