The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning health providers that there is an “urgent need” to increase vaccinations against influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). In an alert published Thursday, the agency cautioned that low vaccination rates, coupled with ongoing increases in national respiratory disease activity, could lead to more severe disease […]
Right now, all eyes are on the new COVID variant JN.1, a heavily mutated new strain that has swept the United States in recent weeks. JN.1 is now the fastest-growing variant in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It currently accounts for more than one-fifth of all infections in […]
While most schools in the U.S. have returned to full-time in-person learning after going remote at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lingering effects of the lockdowns still remain. Chris Lantz is part of an attendance team in Louisville, Kentucky, tasked with making up the 30 calls a week searching for chronically absent students. […]
During the Fox News debate between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a study published in the scientific journal the Lancet was highlighted as vindication for the Sunshine State’s loose pandemic policies. As the two traded barbs over who was a “lockdown governor,” DeSantis crowed about his state reopening quickly and said: […]
Los Angeles Unified has enacted a targeted hiring freeze and is considering closing or consolidating schools as it faces the loss of federal pandemic aid and declining enrollment, superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in an interview last week. Carvalho, who nearly two years ago assumed leadership of the nation’s second largest school district, said LAUSD is in […]
(Reuters) – Pfizer has turned to multi-billion deals, an internal restructuring and a massive cost-cutting program as the U.S. drugmaker battles a steep fall in demand for its COVID-19 products. The company on Wednesday forecast revenue from its COVID-19 vaccine and treatment to be $8 billion in 2024, a far cry from the $57 billion […]
The recent spike in coronavirus cases has revived some of the ferocious debates that animated national — and local — politics throughout the first two and a half years of the pandemic. Even though hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are happening at much lower rates than during the Delta and Omicron waves, the spike is […]
Fact checked by Nick Blackmer A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report shows that a new Omicron variant, JN.1, is on the rise. JN.1 appears to be very symptomatically similar to another Omicron strain—BA.2.86. Experts recommend people stay up-to-date on their COVID boosters and practice other precautionary measures to stay healthy this […]
The coronavirus wants you to remember that it hasn’t gone away — and right now the virus is ensuring that Americans don’t relegate it entirely to the past. Recent weeks have shown the signs of a slow-building COVID-19 mini-wave driven by new Omicron subvariants. Many public health agencies no longer report daily (or even weekly) […]
Because COVID-19 vaccines are no longer being distributed by the federal government, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped printing those little white vaccine cards that were once so ubiquitous during the COVID pandemic. The cards’ discontinuation isn’t expected to be a big change, as experts say it’s unlikely we’ll return to the […]
It may sound a little gross, but analyzing wastewater for traces of diseases is one of the best ways to understand how populations are handling illness. It is can be a gold mine of information regarding the prevalence of respiratory viruses like influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and SARS-CoV-2 (which causes COVID-19). The latest results […]
Hong Kong CNN — China’s economy got off to a solid start in 2023, as consumers went on a spending spree after three years of strict pandemic restrictions ended. Gross domestic product grew by 4.5% in the first quarter from a year ago, according to the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. That beat the […]