Dr. Vinay Prasad, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division, sent a memo to staff that linked children’s deaths to the COVID-19 vaccine, but did not provide data to back the claim.
The memo said that a review “found that at least 10 children have died after and because of receiving COVID-19 vaccination,” according to multiple sources familiar with the email. The memo was first reported by the New York Times.
Prasad suggested that the deaths were related to myocarditis, or the inflammation of the heart muscle. Prasad did not share any data used in the review, including the children’s ages, whether they had existing health conditions, or how the FDA determined there was a link between their death and the vaccine. The findings were not published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
The risk of myocarditis appears to be higher when vaccine doses are given closer together, as was the case when the vaccines first hit the market. Now, most people receive each dose of the vaccine about a year apart. If someone receives the primary series before age 5, the risk virtually disappears.
Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines carry warnings about the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis, a condition where the membrane surrounding the heart becomes inflamed. The warnings were expanded in April 2025 to apply to males aged 16 to 25. The rate of myocarditis and pericarditis was around 8 cases per million doses for children and adults under 65 years old after use of that season’s vaccines, the FDA said at the time.
COVID-19 vaccines, developed during the first Trump administration, have become a target of the second. Top FDA officials selected by the administration under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overrode career staff to limit the approvals of COVID-19 shots from Novavax and Moderna, according to records released by the FDA. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said in June that she was resigning from her role overseeing updates to the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, following an order from Kennedy that forced an update to the agency’s guidance.
Changing COVID-19 vaccination guidance has caused confusion for many. The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, voted in September to change recommendations for the shot. All members of the committee have been picked by Kennedy, himself a vaccine skeptic. Several of the panel members have criticized the COVID-19 vaccine.
The updated CDC guidance recommends people make individual, informed decisions about COVID-19 vaccination, but did not specifically recommend the shots. The American Academy of Pediatrics said it was “strongly recommending” shots for children between 6 months and 2 years old, while the Infectious Diseases Society of America recommended the vaccine for everyone six months and older. State governments have also banded together, forming the West Coast Health Alliance and the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, to issue recommendations that differ from the CDC guidance.
Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, told CBS News in August that there’s “a lot of noise out there” when it comes to vaccines, but advises parents to “stick the course” and talk to your doctor about making sure children get all their necessary vaccinations, including the initial COVID vaccination series.
A few months ago, I got my routine lab work back, and one number stopped me in my tracks. My neuroinflammation marker was off the charts. Which made no sense. I felt great. I was training regularly, sleeping well, and eating clean. But my doctor, Frank Lipman, M.D., told me it could be a lingering sign of Long COVID, even though I hadn’t had symptoms in months.
Co-blogger Jonathan Adler recently posted about Alford v. Walton County, an important new 11th Circuit ruling holding that a local ordinance barring property owners from accessing their beachfront property during the Covid pandemic violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
I think the court was right to conclude there was a taking here, and that the County is therefore required to pay compensation, as required by the Takings Clause. But the court elided the difficult issue of the “police power” exception to takings liability.
The relevant ordinance completely barred property owners from accessing or using their beach front property for several weeks during the early part of the Covid pandemic, in March-April 2020. As the court explained, this is an obvious severe restriction on property rights, and therefore part of the right to “private property” protected by the Takings Clause.
Unlike Jonathan Adler, I think the court was also right to conclude this is a “physical taking” that qualifies as a “per se” (automatic) violation of the Takings Clause, as opposed to a mere restriction on “use” subject to the Penn Central balancing test (a vague standard that usually ends up favoring the government). As the court put it, “Ordinance 2020-09 prohibited the Landowners from physically accessing their beachfront property under any circumstances. That is different from a restriction on how the Landowners could use property they otherwise physically possessed.”
But the court avoided what, to my mind, is the most difficult issue posed by this case: the question of the applicability of the “police power” exception to takings liability. For decades, the Supreme Court and various lower courts have held that government actions that would otherwise qualify as takings are exempt from liability if enacted under the police power, which gives government the authority to protect health and safety.
Covid-era restrictions arguably fall within the exception, because they were meant to constrain the spread of a deadly contagious disease, one that ended up killing some 1 million Americans. During the pandemic, a number of state courts upheld Covid shutdown orders against takings challenges based on the police power rationale. I wrote about one such case here.
However, it is far from clear how great a threat to health or safety there must be before the police power exception kicks in. If forestalling even a small risk qualifies, then virtually any restriction on private property rights is exempted from takings liability. After all, just about any use of property poses at least some small risk of spreading disease or causing injury.
In my recent article, “The Constitutional Case Against Exclusionary Zoning” (coauthored with Josh Braver), we argue the police power exception only applies in cases where the government policy in question is preventing a particularly severe danger. For reasons outlined in the article (pp. 25-31), that approach is consistent with original meaning, and with relevant Supreme Court precedent.
By that standard, the Walton County beach restriction and similar measures in other jurisdictions do not qualify for the police power exception. It quickly became clear that outdoor transmission of Covid does not pose much risk. Moreover, it was particularly absurd to ban even the owners from using their own property. If one of them was infected, they could much more likely spread the infection to each other while at home indoors, where the law did not prevent them from interacting with each other.
Thus, I think the court ultimately got this case right. But they should have addressed the police power exception and how it might or might not apply here. The court rightly noted that “there is no COVID exception to the Takings Clause” and that “the government must respect constitutional rights during public emergencies, lest the tools of our security become the means of our undoing.” I agree completely! There must be strong judicial review of government invocations of emergency powers. But, though there is no “Covid exception” or “emergency exception” to the Takings Clause, there is a police power exception. And courts should deal with it, when it is potentially relevant.
The Supreme Court, in recent years, has shown little interest in clarifying the scope of the police power exception. But it has – rightly – decided a number of cases strengthening protection for property rights under the Takings Clause generally. This makes it more likely that Takings Clause protections will run into the police power exception, as there are fewer situations where restrictions on property rights avoid takings liability for other reasons.
Thus, the Supreme Court may well have to clarify the police power exception sooner or later. Unless and until they do so, lower courts will continue to struggle with this doctrine.
On a Friday morning in October, about 100 high school and college students gathered in a Utah ballroom to play a game. Some students were assigned specific roles and given costumes to wear. “Government officials” slung ties over their T-shirts; “store clerks” sported aprons; and a trio of “journalists” wore fedoras and carried fake microphones.
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Kambree Carlile, 16, played a “health care worker” and was given full protective gear to wear, including goggles and gloves. As students started getting “sick” with a mysterious and deadly pathogen, panic surged, Carlile says. “It wasn’t a real scenario, but people still got very frantic,” she says.
“Oh no! I’m infected,” students yelled intermittently. Many thronged the health care and public-health stations for advice, treatments, and vaccines, ignoring calls by workers to socially distance. One “infected” student ran around, intentionally coughing on people, causing panic.
One of the “journalists,” 17-year-old Kenadi Burlingame, complained that it had been hard at times to get anyone to listen to her. “The ‘public-health’ people told us that we need to start getting people to quarantine, but I felt like no one really did that. They didn’t see the importance in it,” she says. “That was frustrating.”
Meanwhile, the “biomedical researchers,” who donned white lab coats and were tasked with identifying the pathogen, were baffled by the myriad symptoms that sick people were reporting, including fever, aching muscles, and malaise. “It could be anything,” one of them lamented as she googled people’s symptoms and uncovered a long list of possible diseases.
The students were playing Operation Outbreak, a game that simulates the spread of an infectious disease. During the game, participants use an app on their phones, which alerts them when their avatars are infected and lists their symptoms. The pathogen “spreads” via Bluetooth, from phone to phone.
Creators of the game say it can model how people really behave when disease outbreaks strike. The game has become so good at this that U.S. government agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have run its simulations.
In Utah, students who weren’t given specific roles were designated as members of the public and grouped together in “families.” The families moved around the room together, visiting stations where they had to answer questions about infectious diseases and public health. The “bank” paid the families in tokens for correct answers. The tokens could be used by the students to buy food from the “store” to keep their avatars alive, as well as masks, treatments, and vaccines.
