Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
US Says It's Shared 200 Million Covid Shots With World's 7.8 Billion People
AP: US Marks 200M COVID-19 Shots Shared With World
The U.S. on Thursday donated its 200 millionth COVID-19 shot to help vaccinate the rest of the world, the White House announced. The Biden administration aims to lead a global vaccination campaign even as it rolls out boosters for domestic use, which critics say diverts doses from those who are in greater need around the world. (Miller, 10/21)
Axios: The Biden Administration Is Under Pressure To Close The Global Coronavirus Vaccine Gap
The world still needs more coronavirus vaccines, particularly low-income countries. Pressure is increasing on the Biden administration to close the gap — and the Biden administration, in turn, is pushing Moderna to fill it. Getting global vaccination rates as high as possible isn't just a humanitarian effort; it also reduces the risk of vaccine-resistant variants emerging. (Owens, 10/20)
Also —
The Atlantic: 'Waning' Immunity: What Falling Antibody Counts Really Mean
In early March, Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, celebrated a milestone: hitting the point of full vaccination, two weeks after getting his second Pfizer shot. Since then, he’s been watching the number of coronavirus antibodies in his blood slowly but surely decline. The drop hasn’t been precipitous, but it’s definitely happening—regular checkups have shown his antibody levels, also known as titers, ticking down, down, down, from spring through summer, now into fall. The slump fits the narrative that countless reports have been sounding the alarm on for a while now: In the months after vaccination, our antibodies peace out, a trend that’s often been described as a “waning” of immunity, and evidence that we’re all in dire need of boosters to shore our defenses back up. (Wu, 10/20)
Salt Lake Tribune: Salt Lake County Calculated COVID-19 Vaccination Rates By Zodiac Sign. The News Is Not Good For Scorpios
Surprising perhaps no one, Salt Lake County residents born under the exuberant, high-achieving, let-no-opportunity-pass sign of Leo have been vaccinated for the coronavirus at higher rates than those of any other zodiac sign. That’s according to an analysis of immunization and population data released this week by the Salt Lake County Health Department. The department found that vaccination rates vary dramatically by astrological sign, from 70% of Leos to just 46% of Scorpios, who, if zodiac stereotypes hold true, perhaps hope to contract COVID-19 in order to deliberately infect someone else in retaliation against a perceived slight. “We already weaponize ourselves,” health department spokesman Nicholas Rupp — himself a vaccinated Scorpio — said of the most notoriously intense grudge-holders in the cosmos. (Alberty, 10/20)
