SPECIAL REPORT: A large swath of the U.S. currently does not have the basic, ground-level immunity necessary to stop the spread of viruses that had once receded into the past, a six-month NBC News investigation in collaboration with scientists at Stanford University finds.
— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) September 15, 2025 at 6:07 PM
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US Weekly COVID update: Sep 15, 2025
🔸1 in 38 Actively Infectious
🔸1,301,000 New Daily Infections
🔸9,030,000 Infections In The Past Week
🔸172,000,000 Infections in 2025
🔸452,000 to 1,810,000 Weekly Long COVID Cases
🔸2,500 to 4,200 Weekly Deaths
Source: pmc19.com/data/— Denis – The COVID Info Guy (@thecovidinfoguy.bsky.social) September 16, 2025 at 12:51 AM
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Sept 12th update:
Wastewater daily inf estimate increased to 600k this week. Positivity and ED data have both peaked and begun to retreat, and I expect wastewater will soon follow.
🔸600,000 new infections/day
🔸1 in 55 currently infected
🔸1 in 140 infectious out of household— JPWeiland (@jpweiland.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 6:40 PM
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Just FYI: while CDC is no longer tracking much of anything, wastewater data is still being reported. COVID-19 levels have just been nationally upgraded to “high”
— Jessica Kant (@jessdkant.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM
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Illinois, Arizona, Virginia issue orders to improve COVID vaccine access
The orders pave the way for pharmacies and health providers to administer updated COVID vaccines without barriers such as a doctor's prescription.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 3:56 PM
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The governors of Arizona and Maine have signed orders intended to make COVID-19 vaccines available in pharmacies for people without individual prescriptions.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) September 12, 2025 at 8:00 PM
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Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has issued an executive order to ensure COVID vaccines are accessible to everyone and insurers continue to cover them.
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran.com) September 15, 2025 at 10:50 PM
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New Mexico's chief medical officer has provided a COVID-19 vaccine prescription for all residents that the department recommends people bring when they go to get a vaccine just to ensure no problems.
— Source New Mexico (@sourcenm.com) September 11, 2025 at 3:30 PM
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Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee has announced several measures protecting COVID vaccines access, including authorizing pharmacists to administer the COVID vaccine to anyone three years of age and up, and requiring health insurance companies to continue covering COVID vaccines.
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran.com) September 12, 2025 at 2:25 PM
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In my latest for @nashvillebanner.bsky.social I cover the real-world implication of all the intentional confusion around Covid vaccines. It’s the same anti-science, anti-autonomy strategy as the attack on repro rights. nashvillebanner.com/2025/09/15/c…
— Rachel Wells (@rachelwells1.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 9:54 AM
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Update on Novavax COVID vaccine availability from a New York Times reporter: they haven’t been shipped out yet but the supplier plans to ship next week.
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran.com) September 12, 2025 at 2:50 PM
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As I wrote about for @motherjones.com, people are already crossing state lines to get the Covid vaccine—which may become more common if the CDC vaccine advisory committee recommends limiting them this week. www.motherjones.com/politics/202…
— Julia Métraux (@juliametraux.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 9:11 AM
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Parental support for school vaccine mandates remains high in US
Earlier this month, Kennedy told the media that he does not believe the federal government should mandate any vaccine.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/m…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 4:17 PM
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This is why it is important to keep speaking up about the science of vaccines and the need to make sure children are protected from preventable infectious diseases. Not all of it falls on deaf ears. Most parents are not anti-vaccine, those who are just louder.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025…— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 9:13 AM
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Lots of good charts and graphs in this @kff.org @kffhealthnews.org @washingtonpost.com article www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/…
— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD DSc(hon) (@peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 7:12 AM
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Source:
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran.com) September 11, 2025 at 1:45 PM
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The damage to the U.S. vaccination program that is about to be caused by RFK Jr. and his fellow fraudsters misusing data to falsely claim that the COVID19 vaccine caused the deaths of 25 children will be incalculable.
These people are committing scientific misconduct of the most grievous kind.— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD (@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 1:11 PM
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Kennedy is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 2: VAERS, the FDA, and ACIP – anti-vaccine activists have long misused VAERS. Now Kennedy is bringing this to ACIP to mislead people about vaccines. sciencebasedmedicine.org/robert-f-ken… @sciencebasedmedicine.org @gorskon.bsky.social
— Dorit Reiss (@doritreiss.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 12:54 PM
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Viewpoint: Four tips for understanding this week’s ACIP meeting
The Vaccine Integrity Project thought it would be good to provide 4 helpful reminders, such as VAERS data do not prove causation
www.cidrap.umn.edu/v…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 3:38 PM
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Here's how high-profile departures and widespread layoffs at the CDC will affect our health.