“I thought it’d be just a little school activity, but it was realistic,” says Burlingame. “It made me feel sympathetic for people during COVID.”
Burlingame was in fifth grade when COVID first gripped the globe in 2020. “I just remember that one day I was at school and everything was normal, and then the next day the world had shut down,” she says. She remembers it seeming almost apocalyptic at first: the same week that Utah public schools were shuttered, the Salt Lake City area where she lives was shaken by an earthquake and dozens of after-shocks. Burlingame, then only 11, was spooked. Some 5,400 people died from COVID in Utah from 2020 to November 2023.
The teenager is prudent when reflecting on that strange and tumultuous time. “There could be another outbreak,” she says, “and what would we do about it?”
The creators of Operation Outbreak say the game is designed precisely to address this question. It seeks to teach students about the science and risks of infectious diseases, and how interventions such as vaccines and quarantining can curb their spread, says Todd Brown, a former middle-school teacher and one of the game’s co-creators. It also aims to highlight the vital role that every member of society—whether scientist, doctor, government official, or everyday person—plays when outbreaks strike.
“This is a test run,” Brown says. “This is a chance for students to learn how they can potentially save lives, how they could help stop the spread of something in…their school or community.”
Upping the urgency for such preparedness is the prediction by many public-health experts that another pandemic is not just inevitable but close at hand. “We need to be prepared for another pandemic in the next 10 years,” says Pardis Sabeti, an infectious-disease professor at Harvard University and researcher at the Broad Institute who helped create Operation Outbreak.
COVID was still a distant, unknown threat when the game launched in 2017. Versions of it have since been played by thousands of students in two dozen U.S. states and 10 countries. Its creators say interest in the game increased sharply post-COVID.
“We’ve found that the students tell us the zeitgeist. They tell us the pulse of society, everything that might be coming,” Sabeti says. “We could have predicted a lot of what happened during COVID based on simulations that we did pre-pandemic.”
Students in pre-COVID simulations spontaneously came up with “immunity passports”—ways that participants could prove their vaccination status to get into certain spaces. In some of those same simulations, students figured out how to fake their vaccination status—similar to the fraudulent vaccination cards used by some people during COVID, Sabeti says.
Participants also hoarded supplies, broke quarantine, and even intentionally tried to become superspreaders, a phenomenon later also seen during the pandemic. “We saw chaos, protests, people acting out,” Sabeti says. “Outbreaks expose and exploit all the cracks in our society. Any kind of injustice or issues you have are going to go on steroids—and that’s what we saw in these simulations.”
In some cases, students who had roles of authority, such as members of government, public-health workers, or journalists, disseminated information about the outbreak that later proved to be wrong, often because they spoke too soon in response to public pressure or because new information later became available. “That showed students how science can change as you get new information,” says Brown, the former teacher who now serves as Operation Outbreak’s director of innovation and training. But the fluctuations in messaging often triggered doubt and malcontent among other members of the community.
Game organizers say that mistrust of officials, scientists, and journalists has only deepened and become more common in simulations post-COVID. “The speed of putting up a wall is much faster,” Brown says.
Participants are also more prone to divisiveness and unruly behavior. “At some of our schools, we’ve seen complete societal breakdown, anarchy, and militia,” Sabeti says. (And that was despite students’ taking the game seriously.) “These are things we hadn’t seen before COVID,” Sabeti says.
She recalls, for example, a March 2024 simulation at a Utah high school that ended in total chaos. After the “government” struggled to fund health agencies and “researchers” were slow to identify the pathogen and develop a vaccine, disorder and misinformation swelled. A “journalist” spread fake news about masking, people began stealing from the “store” and selling counterfeit goods, others started gambling to increase their own wealth, and a “government official” went rogue—robbing the “bank” and throwing tokens at a crowd. “I represent government intervention,” he declared, according to an internal report of the simulation compiled by game organizers and shared with TIME. “Money to the people!”
Amid the bedlam, participants called for a police force to be established and a “jail” was created. The “government official” who stole from the bank was impeached, and people clamored for his arrest. About an hour into the simulation, the new police force issued arrest warrants for multiple people, including someone who “sold ‘fake vaccines’ to make a profit,” said the report. At 80 minutes, as the simulation came to an end, the report said several students were “running and fighting each other, some arresting others.”
“It scared me,” says Sabeti of the simulation’s outcome. “It suggests that society has formed antibodies to the idea of an outbreak. People are easily triggered, so the next time someone comes on the television and says we are having a lockdown, we could see militia and anarchy.”
Since the COVID pandemic, Americans have lost faith in officials and previously respected institutions. Almost 1 in 4 U.S. adults said in 2024 that they had little or no confidence that scientists would act in the best interests of the public, according to a Pew Research Center survey. In 2019, that figure was 1 in 8.
Only 22% of Americans said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing always or most of the time, according to a different Pew survey from 2024. And more Americans—36%—have no trust at all in the media compared to Americans who have a lot or some trust, according to a 2024 Gallup poll.
“We need to do a lot to repair, because when the next pandemic hits we will be in trouble,” Sabeti says.
Pandemics are expected to occur more often and become more deadly because of climate change, globalization, and more frequent encounters between people and the billions of livestock we raise to eat, as well as wild animals whose habitats we have diminished, public-health experts say.
“It’s going to be less of a freak biological occurrence and more like hurricanes, which are increasing and becoming more devastating,” says Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s pandemic center.
There is about a 28% chance that a pandemic as deadly as COVID will happen in the next decade, according to a 2023 report by the disease-forecasting company Airfinity.
It is hard to predict which pathogen could launch the next global health crisis, but infectious-disease experts say they are closely watching various outbreaks worldwide for signs of pandemic potential. A rapidly mutating strain of mpox continues to spread across Africa and beyond. Avian-flu strains are circulating in livestock and poultry with some spillover in people. “There are also wildcard viruses out there,” says Sabeti, such as Nipah virus and Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), which have very high mortality rates and could wreak havoc if they mutate in such a way that makes them more transmissible among people.
A manufactured pathogen is also a danger, Sabeti says. Thanks to advances in biotechnology and AI, a single rogue actor can now feasibly create a biothreat, and because of that, “anything is possible,” she says. “Whether the COVID virus was man-made in Wuhan is beside the point. What is the point is that during COVID, the threat of man-made biothreats went from impossible to improbable to probable.”
Operation Outbreak was first conceived in 2015: Ebola was ravaging West Africa, and Brown was a civics teacher in a Florida middle school. One day, a student in his class asked what would happen if Ebola came to the U.S.
“I responded honestly. I said, ‘I have no idea,’” Brown recalls. “So I posed the question back to the class, and we had this exciting discussion.”
Encouraged by his students’ enthusiasm, Brown brainstormed ways to further engage them on the subject of infectious diseases. It was a topic that was deeply personal to him. Brown’s son is severely immunocompromised, and outbreaks—including the yearly flu season—terrify his family.
Brown had recently read a profile of Sabeti, who had helped develop tools to detect and track deadly diseases including Ebola, in an issue of TIME. Impressed by her work, Brown emailed her, and the pair ended up on the phone. He told her that he had been teaching his students about infectious diseases and that he was planning to put together a simple outbreak simulation so they could get some hands-on experience. Sabeti, who had herself experimented with outbreak simulations in her Harvard classes, was intrigued by Brown’s plans and asked him to stay in touch.
A few months later, Brown assembled some middle schoolers in a field and, using stickers to indicate who had been infected, attempted to simulate what an Ebola outbreak might look like. It wasn’t very sophisticated, but the kids loved it, Brown says. “I reached back out to Pardis with pictures, and she was very excited about it. And it all kind of snowballed from there.”
Sabeti says she saw an opportunity to create something fun, educational, and sorely needed. She knew that some simple outbreak simulations existed, but nothing that provided students with an immersive, first-hand experience. Her lab already had expertise about how to detect and track diseases, and also how to create educational tools for public-health purposes. She and her collaborators, for example, had helped train researchers across West Africa during the Ebola outbreak.
