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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects updated Covid vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax to be available to the public in mid-September, an agency official told reporters Thursday. That amounts to the most specific timeline to date. Federal officials have said the new shots could arrive around September. CDC Director Mandy Cohen had previously provided a later timeline, telling NPR that the vaccines could be available by the “early October time frame.” (Constantino, 8/25)

Federal health authorities are laying out plans for taking on this year's respiratory viral season, with officials emboldened by the new spate of preventive medications the U.S. has gathered heading into the fall and winter. "We are in our strongest position yet to be able to fight COVID-19 as well as the other viruses that are responsible for the majority of fall and winter hospitalizations, namely flu, COVID as well as RSV," a CDC official said in a press call on Thursday. (Choi, 8/25)

With last fall’s chaotic early start to the respiratory virus season still fresh in the public memory, federal health authorities are trying to move quickly to convey the impression that this year will be different. (Branswell, 8/25)

Pulse oximeters routinely overestimated levels of oxygen in the blood in darker-skinned Covid patients, leading to delays in treatment and hospital readmissions, according to a research article published on Thursday. The research focused on the first years of the coronavirus pandemic, when patients overwhelmed hospitals. At the time, blood-oxygen levels were a key factor in deciding which patients wound up in limited hospital beds and received treatment. (Jewett, 8/24)

Today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers show that teens born in 2008, who were ages 11 and 12 in 2020, have significant gaps in vaccine coverage for three common  immunizations, including the tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine, meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenACWY,) and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. (Soucheray, 8/24)

A “rock star” doctor who tested tens of thousands of people for COVID-19 in the pandemic’s early months in a badly-stricken California desert community has pleaded guilty to misbranding cosmetic drugs, authorities said Thursday. Dr. Tien Tan Vo acknowledged in a plea agreement that none of the lip fillers used by his Imperial Valley clinics from November 2016 to October 2020 were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, federal prosecutors said. (8/24)

In its bid to fight cancer, the Biden administration this week announced plans to enlist the mRNA technology made famous by COVID-19 vaccines. The idea is to create a platform of mRNA technologies that could turn the immune system against cancer and other diseases. ... The new research project led by Emory University in Atlanta will receive up to $24 million from the administration's Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). (Weintraub, 8/24)