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President Joe Biden on Thursday said the U.S. has licensed a key technology used in the current Covid-19 vaccines to the World Health Organization, which would allow manufacturers around the world to work with the global health agency to develop their own shots against the virus. The National Institutes of Health has licensed its stabilized spike protein technology to the WHO and United Nations’ Medicines Patent Pool, Biden said. (Kimball, 5/12)

In a notable bid to widen global access to Covid-19 medical products, the National Institutes of Health agreed to license nearly a dozen technologies to a World Health Organization program created to share information for developing drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics. The licenses will be provided to the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP, which the WHO launched two years ago as the pandemic erupted. The goal of the program is to collect patent rights, regulatory test data, and other information that can eventually be used to provide medical products to low and middle-income countries. (Silverman, 5/12)

Novavax is confident its Covid-19 vaccine will receive the endorsement of the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee early this summer, executives said this week. The FDA committee is scheduled to meet on June 7 to review Novavax’s submission. An endorsement from the committee, which is made up of independent experts, would mean the drug regulator is almost certain to quickly authorize the two-dose vaccine for use in the U.S. (Kimball, 5/13)

Estimated effectiveness of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine against infection in children 6 to 11 years old was 88% at least 14 days after the first dose amid the Delta variant surge, before the emergence of Omicron, finds an interim analysis from a phase 2/3 clinical trial. (5/12)

Petty Officer First Class Juwairiya Webb joined the Navy after Sept. 11, 2001. She’s Muslim, but commanders told her at boot camp that she could not cover her hair with a traditional hijab. “I felt naked,” Webb said. “I felt like everyone was looking at me. I felt uncomfortable, but it took time for me to get used to it.” She still covered her hair when she was out of uniform. And as her faith deepened, she decided to challenge the Navy's decision. With the help of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, she sought an accommodation under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. (Walsh, 5/13)

Currently, the state will remove a person’s immunization records from its new vaccine registry only if their former or current health care provider signs a withdrawal form. The House and Senate have passed legislation making that process easier, but have rejected efforts to eliminate the signature requirement. As introduced, House Bill 1487 would have required only that a person ask the Department of Health and Human Services in writing to withdraw their information. “Under no circumstances shall the request for withdrawal require the signature of the individual’s current or former health care provider,” the bill said. The House and Senate amended it to allow a signature from either a physician or notary, an option not currently in state law. (Timmins, 5/12)