Her lab set about designing an Operation Outbreak app that could realistically mimic an outbreak. Andres Colubri, a researcher in her lab, had been working on contact-tracing software, which he adapted so it could be used as part of the app to spread a hypothetical pathogen via Bluetooth.
With the help of data-visualization expert Ben Fry, the group also created a dashboard that could display data generated during the simulation, including contact-tracing data and the number of people infected and vaccinated. “The tools we made for the app are the same tools we are creating for outbreaks around the world. Students are working with best-in-class technology,” Sabeti says.
Operation Outbreak is free to use and has been played by schoolchildren from Shanghai and Sierra Leone to Paris and Toronto. Game organizers can choose from a variety of possible pathogens to simulate—from coronaviruses and measles to Marburg virus and tuberculosis.
Kian Sani, Operation Outbreak’s chief of staff, says the hope is to bring the simulation to more professional groups in the near future—including public-health departments, first responders, and companies that might want to bolster their employees’ outbreak preparedness. “A bigger-picture idea that we’re exploring is having a potential city of sorts, maybe using an abandoned parking lot and having multiple buildings. We could invite a bunch of people—public-health workers, doctors, journalists—and have regular people play the general population,” Sani says. “The possibilities are really endless. How can we continually improve how realistic our simulation is?”
Teachers who have organized the game say they like the simulation because, though outbreak science is not typically taught in schools, it complements what students are already learning about biology and civics.
“It helps kids understand the science behind vaccines and being sick and how research works, but also it’s a great pipeline for careers because they get to learn more about different career paths,” says Nichole Kellerman, a biology teacher who has organized Operation Outbreak simulations in two Maryland high schools.
Carlile, the 16-year-old who took part in the Operation Outbreak simulation in Utah, was surprised by how much she enjoyed the game. “I thought it would be weird, just this thing you’d play on your phone, but it was actually really neat to see this virus spreading really quickly and this whole city that was created,” she says.
Along with about 70 of her classmates, Carlile, a junior at Utah’s Lehi High School, played the game at Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem on Oct. 3. About 30 college students also took part.
Micah Ross, an assistant professor of biology at UVU who organized the simulation, says that despite some turmoil, the students managed the outbreak well. The “biomedical researchers” cracked the mystery of the pathogen’s identity—it was influenza—in just 40 minutes. Once a vaccine was introduced, most students chose to get immunized, and the spread of the disease slowed.
Ross has organized several Operation Outbreak simulations since 2020, both in high schools and at UVU. She sees the game as a chance for younger students to become more scientifically literate. For college students, she thinks Operation Outbreak can be a useful research tool.
Ross co-leads a research group at UVU and runs a class every year in which students are encouraged to use Operation Outbreak as a way to collect and analyze novel data. Her research group is currently working on a study probing whether certain demographic factors influence participants’ decision-making in simulations conducted in Utah.
“We’re curious if there are some decisions that are made more often, say, down south that aren’t made by populations up north. What leads people to getting vaccinated? What factors may cause them not to get tested?” Ross says, noting that the outcome of the study could help inform public-health policy.
Exposure to Operation Outbreak has prompted many of her students to pursue career paths in public health or research, Ross says. “It also helps students become a little more confident in their ability to relate to what’s happening in the world and say, ‘Hey, I’ve been in that position, even if only for an hour.’”
SARS-CoV-2, the cause of covid-19, isn’t the only coronavirus in the world we should be keeping our eye on. Scientists appear to have just discovered a new branch of coronaviruses in Brazilian bats that could have the tools needed to spill over and infect humans.
A large team of researchers in Japan and Brazil identified the possible zoonotic threat in a preliminary study released last week. The viral relative appears to be genetically distinct from other coronaviruses yet shares a feature with SARS-CoV-2 that may allow its kind to infect human cells. The findings suggest there are plenty of native bat coronaviruses in the wild with the potential to cause new epidemics in humans.
“The high diversity of viruses in bats therefore positions them as a key taxonomic group for zoonotic disease surveillance,” the authors wrote in their paper, presented as a preprint on the website bioRxiv.
A key similarity
Even prior to the emergence of covid-19 more than five years ago, scientists had been worried about coronaviruses causing the next big pandemic. SARS-CoV-2, its earlier ancestor SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV are coronaviruses that successfully became human pathogens over the past two decades; all three belong to the betacoronavirus genus.
According to the study researchers, however, almost everything we know about the diversity of this genus is based on data collected from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, with little genetic sequencing of such viruses in the Americas.
To help remedy this gap in knowledge, the team analyzed gut tissue samples collected from 70 bats in three sites across Brazil between May and August 2019. They found the new virus in a Parnell’s mustached bat (Pteronotus parnellii) and completely sequenced its genome.
Based on their analysis, the virus—which they coined BRZ batCoV—is different enough genetically to represent a previously unknown subgenus of betacoronavirus. Until now, five subgenera had been identified.
But the virus also appears to have something important in common with SARS-CoV-2: a functional furin cleavage site (FCS) at the S1/S2 junction of its spike protein. In fact, the FCS in BRZ batCoV is only different by a single amino acid compared to the one in SARS-CoV-2.
How worried should we be?
The FCS in SARS-CoV-2 is one of the features that helps it to infect humans. So finding something very similar in this new virus is certainly troubling. The researchers also note that other bat betacoronaviruses are known to have an FCS in the same location, suggesting it’s relatively easy for this feature to pop up in these viruses.
Another concerning aspect is that since there’s so little surveillance of Brazil and other areas in the Americas, it’s more than possible that BRZ batCoV and similar viruses have been circulating under our noses for quite a while.
The new research hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet, a vital part of vetting any new study. The researchers also point out that they haven’t directly examined the infectivity of BRZ batCoV, a caveat that limits how much we can know about its risk to humans.
“Hence, although the presence of an FCS is clearly significant, any discussion of the zoonotic potential of this virus should be limited,” they wrote.
That said, this sort of research should be seen as an early warning signal. While the origins of SARS-CoV-2 are still being debated—even if most virologists are in the natural camp—many human diseases do first start off as zoonotic germs that successfully jump from animals to people (case in point, the original SARS). Bats and the viruses they carry are a prime suspect for causing the next big pandemic, and it’s urgent that we better track what’s out there, the researchers say.
“Our study provides a broader understanding of the phylogenetic and functional diversity of bat coronaviruses as well as their zoonotic potential,” they wrote.
Millions, perhaps even billions of us who got ourselves vaccinated against COVID-19 should be dead by now, or if not yet, very soon. For years, prominent wellness influencers and other internet personalities have predicted that mRNA vaccines will lead to mass casualties. Infectious disease clinician Neil Stone has helpfully (and amusingly) compiled a number of such dire predictions.
First up, enjoy health hustler David Wolfe’s graphic from 2021.
Wolfe
Stone jauntily observes: “5 billion of us got Covid vaccines. Apparently we all have 2 months left to live. Better make the most of it!”
In 2021, Dolores Cahill, an immunologist at the School of Medicine of University College Dublin, notoriously asserted in an independent documentary that “everybody who has an mRNA injection will die within 3 to 5 years, even if they have had only one injection.” In August, Stone puckishly asked, “Anyone out there who got a Covid vaccine and is still alive?”
In August 2024, vaccine naysayer Steve Kirsch snarkily posted that “25% of people who got the COVID shot regret it. The others are dead.” Stone snarked back, “Anyone out there who has had the Covid vaccine, is not dead, and does not regret it? I’ll start. Me.” Me, too.
On August 23, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones expanded the amount of time that we vaccinated folks have left before we shuffle off this mortal coil when he posted that “27 peer reviewed Doctors stated that 100% of those who are vaccinated will die by 2028 due to the mRNA tech in the vaccine.” Stone drily observed, “Apparently 3 years left for me and 6 billion others. How shall we spend them?”
And let’s not forget perhaps the most absurd claim, this time from our current Health and Human Services secretary, who in 2021 called the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Claims like these have been proven wrong time and again. Given the counterfactual nature of such estimates, it is hard to pin down just how many lives the COVID-19 vaccines globally saved. Estimates range from a high of about 20 million in the first year after vaccines became available to a low of around 2.5 million deaths averted by 2024.
