Recalled Exposure to COVID-19 Public Education Campaign Advertisements Predicts COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence.

This study examined the relationship between recalled exposure to the We Can Do This COVID-19 Public Education Campaign (the Campaign) and COVID-19 vaccine confidence (the likelihood of vaccination or vaccine uptake) in the general population, including vaccine-hesitant adults (the "Movable Middle"). Analyses used three waves of a triannual, nationally representative panel survey of adults in the U.S. fielded from January to November 2021 (n = 3,446). Proportional odds regression results demonstrated a positive, statistically significant relationship between past 4-month Campaign recall and vaccine confidence, controlling for lagged reports of Campaign recall and vaccine confidence; concurrent and lagged fictional campaign recall; survey wave; and sociodemographics. Results indicated that as one moves from no Campaign recall to infrequent recall, there is a 29% increase in the odds of being in a higher vaccine confidence category. Findings offer evidence of the impact of a COVID-19 public education campaign on increasing vaccine confidence.

The Initial Relationship Between the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Digital COVID-19 Public Education Campaign and Vaccine Uptake: Campaign Effectiveness Evaluation.

BACKGROUND: Over 1 million people in the United States have died of COVID-19. In response to this public health crisis, the US Department of Health and Human Services launched the We Can Do This public education campaign in April 2021 to increase vaccine confidence. The campaign uses a mix of digital, television, print, radio, and out-of-home channels to reach target audiences. However, the impact of this campaign on vaccine uptake has not yet been assessed. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to address this gap by assessing the association between the We Can Do This COVID-19 public education campaign's digital impressions and the likelihood of first-dose COVID-19 vaccination among US adults. METHODS: A nationally representative sample of 3642 adults recruited from a US probability panel was surveyed over 3 waves (wave 1: January to February 2021; wave 2: May to June 2021; and wave 3: September to November 2021) regarding COVID-19 vaccination, vaccine confidence, and sociodemographics. Survey data were merged with weekly paid digital campaign impressions delivered to each respondent's media market (designated market area [DMA]) during that period. The unit of analysis was the survey respondent-broadcast week, with respondents nested by DMA. Data were analyzed using a multilevel logit model with varying intercepts by DMA and time-fixed effects. RESULTS: The We Can Do This digital campaign was successful in encouraging first-dose COVID-19 vaccination. The findings were robust to multiple modeling specifications, with the independent effect of the change in the campaign's digital dose remaining practically unchanged across all models. Increases in DMA-level paid digital campaign impressions in a given week from -30,000 to 30,000 increased the likelihood of first-dose COVID-19 vaccination by 125%. CONCLUSIONS: Results from this study provide initial evidence of the We Can Do This campaign's digital impact on vaccine uptake. The size and length of the Department of Health and Human Services We Can Do This public education campaign make it uniquely situated to examine the impact of a digital campaign on COVID-19 vaccination, which may help inform future vaccine communication efforts and broader public education efforts. These findings suggest that campaign digital dose is positively associated with COVID-19 vaccination uptake among US adults; future research assessing campaign impact on reduced COVID-19-attributed morbidity and mortality and other benefits is recommended. This study indicates that digital channels have played an important role in the COVID-19 pandemic response. Digital outreach may be integral in addressing future pandemics and could even play a role in addressing nonpandemic public health crises.

Hepatitis of unknown aetiology in children - epidemiological overview of cases reported in Europe, 1 January to 16 June 2022.

Following the report of an excess in paediatric cases of severe acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology by the United Kingdom (UK) on 5 April 2022, 427 cases were reported from 20 countries in the World Health Organization European Region to the European Surveillance System TESSy from 1 January 2022 to 16 June 2022. Here, we analysed demographic, epidemiological, clinical and microbiological data available in TESSy. Of the reported cases, 77.3% were 5 years or younger and 53.5% had a positive test for adenovirus, 10.4% had a positive RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 and 10.3% were coinfected with both pathogens. Cases with adenovirus infections were significantly more likely to be admitted to intensive care or high-dependency units (OR = 2.11; 95% CI: 1.18-3.74) and transplanted (OR = 3.36; 95% CI: 1.19-9.55) than cases with a negative test result for adenovirus, but this was no longer observed when looking at this association separately between the UK and other countries. Aetiological studies are needed to ascertain if adenovirus plays a role in this possible emergence of hepatitis cases in children and, if confirmed, the mechanisms that could be involved.

Improving SARS-CoV-2 structures: Peer review by early coordinate release.

This work builds upon the record-breaking speed and generous immediate release of new experimental three-dimensional structures of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) proteins and complexes, which are crucial to downstream vaccine and drug development. We have surveyed those structures to catch the occasional errors that could be significant for those important uses and for which we were able to provide demonstrably higher-accuracy corrections. This process relied on new validation and correction methods such as CaBLAM and ISOLDE, which are not yet in routine use. We found such important and correctable problems in seven early SARS-CoV-2 structures. Two of the structures were soon superseded by new higher-resolution data, confirming our proposed changes. For the other five, we emailed the depositors a documented and illustrated report and encouraged them to make the model corrections themselves and use the new option at the worldwide Protein Data Bank for depositors to re-version their coordinates without changing the Protein Data Bank code. This quickly and easily makes the better-accuracy coordinates available to anyone who examines or downloads their structure, even before formal publication. The changes have involved sequence misalignments, incorrect RNA conformations near a bound inhibitor, incorrect metal ligands, and cis-trans or peptide flips that prevent good contact at interaction sites. These improvements have propagated into nearly all related structures done afterward. This process constitutes a new form of highly rigorous peer review, which is actually faster and more strict than standard publication review because it has access to coordinates and maps; journal peer review would also be strengthened by such access.