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Tag: United States

US households will be able to order more free Covid‑19 tests starting Monday

The US government will relaunch a program to provide free Covid-19 home tests to Americans, US Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.

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The anti-vaccine movement is on the rise. The White House is at a loss over what to do about it.

A Biden administration that vowed to restore Americans’ faith in public health has grown increasingly paralyzed over how to combat the resurgence in vaccine skepticism.

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This pediatrician has a stark warning about the risks of ‘anti-science’

A pediatrician, author and co-inventor of a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine warns that the anti-vaccine movement has morphed into a political force that threatens the world’s gains against deadly childhood infections like measles.

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Expected CDC guidance on N95 masks outrages health care workers

Nurses, researchers and workplace safety officers worry new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might reduce protection against the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens in hospitals.

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US CDC recommends broad use of updated COVID‑19 vaccines

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director on Tuesday signed off on broad use of updated COVID-19 vaccines approved by the government – covering ages 6 months and up – as the country prepares to start a vaccination campaign within days.

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Where Have All The Masks Gone? And Why Is The CDC Missing In Action?

The Biden administration has made a political choice—not a scientific or public health one—to downgrade the national response to COVID-19. Included in this is the reticence or outright avoidance of mentioning masking even as cases rise in the US. The CDC director, in talking about this late increase in COVID cases, bends over backward to mention hand-washing, but not N95s. Without question, N95s offer individuals protection against infection and leaving out that fact is a disservice and an abdication of duty.

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COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the rise in San Diego County. Here’s what you need to know

Doctors and health officials are seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across San Diego County, and the latest set of subvariants is dominating the spread.

Experts say thanks to widespread vaccinations, COVID-19 is becoming less severe. But while the latest surge in cases isn’t resulting in as many deaths or hospitalizations as seen early on in the pandemic, the public should still be wary of one complication: long COVID.

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Welcome to the “You Do You” Pandemic

“While too many people who should know better are downplaying the ongoing public health risk from Covid, others are trying to signal the peril of our current moment. The New York Times recently reported on new estimates from researchers that Covid might lead to at least 45,000 deaths between September and April—and that’s the best-case scenario.”

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It seems like everyone has Covid-19. Here’s why this wave is probably worse than official data suggests

Weekly hospital admissions have nearly doubled over the past month, including a 19% bump in the most recent week, CDC data shows. And a sample of laboratories participating in a federal surveillance program show that test positivity rates have tripled in the past two months.

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Covid Closed the Nation’s Schools. Cleaner Air Can Keep Them Open.

C.D.C. researchers have estimated that air purifiers may decrease the exposure to aerosols — tiny floating droplets that might contain virus — by up to 65 percent.

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Long COVID is debilitating children. Doctors worry there aren’t enough centers to treat them

Last month, the National Institutes of Health updated its considerations for long COVID to say the burden of the condition in children “may be quite large.” Studies estimating its prevalence in pediatric populations are limited and conflicting, estimating up to 25% of children infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could go on to develop long COVID, though it’s more likely between 2% and 10%. Older children with existing chronic diseases or who had a more severe COVID-19 infection have an increased risk.

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Updated Covid-19 vaccines are coming mid-September, officials say

Covid-19 vaccines that have been tweaked to teach the body how to fend off the current crop of circulating variants are now expected to land in drugstores and clinics in mid-September, CDC and FDA officials said.

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Opinion: Study shows ‘long COVID’ likely to cause mass misery if treatments can’t be developed

Given that 103 million Americans and 770 million people worldwide have been diagnosed as having contracted COVID-19, a future of misery could await a stunningly large cross-section of humanity.

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Hospitals are killing patients because they don’t feel like doing infection control

“Disabled, sick, immunocompromised and vulnerable people seeking care at a hospital, have the right not to be exposed to a virus that has killed 1.1 million Americans in 3.5 years. They have the right to seek care without having to fear that their care team will quite literally kill them with a preventable illness. Practitioners, on the other hand, have no right to compare the irritation of having to wear a mask at work with the moral injury of infecting vulnerable people who then go on to die at high rates.”

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CDC weighs risk of BA.2.86 COVID-19 lineage as 3 more nations report sequences

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today issued its initial risk assessment of the BA.2.86 SARS-CoV-2 lineage, which says tests and treatments will likely be effective and that updated vaccines will still be able to reduce severe disease and hospitalizations.

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