Federal health officials have lifted the pause on Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, but women younger than age 50 years should know the risks of the rare but real side effect.

Lawmakers, academics, and the research community have hotly debated the ethics of a human challenge study since the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that the United Kingdom has started dosing patients in its human challenge study, some bioethicists say this trial can show vaccine efficacy in ways the larger vaccine trials cannot.

On Feb. 18, Pfizer and BioNTech announced they would dose about 4,000 healthy pregnant women with the COVID-19 vaccine to evaluate its safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity. Although pregnant people were excluded initially from the COVD-19 trials, research has shown they are at higher risk for more severe disease.

Public health agencies and academic partners have created a vaccine misinformation field guide outlining how to respond to the misinformation and disinformation that are undermining uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Almost two-thirds of healthcare workers in thousands of skilled nursing facilities have turned down COVID-19 vaccine, even though the mortality rates of long-term care residents are among the highest of any population.

The national dialogue on immunizing people of color against COVID-19 has brought past atrocities to light, forcing a conversation on the deep distrust engendered by government “medical care,” such as the Tuskegee experiment.