Tldr: "Americans should be alarmed," a former top official said.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025…— Melody Schreiber (@melodyschreiber.com) September 15, 2025 at 9:57 AM
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— Jason L. Schwartz (@jasonlschwartz.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 6:44 AM
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Federal health officials intend to award a no-bid contract to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to investigate whether there is a link between vaccinations and autism.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) September 12, 2025 at 7:00 PM
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Reading today’s big NYT Magazine story made me physically sick
It details how Trump & the men he put in charge of federal research—men like Jay Bhattacharya & RFK Jr—are dismantling cancer research
Not just the US vaccine system—they’re crushing cancer R&D
🎁Link
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/m…— Prof Gavin Yamey (@gavinyamey.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 9:32 AM
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There’s an organized anti-science movement that smears experts on climate change, vaccines, and more as "cartoon villains," says @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social. His co-author of the new book "Science Under Siege," @michaelemann.bsky.social, calls disinformation an "overriding crisis." #Velshi
— "Velshi" on MSNBC (@velshimsnbc.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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When science is inconvenient, sometimes it’s silenced. In a new book, scientists Michael E. Mann and Peter Hotez show how disinformation campaigns try to discredit climate and public health science:
— Yale Climate Connections (@climateconnections.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 10:40 AM
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Democratic lawmakers in California want to create a state version of the Nat'l Institutes of Health & restore scientific research terminated by the feds under Trump. The ambitious plan would use 10s of billions of dollars in voter-approved bonds to raise funds www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/u…
— Delthia Ricks (@dricks.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 11:07 AM
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Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to late August.
Growth of XFG.* "Stratus" has stalled at 61%.
The NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" grew slightly to 27%.
#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Global #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #XFG #Stratus
🧵— Mike Honey (@mikehoney.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 11:26 PM
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I am pleased to share this excellent piece by Dr. Beth Linas about an aspect of restricting COVID19 vaccine access that is often overlooked: the specter of rising cases of LongCOVID.
Thank you @bethlinas.bsky.social for this important writing!— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD (@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 2:38 PM
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A 41-year-old immunocompromised man endured acute COVID-19 for 750+ days, with 5 hospitalisations and ongoing respiratory symptoms. Unlike long COVID, the infection never cleared. His extremely low T-cell count 35/µL, far below the healthy 500–1,500 range, allowed the virus to persist.
— Denis – The COVID Info Guy (@thecovidinfoguy.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 10:05 PM
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Food insecurity tied to higher risk of long COVID
Food insecurity was not tied to current long COVID among people receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 10, 2025 at 5:01 PM
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This article has now been amended by the BBC listing Long Covid as a cause.
— Conor Browne (@brownecfm.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 6:21 PM
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USDA confirms first H5N1 avian flu detection in Nebraska dairy cows
Nebraska's agriculture department said the herd is located in the central part of the state and is under quarantine.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/a…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 5:06 PM
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#Birdflu still circulating: Scientists are testing a #birdflu vaccine in seals. If results show promise, the shots could be given to endangered Hawaiian monk seals. #H5N1 birdflu virus has devastated marine mammals globally. It tore thru Argentina's Valdés Peninsula killing ~17,400 seal pups 👇
— Delthia Ricks (@dricks.bsky.social) September 11, 2025 at 5:47 AM
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Rolling the dice on a vaccine preventable illness is never the better option. Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis is a rare and fatal complication of measles that can occur several years after the original infection. This is sad, this is avoidable. Vaccinate kids!
www.nbcnews.com/health/healt…— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) September 11, 2025 at 7:15 PM
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West Nile virus cases are running 40% higher than normal this year prompting nationwide health warnings. More than 770 cases of the mosquito-transmitted viral infection have been reported this year, including about 490 severe cases, which were reported as of early September👇
— Delthia Ricks (@dricks.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 7:37 AM
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Very informative reporting on the resurgence of Typhus is Texas. All infectious diseases seem to have sensed the abandonment of science and public health measures and are seizing the moment. This is not the type of job secure I want 🫠
www.npr.org/2025/09/12/n…— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 3:27 PM
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The CDC has quietly and drastically scaled back the country’s most comprehensive system for tracking the food-borne illnesses estimated to sicken millions of Americans each year.
