Last week the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and the Western States Scientific Safety Review (WSSSR) agreed with the FDA that the Pfizer vaccine can be safely administered to children, ages 12 and older, to prevent severe illness and death from COVID-19. “Vaccinating children has helped eradicate many diseases in our modern world and will help us end the COVID pandemic,” said Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Nicholas Moss. “Expanding COVID vaccine eligibility to younger children means we can increase the amount of protection our communities have from this deadly virus.” Alameda County Public Health Department Read more

With a new age group now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, hundreds of 12 to 15 year-olds lined up at a clinic in Marin County on Saturday to get their shots. The county says it hopes to meet an ambitious vaccine goal in just one week. There are about 14,000 12 to 15 year-olds in Marin County, and officials hope to vaccinate half of them by next week. "The quicker we can we can get shots in the arms of all those eligible, the faster we can achieve community immunity," said Marin County Spokesperson Laine Hendricks. ABC7 Read more

For months, Victoria McAllister searched online to make a vaccination appointment. Unlike other people who can hop into a car, though, she has ruptured discs that could slice her spinal cord if she hits a pothole or her wheelchair bumps floor molding. So McAllister, 64, was over the moon when her local county health department in Hayward, California, called offering to inoculate her against COVID-19 at home. Two paramedics with Hayward Fire came last month, jabbed her arm with the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine and stuck around to make sure she was alright. AP Read more

There’s an emerging truth showing up at hospitals across California: The more vaccines in arms on the outside means fewer patients sick with COVID-19 on the inside. And nowhere is that clearer than the Bay Area. The region’s counties have the highest percentage of vaccinated residents in California and among the lowest hospitalization rates, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of state data. Mercury News

While widespread herd immunity against COVID-19 still remains elusive, some local infectious disease experts believe it has been achieved in some areas of the San Francisco Bay Area. Herd immunity can come from either a positive COVID-19 test or a vaccination. Both generate antibodies that fight the virus and the numbers suggest San Francisco is leading the Bay Area. KPIX 5 Read more

The United States has administered 270,832,342 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning and distributed 344,503,395 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. Those figures are up from the 268,438,666 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Friday out of 341,865,945 doses delivered. The agency said 156,217,367 people had received at least one dose, while 121,768,268 people are fully vaccinated. Reuters Read more

Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company, said on Monday that it would move the experimental COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with GlaxoSmithKline into a late-stage trial after the shot produced strong immune responses in volunteers in a midstage study. The findings are encouraging for a vaccine that has fallen behind in development and has so far disappointed those expecting that it would be crucial in combating the pandemic. If the vaccine can become available in the last three months of this year, as its developers hope, it could still play a central role as a booster shot as well as an initial inoculation in the developing world, where the pace of vaccination is lagging.

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Humanity has a miraculous chance at liberation from the worst pandemic in a century, but wealthy countries have captured an overwhelming share of the benefit: Only 0.3 percent of the vaccine doses administered globally have been given in the 29 poorest countries, home to about 9 percent of the world’s population. Vaccine manufacturers say they’re aggressively expanding production. But the world is nowhere close to having enough. NY Times Read more

People using the laundromat in Red Springs, North Carolina, were feeding quarters into machines and folding clothes one Tuesday afternoon this spring, when LaTasha Murray burst through the door. "I was like, 'Hey, is there anybody here who has not had the vaccine who wants a vaccine, or has questions about the vaccine?'" she recalled, laughing. Murray is not a doctor, but she works in health care as the marketing director for Robeson Health Care Corp. The organization generally serves lower-income and historically marginalized communities, including her home of Red Springs. NBC News Read more

Will you have to keep masking up at your favorite retailers? It depends. Trader Joe’s, Walmart and Costco will no longer require fully vaccinated shoppers to don masks, making them some of first major businesses to change their face-covering policies after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines Thursday.

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Americans stripped off their masks Thursday as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the sudden announcement that vaccinated people no longer need to wear them indoors or outdoors. It was a great moment of liberation after a year of intense stress and fear, but also one of trepidation for many as the policy created a whole new set of complex questions for parents, employers, business owners and the millions of Americans who are still hesitant to get shots. CNN Read more

Hispanics who have yet to receive a covid shot are about twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites or Blacks to say they’d like to get vaccinated as soon as possible, according to a survey released Thursday. The findings hint at fixable, though difficult, vaccine access problems for the population. One-third of unvaccinated Hispanics say they want the shots, compared with 17% of Blacks and 16% of whites, according to the survey released Thursday. California Healthline Read more

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Sources: Johns Hopkins University, SF Chronicle, and dashboards for California and Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

You might be tempted to take an antibody test to find out whether your COVID vaccine worked. But - no. Immunology experts say there is little to be gained, for now, from an antibody test, for a number of reasons. Dr. Carl Fichtenbaum, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, says that while there are antibody tests to verify protection from vaccines for diseases such as mumps and measles, "those took decades to develop, and with COVID-19 we're only at a year and a half." NPR Read more