Health insurers must cover the cost of home Covid-19 tests starting January 15, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday.
The new requirement means that most consumers with private health insurance can buy at-home tests online or in stores and have them paid for at the time of purchase or get reimbursed by submitting a claim to their insurer. Read more ›
With the omicron variant spreading rapidly, the United States is all but certain to see a sharp rise in breakthrough coronavirus infections among vaccinated people. These cases were relatively rare in the pre-omicron days, but the new variant has shown an ability to slip past the body’s first line of immune defenses. That means many Americans who have gotten the shots will at some point test positive. Read more ›
Here’s what you need to know about how well the vaccines are working in the face of the omicron variant and the best timing for getting your booster shot. Read more ›
The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the use of a Pfizer-BioNTech booster in adolescents 12 to 15 years old. Read more ›
With omicron now the dominant strain in the U.S. and cases rapidly rising across Illinois and the country, experts say there are some symptoms that appear prominent with the new COVID variant and differ from what many came to expect with the delta variant. Read more ›
Of all the pandemic edicts — the mask requirements, the vaccination mandates — few were more contentious than the decision to shutter schools. Read more ›
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, one of the biggest questions was: Why do some people get so much sicker than others? It’s a question that has forced researchers to confront some deep mysteries of the human body, and come to conclusions that have startled them. Read more ›
The United States surgeon general on Tuesday warned that young people are facing “devastating” mental health effects as a result of the challenges experienced by their generation, including the coronavirus pandemic. Read more ›
The damage wrought by over 18 months away from classrooms lingers at Burton, a high-poverty school in a high-wealth city, overlooking the whole of San Francisco from a hilly peak in the southeast corner of the city. Burton — the students who rely on it and the teachers who power it — is a study both in joy and in enduring trauma, a place where everything seems normal, but nothing is quite as it should be. Read more ›
Dr. Francis Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health and spoke with NPR’s All Things Considered about the timeline for emergency use authorization of the vaccine for kids under 5, and the ongoing efforts to immunize those aged 5 to 11. Read more ›
