December 29, 2021

At the Ascension Catholic Parish in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood, on a recent Sunday morning, a church band played. Hundreds of people packed the pews. In the front of the room there was a large gold cross, a painting of the Virgin Mary and a bouquet of white flowers.

Every single person was wearing a mask, as a woman with long dark hair stepped up to the pulpit. “Buenos días, mi nombre es Julissa Soto,” she said.

Soto was not there to talk religion or read scripture. She was here to speak about health, specifically COVID-19 immunization. She gave a simple, roughly four-minute message: COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, available and can keep you and your family safe and healthy.

In the church parking lot, a state vaccination bus was parked. Volunteers were preparing to give doses as Soto, an independent health equity consultant who works with the state, looked on.

Nearly two years into the pandemic, the new omicron variant is spreading at lightning speed. And whether it’s a product of misinformation, hesitancy, lack of access, or even fear, the number of Latinos in Colorado who are vaccinated lags far behind the share of the white population that is immunized. That could mean trouble both for these residents and for Colorado’s already stressed health care system. But Soto is doing something about those numbers.

“I’m on a mission of getting my community vaccinated and I will not stop until I get the last Latino vaccinated,” Soto said.

Read more at CPR.

December 21, 2021

You might have heard a lot about the human papillomavirus (HPV) and its role in cervical cancer, but this sexually transmitted virus can also cause another type of cancer.

Rates of oropharyngeal cancer, which occurs in the middle part of the throat, are rising rapidly among older men throughout the United States. They’re also growing among women in the Southeast and Midwest.

Investigators from University of Texas Health School of Public Health have been examining the occurrence of these cases, finding also that people diagnosed with large tumors and the death rate related to this have increased in the past decade.

“Ten, 15 or 20 years ago, what we observed was that the oropharyngeal cancer incidents were largely an issue among young individuals,” said study author Ashish Deshmukh. “Now there’s a shift that we are seeing a decrease or a stabilization among young and middle-age groups, but among older individuals, now the increases are more rapid.”

Read more at U.S. News & World Report.

December 22, 2021

A COVID-19 vaccine for young children is “unlikely” to be available before mid or even late 2022, an expert said.

Pfizer and BioNTech announced last week that they were evaluating the addition of a third 3 µg dose of their vaccine for children aged 6 months to 5 years after the two-dose series failed to produce the expected level of protection in study participants aged 2 to 5 years, although protection in participants aged 6 to 24 months matched that seen in adolescents and young adults.

If the three-dose series is successful, the companies said they would submit data to the FDA for an emergency use authorization “in the first half of 2022.”

“Hopefully, that’ll make up for the fact that it didn’t get an adequate response with two doses for that older group within that population,” Paul A. Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told Healio.

Read more at Healio.

December 23, 2021

The omicron variant is heightening risks for this little-talked-about demographic: pregnant women.

Left out of early vaccine trials and faced with confusing messages and misinformation on the dangers to their unborn children, a disproportionately large number of pregnant women have steered clear of COVID shots. About 75% of expectant mothers in the U.K. and about 65% in the U.S. remain unvaccinated, making them among the groups most at risk of getting infected and being exposed to severe forms of the disease as the fast-spreading omicron strain sweeps across the globe. 

At least 17 pregnant women and four babies have died from COVID-19 in England between May and October, figures published last week show. Over that period, 98% of pregnant women admitted to intensive care were unvaccinated. Also, since July, one in five Covid patients receiving treatment in England through a special lung-bypass machine was an unvaccinated expectant mother. 

Read more at Fortune.

December 22, 2021

Today, 204 million people in the US are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means they’ve received the two primary shots of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine or one of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. But a growing body of evidence suggests to protect against the omicron variant, you need a Moderna or Pfizer booster shot, too.

“Just being vaccinated with two doses may not be enough,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on CNBC on Monday.

