The NB.1.8.1 COVID-19 variant was linked to a large surge of hospitalizations in parts of Asia earlier this year.

NB.1.8.1 — a new COVID-19 variant tied to a surge in China — now accounts for around 37% of cases in the U.S., according to variant proportion estimates from the CDC. Four notes:

Key Takeaways NB.1.8.1 may make up over one-third of current U.S. COVID-19 casesThe variant is spreading fast, but doesn’t cause more severe illness, experts sayVaccines may be harder to get for some people this fall MONDAY,

A former Harvard Medical School professor who claims he was fired for refusing to receive the Covid-19 vaccine was appointed on Wednesday to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory panel for immunization policy.

A medical officer at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was working on the committee that was weighing changes to the agency’s Covid-19 vaccine recommendations resigned on Friday, the same day officials the US Department of Health and Human Services announced they had removed the CDC recommendation for pregnant women and healthy children to get Covid-19 vaccines.

An official at the CDC who oversaw the agency's recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines has resigned, following a week of mixed messaging from federal health officials.

The CDC says Taiwan's COVID-19 outbreak may have peaked and could wind down by late July as the number of medical visits starts to slow.

The resignation follows an order by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to change the agency's guidance.

Since the first Covid-19 vaccines were authorized in December 2020, more than 672 million doses have been administered in the United States. For years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has broadly recommended up-to-date vaccination,