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The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it is allocating $1 billion for midstage COVID-19 vaccine trials to begin this fall, $300 million for the development of a new monoclonal antibody to protect people who are immunocompromised, and $100 million to explore new technologies to help prevent and treat the infection. The administration had said it intended to spend $5 billion on Project NextGen to help develop new tools to protect against COVID-19. These are the first specific allocations from that pot of money. (Weintraub, 8/22)

The awards are part of Project NextGen, an initiative led by ASPR that fosters public-private partnerships to develop the next generation of COVID-19 countermeasures. These are the first grants to be issued from NextGen, which has an initial investment of $5 billion. Officials said Tuesday they currently don’t anticipate the need for additional funds. (Choi, 8/22)

Novavax Inc said on Tuesday its updated protein-based COVID-19 vaccine generated an immune response against emerging forms of coronavirus such as the "Eris" subvariant in small studies in animals. (8/22)

Some $1.4 billion in funding will target projects including trials to enable the rapid development of more effective and longer-lasting coronavirus vaccines, new Covid antibody therapies and technologies to streamline manufacturing processes, the Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday. The awards are the first in the Biden administration’s Project NextGen initiative that was announced in April. (Muller, 8/22)

Americans will soon roll up their sleeves for an array of shots to stem the anticipated tide of respiratory infections this fall. (Abbott and Kamp, 8/22)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: The Painful Pandemic Lessons Mandy Cohen Carries To The CDC 

As covid-19 devastated communities across the nation in spring 2020, a group of Black ministers in this racially divided city made an urgent plea for more testing in their neighborhoods. Testing at the time “was outside of communities of color,” said the Rev. Jordan Boyd, pastor of Rockwell AME Zion Church in Charlotte. For Boyd, pandemic losses were personal: Covid-related complications killed a brother-in-law who worked as a truck driver. “We saw what was happening with our folks.” (Clasen-Kelly, Pradhan and Hacker, 8/23)