If mass vaccine deaths are imminent, it is not evident in the global life expectancy trends. Since the rollout of billions of mRNA shots beginning in 2021, global life expectancy has risen from 70.9 years to 73.2 years in 2024. (Life expectancy fell during the pandemic from 72.6 years in 2019 to 70.9 years in 2021.)
Despite these dire warnings, President Donald Trump, who presided over Operation Warp Speed, the fastest vaccine rollout in history, got his COVID-19 booster shot earlier this month.
Disclosure: I have had nine mRNA COVID-19 shots so far.
DENVER — A Denver shelter that serves people experiencing homelessness is set to close and be rebuilt as affordable housing, leaving current residents worried about where they will go.
The Park Avenue Inn shelter initially opened as part of the City of Denver’s COVID-19 homelessness emergency response, with the goal of putting affordable housing on the property eventually. Since then, it’s come to serve dozens as a non-congregate shelter and unofficial transitional housing.
“It’s served as a pathway to people to get other housing options,” said Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which owns the property. “Sometimes that takes a little longer because we’re in a really high-cost housing market here in Denver, and there’s not a lot of housing resources to move people into.”
Denver7 reporter Danielle Kreutter spent some time Monday afternoon listening to residents at Park Ave Inn.
“We were both homeless together for a few years now,” Aaron Dawson said about him and his wife, Michelle Pasco.
A few months ago, they were told the shelter would be closing in January 2026. It’s set to be demolished to make way for an affordable housing project.
“It’s like dire straits around here right now,” Dawson said.
“We’re just hoping to get housed,” Pasco added.
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Pictured: Denver7’s Danielle Kreutter speaking with Aaron Dawson and his wife, Michelle Pasco
Of the 36 residents currently staying at Park Avenue Inn, six have found other housing. Several others have been referred to Renewal Village, another property owned by Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. The single-occupancy studio apartments are in what used to be a hotel near West 48th Avenue and Bannock Street in Denver.
“There’s like 25 people still here that don’t know what they’re doing,” Dawson said. “Some of them never got offered Renewal Village, even.”
CCH acknowledged that some Park Avenue Inn residents may not have been offered housing at Renewal Village due to new tenant eligibility requirements.
“Renewal Village has certain referral pathways that we are obligated to, in terms of accepting people from certain programs or who’ve gone through certain assessments,” Alderman explained. “We will move some people from Park Avenue Inn into Renewal Village, but not everybody. But we will work with everybody at Park Avenue Inn to make sure that they have a safe place to exit to.”
CCH said it is optimistic that it will be able to place the rest of the residents into housing before the shelter closes.
“I think we have more time than we’ve seen with some shutdowns of spaces before,” Alderman said.
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Pictured: Denver7’s Danielle Kreutter speaking with Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless
Alderman called the timing an unfortunate coincidence, as the plan was to always transform the property into affordable housing.
“I think we’re always concerned when we lose resources in the homelessness response system because we know that we have a growing population of people experiencing homelessness, and we need more, not less, resources,” Alderman said. “But I think from our perspective, we also need more housing, and so this is really a critical step for us to provide that lasting solution.”
CCH has stopped referring people to Park Avenue Inn in order to minimize the impact of the closure.
The building will be demolished in January or February 2026.
“We’ll be breaking ground sometime next year on our first 60 units of affordable housing,” Alderman explained. “Some of those units will be supportive housing, and then probably a year or two after that, we’ll be able to break ground on our second phase, which could bring up to 160 potential new units of housing to the city of Denver, which is so needed and is the long-term solution to homelessness.”
Residents told Denver7 they hope their neighbors find a safe place to land.
“You don’t just pop this on them real quick and say, ‘Oh by the way, you have 120 days to figure out your whole entire rest of your life,’” said Dawson.
Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Danielle Kreutter
Denver7’s Danielle Kreutter covers stories that have an impact in all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in reporting on affordable housing and issues surrounding the unhoused community. If you’d like to get in touch with Danielle, fill out the form below to send her an email.
The new acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced changes to the recommended vaccination schedule for adults against COVID-19 and for kids against chickenpox.
The changes were expected and were already previewed by recommendations made two weeks ago by the CDC’s powerful Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. All members of the committee were recently replaced after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired everyone on the previous panel earlier this year.
The CDC’s changes have been criticized by mainstream medical groups.
The CDC is now recommending that children under the age of 4 no longer get a combination vaccine that protects against four diseases: the chickenpox (also known as varicella), measles, mumps and rubella. Instead, the CDC now recommends two separate shots, one just against chickenpox, and the other that protects against measles, mumps and rubella.
The CDC has also now officially lifted its recommendation that adults under age 65 get the updated COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC now says the decision on whether an adult under age 65 gets a COVID-19 vaccine should be based on “individual-based decision-making” in consultation with health professionals like a physician, nurse or pharmacist.
This matches a change in recommendations made to the childhood vaccination schedule earlier this year.
The announcement was made by acting CDC director Jim O’Neill, a top deputy to Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic. O’Neill replaced Susan Monarez, who was fired as CDC director after 29 days on the job. Monarez said she was terminated after she pushed back against an effort by her bosses to undermine vaccines; Kennedy said she was fired because she said she was not trustworthy.
O’Neill has no training in medicine or healthcare and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in humanities, according to the Associated Press, and is a former investor who has been a critic of health regulations. He has previously worked at the Department of Health and Human Services, serving six years under President George W. Bush.
O’Neill’s announcement said that the changes will still allow for immunization coverage to continue through programs including the Vaccines for Children program, Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicare and Medicaid.
The American Academy for Pediatrics in late September criticized the change, which removed the option for toddlers to get a single shot that can protect against chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella.
The acting CDC director’s statement, issued by the press office of the Department of Health and Human Services, raised concerns about an increased risk of febrile seizure caused by fever after getting the combined chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (known as MMRV) versus those given the chickenpox vaccine separately.
The American Academy of Pediatrics said that in a meeting last month, some of the CDC’s new vaccine advisors “at times…misrepresented data and used talking points common among anti-vaccine groups. Some seemed unfamiliar with febrile seizures. They also disregarded CDC assurances that febrile seizures after MMRV are rare and do not have long-term impacts.”
The American Academy of Family Physicians recommends that all adults get the updated COVID-19 vaccine, especially those with risk conditions and people who have never gotten a COVID-19 vaccine.
The California Department of Public Health has slightly different guidelines. The agency recommends that adults younger than 65 with risk factors get the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as all adults who are in close contact with others with risk factors, and everyone who chooses to get vaccinated. The agency also recommends that all seniors get vaccinated against COVID-19.
From inoculations against polio and smallpox to protections from measles and tetanus, vaccines are critical health care tools that have saved more than 150 million lives in the past 50 years.
Rarely, they can also have side effects.
This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Jon Wertheim reports on vaccine court, a little-known legal forum that has, for almost four decades, been compensating Americans who say they were injured by vaccines. Whether a person developed chronic arthritis after receiving an MMR vaccine or a shoulder injury resulting from a misplaced tetanus shot, the vaccine court is intended to provide an efficient way to compensate claimants without overwhelming vaccine makers with legal fees.
But for the more than 14,000 people who say they were injured after receiving a COVID vaccine, finding compensation is currently a little more complicated.
History of the VICP
In the 1980s, there was a public health scare over the DTP vaccine, an older version of today’s DTaP. At that time, families who said their children had been injured by the vaccine successfully sued the drug manufacturers in civil court. This caused all but one of those drug companies to stop production of the DTP vaccine.
Members of Congress and public health officials were concerned that if vaccine manufacturers weren’t given some form of legal protection, they might stop other vaccine production, putting the public health at risk. In response, Congress passed a bipartisan bill establishing the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The program acknowledged both that vaccines could cause injury while also partially shielding drug manufacturers from liability so they would continue to produce vaccines.
