Hospitals Fear Staff Shortage; Longer Wait for Kids’ Vax; Half-Dose Moderna Boost?

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Hospitals and nursing homes are bracing for worsening staff shortages as state deadlines arrive for healthcare workers to get COVID-19 vaccines. (NPR)

Since June, at least 18 health systems have announced workers who have been fired or who quit over COVID-19 vaccination requirements. (Becker’s Hospital Review)

The nurse staffing shortage in Rhode Island is caused by financial mismanagement, not vaccine mandates, the president of the New England United Nurses and Allied Professionals union said. (The Providence Journal)

As of Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. EDT, the unofficial U.S. COVID-19 toll reached 43,232,152 cases and 693,069 deaths, up 114,246 cases and 2,514 deaths over this time a day ago.

The federal government’s response to the pandemic will continue even if the government shuts down this week, but health agencies will face staff shortages. (STAT)

With two key leaders leaving the agency, Peter Marks, MD, PhD, has officially taken over the FDA’s vaccines office on an acting basis. (Fierce Pharma)

Regulatory clearance of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 may not come until November. (Wall Street Journal)

And the FDA is leaning toward authorizing half-dose booster shots of Moderna’s vaccine, Bloomberg reported.

Functional MRIs showed that people with obesity and women had greater neural reward responses to sucralose than to sugar. (JAMA Network Open)

Smokers were 80% more likely to be hospitalized with COVID than nonsmokers, a study using U.K. Biobank data showed. (Thorax)

What does rationing healthcare during COVID really mean? (Slate)

Biogen and partner Eisai are seeking accelerated approval for lecanemab (BAN2401) for early Alzheimer’s disease, the same FDA pathway used to approve Biogen’s hotly debated treatment, aducanumab (Aduhelm).

The percentage of Americans who trust President Biden to relay accurate information about COVID slipped to 45%, down from 49% 2 weeks ago and from 58% in January, an Axios/Ipsos poll showed.

Trevor Bedford, PhD, a virologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle who sounded the alarm on the first known community transmission of COVID-19, was named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, days after receiving a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator award. (NPR)

The Spectrum 10K genetics study, which aimed to collect DNA from 10,000 people with autism and their families in the United Kingdom, was suspended after researchers were criticized for not consulting the autism community. (Nature)

The CIA evacuated an intelligence officer from Serbia after suffering injuries consistent with so-called Havana syndrome. (Fox News)

With ivermectin in short supply, The New York Times looks at how COVID misinformation created a run on the deworming drug.

Country music performer Alan Jackson revealed he has Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a disorder that causes peripheral nerve damage. (Tennessean)