New boosters, new questions. We have answers. | Coronavirus Updates Newsletter

The gist: This week, we’ve got answers for everything you need to know about the newly approved COVID boosters that help battle more recent variants of the virus. Plus, with life expectancy in the United States dropping the past two years, a Nobel-winning economist explains how the pandemic and other factors have contributed to the decline. And after two years of learning disruptions, the math and reading scores of America’s 9-year-old students have fallen sharply.

📥 Tell us: If you’ve had COVID, what was your experience like? Send us a note, and we’ll share some responses in next week’s newsletter. Please keep it to 35 words.

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— Nick Vadala (@njvadala, health@inquirer.com)

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New COVID-19 booster shots that are designed to protect against recent variants have been approved by the FDA and will soon be available. Known as “bivalent” vaccines, the new shots teach the immune system to recognize the original coronavirus as well as the most recent versions of the omicron variant. But should you get it, and who is eligible to receive a dose? Here is what you need to know.

💉 With updated boosters officially endorsed by the CDC, the agency’s advisors say that if enough people roll up their sleeves, the shots could blunt a winter surge.

🪦 Life expectancy in the United States dropped in 2020 and 2021. Here’s how COVID-19, deaths of despair, and slowed progress on cardiovascular diseases led to the decline, according to Nobel-winning economist Angus Deaton.

📚 Pandemic budget cuts have resulted in a staffing shortage at Free Library of Philadelphia, which needs to hire about 350 more employees — meaning it could be a year before service is normalized across the city.

💉 Like COVID vaccines, monkeypox vaccines have disproportionately gone to white Philadelphians. One clinic has sought to balance that, but efforts at equitable access are running up against a scarcity of doses and a lack of money.

🏫 A new national study finds math and reading scores for America’s 9-year-old students fell sharply during the pandemic, underscoring the impact of two years of learning disruptions.

🦠 The World Health Organization says the number of new coronavirus cases fell everywhere in the world last week by about 12%, but the pandemic still isn’t over.

📉 Coronavirus cases are falling in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Track the latest data here.

We recently asked what your experience with being sick with COVID was like. Here’s what you told us:

🤷 “I had long COVID-19 from June till last week and my only symptom was a sore throat. Other than that I was a little slower at work, but not enough for anyone to ask me about it.”

👃 “The symptoms that seemed to last initially were fatigue, loss of appetite, loss of taste, and loss of smell. In the long run, the only lasting symptom has been loss of smell and that has continued until today.”

🦠 “With my first infection, my symptoms were of a mild flu — slight fever, cough, tiredness. The second episode was practically symptom-free.”

🤒 “It was like a bad cold for me. Symptoms: tired, sore muscles, fever and a little chest congestion that lasted a few days. I did fine after that. I had much worse viruses in the past and I was 60 at the time.”

🥱 “After being double-vaxxed & double-boosted, I got COVID. 10 days in bed, sleeping 12 hrs/day. Blowing nose. Low grade fever. Even now, 2 mos. later, I don’t have my energy back.”

Two years after picking up a bow and arrow for the first time, Yuan Jie Wen founded Callowhill Archery in a space that formerly served as the Sun Kee Tofu factory. Opened by his parents in 1990, it served as one of the first businesses to bring tofu to the Philly region — but now, Wen is using it to help people from across the region channel their own inner superhero.

👶 A recent survey ranked Philadelphia as the rudest city in the United States. Is it true? Maybe. But only if you’re a whiny baby.

🎨 Calder Gardens, a museum honoring prominent Philly-born sculptor and artist Alexander Calder, is coming to the Parkway. Here’s what it will look like.

🍗 Philadelphia is now officially home to the first Jollibee in Pennsylvania thanks to a new location in Great Northeast Plaza. Fried chicken and spaghetti, here we come.

Since the start of COVID-19, J. Jondhi Harrell, founder and executive director of TCRC Community Healing Center, has provided an outdoor weekly food giveaway to help ease food insecurity in the city. Now, he’s added a third distribution day, and almost 16,000 a month will stream through TCRC’s doors — and Harrell expects the number to grow.