Coronavirus category, Page 2

NEW YORK — More U.S. hospitals are requiring masks and limiting visitors as health officials face an expected but still nasty post-holiday spike in flu, covid-19 and other illnesses. While many experts say this season likely won’t prove to be as deadly as some other recent winters, it still could...

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, once again at odds with federal officials, is urging people to stop getting Pfizer’s and Moderna’s mRNA covid vaccines over safety concerns that the shots could possibly deliver DNA contaminants into human cells. Ladapo’s call to halt the use of the mRNA vaccines comes a...

Pittsburgh health care giant UPMC is requiring masks at its facilities as it sees an increase in cases of covid, flu and other illnesses. “UPMC is seeing an increase in cases of respiratory viruses, including covid, influenza and RSV,” according to a statement from UPMC. “To protect the health and...

Just in time for the holidays, another round of four free at-home covid tests are available for mail order starting today, according to the US Department of Health. “Beginning Nov. 20, every U.S. household can again place an order to receive four more free covid-19 rapid tests delivered directly to...

YANKEETOWN, Fla. — A freshwater spring bubbles amid the mangroves, cabbage palms and red cedars on Sweetheart Island, a two-acre uninhabited patch of paradise about a mile off the coast of this little Gulf Coast town. Pelicans divebomb nearby into the cool waters of Florida’s Withlacoochee Bay and the open...

WASHINGTON — The covid-19 treatments millions of Americans have taken for free from the federal government will enter the private market next week with a hefty price tag. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is setting the price for a five-day treatment of Paxlovid at $1,390, but Americans can still access the pills...

NEW YORK — A month after federal officials recommended new versions of covid-19 vaccines, 7% of U.S. adults and 2% of children have gotten a shot. One expert called the rates “abysmal.” The numbers, presented Thursday at a meeting held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, come from...

Covid may trigger complex biological reactions from the bowel to the brain, leading to persistent neurological symptoms in some people, according to a study that points the way toward a treatment. Viral vestiges in the gastrointestinal tracts of a subset of long-covidpatients may drive chronic inflammation that interferes with a...

To get the latest updated covid vaccine, you no longer need that paper vaccine card you may have been carrying in your wallet for the past few years. The CDC announced Wednesday that, because the federal government itself is not distributing covid vaccines, the organization no longer will be giving...

Uninsured individuals can get an updated covid vaccine at no cost through a new federal program. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Bridge Access Program, a new public-private partnership, works to maintain access by providing free covid vaccines to adults who are underinsured or uninsured. Covid vaccines were free...

Beginning Monday, every household in the country can again order free at-home covid-19 tests. People can order four free rapid tests at covid.gov/tests or by calling 1-800-232-0233. The U.S. Postal Service will begin shipping the covid-19 tests to people’s homes the week of Oct. 2, according to its website. Families...

MILWAUKEE — Some people seeking the newest covid-19 vaccine are running into high demand, insurance headaches and supply delays coast to coast. Millions of the newly formulated vaccines have shipped out since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on them last week for ages 6 months and...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is providing $600 million in funding to produce new at-home covid-19 tests and is restarting a website allowing Americans to again order up to four free tests per household — aiming to prevent possible shortages during a rise in coronavirus cases...

A program that previously mailed free covid tests to households across the country will restart on Monday, allowing people to order another set of at-home tests for free, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. “Beginning Sept. 25, every U.S. household can again place an order to receive...

Western Pennsylvania doctors say the newly approved covid booster vaccine will help protect from severe impacts of the most recent variants. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration officially approved updated covid vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer on Monday. The vaccines have been tweaked to correspond to the Omicron variant XBB.1.5,...

As students return to school and residents of Western Pennsylvania head inside for the fall, covid-19 cases are on the rise, local health care providers say. The increase in cases is modest compared with the past three years of larger pandemic waves, but it’s still representative of a seasonal uptick...

Here we go again: Covid-19 hospital admissions have inched upward in the United States since early July in a small-scale echo of the three previous summers. With an updated vaccine still months away, this summer bump in new hospitalizations might be concerning, but the number of patients is far lower...

Despite a slight increase in the number of covid-19 cases across the country, rates remain low, and they are far below the past few summers, both regionally and nationally. “Overall, we’ve had a pretty flat trajectory,” LuAnn Brink, chief epidemiologist for the Allegheny County Health Department, said Monday. “The changes...

WASHINGTON — The National Institutes of Health is beginning a handful of studies to test possible treatments for long covid, an anxiously awaited step in U.S. efforts against the mysterious condition that afflicts millions. The announcement on Monday from the NIH’s $1.15 billion RECOVER project comes amid frustration from patients...

Hospital systems and experts say covid-19’s impact on health care and everyday lives is decreasing, while cautioning that the virus is and will remain present in Western Pennsylvania. New Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that nationally, the number of people dying in the United States every week...

As the coronavirus emerged, so did a mystery: Why did some who got infected never develop symptoms? One likely explanation is it may be a person’s lucky genes. A new study published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature suggests people with a specific version of a gene were far more...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Attorney Lin Wood, who filed legal challenges seeking to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, is relinquishing his law license, electing to retire from practicing rather than face possible disbarment. Multiple states have weighed disciplining him for pushing Trump’s false claims that he defeated Joe Biden. On...

WASHINGTON — More than $200 billion may have been stolen from two large covid-19 relief initiatives, according to new estimates from a federal watchdog investigating federally funded programs that helped small businesses survive the worst public health crisis in more than a hundred years. The numbers issued Tuesday by the...

WASHINGTON — Much of the theft was brazen, even simple. Fraudsters used the Social Security numbers of dead people and federal prisoners to get unemployment checks. Cheaters collected those benefits in multiple states. And federal loan applicants weren’t cross-checked against a Treasury Department database that would have raised red flags...

MIAMI - A new documentary about Gov. Ron DeSantis delves into whether the governor’s team silenced Florida’s former Surgeon General Scott Rivkees throughout the covid-19 pandemic and pushed to close a testing site on Miami Beach in response to criticism by the mayor. Released Thursday, the documentary by CBS News...