West Virginia lawmakers OK bill drawing back one of the country's strictest child vaccination laws West Virginia’s GOP-controlled state Legislature has voted to allow some students who don’t attend traditional public schools to be exempt from state vaccination requirements. AP News

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West Virginia, with some of the lowest life expectancy rates in the U.S. and a quarter of all children living in poverty, is one of only two states, along with California, that don’t permit nonmedical exemptions to vaccinations as a condition for school entry.

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No parent who has seen the children I’ve treated for measles would refuse a vaccine Pediatrician Paul Law fights measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He’s never seen a parent there turn down a vaccine. Torie Bosch STAT

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Masks work, telehealth is here to stay — and other health lessons we've learned since the pandemic started 4 years ago It’s been four years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Here are six important lessons we’ve learned. Yahoo Life

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SARS-CoV-2 RNA can persist in blood, tissue, may play role in long COVID, research suggests The probability of having persistent viral fragments was about double in hospitalized participants and in those who reported being very ill but weren't hospitalized. CIDRAP

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Study of 1 million US kids shows vaccines tied to lower risk of long COVID A study of 1,037,936 US children seen in 17 healthcare systems across the country shows that COVID-19 vaccines are moderately protective against long COVID: 35% to 45%, with higher rates in adolescents. The study was published today in Pediatrics. CIDRAP

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The researchers estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) against long COVID in children aged 5 to 17 years. Though severe COVID-19 cases are less common in children than in adults, persistent symptoms in children do occur.

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China to increase number of response teams for new infectious diseases