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) September 11, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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Experts warn loss of USAID endangers the fight against deadly TB
In high-burden countries around the world, the loss of USAID funding has had a devastating impact on critical TB intervention and treatment efforts.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/t…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 11, 2025 at 2:46 PM
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Multidrug-resistant yeast cases rising rapidly in Europe, survey shows
Data from a new survey show Candida auris, which can cause deadly invasive infections, is spreading rapidly in European hospitals.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 11, 2025 at 1:00 PM
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Funding cuts to US #HIV preventive services could lead to thousands more cases, billions in costs
HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis helps people with HIV live healthier, longer lives.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/h…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Prolonged #mpox cases more likely to occur in Black and HIV patients, study suggests
A larger proportion of patients with protracted cases were hospitalized than those with shorter infections (26% vs 5%).
www.cidrap.umn.edu/m…
CDC / Brian W. J. Mahy— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 1:04 PM
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I wrote about how much progress African countries have made in containing these outbreaks when they emerge and keeping the world safe while doing so.
substack.com/home/post/p-…— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) September 10, 2025 at 9:34 PM
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Thread:
We do not talk enough about how much vaccines have transformed Ebola outbreaks. The country stock pile of 2000 vaccines was immediately deployed to respond to the outbreak in the DRC and 45,000 additional doses have been approved for shipment to the DRC.
www.afro.who.int/countries/de…— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 1:47 PM
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Ebola is one of the most deadly pathogens we know, we now have vaccines that are 95% effective in preventing the strain of the virus responsible for most outbreaks. These vaccines are very contemporary and their transformative impact on Ebola outbreaks very real. We should celebrate this more!
— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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Funding shortages and staffing cuts have people demanding answers from RFK jr about the future of the federal World Trade Center Health Program. The program has been plagued by funding shortages & chaos. What a way to commemorate the 24th anniversary of 9/11
— Delthia Ricks (@dricks.bsky.social) September 11, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Puppies and Otters
MattF
Got my shots on Thursday. Felt crappy for a day or two. Feel fine now. Happy to tell Bobby to GFHS.
feather as a light
Periodic reminder that posts like this one and this one which purport to estimate the number of covid infections aren’t scientific, and aren’t from trustworthy sources.
There is a very strong scientific consensus that reliable estimates of covid infection incidence or prevalence can’t be made using wastewater data.
See for example this report with over 100 authors from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine: “While is it fairly well established that trends in respiratory viruses in wastewater correspond to the rise and fall of infections in the community, translation of these
values to an empirical estimate of the number of people infected in the community remains a major challenge. Unlike hospitalizations or deaths that can provide known values to calibrate statistical models, the number of people infected at a point in time is difficult to determine.” (p. 103).
Platforming amateur internet estimates of epidemiological quantities isn’t a good idea. Expertise matters. Neither of the sources for these numbers has any training in infectious disease epidemiology. Their methods are not published in such a way that other can reproduce their data, and they have not been not peer-reviewed.
feather as a light
I hope the comment above is taken in the best possible way. Commentary and editorializing on social media about the pandemic by amateurs can be very enlightening. Visualizations of public health data by amateurs can be very revealing. This is not commentary or editorializing. It is not visualizing data that comes from another trusted source. Rather, it is masquerading as original scientific research, which it is not.
I think it is a bad idea to platform amateurs doing their own original research on the internet – it has led to a lot of bad things in recent times. Let’s get our data from trusted experts and trusted institutions.
David_C
That sole-source contract notification is troubling (scientific contracts are my area of expertise). Let’s hope there’s a whistleblower or targeted FOIA that can uncover the shenanigans. NIH is supposed to announce its ASDI grant recipients soon.
p.a.
No knowledge about RPI except a vague notion that it has a good rep. Is it mostly engineering-focused? because given how many engineers seem to be contrarians on subjects they’re not trained in… maybe was predictable by some otherwise-respected institution somewhere.
Maybe it’s just grifting; sucking up gvt money and then concluding: nope, no tie between vaccs and autism. The problem here is just instigating yet another investigation keeps a clearly concluded debate open.
lowtechcyclist
Thanks for these updates, Anne. It’s hard to say which of this week’s news were the most scary or depressing – cancer research gutted? undermining of childhood vaccines? Typhus, for God’s sake? – but we need to know these things if we’re going to oppose them.
