REMINDER: As a COVID-19 vaccine stakeholder, you can identify the work that remains to advance equity in the pandemic response and beyond. We ask each Weekly Round-up subscriber to please complete a brief survey (~5 mins), helping us assess the reach and utility of CommuniVax activities and uncover which equity aspects of COVID-19 vaccination require further attention. Your feedback is essential.

Drs. Elisa Sobo, Diana Schow, Elizabeth Cartwright, and Emily K. Brunson of CommuniVax published this article summarizing the coalition's work for the Consortium of Social Science Associations.

Drs. Schow and Cartwright were also quoted in this Post Register story about vaccine hesitancy among Hispanic communities in Southeast Idaho.

The University of Maryland published this piece describing CommuniVax's work in Prince George's County, MD.

The NBA’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Trying to Push Around the League — And It’s Working. They made their case to the union summit: There should be testing this year, of course, just not during off-days. They’d mask up on the court and on the road, if they must. But no way would they agree to a mandatory jab. The vaccine deniers had set the agenda; the players agreed to take their demands for personal freedom to the NBA’s negotiating table. (Rolling Stone, 9/25/21)

YouTube Is Banning All Content That Spreads Vaccine Misinformation. "We've steadily seen false claims about the coronavirus vaccines spill over into misinformation about vaccines in general, and we're now at a point where it's more important than ever to expand the work we started with COVID-19 to other vaccines," the company said. (NPR, 9/29/21)

Inside the Private Facebook Groups Where Anti-Vaxxers Plot to Get Religious Exemptions. As more employers adopt vaccine mandates, a growing number of vaccine-hesitant workers are trying to figure out how to use religious exemptions to keep their jobs without getting the jab. Many are taking to online Facebook groups to strategize around how best to persuade their bosses. Their conversations, which I have observed over the last few weeks, reveal a grassroots online movement gaining traction. (Mother Jones, 9/24/21)

Disparities in COVID-19 Vaccination Status, Intent, and Perceived Access for Noninstitutionalized Adults, by Disability Status — National Immunization Survey Adult COVID Module, United States, May 30–June 26, 2021. Analysis of the National Immunization Survey Adult COVID Module found that, compared with adults without a disability, those with a disability had a lower likelihood of having received COVID-19 vaccination, despite being less likely to report hesitancy about getting vaccinated. Adults with a disability reported more difficulties obtaining a COVID-19 vaccine than did persons without a disability. (CDC, 10/1/21)

Surging Delta Variant Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths Are Biggest Drivers Of Recent Uptick in U.S. COVID-19 Vaccination Rates. Adults who got vaccinated since June 1 cite as major reasons the increase in COVID cases due to the Delta variant (39%), reports of local hospitals filling up (38%), and knowing someone who became seriously ill or died (36%). Thirty-five percent also say a major reason was to participate in activities where vaccinations are required, such as traveling or attending events. Fewer people say being mandated by their employer (19%) or the FDA granting full approval to the Pfizer vaccine (15%) were major factors. (KFF, 9/28/21)

Geographically targeted COVID-19 vaccination is more equitable and averts more deaths than age-based thresholds alone. In analyses of California and Minnesota—demographically divergent states—we show that COVID vaccination schedules based solely on age benefit the older white populations at the expense of younger BIPOC populations with higher risk of death from COVID-19. We find that strategies that prioritize high-risk geographic areas for vaccination at all ages better target mortality risk than age-based strategies alone, although they do not always perform as well as direct prioritization of high-risk racial/ethnic groups. (Science, 9/29/21)

Covid-19: How Native Americans led the way in the US vaccination effort. Community leaders ascribe this success to two things: first, the US government’s decision to allow Native American communities to control vaccine distribution; and second, traditional ethnic values including respect for elders, “community first” philosophies, and a willingness to trust science—so long as it’s presented by community members themselves. (BMJ, 9/17/21)

See also: Kansas tribes, health providers aim to continue progress on vaccinating American Indian residents (Topeka Capital-Journal, 9/23/21)

Vaccine mandates are key to workplace safety.  It’s understandable that some workers might feel coerced by an employer vaccine mandate after being forced to work through multiple lethal COVID surges with little more than a wish, a prayer, and an admonition to wear a mask while making good choices. However, it’s essential to think of the vaccines as a workplace safety measure rather than a personal choice. Employers choosing not to mandate vaccination is also coercive in the extreme, especially in the US where there is no federal policy to control COVID transmission. (BMJ, 9/17/21)

State medical boards should punish doctors who spread false information about covid and vaccines. It’s important to understand that the wrongdoing involved is not misinformation — that is, something that a person incorrectly but innocently believes to be true. It is disinformation, which is information created and shared with the intent to deceive. For many months a well-coordinated network of disinformation doctors has been working to undermine mask-wearing and lockdowns, spread anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, and promote phony covid “cures'' such as hydroxychloroquine and the horse-deworming drug ivermectin. (Washington Post, 9/21/21)

How the US vaccine effort derailed and why we shouldn’t be surprised. Low vaccine rates may be the predictable outcome subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s, health researchers say. (The Guardian, 9/27/21)

Thousands of N.Y. Health Care Workers Get Vaccinated Ahead of Deadline. Though many hospital and nursing home employees remain unvaccinated, officials say worst-case staffing shortages seem less likely. (New York Times, 9/28/21)

See also: As Vaccine Deadlines Approach, Hospitals Fear Staffing Shortages Will Occur (NPR, 9/27/21)

President Biden Already Has The COVID Vaccine Recipe. He Should Share It. It is undisputed that the world desperately needs billions more vaccine doses. This need is most acute in the Global South. To date, low-income countries have been able to administer only 1.5 vaccine doses for every 100 people, and only 2 percent of vaccine doses administered globally have been administered in Africa. Although eager to produce more vaccines, manufacturers around the world have been unable to learn how to do so fast enough. (Health Affairs, 9/22/21)

Biden’s chaotic messaging on Covid-19 boosters is pitting the White House against the government’s scientific advisers. The communications debacle comes as millions of Americans are seeking clarity about whether it’s safe to get a third shot, and whether doing so will help keep them safe from Covid. It has highlighted tensions between the White House, its scientific agencies, and their outside advisers. For many, the move was reminiscent, too, of the Trump administration’s chaotic pandemic-response communications and frequent hostility toward its own public health officials. (STAT, 9/24/21)

The Nonsensical Loophole in Biden’s Vaccine Mandate. The details of Biden’s new mandate are still being worked out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the logistics will differ among states and individual companies. But it’s one of the most prominent iterations of the test-vax binary to date—and potentially one of the most troubling. The United States isn’t set up to handle a sharp rise in diagnostic demand, should a big fraction of affected workers go the testing route. (The Atlantic, 9/27/21)

See also: Why Biden Has Taken Up Vaccine Mandates And The Political Fight Over Them (NPR, 9/29/21)

Some Teachers Won’t Get Vaccinated, Even With a Mandate. What Should Schools Do About It? The logistics of upholding these requirements are complicated. School districts with vaccine mandates are now trying to answer a host of questions, including: Who qualifies for a religious or medical exemption? What happens if staff members refuse to get the shot? Will they be reassigned to new roles? Will they be dismissed from their jobs altogether? And if they are let go, is there even anyone available to replace them?. (EdWeek, 9/27/21)

With positive data on mRNA Covid vaccine, Sanofi sets its sights on other pathogens. French vaccine giant Sanofi announced positive results of a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of its first mRNA vaccine on Tuesday, saying the early findings with a Covid-19 vaccine give the company confidence to shift gears on its mRNA program to pursue vaccines for other pathogens. The first in its sights is an influenza vaccine Sanofi hopes to begin testing in clinical trials next year. (STAT, 9/28/21)

Pfizer Submits Favorable Initial Data To The FDA On Kids' COVID-19 Vaccine Trial. Pfizer and BioNTech are another step closer to seeking authorization for young children to receive the COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine, submitting data to the Food and Drug Administration that shows a "robust" antibody response and "favorable" safety outcomes in kids ages 5 to 11 who received the two-dose regimen in clinical trials. (NPR, 9/28/21)

Moderna vs. Pfizer: Both Knockouts, but One Seems to Have the Edge. “Our baseline assumption is that the mRNA vaccines are functioning similarly, but then you start to see a separation,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University in Atlanta. “It’s not a huge difference, but at least it’s consistent.” But the discrepancy is small and the real-world consequences uncertain, because both vaccines are still highly effective at preventing severe illness and hospitalization, she and others cautioned. (New York Times, 9/22/21)

How Can We Be Sure Vaccination against COVID-19 Doesn’t Cause Infertility? For a medication to cause infertility it would have to do one or more of the following: affect the part of the brain that signals the the ovary, damage the developing eggs in the ovary, severely damage the lining of the uterus (endometrium), or cause the cervical mucus to become hostile to sperm (basically creating a chemical road block for the sperm to meet an egg). And this would have to happen from just one or two injections of very tiny amounts (Moderna 0.5ml and Pfizer-BioNTech 0.3 ml). (The Vajenda, 9/27/21)