The Relationship between Health Literacy and COVID-19 Vaccination Prevalence during a Rapidly Evolving Pandemic and Infodemic.

The gap between how health information is communicated and what people understand and can use to make informed health decisions is called health literacy. This gap was exacerbated by the rapidly changing and excessive volume of information, misinformation, and disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. People with lower health literacy may not have understood the importance of COVID-19 vaccination for themselves or for their communities. Our aim was to understand health literacy levels within Fulton County, Georgia, and their relationship to vaccine prevalence. Fulton county residents ages 18 and over (n = 425) completed an on-line Health Literacy Questionnaire. Individual, organizational, functional, interactive, and critical health literacy scales were created. Vaccination prevalence data were collected from the Georgia Vaccine Distribution Dashboard. All data were divided into one of three county areas. There were statistically significant variations in vaccine prevalence χ2(3) = 29.325, p < 0.001 among the three county areas. All levels of health literacy predicted overall county vaccination prevalence F (4,420) = 85.941, p < 0.001, There were significant differences in health literacy levels among two of the three county area pairs; the lowest resourced county area had the lowest vaccination prevalence and health literacy rates. This is the first example of relating direct health literacy measures across a major metropolitan US county with vaccine prevalence data.

Engineered Ribosyl-1-Kinase Enables Concise Synthesis of Molnupiravir, an Antiviral for COVID-19.

Molnupiravir (MK-4482) is an investigational antiviral agent that is under development for the treatment of COVID-19. Given the potential high demand and urgency for this compound, it was critical to develop a short and sustainable synthesis from simple raw materials that would minimize the time needed to manufacture and supply molnupiravir. The route reported here is enabled through the invention of a novel biocatalytic cascade featuring an engineered ribosyl-1-kinase and uridine phosphorylase. These engineered enzymes were deployed with a pyruvate-oxidase-enabled phosphate recycling strategy. Compared to the initial route, this synthesis of molnupiravir is 70% shorter and approximately 7-fold higher yielding. Looking forward, the biocatalytic approach to molnupiravir outlined here is anticipated to have broad applications for streamlining the synthesis of nucleosides in general.