Views Reference

Josh Sharfstein discusses expected changes to public policy on Covid-19 as deaths begin decline and Covid zero in China ahead of the Winter Olympics. 

A recent study of rapid tests suggests these products are often not catching positive Omicron cases before becoming infectious. What does that mean for schools?

January is poised to be Maryland’s most deadly month of the coronavirus pandemic, according to state data, even as the number of new infections reported daily trends downward.
 

Getting more young school-age children vaccinated is crucial for ending the pandemic, public health officials say, and many are focusing on that group.

​​​​​​​

As the coronavirus pandemic enters its third year, a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicates that only a small minority of Americans need covid-19 to be largely eliminated before they will regard the health emergency as over.
 

Scientists are working to develop a "pan-coronavirus" vaccine—one that offers protection against multiple variants of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. The hope is that such a vaccine could one day head off any coronavirus—not only emerging variants that cause Covid-19, but also some common colds and novel coronaviruses we haven't identified yet.
 

It depends, but vaccinated people should generally wait five days after exposure before taking an antigen test. Here’s why

At some point, hopefully soon, infections from the latest variant to emerge during the Covid-19 pandemic will subside, and it will be easy for many Americans to believe that they made it through another surge unscathed. But in fact, we don’t have a simple way of measuring the long-term impact of Omicron.
 

Conventional wisdom held that distrust of health systems and misinformation kept Covid vaccines from going into arms in Black communities. But new evidence shows that hesitancy there waned faster than in white communities — which could inform future appeals about new treatments.
 

Earlier this month, as many as 1 million COVID test kits expired in a state-run warehouse in Florida. The Food and Drug Administration recently determined that, despite expiration dates on the test kits, the tests are still salvageable and will be rolled out into communities.
 

COVID shutdowns limited the spread of influenza in 2019–2020. Several factors could mean this season will be more severe.
 

Tonia Bullard has been a contact tracer in Philadelphia since 2020, and she’s never been as busy as she is now.