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A month after officially recommending that everyone 6 months and older get an updated COVID-19 vaccination, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen rolled up her sleeve Wednesday in Los Angeles for the latest shot. ... “October is the right time to get vaccinated,” Cohen said. “As we get into late fall and winter ... what we expect is to see more COVID circulation in November, December and January.” (Garcia, 10/11)

Weeks after the approval of updated Covid vaccines, community health centers across the country say they are still waiting on their doses to arrive. The delays are preventing many vulnerable adults and children from getting vaccinated ahead of a potential winter wave. Cahaba Medical Care, which has 26 community health clinics throughout Alabama, hasn’t received a single shipment of the new Covid vaccines since the rollout began in September, said Veronica Ford, a nursing manager at the center. (Lovelace Jr. and Bellamy, 10/12)

While COVID-19 vaccines have been in short supply in parts of Los Angeles County, that dearth is easing in some places, officials say. The L.A. County Department of Public Health says the updated COVID-19 vaccine is now available at all eight of its public health centers — in downtown L.A., Hollywood, Willowbrook, Monrovia, Pacoima, Pomona, Whittier and Lancaster. ... For those who are eager to get the updated vaccine as soon as possible, “I hope people can take advantage of the places where there is ample vaccine available,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said. (Lin II, 10/11)

The Defense Department has been ordered to pay $1.8 million in legal fees as settlement for two lawsuits that challenged its requirement that all U.S. troops be vaccinated against COVID-19. A Florida U.S. District Court judge awarded the money last week to the firm representing the plaintiffs, Liberty Counsel. The cases, one involving several Navy SEALs, were filed by a total of 48 service members -- the majority of whom were officers -- representing all branches of the armed forces and components. (Kime, 10/10)

Novavax is throwing marketing muscle behind its bid to capture a piece of the fall COVID-19 booster vaccine market. ... Novavax has enlisted Nicole Ari Parker, a Black actor who The Washington Post called the breakout star of the "Sex and the City" sequel "And Just Like That …," to front the campaign. (Taylor, 10/10)

How an unlikely group of scientists, generals, and government officials supercharged the effort to get us back to some kind of normal. (Nocera and McLean, 10/12)

Patients at Cleveland Clinic hospitals may soon be seeing a little bit less of their doctors - their faces, that is. The hospital system has requested that caregivers and visitors on inpatient floors of its Ohio hospitals return to masking, beginning next week. (Kroen, 10/11)

Harvard and University of Oxford researchers are harnessing AI to predict threatening new strains of COVID-19 and other viruses. The approach could prove more efficient than lab-based testing, because it doesn't rely on people becoming infected or getting vaccinated to develop antibodies. (Bettelheim, 10/12)

Researchers at the University of New Mexico have found that COVID-19 hit American Indian and Alaska Native patients hard — even inside the university’s hospital. The researchers met with around 500 patients of various races and ethnicities who were admitted with COVID-19 infections from 2020 to 2021. They found a disproportionate number of Indigenous individuals were admitted both in and outside of the ICU. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus journal in August. (VandenEinde, 10/10)

After going for a quick run last year, weeks out from a mild COVID-19 infection, Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez returned home more exhausted than usual. She broke out in hives and felt a migraine crash down on her. The next months marked changes in her daily lifestyle: her blood pressure and heart rate would fluctuate wildly. It was hard to go on walks. She had treated hundreds of patients with long-term symptoms of COVID, or “long COVID,” for almost two years, operating out of a center based in San Antonio with a months-long waitlist. But even then, she felt other doctors wouldn’t listen to what she needed. (Bohra, 10/12)