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An online ad campaign featuring former president Donald Trump boosted vaccination rates in counties where rates of Covid-19 shots were lowest, according to research published Monday. In a campaign aimed at more than 1,000 counties across the U.S., researchers created an ad using a Trump appearance on Fox News telling people to get vaccinated, and then during October last year ran the video on YouTube in places with low vaccination rates. In the counties where the ad was shown, about 103 more vaccinations were given, on average, than in counties that didn’t get ads. (Armstrong, 4/4)

A growing segment of the wait-and-see crowd may be warming to the idea of getting a COVID-19 shot for kids 5 and under, according to a poll provided exclusively to Axios from The Harris Poll. In particular, Harris found nearly half of parents who were unvaccinated themselves said they'd get the vaccine for their little kids, up from 35% in early February. It's also well above the low of 22% later on in February after a delay in Pfizer’s FDA authorization process was announced. (Reed, 4/4)

COVID-19 vaccines protect most cancer patients from contracting COVID or severe cases, however; those with blood cancers do not get the same protective benefit, according to a research study at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center in Indianapolis. Vaccinated Patients with blood cancer may have a "higher and widely varied risk" of breakthrough infections of COVID, according to a published study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. "Patients with hematologic cancers, or blood cancers, including leukemia, multiple myeloma and lymphoma, were at a higher risk of breakthrough COVID," and "those with blood cancers had a greater risk than solid cancers," the researchers stated in a release sent to Fox News about the study. (McGorry, 4/4)

A federal judge has blocked the military from disciplining a dozen U.S. Air Force officers who are asking for religious exemptions to the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine. The officers, mostly from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, along with a handful of airmen and reservists, filed a lawsuit in February after their exemption requests were denied. (Seewer, 4/4)

More than 100 Activision Blizzard employees participated in a virtual walkout Monday as the Santa Monica video game studio joined a growing wave of companies lifting COVID-19 vaccination requirements while pressing workers to return to the office. Employees at the studio best known for its “World of Warcraft” and “Call of Duty” franchises who participated in the work stoppage took the day as an unpaid walkout day. Some joined a Zoom call that was a virtual protest gathering and spoke out on social media. (Ding, 4/4)

The University of Kentucky said a weekly testing requirement for students and employees who are vaccinated against the coronavirus would end Monday. The move comes amid high vaccination rates at the school and lower rates of the virus on campus and in the Lexington community, news outlets reported, citing an email from UK President Eli Capilouto. (4/4)

With Harris County well inside its own code yellow phase of the COVID pandemic, Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle wants to the take a red pen to the county judge’s emergency powers. The proposal, on the commissioner court’s Tuesday agenda, would strip County Judge Lina Hidalgo of authority she was granted March 16, 2020, to have emergency powers as long as Gov. Greg Abbott had them under the state’s disaster declaration related to the pandemic. (Begley, 4/4)

All five Democrats removed from a Pennsylvania school board last week for voting to require masks have been reinstated, the district says. "Removal of school board members cripples the school district," Court of Common Pleas Judge William Mahon said in a courtroom packed with hundreds of parents, teachers and community members, Patch reports. Mahon vacated his order just three days after his earlier order in response to a parent-filed petition to the West Chester Area School District in February, arguing that under the Pennsylvania school code districts have no authority to require students to wear masks. (Arias, 4/3)

Officials in Hawaii are looking for new ways to use the state’s “Safe Travels” program that was implemented to screen visitors during the pandemic. Hawaii’s $37 million travel policy, which ended last month, required travelers to upload a negative COVID-19 test or proof of vaccination to avoid quarantine. The program had web and mobile applications developed and the state installed thermal and facial-recognition cameras in airports to help find potentially sick passengers. (4/4)