As the midterm election season ramps up, the Biden administration wants rural Americans to know it'll be spending a lot of money to improve health care in rural areas.
It has tasked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack with delivering the message that the covid-19 pandemic exposed long-standing problems with health care infrastructure in remote parts of the country and pushed many rural health providers to the brink.
Vilsack spoke to KHN...
WASHINGTON — When the end of the COVID-19 pandemic comes, it could create major disruptions for a cumbersome U.S. health care system made more generous, flexible and up-to-date technologically through a raft of temporary emergency measures.
Winding down those policies could begin as early as the summer. That could force an estimated 15 million Medicaid recipients to find new sources of coverage, require...
Pfizer and BioNTech pushed the pause button Friday on the process of authorizing its COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest children.
The companies said in a release that they want to wait until data becomes available on a third vaccine dose for children under 5, likely in early April.
They had originally said such data would become available in late March or early April and they would ask for vaccine authorization then.
But under...
How do we deal with global vaccine inequity? Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images
People in wealthier countries are far more likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Some countries have committed funds to help resolve global vaccine inequity, but others have not.
A new paper proposes a solution: a sliding-scale tax to be built into the price of vaccines and collected by manufacturers.
As of December...
The U.S. will roll out a new travel system in two weeks that will open borders up for millions of vaccinated international visitors.
The system launching Nov. 8 will end the U.S. travel ban that has been in place for dozens of countries since the start of the pandemic . It will also make reentry more challenging for unvaccinated U.S. citizens and...
The Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office for Civil Rights issued guidance today explaining that COVID-19 vaccine status would not be covered under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rules.
Within its new guidance, HHS reminded that HIPAA does not apply to employer or employment records on the grounds that the rules only apply to HIPAA-covered entities like health care providers...
The U.S. has fallen far behind in distributing the vaccines that it pioneered.
In April, when I received my second Moderna shot, America was on a roll. Adjusted for population, the United States had distributed more COVID-19 vaccines per capita than any country but Israel, Chile, the United Kingdom, and a smattering of small nations and islands. With a surge of doses, we could have been No. 1 in the world.
Five months later, the U.S. is...
While many assume that side effects from a COVID-19 vaccine mean that the shot is working, researchers at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore state that people should not interpret the symptoms that way.
The researchers found that whether one experienced side effects or not, the vaccines worked exceedingly well at generating a strong immune response.
Overall, 99.9% of the study participants successfully developed antibodies for fighting...
A new heart disease drug hailed as “life changing” has been approved for use in areas of the United Kingdom.
The manufacturer, Novartis, and the National Health Service (NHS) of England and Wales struck a deal to offer the drug at a reduced cost.
The decision came after a global trial showed that the drug can “safely cut cholesterol by 50% .”
If 300,000 people receive the drug,...
The mu variant of the coronavirus was first identified in Colombia in January and has since caused isolated outbreaks in South America, Europe and the United States.
It's a version of the coronavirus that was first identified in Colombia in January and has since caused isolated outbreaks in South America, Europe and the United States.
The World Health Organization last month listed it as a “variant of interest”...
Mandates for hospital employees to get the shot could end up raising tensions.
In July, stories about Olivia Guidry’s death went viral. The 24-year-old had, earlier in the pandemic, posted a vaccine conspiracy theory to her Twitter account. “This vaccine has been released using recombinant DNA faster than any vaccine in the world,” it read. “Do. Not. Get. It. It’s not safe.” Then,...
Washington — President Biden announced Wednesday he is ordering the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to require nursing homes to have vaccinated staff for them to be able to participate in Medicare and Medicaid and receive funding from the federal programs.
The vaccination requirement will be the first time the federal government has implemented any type of vaccination requirement besides those for ...