Health
Origin of Virus May Remain Murky, U.S. Intelligence Agencies Say

WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies are unlikely to be able to draw a firm conclusion about the origin of the novel coronavirus without more information from China on the earliest cases or new scientific discoveries about the nature of the virus, said a newly declassified intelligence report released on Friday. President Biden ordered the nation’s […]

Updated: Oct 30, 2021
Supreme Court Won’t Block Maine’s Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers

The state included a coronavirus vaccine among the required vaccinations in a regulation issued in August, setting a deadline of Oct. 29. Several health care workers sued, saying the requirement violated their constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. Judge Jon D. Levy of the Federal District Court in Maine ruled against the plaintiffs. […]

Updated: Oct 29, 2021
FDA Clears Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine for Young Children

A C.D.C. study suggests that 42 percent of children aged 5 to 11 have coronavirus antibodies from prior infection, prompting some F.D.A. advisers to ask if one dose would be sufficient for children. Use of that study has been questioned by some scientists. F.D.A. panelists also asked whether only those with high-risk medical conditions, such […]

Updated: Oct 29, 2021
CDC Study Suggests Vaccination Offers More Protection Against Covid Than Prior Infection

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that vaccination provides stronger and more reliable protection against the coronavirus than a past infection does, the agency said on Friday. Unvaccinated people who had previously recovered from a coronavirus infection were five times as likely to get Covid as people who had […]

Updated: Oct 29, 2021
F.D.A. Panel Recommends Vaccine for Children 5 to 11

WASHINGTON — An expert committee advising the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday recommended that regulators authorize Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds, bringing about 28 million children a major step closer to becoming eligible for shots. If the F.D.A. follows the panel’s advice in the coming days, as is expected — and the […]

Updated: Oct 29, 2021
Has the Virus Infected Huge Numbers of Younger Children?

“There are too many unknowns on that, whereas the vaccine is known — that’s my caution,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “Certainly, I wouldn’t put all my eggs into the previous infection, natural immunity basket.” As with the protection conferred by vaccines, immunity from natural […]

Updated: Oct 28, 2021
He Had Severe Abdominal Pain and a Fever. It Wasn’t Food Poisoning.

MIS was first described in May 2020 in a letter published in the British journal The Lancet. A group of pediatricians described eight children, most of whom had some documented exposure to Covid-19, who came to a London hospital with unrelenting fevers, abdominal pain and diarrhea. Their blood pressures were extremely low, and testing showed […]

Updated: Oct 28, 2021
Fluvoxamine Helps Lower Risk of Hospitalization From Covid, Study Finds

A large clinical trial has found that a common and inexpensive antidepressant lowered the odds that high-risk Covid-19 patients would be hospitalized. The results, published on Wednesday, could open the door to new guidelines for the drug’s use both in the United States and globally. The drug, fluvoxamine, has been safely prescribed for nearly 30 […]

Updated: Oct 27, 2021
Merck Will Share Formula for its Covid Pill With Poor Countries

Merck has granted a royalty-free license for its promising Covid-19 pill to a United Nations-backed nonprofit in a deal that would allow the drug to be manufactured and sold cheaply in the poorest nations, where vaccines for the coronavirus are in devastatingly short supply. The agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool, an organization that works […]

Updated: Oct 27, 2021
F.D.A. Panel Endorses Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine for Children 5 to 11

A key advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration voted overwhelmingly to recommend the use of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine in 5- to 11-year-olds, bringing the vaccine a big step closer to about 28 million children. Shots could be offered as early as next week. The panel endorsed giving the age group one-third of the […]

Updated: Oct 26, 2021