Views Reference

Senior health officials are calling for Americans to get vaccinated — and get their booster shots — as cases tick back up across the country and the approaching holiday season brings with it more indoor, maskless gatherings.
 

Testing is so complicated because we’re asking it to do too much.
 

Coronavirus cases are rising in more than 30 states ahead of Thanksgiving. It comes as the White House reports about 3 million Americans received a third dose over the weekend following the FDA's authorization of both Moderna and Pfizer's booster for all adults.
 

Amesh Adalja discusses the latest news regarding Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics and the winter outlook for the pandemic. 

The number of states enacting school requirements pales in comparison with those that have preemptively banned mandates.
 

Federal regulators on Friday authorized Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccine boosters for all adults, a one-size-fits-all strategy designed to shore up Americans’ defenses against a tenacious virus and reduce confusion over guidelines that have varied based on people’s age, occupation and where they live.

Montgomery County, Md., will reinstate its indoor mask mandate on Saturday, less than a month after lifting it and days before neighboring D.C. is set to relax its own masking rules. Most of Northern Virginia has recommended but not mandated masks since May.
 

A steep rise in Covid-19 cases in Europe should serve as a warning that the US could also see significant increases in coronavirus cases this winter, particularly in the nation’s colder regions, scientists say.
Rupali Limaye and David Dowdy are quoted. 

As you’re deciding what precautions to take, or whether to travel at all, keep in mind the people you’re trying to protect.
 

Fewer Americans this year plan on taking precautions against Covid-19 when hosting or attending holiday gatherings compared with last year, signaling some return to normalcy now that 59% of the country is vaccinated against the virus.
 

Cases of the flu are starting to pick up across the country. Experts expect influenza to make a comeback after it was virtually extinct last year. But COVID-19 could muddy the waters as far as the accurate reporting of those cases.
 

The antiviral drugs have helped inspire hope among senior administration officials that the United States will be able to curb the devastating toll from the Delta variant.
David Dowdy and Amesh Adalja are quoted.