The COVID summer wave is in full swing. With cases rising and new variants continuing to pop up, it’s normal to wonder about your potential for long COVID. Scientists are slowly learning more about the condition, including how to try to prevent it in the first place. Now, new research suggests there’s a clear way to lower your risk of developing long COVID: the COVID-19 vaccine.

That’s the main takeaway from a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. For the study, researchers analyzed medical records of nearly 450,000 people from the Department of Veterans Affairs health system who had COVID-19 diagnosed between March 1, 2020, and Jan. 31, 2022. Those patients were compared with around 4.7 million people who weren’t diagnosed with COVID-19 during the same time.

Read more at Prevention.

Reported cases of whooping cough are rising

The number of people reported with whooping cough, a bacterial respiratory illness, has been increasing in the United States. According to CDC preliminary data as of June 1, 2024, reported cases are more than twice as high this year compared to the same time period last year. Note that these numbers can change as health departments and CDC finalize the data.

Read more at CDC.

It’s almost time for the kids to head back to class! The Colorado Springs Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has a plan to help maintain student well-being in the upcoming academic year.

The Colorado Springs Hispanic Chamber has launched a new community outreach initiative in collaboration with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and Julissa Soto Latino Health Equity Consulting. Soto shared the essence of the “One School, One Vaccine at a Time” (Una Escuela, Una Vacuna a la Vez) campaign on FOX21’s lifestyle show.

Read more at Fox 21.

Routine vaccination rates for kindergarten children ticked down during the COVID-19 pandemic and have yet to rebound while exemptions from school vaccination requirements have increased, likely contributing to a recent surge in measles cases. At the same time, vaccine hesitancy, fueled in part by vaccine misinformation, increased during the pandemic, and public opinion on vaccine requirements has become increasingly partisan. Vaccine policies have emerged as an election issue, with both former President Trump and Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. embracing anti-vaccination attitudes and contributing to vaccine misinformation. This is in sharp contrast to current President Biden who has supported vaccine mandates and taken action to expand access to vaccines for both children and adults. This issue brief further explores this changing landscape by examining the latest trends in children’s routine vaccination rates, the factors contributing to recent vaccination trends, and policy approaches to increasing vaccination rates as children head into a new school year. Key takeaways include:

Read more at KFF.

Meningococcal meningitis can strike healthy individuals unexpectedly and result in the death of one in 10 infected people, sometimes causing long-term health problems including brain damage and loss of limbs. Although rare, meningitis disproportionately affects college students.

Because meningitis serogroup B (MenB) has caused all meningococcal meningitis outbreaks on U.S. college campuses since 2011, according to the CDC, undergraduate researchers at Quinnipiac University conducted a survey to examine MenB knowledge among their peers, to encourage vaccination. Their findings, presented by Katrina Etts, BS, at ASM Microbe 2024 in Atlanta, indicate a significant lack of awareness about the risk for MenB.

Read more at Infectious Disease Special Edition.

Four poultry workers in Colorado who recently contracted bird flu bring the total of human cases in the U.S. to at least nine. 

Though that number is small, disease researchers say commonalities between the cases — all but one of which were reported in the last four months — are enough to start assembling a picture of how the virus may affect people. 

The U.S. cases have been relatively mild and limited to farm workers who had handled infected animals — a sign that the virus in its current state isn’t a major threat to humans. 

Read more at NBC.

A large new study provides some of the strongest evidence yet that vaccines reduce the risk of developing long Covid.

Scientists looked at people in the United States infected during the first two years of the pandemic and found that the percentage of vaccinated people who developed long Covid was much lower than the percentage of unvaccinated people who did.

Medical experts have previously said that vaccines can lower the risk of long Covid, largely because they help prevent severe illness during the infection period and people with severe infections are more likely to have long-term symptoms.

Read more at The New York Times.

Bird flu has infected six farmworkers in Colorado this month — the most in any state — as health officials stressed the importance of preparedness to contain the H5N1 virus spreading in dairy herds and poultry flocks across the country.

Five of the workers were culling poultry at the same commercial egg-laying farm experiencing an outbreakaffecting nearly 2 million chickens, according to Colorado officials.

During a news briefing Tuesday, federal officials said temperatures soaring above 104 degrees made it difficult for workers to wear the required full-body suits, goggles and N95 masks to protect them from the virus.

Read more at The Washington Post.

Nearly 1 in 10 people infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy developed long covid, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Thursday’s study, which highlights the consequences of the virus during pregnancy, suggests long covid is more prevalent among people infected while pregnant than in the population overall. As many as 7 percent of Americans report having symptoms associated with long covid, according to a 2022 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some surveys suggest a far higher incidence of long covid in the general population.

Read more at The Washington Post.

When his nine-year-old son went to a routine doctor’s appointment a few years ago, Nosayaba Osazuwa-Peters, Ph.D., expected that he would receive a vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV). The vaccine, which protects against multiple forms of cancer caused by HPV, is recommended for pre-teen boys and girls. And can be given beginning at age nine.

Osazuwa-Peters, an associate professor of global health who studies some of the cancers caused by HPV, saw no reason to delay. But he was surprised when his son’s doctor said the vaccine could wait, since he was at low risk for HPV infection.

“I couldn’t wait for my son to receive the vaccine,” says Osazuwa-Peters, who is also in the Department of Head and Neck Surgery and Communication Sciences in the Duke School of Medicine. “And for him not to, I wasn’t happy about that.”

Read more at Duke Global Health Institute.