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Cattle across the country are infected by the H5N1 bird flu. The virus isn’t spreading among people — but if it evolves to do that, fears of another pandemic could be realized.
After grave missteps in the covid pandemic, the World Health Organization revisited the science and now confirms that many respiratory viruses are inhaled as airborne particles. The new framework implies that stopping transmission relies on costly measures like ventilation and masking.
Four years since the covid pandemic emerged, health care workers want rules that protect them during outbreaks. They worry the CDC is repeating past mistakes as it develops a crucial set of guidelines for hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and other facilities that provide health care.
Framed in the rhetoric of choice, Tennessee’s new law governing childhood vaccinations is among more than a dozen recently passed or pending nationwide that set parental freedom against community and children’s health.
The state’s surgeon general grants parents permission to send unvaccinated children to school during a measles outbreak, risking their health and that of others.
Opposition to vaccines and other public health measures backed by science has become politically charged. That makes dangerous misinformation much harder to fight.
Thousands of people are still dying of covid, but government has mostly handed over responsibility to the people to weather the seasonal surges with their own strategies.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering fuzzy guidelines on infection control in hospitals, critics say, leaving employers free to cut corners on N95 masks and other protective measures.
People with special medical considerations are hoping the Novavax shot will bring fewer headaches, fevers, and less fatigue than have been reported by those taking mRNA vaccines.
State legislatures and politicians are pressuring public health officials to keep quiet about covid vaccines.
Flu, covid, and respiratory viruses kill thousands of Americans each year, but the latest batch of vaccines could save lives.
Clinicians, researchers, and workplace safety officers worry new guidelines on face masks from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might reduce protection against the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens in hospitals.
The CDC says everyone over 6 months old should get the new covid booster. But the emergency response mechanisms that supported earlier vaccine campaigns are gone. As one expert wonders: How to get boosters to people beyond Democrats, college graduates, and those with high incomes?
Studies suggest official numbers vastly underestimate heat-related injuries and illness on the job. To institute protections, the government must calculate their cost — and the cost of inaction.
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