BritinChicago
I love the word “bricolage”! Thanks for taking a step towards introducing it into English. Rich as our language is, that’s an innovation that would be useful.
Ten Bears
Ping! Headlined at my house Any day now you’ll be reporting on viri thawing out of the thawing tundra that haven’t seen a human since before we were human but till then it’s nice to hear (see) about more than just the Trump-Flu and the nay-sayers. Why I headline it as I do
Kayla Rudbek
@p.a.: yeah, I don’t think that RPI even has a public health or epidemiology program (David Anderson would know more about this than I do). And engineering being notoriously prone to harboring crackpots with respect to science doesn’t give me any confidence that RPI will properly do this study and consider all the evidence.
Kayla Rudbek
@Ten Bears: I think they did find typhus in reindeer carcasses that were frozen in the permafrost.
moonbat
Thanks, AL, for continuing to do this important work. I hadn’t heard the good news about the Ebola vaccine and it is VERY good news!
Geo Wilcox
Is all this gutting of science some sort of boost for China? Is the Trump admin and it’s creatures actively destroying our science and making us a third world country to advance China? It sure a shit seems so. That we lost the most brilliant scientist on AI is no bug, it seems to be a feature now a days.
theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/16/song-chun-zhu-why-one-of-the-worlds-most-brilliant-a…
Steve Paradis
Suffer the little children does not mean what you think it means.
Matt McIrvin
@feather as a light: Thanks for the caution; it’s appreciated. It also highlights the danger of these trusted institutions being gutted so that we simply do not have reliable data or inferences.
Sandia Blanca
@MattF: We’re getting our covid and flu shots today, in Texas. Surprisingly our red state hasn’t put up any obstacles yet, so far as I know, but we don’t want to wait! No prescription needed, no hassle in making the appointment at our grocery store pharmacy (Randalls).
RaflW
I was looking for an appt for my next boost and only then discovered the new Moderna mNexspike. I think I’m eligible? Anyone done any reading or have suggestions of where to look to help me decide?
I realize how much the whole vaccine situation has changed. A couple years ago I feel like I would have heard of this in June or July when it went thru.
Thanks!
Also a brief anecdote: Was in Sweden ~10 days ago, and at dinner with some cousins, one who is in his late 30s – and leans a bit conservative – reacted like I was nuts to say that I’d had six doses of Covid vaccine. He’d had a couple in that first year or 18 months, but I got the impression not just from him that Swedes have all just moved on.
Matt McIrvin
@p.a.: There’s a tendency for this kind of thing to be defended with arguments like “They’re just calling for more research! Why would an advocate for science be against more research?”
But when money gets sunk into reinvestigating long-settled questions because someone has a specific result they want to find, there are many dangers. There’s the opportunity cost of wasting those resources and time. There’s the legitimizing of a bogus viewpoint for no reason other than that some scientist seems to be taking it seriously. And there’s the high risk that, even if the research is on the up and up, you’ll have cherry-picked outlier results getting touted in the media or driving policy. You just keep investigating until you get the result you want.
I recall the physicist John Wheeler criticizing research into psychic powers on these grounds back in the 70s. And I could also see it happening with climate contrarianism in the 1990s and 2000s.
feather as a light
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, completely agree. We should be concerned about what fills the vacuum once trusted institutions are gone. And that trust is hard to build again.
I should say though that pretty much every primary source of data available at federal and state level a year ago is still available now. (Tell me if you are having trouble finding something, I may know where to look.) Remains to be seen whether that will continue to be the case.
Scout211
That’s the name of the new Moderna vaccine that we are all getting at pharmacies right now. The same restrictions apply.
From the CVS website:
If your state has approved the COVID vaccines and you are under 65, most people have found that if you make an online appointment , you can self-attest to an underlying condition by checking a box.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: Sweden was (in) famous for taking a more relaxed approach to COVID than most other European countries– the contrarians were always touting it as a place where they didn’t do social isolation or masks and they did fine. The truth is, they didn’t do fine– they had a way higher death and serious illness count than those other countries. And they still generally took it more seriously than the median American did.
I’m pretty sure that most people in the US never got any covid boosters past the first one or two shots– that’s what I recall from early pandemic stats.