As the omicron variant spreads quickly through the US — now accounting for about 73% of new infections — health officials and other organizations are discussing what it means to be “fully vaccinated.”

“We’re looking into the definition right now,” Walensky said during a White House briefing on Wednesday on changing how it defines “fully vaccinated. “That evaluation is currently underway,” she said. “But to be very clear, our recommendations are to get boosted.”

Read more at CNET.

December 21, 2021

Watch the video at MSNBC.

December 20, 2021

I started working as a nurse in 1987. I’m coming up for my 35th year: I knew it was an anniversary, but I had to count which one. Sometimes I feel I’ve been doing this for too long. But the Covid vaccination programme has been amazing. We have seen how, when we want to do something, we can pull it off. I work as a vaccinator at a centre in Coventry where we get through 440 a people a day, usually between five vaccinators; about 80 people each.

The mobilisation of this workforce and the rollout has been outstanding. The camaraderie is the best bit of the job for me – that we’re working together and it’s positive when so much is doom and gloom. We’re doing something to fix the pandemic, and fixing things is what nursing is about. I find myself smiling under my mask; I’ve realised people can see it in my eyes, even if they can’t see my mouth.

Read more at The Guardian.

December 23, 2021

The rapid spread of the omicron variant could be a major setback for efforts to reverse sharp inequality in the accessibility of effective coronavirus vaccines around the world, public health experts warn.

That could mean longer delays for vaccination programs in poor countries, leaving large populations unprotected and prolonging the circumstances under which experts say dangerous variants are most likely to emerge.

A subsequent increase in demand for mRNA vaccines and booster doses, which appear to offer the best protection against omicron, would drive a widening of the divide, as rich countries accrue more doses and poor ones continue to go without or face long delays and uncertainty.

After a global run on doses, logistics have supplanted availability as the chief obstacle to vaccinating the world’s neediest, World Health Organization vaccine director Kate O’Brien told The Washington Post earlier this month. But omicron could bring availability problems soaring back, experts fear.

Read more at The Washington Post.

December 21, 2021

At this point in the pandemic, many Americans remain unvaccinated because they believe the coronavirus vaccine is unlikely to do them any good. They’re aware of the virus and the damage it can cause, but for any number of reasons, they simply don’t believe they should get a vaccine. We’ve spoken to patients like this in our practice, and we have observed in those conversations that providing more, frightening information intended to change their beliefs is ineffective for many or may even cause further entrenchment against vaccination.

Public health experts have tried many different methods to motivate behavior like vaccination. Our recent research shows even more clearly that providing additional information may not be one of the strongest tools.

In a study published on Dec. 13, we examined data from about 750,000 children who were eligible to receive the human papilloma virus vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. Since the HPV vaccine was approved in 2006, it has experienced resistance from parents and religious and conservative groups who see it as promoting sexual behavior. Its politicization was a preview for what has happened with the coronavirus vaccines in the United States.

Read more at The New York Times.

December 20, 2021

In the hospital parking lot, I pulled a stiff painter’s mask over my nose and mouth. I took a selfie on Snapchat, sent it to my brother and sister. My brother responded: “Whoa. That’s apocalyptic.”

This was mid-March 2020, when we feared COVID-19 the way you fear an animal’s yellow eyes in the dark, not the way you do when you’ve felt its teeth. I was 15 weeks pregnant with our second child and had recently been referred to a high-risk obstetrician. After our first visit, guests were no longer allowed. My husband, Adrian, had dug the painter’s mask out of a garage drawer before I left for a solo appointment, an improvised solution before our first mask order arrived. “Be safe,” he’d said.

In the small, dim room, my hands opened and closed like fish gulping on shore. I wanted Adrian’s hand. I wanted us to share a teary smile as the shape on the ultrasound screen cohered into something familiar, something ours. I wanted his calming presence when the doctor came in, brusque and aloof, and I tried to remember all the questions that kept me up at night.

Read more at TIME.