Most people in ‘America’s Heartland’ will forgo updated COVID vaccines. Nearly 60 percent of Americans living in the Midwest and surrounding states say they will not get the new COVID-19 vaccine this year, according to a survey from Emerson College. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an updated new COVID-19 booster in September, targeting currently circulating variants of the disease. Only 16 percent of U.S. adults have gotten the newest vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Several key COVID-19 trends that authorities track are now accelerating around the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced. It's the first major nationwide uptick in the spread of the virus seen in months.

Region Seven—an administrative area consisting of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska—has the highest percentage of positive COVID tests in the U.S.

Health experts call it “worrying” with COVID hospitalizations up. Rates of infections of nursing home residents across this Midwestern region have also soared in recent weeks, higher than in most other parts of the country, approaching levels not seen since the peak of last winter's COVID-19 wave.

As a seasonal slew of respiratory illnesses circulate, it’s Covid that continues to send the most people to the hospital, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

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Does the new vaccine protect against the newest variants? The updated vaccine, which targets the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant, boosts the antibody response to circulating variants, including HV.1 and JN.1. “It’s critical that those who are eligible for an updated Covid vaccine get the shot, Smith of Kent State said, as the vaccines have been effective in holding up against the most severe consequences of Covid.”

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Vulnerable Americans are going into the holiday season without COVID-19 protections.

CDC Director Mandy Cohen told a House panel last week that COVID-19 remains “the primary cause of new respiratory hospitalizations and deaths” in the country, Cohen said.

Cohen repeatedly noted the U.S. is in a much different place than during the peak pandemic, but experts said continued low vaccination rates could lead to a backslide and leave the country open to another surge if a more immune-resistant variant emerges.

“It’s kind of a perpetual problem in health prevention in general, if prevention efforts are working, people don’t see the problem, and then stop taking the measures that prevent the problem”.

There’s also a significant partisan divide. The poll found only 23 percent of Republican respondents had or would get the latest shot, compared to 40 percent of independents and 74 percent of Democrats.

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Which takes us back to the first paragraph above.