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The price of the lifesaving Covid-19 medication Paxlovid is likely to rise next year for most patients as the United States continues to transition out of the emergency phase of the pandemic, sparking concerns among doctors that it will become less accessible. ... The new price – the cost before insurance – hasn’t been set but is expected to be higher than the $530-per-course price paid by the US government. (Tirrell, 10/16)

The COVID-19 death toll continues to climb in Florida, while new COVID-19 cases have dropped in recent weeks. The state Department of Health on Friday released a report that showed 91,590 Florida residents had died with COVID-19 since the pandemic started in 2020. That was up from 91,178 deaths in a report issued two weeks earlier. (10/16)

On June 4, 2021, Florida stopped delivering daily information on COVID-19 testing, infections and deaths. At the time, the spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis said COVID cases had dropped significantly and Florida was “returning to normal,” noting the availability of vaccines. Instead of daily reports, it was going to release the data each week. Today, the information comes out every two weeks. At the time the state stopped its daily update, nearly 37,000 Floridians had died from COVID-19. This past week, the state agreed to hand over the statistics it originally said it did not have. It amounts to 25 gigabytes of data — more than two years of infection rates, vaccinations and deaths. (Miller, 10/16)

Dogs experimentally infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant but not showing neurologic or respiratory signs of COVID-19 had evidence of degenerative brain disease on necropsy. The study, led by Konkuk University researchers in South Korea, was published late last week in Emerging Infectious Diseases. The research team intranasally infected six female beagle dogs with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta virus. The six dogs shared cages with six dogs that weren't experimentally infected. Three uninfected dogs inoculated with a placebo served as controls. (Van Beusekom, 10/16)

Pfizer (PFE.N) CEO Albert Bourla said on Monday that he expects about 17% of the U.S. population to get updated COVID-19 vaccines during the current vaccination campaign, in-line with last year. (10/16)

"We are meeting more resistance than I ever remember," said Dr. Neil Silverman, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UCLA Health. "We didn't get this kind of pushback on this scale before the pandemic." "Now all vaccines are lumped together as 'bad,'" he said. ... However, a recent CDC report found growing doubts about vaccination during pregnancy. Among almost 2,000 women who were pregnant during the height of last year's cold and flu season or when the survey was conducted in March and April, almost a quarter said they were "very hesitant" about getting a flu shot. (Edwards and Weaver, 10/17)

A new meta-analysis of 11 studies reveals a 3.4% estimated prevalence of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection during pregnancy, but with a wide range in estimates, according to a study published yesterday in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. The analysis comes during a year in which RSV has been the target of new vaccines and monoclonal antibody therapies. Though a mild respiratory illness in most adults, the virus can be severe in infants under 6 months of age, the elderly, and pregnant women. (Soucheray, 10/13)

Covid-19 reshaped the health-care industry. The waning of the pandemic is reshaping it all over again. Vaccine makers and pharmacy chains are seeing a steep decline in the number of people getting Covid shots. Makers of at-home rapid tests are going belly-up. Companies that made personal protective equipment have shut down. (Smith, 10/17)