That’s why, while I regard RFK Jr.’s antivax clowning as an outrage, I was less scared of it causing mass COVID outbreaks than some: Most people were not getting those shots anyway.
Jay
As always, thank you Anne Laurie, you keep saving lives.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: That’s correct, they’re not that interested in asking questions.
I think that’s the strongest sign of the bogosity of all this: If pharmacy chains or insurers had a reasonable belief that the vaccines were harming many people or not doing good, they’d be terrified about liability and you’d see more reluctance. As it is, they mostly seem concerned about the state getting on their back, so they do exactly as much as state regulations will allow.
RaflW
@Scout211: As I understand it, both updated Spikevax and the new mNexspike are available. They have somewhat different mechanisms, different administered dosage.
It’s just hard to find reporting on why the two products exist and how to chose.
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: Our main friend circle has one anti-vaxer. By consensus he was disinvited from our group summer vacation for a couple years (his wife came, she got her jabs).
But once the anti-vax guy got Covid and lived to tell the tale, he’s been re-admitted and has joined us once. I got the sense that Swedes decided that they’re good with natural immunity, even though like the common cold, it wanes.
All I can do is keep current as best I can, and carry on with living.
Burrowing Owl
In Colorado, at Costco Pharmacy, online appointments for a 19-year-old and an under 18 did not obviously require checking any box to attest to high-risk conditions this past weekend. For what that’s worth.
Good luck getting vaccinated to all jackals who can, and thank you, AL, for all your efforts to help keep us alive.
lowtechcyclist
Had a prescription to pick up this morning at CVS, so while I was there I asked about Covid vax availability. They had it, and in just a few minutes I had both my Covid and flu vaccines. Checked that box for another six months.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: “Good with natural immunity” of course means that you’ve decided to tolerate all of the terrible cost in lives and in quality of life that comes with that. I’ll never understand that, as long as I live, but the Appeal to Nature has a strong pull for some people.
That said, we’ve obviously seen a drop in impacts relative to, say, the wastewater counts, with every successive COVID wave that happens. And that’s surely mostly because almost everyone has some form of immunity by now. Most people in rich countries have at least one shot *and* have gotten COVID at some point.
I’ve always thought it was amazing how tiny the first COVID wave of spring 2020 looks in wastewater data–a huge contrast to the piles of dead it produced. COVID was incredibly deadly back then, close to 1% fatality across all infections. The virus wasn’t inherently more of a killer; it was just that we had no preexisting resistance to it.
Scout211
@RaflW:
As you can see in my comment, the SpikeVax is approved for younger kids and the mNEXSPIKE is the one given to age 12 and above. If you get a COVID shot, it will be the mNEXSPIKE.
As you can read above, the SpikeVax is for young children and adults who have never had a COVID vaccination before. If you go to a pharmacy, you should be getting the mNEXSPIKE unless you ask for the older one, which will not be the updated one.
WTFGhost
Excuse my loss of my normal zen-like peace – I have to go find the person who wrote an article about “four easy ways to cut through brain fog,” find their editor, punch them in the face for about a half hour to find out if they *hired* the article, or if the author *proffered* it, so I can decide if the author needs to be punched in the face for about a half hour.
Brain fog is the loss of self – you are no longer a compete person, part of you is hidden by the fog, and, the most likely result is the loss of the humanity you find most precious – without your even realizing it. Time spent cuddling kitties, playing with dogs, spending time with partner/spouse, friends/family, that’s where the fog cuts first. That energy you had to do nice things, for you, and for others around you, that’s what you lose first, as you spend more time wasting cycles than you do being *you*.
You can spend years wondering where the good times of your life have been, before you even realize something is wrong, because, *duh* brainfog makes your brain less able to notice you’re screwing things up!
I’ve changed my mind – there’s a lot of Republicans I would gladly see afflicted with CFS, now!
glc
I saw the BBC article in what I take was the amended form, with some mention of Covid.
It’s quite interesting to hear that they could write such an article without having any idea as to why they were writing it, even after having written it. Not shocking, but still interesting.
dnfree
@WTFGhost: It’s a terrible, schmaltzy, upbeat article that I can imagine would outrage anyone who has brain fog. It’s like when Ivanka Trump wrote that clueless article recommending that working women take care of themselves, pamper themselves, etc., as if all working women have her financial wherewithal.
Edited to ask if the author Rufo is related to the obnoxious right- wing Rufo?