As the federal government clouds recommendations for the COVID-19 vaccine, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has attempted to clarify requirements at the state level, to limited success. Also, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled this week that providers were no longer protected from liability for claims made during the COVID-19...Arizona News
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines, adjusting previous guidance for children. Scientists warn that waning immunity could cause a surge of a new strain of COVID-19 later this year.
At the end of May, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr....White Papers, E books, Reports and more
This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would revise recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines and boosters going forward, limiting access to people 65 and older or those who are at high risk of becoming seriously ill.
In a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and...
COVID-19 cases are rising quickly across the U.S. and hospitalizations are not far behind.
The rise in cases is caused by a new, rapidly spreading dominant variant, called JN.1, which currently represents more than 60% of cases. In an interview with PBS Newshour, infectious disease epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera explained that...
Pharmacists and pharmacy techs at pharmacy chains including CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid have expressed their dissatisfaction with workplace environments, corporate expectations and understaffing. Recently, some pharmacy employees have gone so far as to stage walkouts, with walkouts planned for CVS and Walgreens this week in a...
Nursing home industry representatives and advocates for the aging are raising alarms that long-term care facilities are falling far behind in their vaccinations ahead of the winter respiratory virus season.
Arizona was dead last in overall vaccination rates as of September with only 43.5% of residents up to date on their vaccinations,...
The scope of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's authority was clearly illustrated this week as it authorized a new COVID-19 vaccine and was penalized for a tweet about Ivermectin by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Fifth Circuit, a notoriously conservative court comprised of Bush and Trump appointees, sided with three...
Last week, the Arizona Senate hosted the Novel Coronavirus Southwestern Intergovernmental Committee, which heard testimony from several dubiously-credentialed health professionals on the Arizona response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week, the National Institutes of Health released data demonstrating Arizona had a much higher rate of...
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill to raise the national debt ceiling that will impact residual COVID-19 funding, but leaves Medicaid without work requirements.
House Republicans passed a debt ceiling bill that included Medicaid work requirements, which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)...
A new, highly infectious COVID-19 subvariant is growing in dominance across the country as healthcare providers relax mask mandates. In Arizona, Republicans have launched an investigation into the state's COVID-19 response, contending that it was mismanaged.
High levels of the variant XBB.1.16, or "Arcturus," have been found in Los...
A single shot of the bivalent booster will become the standard vaccination regimen for people seeking their first COVID-19 vaccination.
Only a single dose will be needed for most people, instead of the currently-recommended two doses. According to the Wall Street Journal, a second booster will be authorized for groups that are high...
Last Saturday marked the third anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a worldwide pandemic.
As the Arizona Republic points out in a retrospective, since that declaration, COVID-19 has killed more than 1.1 million Americans and 33,000 Arizonans.
There were 4,262 new cases of COVID-19 in Arizona this week with 56 new deaths related...
Arizona lawmakers made progress on several bills related to healthcare and COVID-19 this week.
Last Tuesday, the Arizona Senate Health and Human Services Committee approved HB 2474, which would prohibit schools from requiring immunizations issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under emergency use authorization for...
The U.S. has a new dominant COVID-19 variant, XBB.1.5, which is reportedly twenty-five times as contagious as the original strain of coronavirus. Meanwhile, seniors and people of color bear the burden of high rates of transmission and death as a result of the virus.
New research demonstrates that the death toll of COVID-19 in...
The winter surge of COVID-19 has hit Arizona. Cases are on the rise with seniors hit especially hard. In Arizona, the influx of cases in tandem with the high volume of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases has some Arizona officials urging masking in public places and the resumption of mitigating practices.
There were 12,987 new...
New information on Long COVID is emerging as researchers investigate the causes and symptoms of the elusive condition. Meanwhile, stakeholder groups and providers are appealing to the federal government for guidance on returning to normal operating procedures as perception of the pandemic subsides.
The U.S. Department of Health and...
In a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, but many disagree. The Moderna Omicron-specific booster has resumed production and distribution.
The president puzzled epidemiologists, the public and members of his own administration with his remarks in an interview Sunday in which...
The Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee has started planning an expansion of its surgical department, bucking the trend of rural hospital closures, like Santa Cruz Regional Valley Hospital in Green Valley, which closed abruptly in June.
Copper Queen CEO Robert Seamon said that the hospital's current size limits service...
COVID-19 cases have now plateaued at an unusually high level in Arizona, and research demonstrates that rural people of color were hit the hardest by the surge in cases related to the Omicron variant earlier this year. The Biden administration has announced that it has procured vaccines specifically designed to combat the BA.4 and BA.5...
The White House is calling on Congress to act swiftly and pass another round of COVID-19 related funding, noting the consequences for testing, vaccination, boosters, monoclonal antibody treatments, surveillance and research in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic will be dire. This week, more than $5 million in Phase 4 Provider...
