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A quarter of the nation’s wastewater testing sites — one of the most dependable ways of tracking Covid surges — are shut down indefinitely over a contract dispute. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to replace the firm it has worked with since 2020 to test wastewater for Covid in order to better direct public health resources. But that firm, Massachusetts-based Biobot, has filed a protest, stymieing the transition. (Leonard, 10/26)

A month after federal officials recommended new versions of COVID-19 vaccines, 7% of U.S. adults and 2% of children have gotten a shot. One expert called the rates “abysmal.” The numbers, presented Thursday at a meeting held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, come from a national survey of thousands of Americans, conducted two weeks ago. (Stobbe, 10/26)

Simvastatin, the widely available statin drug used to treat high cholesterol and triglyceride levels, has a 96% probability of improving outcomes for critically ill COVID-19 patients and a 92% chance of improving survival at 3 months, according to new results from the ongoing Randomized Embedded Multifactorial Adaptive Platform for Community Acquired Pneumonia (REMAP-CAP) trial. (Soucheray, 10/26)

Two new studies spotlight long COVID, with one finding no evidence of ongoing infection or brain damage among patients with persistent symptoms, and the other finding that COVID-19 patients had more than double the risk of shortness of breath and memory loss than uninfected participants more than 3 months after infection. (Van Beusekom, 10/26)

�Թϲ�����: A New Era Of Vaccines Leaves Old Questions About Prices Unanswered 

The world is entering a new era of vaccines. Following the success of covid-19 mRNA shots, scientists have a far greater capacity to tailor shots to a virus’s structure, putting a host of new vaccines on the horizon. The most recent arrivals — as anyone on the airwaves or social media knows — are several new immunizations against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. (Rosenthal, 10/27)

Pfizer and German partner BioNTech said on Thursday that their vaccine to prevent flu and COVID-19 generated a strong immune response against strains of the viruses in an early- to mid-stage trial. The companies said they plan to start a late-stage trial in the coming months. "This vaccine has the potential to lessen the impact of two respiratory diseases with a single injection and may simplify immunization practices," Annaliesa Anderson, Pfizer's head of vaccine research and development, said in a statement. (10/26)