CDC's New Chief Plans to Rebuild Trust in the Agency 'Trust is absolutely foundational to our ability to help Americans,' says Mandy Cohen Michael DePeau-Wilson medpagetoday

New CDC Director Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, wants to rebuild trust in the agency -- both internally and with the general public -- through improving communication, focusing on data collection, and translating that data into rapid responses to public health crises.

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Cases of COVID-19 are on the rise – here’s how you can still get free tests COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are on the rise heading into the fall, and although free testing isn’t as widely accessible as it once was, low- or no-cost tests may still be available. sthomas The Hill

• The COVIDtests.gov program is no longer mailing free tests to Americans
• Free tests might still be available through local clinics and insurance
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‘We would’ve done everything differently’: Newsom reflects on Covid approach California’s Democratic governor says “we're all geniuses now” in hindsight on the pandemic. POLITICO

...Newsom did, however, point to differences in how the virus spread indoors versus outdoors, and alluded to policies around masking and vaccine distribution that would have been handled differently in hindsight. “You want to talk about prioritizations early on in terms of those vaccines. You go through a series of things, and there’s so many things we could’ve done differently,” he said.

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Exclusive: CDC hopes new ‘Wild to Mild’ ad campaign will tame skepticism about flu vaccines | CNN Some Americans have given up on flu shots because almost everyone remembers a season they got one and then got sick anyway. Brenda Goodman CNN

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Group of 20 countries agree to increase clean energy but reach no deal on phasing out fossil fuels Group of 20 leaders have agreed to triple renewable energy and try to increase the funds for climate change-related disasters but maintained the status quo with regards to phasing out carbon spewing coal. AP News

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UK reports nursing home COVID outbreak involving BA.2.86 variant Toa55 / iStock CIDRAP

In a technical briefing on SARS-CoV-2 variants today, the UK Health Security Agency (HSA) revealed that, of 34 confirmed involving the highly mutated BA.2.86 variant, 28 were from a single outbreak at a nursing home, an early sign that it can spread in close-contact settings.

In hopeful sign for the US, flu vaccine shows strong protection against hospitalization in South America, CDC report shows | CNN Early data from South America shows that the flu vaccine has cut the risk of hospitalization in half this year, a hopeful sign that the vaccine will provide a similar level of protection in the United States as the country heads into its own respiratory virus season. Deidre McPhillips CNN

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US CDC says existing antibodies can work against new COVID variant Early research data has shown that antibodies produced by prior infection or existing vaccines against the coronavirus were sufficient to protect against the new BA.2.86 variant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday. Reuters Reuters

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Trump surgeon general admits Trump White House made mistakes during Covid The Trump administration made some serious missteps during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump’s top doctor Jerome Adams admits. Sarah Owermohle STAT

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