July 27, 2021

The CDC reverses itself. Weeks after telling vaccinated Americans they could drop their masks, the agency now recommends that the fully vaccinated wear masks indoors in areas of high transmission and that everyone in K-12 schools mask up regardless of vaccination status. White House staff are told to cover up again as cases rise in Washington. Rochelle Walensky says new data on the Delta variant drove the change, though the agency does not immediately release it.

The whiplash reignites the mandate fights. Governors and local officials split over whether to follow the guidance, and figures such as Minnesota’s Tim Walz stay noncommittal on school masking. The Los Angeles Times publishes a timeline of the CDC’s shifting mask advice, a reminder of how many times the official position has moved.

Federal prosecutors in Maryland arrest a man accused of sending emails threatening to kill Fauci, NIH director Francis Collins, and their families. The Intercept argues that Rand Paul’s attacks on Fauci are discouraging scientists from debating gain-of-function research in public.

Paranoia and belief updating during the COVID-19 crisis - Nature Human Behaviour

Suthaharan et al. show that levels of paranoia increased in the general population during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, in association with more erratic belief updating. Government policies also played a role.

Nature

The COVID-19 response in the United Arab Emirates: challenges and opportunities - Nature Immunology

Like other countries in the region, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was deeply affected by the pandemic. However, its foresight and proactive policies helped to create opportunities out of the challenges and spurred the development of trilateral collaborations involving government, academia and industry.

Nature

COVID vaccines slash viral spread – but Delta is an unknown

Studies show that vaccines reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by more than 80%, but the Delta variant is creating fresh uncertainty.

Nature

Follow-through care for high-risk infants during the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned from the Vermont Oxford Network - Journal of Perinatology

Nature

Myanmar: Rights expert calls for ‘COVID ceasefire’, urges UN action

The UN independent expert on the human rights situation in Myanmar on Tuesday called for a “COVID ceasefire” for the country, as infections and deaths soar even as the military junta escalates attacks against healthcare workers.

UN News

‘Pandemic Within a Pandemic’: Coronavirus and Police Brutality Roil Black Communities (Published 2020)

The New York Times

ScRNA-seq revealed the kinetic of nasopharyngeal immune responses in asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers - Cell Discovery

Nature

Broadly neutralizing anti-coronavirus antibodies

Discover the world’s best science and medicine | Nature.com

Nature

Pandemic and Racial Injustice Cause Outsize Harm to Black Students, Study Finds (Published 2021)

The New York Times

Bhutan vaccinates 90 percent of adults against COVID in a week

UNICEF hails mass drive as ‘arguably the fastest vaccination campaign to be executed during a pandemic’.

Al Jazeera

CDC Urges Vaccinated People To Mask Up Indoors In Places With High Virus Transmission

Reversing earlier guidance, the agency is encouraging indoor masking for fully vaccinated people under certain circumstances.

NPR

Dr. Fauci on CDC's reimposed mask guidelines, vaccine requirements and GOP criticism

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reimposed stricter mask-wearing guidelines Tuesday. It said Americans, even if fully vaccinated, should wear masks indoors in regions where COVID-19 infections are high, and recommended that everyone in K-12 schools mask up. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.

PBS

CDC reverses indoor mask policy, saying fully vaccinated people and kids should wear them indoors

The CDC recommended that fully vaccinated people and school-age kids begin wearing masks indoors again in places with high Covid transmission rates.

CNBC

CDC updates guidance, recommends vaccinated people wear masks indoors in certain areas | CNN

CNN

Walz noncommittal on mask requirement in schools after CDC changes

Gov. Tim Walz was noncommittal Tuesday when asked if he would go further than new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and impose a new mask mandate for Minnesota schools.

FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul

A timeline of the CDC's advice on face masks

Rules and guidance about face masks have changed throughout the pandemic. Here's how the CDC's advice has evolved.

Los Angeles Times

White House staff are told to wear masks again, as cases rise in Washington. (Published 2021)

The New York Times

New York City and California to Require Vaccines or Tests for Workers (Published 2021)

The New York Times

Rand Paul's Attack on Anthony Fauci Chills Scientific Debate Over Gain-of-Function Research

By politicizing the debate over virus-modifying research, the Republican senator has thrilled conservatives but discouraged scientists from weighing in.

The Intercept

Feds Arrest Man For Repeatedly Threatening To Kill Fauci And His Family

Fauci and his family have received sporadic threats for more than a year.

Forbes

Fauci: You get vaccinated because you want to save your life | CNN

CNN

Anti-Vaxxer Allegedly Threatened Fauci With Scalping, Torture, Death

After allegedly sending numerous unhinged emails to the NIAID director, Thomas Patrick Connally, Jr., now faces federal felony charges.

The Daily Beast

Man charged with threatening Fauci, Collins and their families

Federal prosecutors in Maryland say a man has been arrested and charged with sending emails that threatened to harm and kill Dr. Anthony Fauci, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, and their families.

PBS

Long COVID: symptoms experienced during infection may predict lasting illness

Patients with more symptoms during initial infection – particularly breathlessness, chest pain or abnormal heart sounds – appear more likely to experience lasting illness.

The Conversation

Images of a world facing a pandemic

The Lancet

How students fared during 1st full school year of COVID-19 pandemic

Students are heading into the fall with lower rates of achievement gains in reading and math than they would have during a typical school year, new research shows.

ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos

Drug compounding helped address drug gaps during COVID

CIDRAP

PRINCIPLE: a community-based COVID-19 platform trial

The Lancet

Think Of Your COVID-19 Vaccine Like A Very Good Raincoat, Says Dr. Leana Wen

It protects from drizzles and thunderstorms but not a hurricane. In other words, if you are exposed again and again to infected people, there's some risk you could get sick.

NPR

‘What’s Covid?’ Why People at America’s Hardest-Partying Lake Are Not About to Get Vaccinated

Politico

The trans-omics landscape of COVID-19 - Nature Communications

COVID-19 is a critical public health threat, but molecular characterizations of patients’ immunity is still lacking. Here the authors collected blood from patients with various disease severity, and prefiltered to exclude selected comorbidity, to obtain genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and lipidomic profiles to report a trans-omics landscape.

Nature

How the pandemic has affected Latin America

Associate Professor Alisha Holland discusses the political impact of the pandemic in Latin America.

Harvard Gazette

COVID-19 and education: The lingering effects of unfinished learning

US states and districts have the opportunity to not only help students catch up on unfinished learning from the pandemic but also tackle long-standing historical inequities in education.

McKinsey & Company

Tech giants' profits soar as pandemic boom continues

Apple, Google parent company Alphabet and Microsoft report soaring quarterly profits.

BBC

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Emerging from the pandemic of loneliness | CNN

CNN

The Pandemic Changed How We Spent Our Time (Published 2021)

Minute-by-minute data offers a glimpse of how we suddenly adapted to a different way of living in 2020 — and how those changes varied greatly across groups.

The New York Times

U.S. students ended the pandemic school year 4 to 5 months behind, a new report finds. (Published 2021)

The New York Times

Microsoft profits jump 33 percent as pandemic continues shift to cloud computing. (Published 2021)

The New York Times

How The Pandemic Is Inspiring Gen-Z To Rethink Their Education And Career

‘Generation Resilient’ is entering a post-pandemic world with confidence—and a fresh look at what they want to do with their lives.

Forbes

Pandemic gives breathing room to endangered sea turtles

A new study suggests endangered loggerhead turtles reclaimed empty shores to breed during Covid, but conservationists fear the return of mass tourism

The Guardian

Harper criticizes Canadian, U.S. pandemic spending as ‘overkill’

Politico

July 27, 2021

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