Category: CDC

The CDC’s New Guidelines on Covid Risk and Masking Elicit Mixed Feelings

The agency’s updated recommendations lower the level of covid risk for most of the country and therefore the need to mask. But some experts question the strategy.

The NFL Has Been Using an Unproven Measure to Get Players With Covid Back on the Field Fast

Doctors and scientists are debating whether a little-known measure in covid testing should be used to distinguish who is infectious from who isn’t. The NFL adopted the practice, but laboratory professionals caution against its use.

Fact Check: Biden Sets High Bar in 1st State of the Union Speech

What a difference a year makes. The speech was delivered to a largely unmasked crowd of lawmakers, justices, and Cabinet members in the House chamber.

Why Pregnant People Were Left Behind While Vaccines Moved at ‘Warp Speed’ to Help the Masses

Clinical trials of covid-19 vaccines excluded pregnant people, which left many women wondering whether to get vaccinated.

Covid Aid to Protect Montana Prisons and Jails Sits Unused

Montana has yet to start spending nearly $2.5 million in federal aid to boost covid detection and mitigation in the state’s prison and jails.

Covid Still Threatens Millions of Americans. Why Are We So Eager to Move On?

Those who are living with disabilities, chronic illnesses or are immunocompromised because of medications or cancer treatment feel that their needs are not being considered as states open back up and lift mask mandates.

The Advice to ‘Vaccinate and Test’ Isn’t Much Help to Parents With Kids Under 5

Many parents of children too young for vaccines are exhausted. Some feel isolated and even forgotten by those who just want to move on even as omicron continues to sweep through parts of the country.

It’s Day 6 of Covid, and a Rapid Antigen Test Comes Back Positive. Stay Home, Say Virologists.

Say you’re on Day 6 — or 8 or 10 — of a symptomatic covid infection, and a rapid antigen test comes back positive. Could the test just be detecting bits and pieces of dead virus? If you’re a petri dish, sure. But if you’re a human, chances are you’re still infectious. Virologists weigh in.

States Were Sharing Covid Test Kits. Then Omicron Hit.

The omicron variant upended a system in which states shared rapid covid tests with those that needed them more. Cooperation has turned into competition as states run out of supplies, limit which organizations get them, or hold on to expired kits as a last resort.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Record ACA Enrollment Puts Pressure on Congress

Temporary subsidies helped boost enrollment under the Affordable Care Act to a record 14.5 million, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. But unless Democrats in Congress extend those subsidies, many of those new enrollees will be in for a rude surprise just ahead of midterm elections. Meanwhile, the need to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer further crowds an already tight legislative schedule. Joanne Kenen of Politico and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Anna Edney of Bloomberg News join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Diana Greene Foster, author of “The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having — Or Being Denied — An Abortion.”