Oxford University scientists said on February 15 they would evaluate the effects of new coronavirus variants on pregnant women and newborns, as well as COVID-19 vaccination effects on complications during pregnancy and after birth.

The immune response to COVID-19 helps protect against reinfection, but that protection is weaker against Omicron than it was against earlier variants of the coronavirus, according to new data. In other news, protection provided by booster shots of the mRNA vaccines from Moderna Inc. or Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE starts waning quickly, according to data published in Feb. 11th’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The World Health Organization indicated WHO is tracking four Omicron subvariants: BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3. BA.2 has a growth advantage over BA.1, the variant responsible for the recent Omicron surge.

The latest wave of COVID-19 infections has “overwhelmed” Hong Kong, the city’s leader said on Feb. 14, as daily cases have surged by some 20 times over the past two weeks, leaving hospitals short of beds and struggling to cope. South Korea will begin giving out fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccines during February and supply millions of additional home test kits to ease shortages amid a surge in Omicron infections, authorities confirmed on Feb. 14.

Hong Kong reported a record 2,071 new daily COVID-19 infections on February 14 with 4,500 preliminary positive cases, authorities said, as the city battles to control a worsening outbreak.

On the day the public and members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee were going to get a look at Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine data for children under 5 years old, the companies pulled the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) submission.

Researchers at Bar-Ilan University and the Galilee Medical Center identified an association between vitamin D deficiency and severity and mortality of COVID-19.

The World Health Organization’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said on February 11 that the world was not yet at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as there would be more coronavirus variants.

Gilead Sciences Inc.’s antiviral drug remdesivir showed antiviral activity against Omicron, Delta and other variants of the coronavirus in laboratory studies, the company said on February 11.

U.S. President Joe Biden on February 10 said mask requirements for children would likely to start to fall away given federal plans to begin vaccinating children under the age of 5, but said it was probably premature to drop COVID mask requirements entirely.