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Just as the U.S. has finally turned the corner on a wave of COVID-19 cases caused by the omicron variant, multiple countries in Europe are showing an increase in infections – fueling concerns about the possibility of another global surge. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy were among those that saw an upswing in cases this past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. (Stanton, 3/13)

When it comes to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, things may be looking up again in Europe, but not in a good way. The past week has seen yet another upswing in reported Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations in countries such as the U.K., Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy. On Saturday, Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, tweeted, “The next wave in Europe has begun.” (Lee, 3/12)

Cindy Watson would like some clarity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Madison County, Iowa, where she lives, is categorized as having "low" COVID levels on the agency's new lookup tool for COVID-19 Community Levels – it's even colored an inviting green on the map. But when she looked at the agency's existing map of COVID transmission levels, the same county – and much of the country – was bright red and classified as "high." (Stone and Simmons-Duffin, 3/12)

Children and adolescents diagnosed as having asthma are at similar risk for COVID-19 infection as those without asthma, according to a study today in Pediatrics that controlled for factors tied to SARS-CoV-2 testing. (Van Beusekom, 3/11)

ACON Laboratories wants U.S. consumers to use its “Flowflex COVID-19 Antigen Home Test,” not its “Flowflex SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Self-Testing)“ because the latter is a counterfeit test — in the United States. As ACON explained in its FDA-posted recall notice, it knows about “the U.S. distribution of unauthorized, adulterated and misbranded counterfeit product” with the Flowflex SARS-CoV-2 packaging. “ACON Laboratories is not importing the “Flowflex SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Self-Testing)” into the U.S. as it is only authorized for sale in Europe and other markets,” the alert says. (Neal, 3/13)

In the coronavirus pandemic’s early days, health care workers turned to bandannas and other makeshift protections because they lacked the official stuff. That gave engineers at the University of Maryland an idea. They called a niche company, ActivArmor of Pueblo, Colorado, that they were helping develop custom 3D-printed casts to help set broken bones. Could the company pause and make custom masks? It could. It could even go further and make them clear, reusable and form-fitting without any bruising. And they were a protective N95-grade. (Cohn, 3/14)

The Biden administration wants to expand a federal COVID-19 tracking system created during the pandemic to provide a more detailed view of how respiratory and other infectious diseases are affecting patients and hospital resources, according to a draft of proposed rules reviewed by Reuters. The plan would build upon a hospital data collection system designed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Trump administration. Management of the program was transferred last month to HHS's lead public health agency, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Steenhuysen and Taylor, 3/14)