US COVID markers continue slow rise as UK reports first BA.2.86 case Kateryna Onyshchuk / iStock CIDRAP

COVID hospitalizations and death rose last week, along with other indicators and the proportion of newer Omicron variants such as EG.5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its latest data updates.

‘Eris’ COVID strain leaves vaccine strategy mostly unchanged Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care newsletter{beacon} Health Care Health Care   The Big Story ‘Eris’ strain leaves vaccine strategy mostly unchanged The updated COVID-19… emartin The Hill

The updated COVID-19 booster shots were designed to target the XBB variant, and they’ll still likely work just as well against the new dominant strain.

City empties as thousands flee huge wildfire closing in on capital of Canada's Northwest Territories Residents are heeding warnings to evacuate the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories as a wildfire burns toward the city of 20,000. AP News

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Binge drinking, marijuana and hallucinogen use reach all-time highs, NIH says - UPI.com Cannabis and hallucinogen use, as well as binge drinking, among U.S. adults ages 35-50 reached a historic high in 2022, the National Institutes of Health said Thursday. UPI

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Bivalent COVID vaccine boosts protection against emergency, urgent care in young kids Quinn Dombrowski / Flickr cc CIDRAP

A dose of bivalent (two-strain) mRNA COVID-19 vaccine booster pushed effectiveness against emergency or urgent care (ED/UC) to 80% among preschool children, compared with 46% after two Moderna monovalent (single-strain) doses and 70% after three monovalent Pfizer/BioNTech doses.

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CDC tracking new COVID variant BA.2.86 after highly mutated strain reported in Michigan Cases of the new COVID variant BA.2.86 have been spotted in Michigan, Denmark and Israel. CBS News

... Experts say reports of BA.2.86 being spotted in countries on multiple continents — Denmark, Israel, U.K. and U.S. — suggest it is at least capable of transmitting widely and could have been spreading undetected for some time

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Biden's fall Covid vaccine rollout for the uninsured won't include pharmacies at first The administration doesn't expect to finalize contracts with pharmacies distributing the vaccine to the uninsured until mid-October, weeks after the shot is made widely available. POLITICO

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Report spotlights 52 US doctors who posted potentially harmful COVID misinformation online Arkadiusz Warguła / iStock CIDRAP

Two new studies describe a couple sources of the COVID-19 "infodemic" on social media: US physicians and proponents and practitioners of "doing your own research."

All signs point to a late summer COVID wave COVID-19 is on the upswing once again, per closely watched metrics. Alex Fitzpatrick,Kavya Beheraj Axios

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Hospitalization rates are rising the fastest in Mississippi (+73% month over month), Alabama (+66%) and Louisiana (+66%).

• Yet they're down in Michigan (-32%), Vermont (-31%) and Rhode Island (-31%).
• Remember from past waves that COVID moves about the country unequally, ebbing in some areas and flowing in others at any given point in time.

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The US eliminated malaria in 1951. How can it keep it under control now? | CNN Working underground in a biosafety level 3 insectary in Tres Cantos, Madrid, researchers at the pharmaceutical giant GSK were frustrated. Meg Tirrell CNN

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It turned out that the mosquitoes harbored a bacteria that secreted a chemical that inhibits development of the parasites. That meant the team had to shut the colony down for the purposes of research into new malaria drugs — but it also led them to a new potential way to combat malaria.

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