NEW YORK (AP) — All 17 experts recently dismissed from a government vaccine advisory panel published an essay Monday decrying “destabilizing decisions” made by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that could lead to more preventable disease spread.

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

World-renowned infectious-disease epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff — who was fired from Harvard Medical School last year after refusing the COVID vaccine — just got a new gig. Kulldorff has been named a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.

Children with acute COVID-19 and MIS-C show significant disruptions in lipid metabolism, including patterns resembling adult severe COVID-19. These findings highlight potential long-term cardiovascular risks in pediatric SARS-CoV-2 cases and underscore the need for follow-up care.

Meissner was previously listed in April as a consultant to the RSV vaccines work group for the CDC committee, before Kennedy fired its advisers.

While COVID-19 transmission remains low in the US, health experts are anxious about the potential for a big summer wave as two factors seem set for a collision course: a lull in infection activity that suggests protective responses have likely waned in the population, and a new SARS-CoV-2 variant with an infectious advantage over other variants.

The new COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1, nicknamed ‘Nimbus,’ now accounts for 37% of U.S. cases. It spreads fast, causes severe sore throat, and may evade immunity due to spike mutations.

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: