Situation Report

The West is warming and drying so fast that a crucial drought-monitoring tool can’t keep up, study says Drought in the American West is becoming a persistent reality instead of a periodic emergency due to climate change, and a recent study found that an essential tool used to measure drought can&#821… Elise Schmelzer The Denver Post

Drought in the American West is becoming a persistent reality instead of a periodic emergency due to climate change, and a recent study found that an essential tool used to measure drought can’t keep up.

The Covid summer wave is here Infections are most likely rising in at least 39 states, driven in part by a trio of new variants. NBC News

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Several variants are likely to be contributing to the nationwide trend, said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

WHO, scientists call for urgent action on mpox strain The spread of mpox in Africa needs to be addressed urgently, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, as scientists warned separately of a dangerous strain in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Jennifer Rigby Reuters

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Latest XBB COVID-19 vaccine offers protection against hospitalization, deaths Today, JAMA Internal Medicine published a study calculating the protection offered by the latest Pfizer COVID-19 XBB vaccine compared to older vaccines against COVID-associated hospitalization and emergency department (ED) or urgent care (UC) visits.  CIDRAP

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The authors compared outcomes among those who had received an updated XBB vaccine and those who had not received an XBB vaccine of any kind, regardless of prior COVID-19 vaccination or infection history.