�������ýҕ�l

Emergent BioSolutions announced Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration is allowing its Baltimore plant to resume manufacturing materials for vaccines after it was shutdown in April due to contamination problems. The plant, which had been producing vaccine materials for Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, conflated ingredients between the two different types of vaccines last year and destroyed 15 million doses of J&J's vaccine. (Knutson, 7/29)

The green light from the FDA is just the first step in the plant’s return. The vaccines produced still must receive authorization from the agency to be released to the public. “The American people should have high expectations of the partners its government chooses to help prepare them for disaster, and we have even higher expectations of ourselves,” Emergent CEO Robert Kramer said. “We have fallen short of those lofty ambitions over the past few months but resumption of manufacturing is a key milestone and we are grateful for the opportunity to help bring this pandemic to an end.” (Condon and Miller, 7/29)

A year ago, U.S. health professionals felt helpless. The coronavirus had been identified but was poorly understood. Thousands were dying daily and the tools available -- ventilators, experimental therapies, testing kits -- were limited and often ineffective. The president was dismissive of masks and social distancing. Today, even though the death rate has plummeted, those same professionals feel worse. The virus, while mutating, has been mapped; tests and highly effective vaccines are readily available, and the White House is on message. But, propelled by the delta variant, infection rates are increasing in 90% of the U.S. (Torrence, 7/29)

Hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses have been saved from the trash after U.S. regulators extended their expiration date for a second time, part of a nationwide effort to salvage expiring shots to battle the nation’s summer surge in infections. The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday sent a letter to shot maker Johnson & Johnson declaring that the doses remain safe and effective for at least six months when properly stored. The FDA’s move gives the shots an extra six weeks as public officials press more Americans to get inoculated. (Catalini, 7/30)

Uber announced Thursday that its employees must be fully vaccinated as the rideshare company plans its return to the office for this October. The announcement comes a day after other Big Tech companies, including Google, Twitter and Facebook said their employees must receive the vaccination in order to enter the office. (Rouhandeh, 7/29)

[Florida's] Leon County is requiring all employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or be fired. And the mayors of Miami-Dade and Orange counties announced their own mask and vaccine mandates for county facilities. Leon County Administrator Vince Long said he's not concerned about blowback from Gov. Ron DeSantis' office. DeSantis is against vaccine mandates and a new law gives the governor the power to invalidate local measures and block government entities from requiring vaccinations. (7/29)

KHN: Bus Stop By Bus Stop, Denver-Area Officials Microtarget Vaccine Hesitancy

John Letson had seen too many apocalyptic movies to feel comfortable getting a covid-19 vaccine initially. “I was completely against it,” the 40-year-old movie buff said, referencing “I Am Legend” and “Children of Men,” in which humanity is in jeopardy, as examples of what could go wrong. “I think an untested thing during a pandemic has later effects that we don’t know yet.” (Hawryluk, 7/30)

KHN: Amid Covid Booster Debate, West Virginia To Check Immunity Of Vaccinated Nursing Home Residents 

West Virginia raced ahead of the country last winter to get people in nursing homes vaccinated against covid-19, but with cases and hospitalizations on the rise again, state officials want to know whether immunity levels are falling for residents who had their shots. Starting in August, the state plans to begin measuring the levels of disease-fighting antibodies in the blood of vaccinated nursing home residents, which could help indicate whether they need a booster shot. The process will be voluntary and the data will be shared with federal health agencies evaluating the need for boosters. (Galewitz, 7/30)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Hot Covid Summer 

Predictions of a “hot vax summer” that would let Americans who had their covid immunizations celebrate the waning of the pandemic are turning out to have been premature. Covid-19’s delta variant is driving up cases in all 50 states, prompting new recommendations for masks and a growing number of vaccine requirements, including one for most federal workers. Meanwhile, official Washington celebrated the anniversary of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which sought to guarantee an array of protections, as concerns grow that people with covid aftereffects could dramatically expand the population needing those protections. (7/29)

The 27 member states of the European Union altogether have now administered more coronavirus vaccine doses per 100 people than the United States, in another sign that inoculations across the bloc have maintained some speed throughout the summer, while they have stagnated for weeks in the United States. (Peltier, 7/29)