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Former President Donald Trump issued a statement on Sunday claiming that Americans are "refusing" to take the coronavirus vaccine due to mistrust of the Biden administration, the media and the 2020 presidential election results. "Joe Biden kept talking about how good of a job he's doing on the distribution of the Vaccine that was developed by Operation Warp Speed or, quite simply, the Trump Administration. He's not doing well at all," Trump's statement said. (Colarossi, 7/18)

President Joe Biden's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is praised by a majority of Americans, a new poll shows. The CBS News/YouGov poll revealed that 26 percent of Americans believe Biden is doing a "very good" job at managing the pandemic while another 40 percent think he is doing a "somewhat good" job at it. Only 34 percent disapprove of the COVID-19 response, with 18 percent calling it "very bad" on Biden's part. (Hill, 7/18)

The signs spoke the sentiments. "No jab = no job" "My body, my choice. Let me call my own shots" "From heroes to zeros" Hundreds of people lined the sidewalk in front of Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital's main entrance Saturday to protest the health system's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees, contractors and others. "We were essential last year, and now we're your villains," one woman yelled. The scene was similar in front of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where, as in West Bloomfield, drivers of passing vehicles frequently honked to show support. There also were people protesting at three additional hospitals in the health system — Clinton Township, Wyandotte and Jackson — said organizer Amber Castro of Westland. (Hall and Stein, 7/17)

Medical schools and teaching hospitals should require their workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine, the Association of American Medical Colleges told its members Friday. Unvaccinated Americans account for an overwhelming majority of new COVID-19 hospitalizations, said Dr. David Skorton, CEO of the association, adding that the virus continues to mutate. States with the highest spikes in new cases also have some of the country's lowest vaccination rates, according to data from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Coronavirus Tracking Center. (Kacik, 7/16)

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was granted priority review for full approval by the Food Drug Administration for Americans 16 and older, Pfizer and BioNTech announced Friday. A full approval for the Pfizer vaccine could help bolster the U.S. vaccination effort, as many people are reluctant to receive the vaccine under its emergency use status, the Boston Globe notes. (Frazier, 7/16)

Moderna's move to launch a study of its COVID-19 vaccine in pregnant women should reassure the public and help build confidence in the jab's safety, experts said. The trial, which has not yet begun recruiting, is aiming to enroll about 1,000 females over 18 who will be studied over a 21-month period, according to a posting on ClinicalTrials.gov. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that pregnant women can get a COVID-19 vaccine, but clinical trials specifically studying the jabs among this population were not included when the Food and Drug Administration granted any of the vaccines' emergency use authorization. (Rivas, 7/17)

In the span of the Covid-19 pandemic, and thanks to the success of two of the currently available vaccines for SARS-CoV-2, messenger RNA, or mRNA, went from being an obscure cell biology concept understood and mentioned only by scientists to being a household term. But the technology behind the mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer and BioNTech is anything but new. Developed over an arduous 40 years, it was the result of an unlikely success story. One of the key figures behind this achievement was Katalin Karikó, senior vice president of the German biotech company BioNTech and adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. (Lloreda, 7/19)

An X-ray technician in California whose January death was under investigation as his family suggested a possible link to his second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine died due to heart disease, a coroner’s report concluded. Tim Zook, 60, died of hypertensive and atherosclerotic heart disease with severe cardiomegaly and heart failure, according to his autopsy report. The report did not mention a COVID-19 vaccine and said he died at UC Irvine Medical Center. At the time of his death, Zook’s widow, Rochelle, told local news outlets that her husband "believed in vaccines" and was "sure he would take that vaccine again, and he’d want the public to take it," but that she noticed his health went into a sharp decline after he received his second dose of the Pfizer shot. (Hein, 7/17)

KHN: Novavax’s Effort To Vaccinate The World, From Zero To Not Quite Warp Speed 

On a sweltering June morning, Novavax CEO and covid vaccine maker Stanley Erck stood on a stage unmasked and did something that would have been unthinkable six months ago: He shook hands with Maryland’s governor. Erck was with Gov. Larry Hogan to announce Novavax’s global vaccine headquarters ― a campus expected to house laboratories and more than 800 employees. Hogan called Novavax’s future “bright” and marveled that more than 71% of the state’s adults had received at least one shot. (Tribble and Pradhan, 7/19)