Vaccine court is part of that program. It allows people who claim vaccine-related injuries to seek compensation through a simplified legal process. There’s no jury in vaccine court. Instead, cases are decided by one of eight judges called special masters. The court is no-fault, which means that petitioners who bring claims don’t have to prove negligence. They just prove that more likely than not, their injury was caused by the vaccine.
The money for this program comes from a 75-cent tax added to every dose of recommended childhood vaccinations. Since the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program began, some 12,000 Americans have received almost $5 billion in payouts.
This program is structured around the Vaccine Injury Table, listing vaccines and eligible injuries. When the VICP began, it included six vaccinations. Today, that table has expanded to 16 immunizations, including the seasonal flu vaccine and those that inoculate against HPV.
Vaccine injuries remain very rare, but when they do occur, they can range from a physical injury in the shoulder because the needle is misplaced, to rare, severe cases in which a vaccine triggers a neurological condition.
Where COVID sits today
The vaccines that protect against COVID-19 are not among those included on the Vaccine Injury Table. That is because, to date, they are still included in a separate program for emergency measures.
In 2005, Congress established the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) to ensure public health during emergencies. The legislation partially shields manufacturers and health care workers from most lawsuits related to the use of certain medical treatments during public health emergencies, including vaccines.
People who do experience serious harm or death due to these medical measures may be eligible for compensation through the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). This program only covers severe injuries or fatalities caused by approved emergency treatments.
Unlike VICP, the CICP is an administrative program. It has a one-year statute of limitations and is more restrictive than the vaccine court program, which is a judicial program with a three-year statute of limitations for vaccine injuries. In vaccine court, claimants can also be compensated for pain and suffering.
Around 14,000 claims have been brought to the countermeasures program regarding the COVID vaccinations. About 5,000 of those claims have been denied, and fewer than 100 have been compensated. The most common injuries compensated have been cases of myocarditis.
The COVID vaccines are considered safe and effective by public health organizations, including the CDC, which notes the rigorous clinical trials they underwent. As of May, more than 676 million doses of the COVID vaccines had been administered in the U.S.
Adding COVID vaccines to the VICP
Today, many legal experts say the COVID vaccines should be added to the VICP.
“Those people went out and did exactly what was asked of them to protect themselves, their communities, and their families. And they’re basically being hung out to dry in the countermeasures program without any real compensation,” said Renée Gentry, a top vaccine injury litigator and head of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at the George Washington University Law School.
For the COVID vaccines to be rolled into the VICP, three things would need to happen. First, the vaccine would again need to become a recommended childhood vaccine. Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee voted to change recommendations for the COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC now says parents of children over 6 months should speak with a health care provider about the COVID vaccination.
Next, Congress would need to pass an excise tax on the COVID vaccination so that the vaccine court would have the money to cover claims.
Finally, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. would have to put the COVID vaccine on the Vaccine Injury Table.
In an email to 60 Minutes, Kennedy said the CDC makes the underlying decision, and he “will accept their recommendations, including as to COVID vaccines.”
If the PREP Act Declaration for COVID is terminated before the vaccines protecting against it are added to the vaccine court, COVID vaccine manufacturers would lose their shield from legal liability. The Department of Health and Human Services late last year extended certain elements of the PREP Act for COVID, keeping liability protections for certain countermeasures — including vaccine manufacturers and distributors — through 2029.
“Crushing” to add the COVID vaccine
The concern with adding COVID to the vaccine court is a matter of backlog, given the thousands of Americans who believe that they were injured by the COVID vaccine who have already brought claims to the countermeasures program. The number of special masters who adjudicate such claims has stayed at eight since the late 1980s, even though the number of cases in the court has multiplied.
“Without any improved infrastructure, without any additional special masters, it’s going to be crushing,” Gentry told 60 Minutes. “Because we know there are 10,000 unresolved cases in COVID in the countermeasures program still that haven’t been addressed. If just those cases came over, it would be a massive impact on the court. But we know that there are tens of thousands of other potential cases that are out there.”
The vaccine court’s chief special master agrees. He addressed the possibility of adding COVID vaccines to the court in a letter to Congress last year, writing, “The court’s ability to resolve vaccine injury claims efficiently will be crippled in the event we are not permitted to add more judicial officers…”
Still, those with knowledge about the subject say the COVID vaccine should be added.
“It is a medical intervention that we administered to otherwise healthy people that can cause side effects, and the fact that by having them vaccinated means that people who can’t be vaccinated are protected. That herd immunity, if you will,” said retired special master Denise Vowell.
Vowell and another former special master, George Hastings, addressed the possibility that, were the COVID vaccines added to the vaccine court, it might dissuade people from receiving the vaccine, an outcome that would be at odds with the court’s founding purpose.
“That’s always been a concern going back for the whole life of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, that the fact that you even had this system might worry people that vaccines can cause injuries,” Hastings said. “But the overall benefit is to have a program that, if there are rare instances where there are some adverse reactions, you compensate them without forcing people into a litigation system that would take forever. And then you’ll keep the vaccines flowing into people’s arms.”
Vowell was more pointed, noting that, while many public health interventions have side effects, the benefits outweigh them — especially when it comes to children’s health.
“Overall, the vaccine process has saved lives,” Vowell said. “If you go to an old cemetery and you look at headstones and you see the number of children who died at six months or three years of age, and then you go to a more modern cemetery today, you don’t see that number of children. Why? Because vaccine preventable illnesses have not been conquered, but they have been put in check.”
The video above was produced by Denise Schrier Cetta, Brit McCandless Farmer, Elizabeth Germino, and Jane Greeley. It was edited by Scott Rosann.
Brit McCandless Farmer is a digital producer for 60 Minutes, where her work has been recognized by the Webby, Gracie and Telly Awards. Previously, Brit worked at the CBS Weekend News, CBS Mornings, CNN and ABC News.
Most of us now view COVID-19 as more of a nuisance than a danger, thanks to vaccines and past exposure to the virus—all of which have built up our immunity.
But research suggests that multiple COVID-19 infections pose a risk for developing Long COVID. In the largest Long COVID study of young people to date, scientists led by a team at the University of Pennsylvania report that young people who got infected twice with COVID-19 were twice as likely as those who got COVID-19 once to develop Long COVID symptoms that affect major organs like the heart, kidney, and lungs, as well as taste and smell.
The ongoing research project, called RECOVER, is funded by the National Institutes of Health and explores the impact of COVID-19 infections on long-term health. Yong Chen, professor of biostatistics and director of the Center for Health AI and Synthesis of Evidence (CHASE) at the University of Pennsylvania, and his colleagues focused on people 21 and younger to better understand how COVID-19 reinfection affects health. “People think that reinfections don’t matter as much and don’t take them seriously,” Chen says. “Our primary message is that reinfections still matter, and you should do what you can to avoid reinfection by taking a vaccine or wearing a mask.”
The study involved data collected from more than 460,000 children, adolescents, and young adults from 40 pediatric hospitals who were diagnosed with a first COVID-19 infection around January 2022; some went on to develop a second infection after that. At the end of 2023, the researchers compared the group with only one infection to the group with a second infection, focusing on Long COVID-like symptoms such as abdominal pain, respiratory distress, changes in taste and smell, fatigue, chest pain, myocarditis, or irregular heart beat.
Those who developed a second infection were more than twice as likely as the group with only one infection to get a diagnosis of Long COVID, and the reinfected people were nearly three times as likely to report changes in taste and smell as those who only had one COVID-19 infection. This risk remained regardless of whether people were vaccinated or not, or regardless of how severe their infections were.
However, “vaccination status” referred to whether people had been vaccinated before the study period—not how recently they had received the shot. (The study was also initiated before the first updated vaccines targeting Omicron were available.) The authors emphasize that the results do not suggest that vaccines do not help to reduce the risk of Long COVID. Rather, the data show that kids who were vaccinated were much less likely to get COVID-19 in the first place and were also less likely to get reinfected compared to unvaccinated children.
Getting vaccinated, Chen says, is an important first step in protecting against possible Long COVID.
However, the study shows that even if you’re vaccinated, reinfection poses a significant enough risk to double your chances of developing Long COVID compared to just getting it once.
