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The Health and Human Services Department said Monday it is working to ensure the new COVID-19 vaccine gets to long-term care facilities, following complaints that some nursing homes are struggling to obtain doses for their residents. Trade groups representing long-term care providers and the pharmacies that serve them lay much of the blame on the transition from government distribution of the vaccine to the commercial marketplace, a change that did not give those pharmacies and nursing homes priority access to the vaccine. (Eastabrook and Broderick, 10/24)

The Biden administration’s campaign to convince Americans to get an annual Covid shot is off to a very slow start. Even so, the nation’s top disease-fighting official says the U.S. remains “on track” to hit last year’s uptake levels, which crested at just 17 percent of the U.S. population. So far, 12 million people, or about 3.6 percent of the population, have gotten the shot in the five weeks since it hit pharmacy shelves — though reporting lags mean it’s likely a bit higher, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen said. (Cirruzzo, 10/24)

The Covid vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna may be linked to a slight increase in the risk of stroke when administered along with a high-dose flu vaccine, according to a new analysis by the Food and Drug Administration. The high-dose flu vaccine is usually given to older people, and the risk association is clearest in adults aged 85 and older. But that increase, if real, seems very small, and it is possible that the risk may stem from the flu vaccine alone. (Mandavilli, 10/24)

Moderna announced Tuesday it has dosed its first participant in a phase III clinical trial of a combination influenza and COVID-19 vaccine. This phase will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the combo vaccine compared to flu and COVID vaccines that are administered separately in two groups, one involving 4,000 adults aged 65 and older and another involving 4,000 adults between ages 50 and 64. (Kekatos, 10/24)

Carnival Cruise Line was deemed "negligent" over a 2020 COVID outbreak aboard the Ruby Princess that resulted in 28 deaths, Australia's Federal Court ruled in a class action lawsuit on Wednesday. Justice Angus Stewart said in a summary that the cruise company "knew or ought to have known about the heightened risk of coronavirus infection on the vessel, and its potentially lethal consequences" before it left Sydney for New Zealand in March 2020, "yet they proceeded regardless." (Falconer, 10/24)

A study today led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine published in JAMA Network Open shows that US childcare centers have not been significant sites of COVID-19 transmission, and the authors suggest that children with COVID-19 in these centers be treated like others with similar non-COVID respiratory illnesses. (Soucheray, 10/24)