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Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the California Department of Public Health reveal a disturbing, if predictable, pattern: Vaccination status goes hand-in-hand with education and income, in near lock-step. (Sforza, 3/27)

Researchers who examined what drove variations in state response to the pandemic published their findings yesterday in The Lancet. ... For deaths, they found a fourfold difference in rates across states, with fatalities lowest in Hawaii and New Hampshire and highest in Arizona and Washington, DC. Overall, they found that states with higher poverty, lower levels of education, less access to quality healthcare, and less trust in others had disproportionately higher rates of COVID infections and deaths. These factors were common denominators in states with the highest Black populations and those that voted for the Republican candidate in the 2020 election. (Schnirring, 3/24)

Roughly 300 people in the United States are still dying from Covid-related causes each day, a vast majority of them adults over 70 and people who are medically frail or have impaired immune systems. So should they get another booster shot now? That’s the thorny question facing federal health officials. About 53 million adults 65 and older live in the United States, accounting for about 16 percent of the population, according to the Census Bureau. And seven million Americans have weak immune systems because of an illness or a medication. (Mandavilli, 3/24)

The antiviral drug nirmatrelvir (one of the components of Paxlovid) lowered the risk of long COVID in patients who had at least one risk factor for severe illness, finds a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 3/23)

California has hit another major milestone in its fight against COVID-19, with all of the state’s residents now living in areas with a “low” community transmission level for the first time since last fall. This puts California’s 58 counties in line with approximately 93% of others across the U.S. that meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s metrics for the same category, as the country continues to make progress against the virus. (Vaziri, 3/24)

Courts at the state and federal levels continue grappling with the application of California insurance law to COVID-19 business interruption claims. Much uncertainty remains as to how California law applies in a number of scenarios presented by the pandemic. After three years of insurance claims and litigation, the California Supreme Court has agreed to provide guidance on one of the main arguments that insurers make when rejecting COVID-19 business interruption claims. In Another Planet Entertainment, LLC v. Vigilant Insurance Co., the state's highest court will address the question of whether under California law the actual or potential presence of SARS-CoV-2 on insured property can qualify as physical loss of or damage to property. (Jordan and Bowman, 3/24)