“The message is about how seriously you should treat your potential risk of getting a second COVID-19 infection,” says Chen. These results, along with other research, suggest that there might be a cumulative harmful effect of repeat COVID-19 infections on the body, and scientists are trying to better understand those potential long-term effects. Chen is also continuing the work to study what effect getting vaccinated following a first infection might have on not just the risk of additional infections, but on the development of Long COVID as well.
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I use white vinegar to clean my cutting boards, bathroom sinks, and toilets, and to erase soap scum from my glass shower doors, among many other things. I love that I don’t have to worry about the kids getting into it and that it can be used in so many different ways all over the home.
Using it on everything, I always thought of vinegar as having disinfecting properties — then, I paused to ask myself: Does white vinegar really disinfect surfaces? And does it actually kill bacteria and viruses? I did some digging to find out exactly how vinegar can, and should, be used around the home. Here’s everything you need to know.
The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) puts it this way: “While vinegar does work as a disinfectant to some degree, it is not as effective as bleach or commercial cleansers when it comes to killing germs. If you are going to use vinegar as a cleanser, it’s important to decide whether your goal is to clean, or to disinfect.”
So, What’s the Difference Between a Cleaner and a Disinfectant?
Cleaners physically remove dirt, debris, particles, and some germs from surfaces. They may kill some germs, but not all. Disinfectants kill germs on contact, including harmful pathogens, viruses, and bacteria that could make you and your family sick.
You should be disinfecting frequently touched surfaces on a regular basis such as door knobs, light switches, desktops, remote controls, and smart phones.
Can Vinegar Be Used As a Cleaning Product?
However, you don’t want to use vinegar on surfaces like granite, marble, cast iron, or wood as its acidic properties can actually damage them. You should also never mix vinegar with bleach because it can create harmful, toxic fumes. (Your home should always be well-ventilated when cleaning regardless of what you’re using.)
Can Vinegar Kill Bacteria like E. Coli and Salmonella?
Good news! Yes, vinegar can kill salmonella, E. coli, and listeria, which is great for the kitchen as these bacteria are the cause for many food borne illnesses. However, it can’t kill viruses like COVID, so it’s always best to clean and then disinfect with another product or solution to make sure your surfaces are shiny and bacteria-free.
How to Choose a Disinfectant
Next, make sure you use the disinfectant properly. Finally, read and follow usage instructions for the specific cleaning product you’re using, which you can find on the label or online.
What Can I Mix With Vinegar to Disinfect?
If you’re looking to disinfect, vinegar should not be your go-to, but you can mix it with something that is. Mix vinegar with equal parts rubbing alcohol, since rubbing alcohol is a disinfectant, and you can even add a few drops of essential oil to make it smell a little nicer. While this is an easy mix, it’s typically best to clean with your vinegar solution first and then disinfect afterwards.
BOSTON — A state appeals court has sided with a medical worker and voodoo worshipper who was fired by University of Massachusetts Medical Health Care after her request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine was rejected.
The ruling, issued Monday by the state Court of Appeals, overturns a Superior Court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by Rachelle Jeune against UMass Medical over its denial of a religious exemption in October 2021 as part of her employment as a surgical technician.
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BOSTON — A state appeals court has sided with a medical worker and voodoo worshipper who was fired by University of Massachusetts Medical Health Care after her request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine was rejected.
The ruling, issued Monday by the state Court of Appeals, overturns a Superior Court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by Rachelle Jeune against UMass Medical over its denial of a religious exemption in October 2021 as part of her employment as a surgical technician.
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As a leading expert on the viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites that make us sick, Michael Osterholm knows what happens when humans underestimate infectious diseases. Osterholm, who is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, was a leading voice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, he’s watching the dismantling of the U.S.’s public-health infrastructure with a sense of informed alarm. Osterholm’s new book, The Big One, assesses the response to COVID-19 and highlights the urgent lessons we need to, but haven’t, learned to better handle the next inevitable pandemic.
He talks to TIME about why the world, and the U.S. in particular, may be even less prepared for a pandemic now than we were before COVID-19.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
You’ve written other books about the dangers of infectious diseases. Why did you feel the need to write this one about COVID-19?
We have never done a hotwash of any kind on what happened with COVID-19, and to me we’re missing an incredible opportunity to learn what went right and what went wrong, in a nonpartisan, no-finger-pointing way. What could we do better for the next pandemic?
Right now everything is about finger pointing. We’re hung up on the issue of what was the source of COVID-19—a lab leak or a spillover? We will never know the answer. We are never going to know that.
Since I’ve had the opportunity to be very involved in the COVID-19 response—I wasn’t just a distant bystander—I tried to summarize lessons we should have learned and haven’t.
What are some of the lessons we have not learned?
Given what is happening in the current Administration with vaccines, I think we are in free fall. We are in worse shape now than we were literally before the COVID pandemic. No one in the White House is in charge of leading the country through the potential next hit from an infectious agent, which could be more deadly than if somebody launched a physical war against us on our own shores.
You have some specific proposals for how we might avoid things like universal lockdowns, border closings, and mask mandates—which, in retrospect, turned out not to be very effective in controlling COVID-19. What are some of those strategies?
The No. 1 way to save lives if we don’t have a vaccine is to ensure that our health care system is not overrun. When hospitals are operating at 130% capacity, some people won’t get care, and those who do won’t get care that is sufficient to save their lives.
That’s where snow days come in. Imagine if we set up a system where every day, you knew the hospital census for the hospitals in your community. Once that capacity reached, let’s say, 85% or 95%, then the community could take action and say we need to shut down for a couple of days here and change what we’re doing to reduce the number of infections, and the number of people likely to need hospital care. This is all knowing that people will still get infected, but some will get infected in the first six months, others in the second six months, and others in the third six months. If the infections are spaced out enough, you can basically keep the health care system operational.
Communities would have to make a decision that their hospitals are overrun right now, so they need to back off. During such snow days, you don’t shut the entire system down, but some people may take a few extra days off work, or work from home, or schools may be canceled for a few days. These are all things that could beat down the virus and put the health care system in the best place to help people.
You also propose a more comprehensive monitoring system, including medical IDs, to keep track of infectious diseases.
It would take a federal effort. The idea of a medical ID is to help track your information so health officials can tell where and which populations are hard hit by an infectious disease. That would be helpful to know, so officials would know that they need to scale back on what people are doing every day to lessen the number of new infections and therefore give hospitals an opportunity to catch up.
There is a lot of opposition from people who automatically say they don’t want the government to have more information on them, but they don’t realize that the government already has a great deal of information on us, including through our Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid numbers.
Government health agencies now have differing vaccine recommendations from some professional medical groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). How should the public make sense of the conflicting advice?
I’ve been asked how to interpret the AAP not following the recommendations of the ACIP [the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which makes recommendations to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)]. I say you are asking the wrong question. The question is, how did the ACIP get to the point where it is scientifically inconsistent with all the rest of the scientific world? The question should be, ‘What happened to the ACIP?’ Not ‘what happened to the AAP?’
Who can the public trust when it comes to health information now?
The bottom line is that we cannot trust the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and CDC right now. It’s a terribly hard thing for me to say. The CDC is such a very important voice. There are still very talented and highly trained professionals at the CDC, but what is happening to the leadership—specifically, Secretary Kennedy and his colleagues—has brought it to the point where it can’t be trusted.
What does that mean for the health of Americans?
I have never seen [so many] dangerous and potentially catastrophic decisions being made by HHS as I have in the last 10 weeks. We need mRNA technology for our influenza vaccines to have any hope of having enough vaccines available for the first year to year and half of the next possible flu pandemic. Now, we can make enough vaccine for a quarter of the world’s population during the first 15-18 months of a pandemic, with the chicken-egg culture we use today. That is an example of a very dangerous situation that we could basically take off the table if we have research and development invested in mRNA technology.
My point is that we can’t stop a pandemic. Once a virus takes off, nothing really can be done. When a spillover happens from animals to humans in any part of the world, when people travel, that virus can quickly spread. That’s why we have to prepare for that and minimize the impact of that spread with vaccines that we develop as quickly as possible to that specific virus. We need to make lots of it and to get it out, and mRNA is an important part of being able to do that.
