Binge drinking, marijuana and hallucinogen use reach all-time highs, NIH says - UPI.com Cannabis and hallucinogen use, as well as binge drinking, among U.S. adults ages 35-50 reached a historic high in 2022, the National Institutes of Health said Thursday. UPI

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Bivalent COVID vaccine boosts protection against emergency, urgent care in young kids Quinn Dombrowski / Flickr cc CIDRAP

A dose of bivalent (two-strain) mRNA COVID-19 vaccine booster pushed effectiveness against emergency or urgent care (ED/UC) to 80% among preschool children, compared with 46% after two Moderna monovalent (single-strain) doses and 70% after three monovalent Pfizer/BioNTech doses.

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CDC tracking new COVID variant BA.2.86 after highly mutated strain reported in Michigan Cases of the new COVID variant BA.2.86 have been spotted in Michigan, Denmark and Israel. CBS News

... Experts say reports of BA.2.86 being spotted in countries on multiple continents — Denmark, Israel, U.K. and U.S. — suggest it is at least capable of transmitting widely and could have been spreading undetected for some time

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Biden's fall Covid vaccine rollout for the uninsured won't include pharmacies at first The administration doesn't expect to finalize contracts with pharmacies distributing the vaccine to the uninsured until mid-October, weeks after the shot is made widely available. POLITICO

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Report spotlights 52 US doctors who posted potentially harmful COVID misinformation online Arkadiusz Warguła / iStock CIDRAP

Two new studies describe a couple sources of the COVID-19 "infodemic" on social media: US physicians and proponents and practitioners of "doing your own research."

All signs point to a late summer COVID wave COVID-19 is on the upswing once again, per closely watched metrics. Alex Fitzpatrick,Kavya Beheraj Axios

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Hospitalization rates are rising the fastest in Mississippi (+73% month over month), Alabama (+66%) and Louisiana (+66%).

• Yet they're down in Michigan (-32%), Vermont (-31%) and Rhode Island (-31%).
• Remember from past waves that COVID moves about the country unequally, ebbing in some areas and flowing in others at any given point in time.

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The US eliminated malaria in 1951. How can it keep it under control now? | CNN Working underground in a biosafety level 3 insectary in Tres Cantos, Madrid, researchers at the pharmaceutical giant GSK were frustrated. Meg Tirrell CNN

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It turned out that the mosquitoes harbored a bacteria that secreted a chemical that inhibits development of the parasites. That meant the team had to shut the colony down for the purposes of research into new malaria drugs — but it also led them to a new potential way to combat malaria.

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COVID testing isn't totally free anymore. How to access PCR, rapid tests Here’s what you need to know about when to get tested, which test to use, how to get a test for free and if old tests are OK to use. Yahoo Life

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Here’s what you need to know about when to get tested, which test to use, how to get a test for free and if old tests are OK to use.

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Utah man posing as doctor selling fake COVID-19 cure arrested after three-year manhunt Gordon Hunter Pedersen, 63, said his "structural alkaline silver" product made the virus "incapable" of infecting someone. CBS News

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