Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Covid Tests Are Yours For The Taking
CNN: Free Covid-19 Tests Are Available Again. Here’s How To Get Them
People in the United States can now order more free Covid-19 tests from the federal government as the country heads into respiratory virus season with high levels of the coronavirus already circulating. Each household is eligible to receive four at-home test kits, which can be requested from COVIDTests.gov starting yesterday [Thursday]. They’ll be shipped for free starting next week through the US Postal Service. (McPhillips, 9/26)
UPI: Survey: Most Americans Won't Get New Flu, COVID-19 Vaccines
Most Americans don't plan to get vaccinated against the flu or COVID-19 this season, a new survey has found. Fewer than two in five U.S. adults (38%) say they will definitely get a flu jab, and only one in four (26%) say they'll get the updated COVID vaccine, according to a survey released Wednesday by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. (Thompson, 9/25)
CIDRAP: COVID-19 Reinfection Ups Risk Of Long COVID, New Data Show
A new survey study reveals that people who had two COVID-19 infections were more than twice as likely—and those who had three or more COVID-19 infections were almost four times more likely—to report long COVID as those with one infection. (Wappes, 9/26)
CIDRAP: COVID Antiviral Studies: Emergent Resistance Mutations Rare, Paxlovid Awareness Low
A pair of new studies on COVID-19 antiviral drugs suggest that resistance mutations that emerge after treatment with nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) or remdesivir (Veklury) are rare and that almost a third of US adults have never heard of Paxlovid. (Van Beusekom, 9/26)
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ABC News: Researchers Investigate Potential Link Between RSV And Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths
A rise in rates of sudden unexpected infant deaths may have been linked to an off-season surge of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in 2021, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal JAMA Open Network. Sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUID) includes deaths of infants under one year old without a known cause, deaths that are due to accidental suffocation or strangulation in bed and those from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Gummerson and Cobern, 9/26)