During and after the pandemic, there was a lot of criticism of the World Health Organization (WHO) and how it responded. How can the response of organizations like WHO be improved?
The WHO is absolutely important, and it’s absolutely critical that we have a strong WHO for these kinds of events. The challenge is that during COVID-19, the WHO was one of the real obstacles to getting good recommendations to the public about respiratory protection. To me, that says that just because there are official government health bodies, it doesn’t mean they get it right.
To address that, we need to have discussions about the response. The WHO used to do a hotwash of its response. Why did it take almost two months to declare a pandemic? I put out a document through CIDRAP on Jan. 20 saying that this is a pandemic situation, and the world needs to deal with it. Why were they so slow off the block?
We all did good things, and we all did some challenging things. What’s important now is to ask, ‘What happened?’ and use that information to improve in the future.
What are some of the biggest lessons learned from COVID-19 and actions that shouldn’t be repeated in the next pandemic?
We need to come together and not finger-point. We don’t have to agree about what happened in Wuhan…but what we need to do is prevent something similar from happening in the future. If it does happen, how do we respond? In answering these questions, none of it should be partisan. It should all just be about what science tells us.
And we need to stop doing border closings. They are useless. We have no evidence that border closing materially affects any emerging pathogen that shows up, but it’s often politically what people think should be done. And to oppose them makes it look like we don’t care, which is not true at all.
What we have to do [a better job of] in public health is understand that we are not the only answer that will be on the table. There will also be social and political issues to consider.
Are we now in a better position to meet the next “big one”?
No. I would have to say that we are in worse shape. We don’t have the opportunity now to use tools like mRNA in a meaningful way. If a pandemic begins to emerge, we will divide up into camps to go at each other. We would right now have major challenges bringing people together, and if there were ever a time when we needed to bring people together against a common enemy—i.e. a virus—it’s during a pandemic.
We need to do that. But we have nothing at this point to support that. We should deal with all of this now, game the situation, and work out what we would do.
It’s no secret screen time has soared during the pandemic1. Especially for those able to work from home, you might oscillate from virtual meetings to online happy hours to a feel-good TV series on Netflix. And repeat. With all this skyrocketed screen time, the thought might have crossed your mind once or twice: Should I invest in a pair of blue-light-blocking glasses? These lenses, meant to filter out the blue light in your surroundings, are practically exploding in popularity as we continue to bombard our retinas with LED-backlit screens—you can snag a pair for anywhere from $12 to $95.
As the fall respiratory season approaches and differing recommendations for children’s COVID-19 and flu shots cause confusion, who should be getting vaccinated to protect against illness?
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, voted to change recommendations for the COVID-19 vaccine.
The ACIP’s recommendations are not the final say — they must be reviewed and approved by the CDC director to become official guidance. But CDC directors have almost always accepted the recommendations.
Here’s where recommendations currently stand.
Flu shots
Guidance on the flu shot for kids is consistent across top medical groups: Children 6 months and older are generally advised to get the shot.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also recommends that everyone 6 months and older without medical contradictions get vaccinated.
For pregnant women, flu shots — specifically the injection, not the nasal spray — are also recommended by both the CDC and AAP.
Protecting kids from the flu is important because infections can lead to hospitalizations and sometimes be deadly, the CDC says. During the 2023-24 flu season, for example, the CDC reportednearly 200 flu-related deaths among children in the U.S. Most of them were eligible for a vaccine but were not fully vaccinated, the CDC said.
For the COVID-19 vaccine, advice currently varies.
The CDC says parents of healthy children ages 6 months to 17 years old should discuss the benefits with a health care provider and “may receive” it, but the agency stops short of recommending the shot. The agency broadly recommends COVID-19 vaccines for moderately or severely immunocompromised children.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, however, recently shared vaccine recommendations that, for the first time in three decades, differ from U.S. government advice. In the guidance, the AAP is “strongly recommending” COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years old. For older children, shots are also advised but it’s up to parents’ discretion, the AAP said.
Other top medical groups have also shared recommendations differing from the CDC’s advice.
For example, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a medical association representing physicians and scientists who specialize in infectious diseases, recommends the COVID-19 vaccine for everyone ages 6 months and older.
And a group of four West Coast states has joined together to issue recommendations on COVID-19 shots and other vaccines that differ from CDC guidance. The West Coast Health Alliance recommends the COVID vaccine for all children 6 months to 23 months old and those 2 to 18 years old with risk factors or who have never been vaccinated.
The announcement was made last week in a joint statement from Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, all Democrats, saying they were putting safety before politics.
“Every resident will have access to the COVID vaccine, no exceptions,” Hochul said in a statement, which advises vaccinations for children 6 months to 18 years old.
CDC advisory panel’s proposed COVID changes
The CDC’s advisory committee, the ACIP, has undergone changes in recent months, with all new memberspicked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is known for raising doubts about vaccines.
In their latest meeting, the ACIP voted for people to make individual, informed decisions about COVID vaccination, and it declined to specifically recommend COVID vaccination. This is a change from current guidance, since it drops recommendations for even children at high risk.
The updated recommendations, which are not yet considered official but are expected to be soon, would include the following for children:
Individuals 6 months to 64 years: Vaccination based on individual-based decision-making — with an emphasis that the risk-benefit of vaccination is most favorable for individuals who are at an increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease and lowest for individuals who are not at an increased risk, according to the CDC list of COVID-19 risk factors.
Dr. Paul Offit — a vaccine researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a former government adviser who has sparred with Kennedy for years — said that with this proposed change, “the good news is anyone can get the vaccine.” But “the bad news is that no one is encouraged to get it even if you’re in a high-risk group,” he recently told The Associated Press.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said he expects confusion around the COVID vaccine due to the panel’s recent vote.
“What I think it means is that people are going to be uncertain whether or not the COVID-19 vaccine is a benefit to them,” he told CBS News on Friday.
Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, says there’s “a lot of noise out there” when it comes to vaccines, but advises parents to “stick the course” and talk to your doctor about making sure children get all their necessary vaccinations.
Sara Moniuszko is a health and lifestyle reporter at CBSNews.com. Previously, she wrote for USA Today, where she was selected to help launch the newspaper’s wellness vertical. She now covers breaking and trending news for CBS News’ HealthWatch.
“The recommendations are that every adult should also be vaccinated,” said Dr. Ruth Lynfied, medical director and state epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health.
On Monday, MDH announced a standing order empowering pharmacists to give COVID-19 vaccinations to those who want them.
The state agency recommends the vaccine for those six months and older, while strongly recommending it for people with underlying conditions. It comes amid drastic changes to vaccine guidance under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine skeptic.
Most recently, the CDC voted to drop the recommendation for most adults to get vaccinated. In August, the FDA limited COVID-19 vaccines for most age groups.
“Vaccines can prevent severe disease, and we want people to use the tools that we have available,” said Lynfield.
The state said it followed guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Academy of Family Physicians, among others. Those associations recommend the vaccine for kids under the age of 2, pregnant women and anyone at high risk for severe illness.
Lynfield said allowing widespread access, despite the new federal restrictions, is key.
“We wanted to ensure that anyone in Minnesota who wanted protection against severe disease from COVID-19 should be able to receive the vaccine,” said Lynfield.
When asked if insurance will cover the COVID-19 vaccine, Lynfield said, “We are optimistic that there will be coverage.”
Lynfeld said she hopes to learn more in the coming days, but Walz’s executive order started the conversations between MDH and insurance providers.
“We just need to wait a little while for the insurance companies and the health plans to catch up with everything that’s been happening,” said Lynfield.
Last season, Lynfield reported that 5,914 people in the state were hospitalized for COVID, with most being 65 or older.
As for how bad COVID will be this year, Lynfield said that’s just too hard to predict.
Gaming is rebounding, and visitation is at record levels
Unemployment is low, and GDP is high
The economy in Macau is booming, with gross domestic product climbing more than 5% in the second quarter of 2025. Visitation is at an all-time high, and casino gaming revenue, the heartbeat of the Chinese Special Administrative Region (SAR), is nearing its return to pre-COVID-19 conditions.
