CDC to scale back data collection as US ends COVID health emergency The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday it would stop reporting or monitoring COVID-19 case data and transmission rates after the government ends the pandemic's public health emergency designation next week. Ahmed Aboulenein Reuters

...

Covid-19 was the fourth leading cause of death in 2022, CDC data shows | CNN Covid-19 was the fourth leading cause of death in the United States in 2022, according to provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deidre McPhillips CNN

...

El Niño is coming. Here's what that means for weather in the U.S. Warmer sea waters have many far-ranging effects. In the new pattern, some parts of the U.S. could get relief from drought, while others might see fewer hurricanes. NPR

As hot as the Earth's weather has been in recent years, it's about to get hotter: El Niño is on the way, with warmer sea temperatures promising new weather extremes, U.S. and international forecasters say.

...How El

Bivalent COVID vaccine shows good Omicron protection while older version wanes CIDRAP

Two studies published today measure the vaccine effectiveness (VE) of COVID-19 vaccines against laboratory-confirmed Omicron variant and subvariants and symptomatic disease. Vaccines that target the newer variants performed well, but primary vaccines offered rapidly waning protection from SARS-CoV-2 infections in the post-Omicron era.

FDA approves first RSV vaccine, a long-sought scientific achievement The FDA has approved the first-ever vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, completing an elusive quest that has been decades in the making. Helen Branswell STAT

... The product, GSK’s Arexvy, was approved for adults ages 60 and older.

CDC investigating COVID outbreak after its own annual conference The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed it is conducting an investigation into several dozen COVID-19 cases linked to the agency’s annual conference that occurred in Georgia last week. The CDC’s three-day 2023 Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) conference began April 24 in Atlanta, where the agency is headquartered. The purpose of the… Yahoo News

...CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday that about 35 people had tested positive as of May 2.

...

WHO survey finds signs of health system recovery from pandemic CIDRAP

...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been tracking health system impacts since the early days of the pandemic, and its latest survey of countries shows that health services are starting to recover, according to new findings..

WHO director general warns that the world is failing to learn COVID’s lessons "Future generations will question what we did to improve from the pandemic," said. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Yahoo Finance

...

“If the world does not learn from our past mistakes with COVID, then future generations will question what we did to improve from the pandemic,” he said.