Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Ahead Of Winter Olympics, Beijing Begins Rollout Of Booster Shots
AP: Beijing Offering COVID-19 Boosters, 4 Months Before Olympics
China’s capital Beijing has begun offering booster shots against COVID-19, four months before the city and surrounding regions are to host the Winter Olympics. Anyone 18 or older who have received two-dose Chinese vaccines and belong to at-risk groups, including those participating, organizing or working on games facilities, would be eligible for the additional shot, state media reported Friday. (10/22)
NBC News: China-Linked Disinformation Campaign Blames Covid On Maine Lobsters
In mid-September, Marcel Schliebs, a disinformation researcher at the University of Oxford who had been tracking messaging that Chinese diplomats and state media spread on Twitter for 18 months, spotted the emergence of a surprising coronavirus origin theory. Zha Liyou, the Chinese consul general in Kolkata, India, tweeted an unfounded claim that Covid-19 could have been imported to China from the United States through a batch of Maine lobsters shipped to a seafood market in Wuhan in November 2019. It marks the latest in a series of theories that have been pushed by pro-China accounts since the start of the pandemic. (Solon, Simmons and Perrette, 10/21)
The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Herd Immunity Proves Elusive In U.K.
The U.K., in an experiment watched by the world, lifted most Covid-19 restrictions in the summer, wagering that immunity from vaccinations and prior infections would keep the virus at bay. Three months later, the British experience shows that, in the face of the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus, herd immunity is elusive. Covid-19 cases and deaths have risen in recent weeks as winter has begun to close in. The bottom line: Reliance on immunity, which is imperfect to begin with and wanes over time, doesn’t guarantee a quick victory over Delta. (Roland, 10/21)
Also —
Politico: The Cold Realities Of The Malaria Vaccine
The first malaria vaccine will likely not reach children at risk of dying from the disease in the next year. Euphoria over having a vaccine that would prevent kids under age 2 from ending up in hospitals with severe symptoms — even if that’s only in 30 percent of cases — is giving way to the cold realities of rolling out shots to scores of mostly poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa. (Paun, 10/21)