Throngs of Chinese mainlanders await entry into Macau at the border checkpoint. Macau’s economy is on a comeback, with gaming nearing pre-COVID-19 conditions and visitor numbers already at record highs. (Image: Shutterstock)
July and August set new gross gaming revenue (GGR) post-COVID highs. Casino gamblers generated net win for the six gaming operators of $2.76 billion in July and $2.77 billion in August.
Year to date, Macau casino revenue is up 7.2% on the prior year to $20.36 billion. That is more than 82% of the amount of gaming money the six casinos won in 2019 through August.
Gaming analysts and brokerages are amending their full-year GGR outlook positively, as the city’s casinos have successfully managed to turn their attention away from the VIP high roller to the mass and premium mass markets, as well as the leisure and business travel sectors.
Visitation Hits Record
Macau casinos can no longer rely on high rollers to keep their properties afloat. VIP junket groups are largely no more, with the travel organizers seeking Asian gaming markets not under China’s control.
Macau, which remains the world’s richest gaming market in terms of casino revenue, has invested many billions of dollars in nongaming amenities. Most notable has been the region’s quick embrace of K-pop, with its resorts’ many large theaters hosting prominent acts and events, including this weekend’s Fact Music Awards at the government’s newly opened Outdoor Performance Venue.
The Macau Statistics and Census Bureau reports that August visitation reached a record 4,219,034 people. An 18.4% year-over-year rise, last month brought year-to-date visitation to almost 26.7 million visitors, a 15% surge from 2024.
Economic Data Points
By most critical data points, Macau’s economy is strong. Inflation in July was just 0.12%, and the city’s unemployment rate for its nearly 686K residents stands at just 2.6%.
The median monthly income is up to $2,222, almost $100 higher than in December 2019. Hotel occupancy rate in July was 91%, on par with pre-COVID levels.
While China’s economy has failed to stimulate a sustained post-pandemic recovery, with factory and mining output decelerating in August, it’s a different story in Macau.
Amid the global health scare, Macau announced a diversification plan to reduce its reliance on casino gambling, which had accounted for more than 80 cents of every tax dollar the local SAR government had received. Macau has invested in integrated tourism, or special events, including large-scale business gatherings and conventions, plus so-called “health tourism.”
Macau has also successfully integrated its economy with the Greater Bay Area, with the government investing in initiatives to attract companies invested in the technology and trade industries. Macau has also established a free trade zone with neighboring Hengqin Island, where land is more available for the city’s ongoing economic ambitions.
Macau is more accessible than ever before, too. A record number of Chinese mainland cities are eligible for Individual Visit Scheme visas, which allow people to travel in and out of Hong Kong and/or Macau not in a group. Macau and Hong Kong, since 2018, have also been connected by the 34-mile Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.
DENVER — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices declined to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to anyone, even those at high risk, leaving people to choose for themselves whether to get it.
Until now, COVID-19 vaccinations had been recommended as a routine shot each fall, like a flu vaccine.
The advisors also urged the CDC to adopt stronger language around claims of vaccine risks, despite pushback from outside medical groups that say the shots have a proven safety record from billions of doses administered worldwide.
The Associated Press reports that among many unproven questions about risks that the panel raised Friday was one rare side effect that people already are warned about: a kind of heart inflammation called myocarditis, mostly in young men, that was discovered in the early days of vaccination in 2021. A scientist studying whether people with certain genes are uniquely susceptible to that risk told the panel the Trump administration had canceled his grant before the research could be finished.
The divided panel narrowly avoided urging states to require a prescription for the COVID-19 shot.
What is the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel and why is it so influential?
On Thursday, the panel voted to change its age recommendations for the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) vaccine.
In an 8-3 vote, the panel decided to change the recommended minimum age for receiving the MMRV vaccine, which combines the MMR vaccine and the chickenpox vaccine, to 4 years old, and that children in this age group instead get separate vaccines — one against MMR and another for varicella, or chickenpox.
Since 2009, the CDC has said it prefers separate shots for initial doses of those vaccines, and 85% of toddlers already do.
In a move that surprised some medical groups, the panel delayed recommending whether to end the longstanding CDC recommendation that all newborns be vaccinated at birth against the liver virus, hepatitis B.
The Associated Press reports that the panel had been considering whether to recommend delaying that initial vaccination — something doctors and parents already can choose to do. However, amid criticism from independent pediatric and infectious disease specialists who say the vaccine is safe and has helped infant infections drop sharply, the advisers decided Friday to postpone that decision.
Scripps News Group and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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In another vote, advisers recommended adding language on the shot’s risks to the vaccine’s information sheet, which is already required by law.
The committee’s focus on Covid-19 vaccines reflects Kennedy’s long-held suspicion of them. Since taking office in February, Kennedy has canceled a half-billion dollars in mRNA vaccine research and separately ended a major contract with Moderna, one of the Covid vaccine manufactures, for work on a pandemic bird flu vaccine.
During Friday’s meeting, CDC scientists presented extensive data on the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccines. They also explained in detail how the agency tracks Covid hospitalizations and said the agency has a “rigorous and standardized process” to determine whether hospitalizations are classified as being due to Covid-19.
During the discussion portion of the meeting, committee members made several unfounded claims. Robert Malone, a former mRNA researcher who has spread vaccine misinformation, questioned whether there is actually evidence of disease protection from the Covid shots. “Are there any well-defined, characterized correlates of protection for Covid, yes or no?” he demanded.
Cody Meissner, a pediatrician at Dartmouth College, responded that there is “a reasonable measurement of neutralizing or binding antibodies that correlate with protection against symptomatic infection in the first few months” after vaccination.
At one point, Hillary Blackburn, a pharmacist on the committee, questioned whether the Covid vaccine could be connected to her mother’s lung cancer diagnosis, which occurred two years after receiving a Covid vaccine. She said she is aware of four other individuals in her small hometown diagnosed with the same kind of cancer. “Is it related to the vaccine?” she asked.
In a tense exchange about potential birth defects associated with the Covid vaccines, some ACIP members pressed manufacturer Pfizer about eight birth defects that occurred in a group of pregnant women who received the company’s vaccine and two birth defects that occurred in an unvaccinated group. Alejandra Gurtman, who heads vaccine clinical research and development at Pfizer, replied that those rates are comparable to rates of congenital abnormalities seen in the general population.
Carol Hayes, a liaison with the American College of Nurse-Midwives who was present during the meeting, clarified that most birth defects arise during the first trimester of pregnancy, and in the cited study, mothers received the vaccine at 12 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
At Friday’s meeting, the committee also reversed a decision it made just a day before. On Thursday, advisers voted to no longer recommend the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine to children under age 4. Yet puzzlingly, it voted to maintain coverage of that vaccine through the federal Vaccines for Children program, which provides free vaccines to low-income children and those without insurance. On Friday, they voted that the program should not, in fact, cover it.
On Friday, advisers also voted 11 to one in favor of tabling a decision on whether to delay the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine until one month of age. The committee had discussed that vaccine extensively on Thursday, though it’s unclear why the committee was asked to look into the potential change at all, as the hepatitis B vaccine has been given to newborns in the US since 1991.
Infants get the vaccine before leaving the hospital because the virus can be passed from an infected mother to the baby during birth. Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection that can lead to cirrhosis and cancer. The vaccine is highly effective at preventing infection in newborns.
Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, tells WIRED there is no scientific rationale for delaying the hepatitis B vaccine until one month after birth, and she worries about an increase in hepatitis B infections if the panel eventually recommends delaying the immunization.
“We will likely see more babies and young children who become infected,” Cohen says. “From a public health infrastructure perspective, we are concerned that this risk-based approach will miss preventing infection to babies born to infected moms.”
Up to 16 percent of HBV-positive pregnant women don’t get tested for hepatitis B, so screening doesn’t capture all infected mothers.
“We do not understand the motivation or rationale for this debate,” Cohen says.
