Health

Stephie Byars and her husband were in a Giant Eagle parking lot when they got the Allegheny Alert. “We turned off the car. I had my husband call up his parents on his phone and put it on speaker, and I went onto my phone and did the tech stuff,”...

A federal judge has blocked a last-minute rule issued by the Trump administration to limit what evidence the Environmental Protection Agency may consider as it regulates pollutants to protect public health. Former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the Jan. 6 rule was aimed at ending what he and other Republicans...

When it comes to face masks, are two better than one? Some health experts — including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert — have recently suggested wearing two face masks for extra protection during the covid-19 pandemic. “It just makes common sense that it likely would be more...

It was the end of April — just as the U.S. confirmed its millionth covid-19 case and 50,000 deaths — when White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci announced “highly significant” news about a drug called remdesivir. That was surprising because the antiviral drug, owned by Gilead Sciences and developed with...

Novavax Inc. said Thursday that its covid-19 vaccine appears 89% effective based on early findings from a British study and that it also seems to work — though not as well — against new mutated versions of the virus circulating in that country and South Africa. The announcement comes amid...

With demand for covid-19 vaccines outpacing the world’s supplies, a frustrated public and policymakers want to know: How can we get more? A lot more. Right away. The problem: “It’s not like adding more water to the soup,” said vaccine specialist Maria Elena Bottazzi of Baylor College of Medicine. Makers...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is set to take his first steps to reverse Trump administration health care policies. The White House said Biden plans on Thursday to sign orders on a range of issues including getting more Americans covered and removing curbs on abortion counseling. The most concrete short-term...

Schools operating in person have experienced scant transmission of coronavirus, particularly when proper precautions are employed, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Tuesday. The CDC researchers, who wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said indoor athletics have led to infections and...

Overdose deaths in Pennsylvania will likely tick upward for the first time in several years when 2020 reports are finalized, according to state officials, showing the effects of a year marked by isolation and a cutoff of group and in-person services. Overdose drug deaths were higher month over month for...

Contact tracing remains a challenge in Pennsylvania, officials said Monday. From Jan. 10 to Jan. 16, only 18% of the 46,708 covid cases reported had a case investigation started within 24 hours, according to the Department of Health. An additional 5% had a case investigation started within 48 hours. “We...

Lying on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance was when the severity of the moment hit Tyarra Kelly. It was 3 a.m. Her blood pressure was high. The new mom hadn’t been feeling well five days after her son Tristan’s birth seven months ago. “I was having trouble...

Dr. Kacie Kidd is doing her best to protect her unborn child. The 33-year-old mom-to-be decided to get the covid-19 Pfizer vaccine, despite lack of conclusive research concerning its safety for pregnant women. Kidd, an adolescent medicine fellow at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in Lawrenceville, is 26 weeks pregnant....

Gov. Tom Wolf will nominate his deputy chief of staff to lead the state Department of Health, taking the place of Dr. Rachel Levine, who was tapped earlier this week by President Joe Biden as his assistant secretary of health. Alison Beam, 34, will take over as Acting Secretary of...

NEW YORK — The push to inoculate Americans against the coronavirus is hitting a roadblock: A number of states are reporting they are running out of vaccine, and tens of thousands of people who managed to get appointments for a first dose are seeing them canceled. About half of the...

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey this week made millions of people eligible to get the covid-19 vaccine, including smokers, a move that prompted gripes about them skipping to the front of the inoculation line. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy made people 65 and older and those 16 and older with medical...

NEW YORK — Researchers on Tuesday reported another record one-year decline in the U.S. cancer death rate, a drop they attribute to success against lung cancer. The overall cancer death rate has been falling since 1991. From 2017 to 2018, it fell 2.4%, according to an American Cancer Society report,...

Pennsylvania officials continue to retool the state’s vaccination plan to fall in line with recommendations from federal groups and further define who can get the vaccine and when, releasing the fourth iteration of plan on Friday afternoon. “It will take several months before there is vaccine available for everyone,” said...

WASHINGTON — If you’re an identical twin who’s always resisted being called a clone of your sibling, scientists say you have a point. Identical twins are not exactly genetically the same, new research shows. Scientists in Iceland sequenced DNA from 387 pairs of identical twins — those derived from a...

The first covid-19 vaccines in the U.S. require two doses a few weeks apart. People should get some degree of protection within two weeks of the first shot, with the second shot bringing about the vaccine’s full protection. For the vaccine by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, the second shot is...

Fifteen UPMC employees received covid-19 vaccines Tuesday, 10 of whom became the first employees to receive a second dose and complete the full course of the vaccine. “I feel like it’s the first step in ending this,” said Alli Okonak, a certified registered nurse practitioner who has been working at...

If I’ve already had the coronavirus, can I get it again? It’s possible, but such cases seem to be rare. Evidence is growing that people whose bodies mounted a strong defense to the virus are unlikely to test positive again for at least several months and maybe longer. It’s not...

Although there’s very little data on how pregnant and nursing mothers will respond to a covid-19 vaccine, professional organizations and individual doctors say the benefits are very likely to outweigh the risks. Pregnant women appear to have the same chance of catching covid-19 as everyone else. But they might fare...