• Florida: President-elect Donald Trump has named Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff, making her the first woman to hold the position. According to the Associated Press, Wiles is widely credited with running his successful 2024 presidential campaign. Wiles is a longtime Republican strategist based in Florida who ran Trump's campaigns in the state in 2016 and 2020, as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R) campaign for governor in 2018. "Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected. Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again," Trump said in a statement. "It is a well deserved honor to have Susie as the first-ever female Chief of Staff in United States history. I have no doubt that she will make our country proud." (Miller et al. Associated Press, 11/7)
• Georgia: CDC has identified four asymptomatic dairy workers with H5N1 bird flu, leading it to update its safety recommendations. Between June and August, CDC collaborated with state health departments in Michigan and Colorado to conduct anonymized serosurveys of 115 dairy farm workers who had been exposed to infected dairy cows. Of the samples, eight had antibodies for the H5N1 bird flu, and while four workers recalled having symptoms, four did not. Based on these findings, CDC has updated its safety recommendations to expand testing protocols for bird flu exposure to include asymptomatic individuals, recommend Tamiflu for all workers with high-risk exposure to bird flu regardless of symptoms, and increase focus on PPE guidance for workers, especially those involved in high-risk activities or culling operations with sick or infected animals. (Taylor, Becker's Clinical Leadership, 11/8)
• South Carolina: Last week, 43 Rhesus macaque monkeys escaped Alpha Genesis, a medical research compound, after an employee failed to fully lock a door as she fed and checked on them. "It's really like follow-the-leader. You see one go and the others go," said Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard. "It was a group of 50 and 7 stayed behind and 43 bolted out the door." As of Sunday, 25 of the 43 monkeys had been recovered. The remaining monkeys are still close to the facility and interacting with the monkeys inside. Westergaard noted that it would be a long process to get all the monkeys back since they didn't want to chase the monkeys, which could spook them and cause them to run away. According to the company, federal health officials, and police, the monkeys do not pose any risk to public health. (CBS News, 11/10)

The fight against COVID-19 has pushed healthcare to quickly adopt virtual tools at a rate much faster than normal. Some of the most promising pandemic-related health technologies go beyond just telehealth — for example, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). Read on to learn three ways AI can be used to help with future pandemics.