Influence of COVID-19 on trust in routine immunization, health information sources and pandemic preparedness in 23 countries in 2023.

It is unclear how great a challenge pandemic and vaccine fatigue present to public health. We assessed perspectives on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and routine immunization as well as trust in pandemic information sources and future pandemic preparedness in a survey of 23,000 adults in 23 countries in October 2023. The participants reported a lower intent to get a COVID-19 booster vaccine in 2023 (71.6%), compared with 2022 (87.9%). A total of 60.8% expressed being more willing to get vaccinated for diseases other than COVID-19 as a result of their experience during the pandemic, while 23.1% reported being less willing. Trust in 11 selected sources of vaccine information each averaged less than 7 on a 10-point scale with one's own doctor or nurse and the World Health Organization, averaging a 6.9 and 6.5, respectively. Our findings emphasize that vaccine hesitancy and trust challenges remain for public health practitioners, underscoring the need for targeted, culturally sensitive health communication strategies.

A passive mutualistic interaction promotes the evolution of spatial structure within microbial populations.

BACKGROUND: While mutualistic interactions between different genotypes are pervasive in nature, their evolutionary origin is not clear. The dilemma is that, for mutualistic interactions to emerge and persist, an investment into the partner genotype must pay off: individuals of a first genotype that invest resources to promote the growth of a second genotype must receive a benefit that is not equally accessible to individuals that do not invest. One way for exclusive benefits to emerge is through spatial structure (i.e., physical barriers to the movement of individuals and resources). RESULTS: Here we propose that organisms can evolve their own spatial structure based on physical attachment between individuals, and we hypothesize that attachment evolves when spatial proximity to members of another species is advantageous. We tested this hypothesis using experimental evolution with combinations of E. coli strains that depend on each other to grow. We found that attachment between cells repeatedly evolved within 8 weeks of evolution and observed that many different types of mutations potentially contributed to increased attachment. CONCLUSIONS: We postulate a general principle by which passive beneficial interactions between organisms select for attachment, and attachment then provides spatial structure that could be conducive for the evolution of active mutualistic interactions.