Respiratory Infections News

COVID-19 hospitalization rates among children aged 0 to 4 years in the U.S. were around five times higher during the peak of the omicron wave compared with the peak of the delta wave, researchers reported in MMWR.

Counties in the United States with the highest number of primary care physicians also had the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates, a cross-sectional study showed.

CDC Director Rochelle P. Walenksy, MD, MPH, had some advice for combating vaccine hesitancy in the United States.

The effectiveness of a COVID-19 booster shot waned over time, but the extra dose continued to protect against hospitalization at 4 months and beyond, according to data collected during the omicron surge and reported Friday in MMWR.

Citing the emergence of new data, the FDA on Friday announced that it has postponed a meeting scheduled for next week in which an advisory panel would have discussed Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids aged younger than 5 years.

The Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections begins this weekend and is being held for a third consecutive year as an all-virtual meeting because of COVID-19.

The CDC has begun reporting the proportion of COVID-19 cases in the United States that are caused by the omicron subvariant BA.2.

The Democratic governors of several states, including New Jersey and Delaware, announced this week that they will soon lift COVID-19 mask mandates in K-12 schools, joining other states that have already eliminated such measures.

Novavax on Thursday announced that its COVID-19 vaccine was around 80% effective among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years in a phase 3 trial.

Data show that people who survived COVID-19 were more likely to report symptoms of anxiety, depression or both compared with those who did not have a history of the disease.