TimeMagazine

NEW YORK — U.S. health officials are endorsing “test-to-stay” policies that allow close contacts of students infected with the coronavirus to remain in classrooms if they test negative. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decided to more firmly embrace the approach, already used by many school districts, after research of such policies in … Read more

0000000000000 Most Americans should be given the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines instead of the Johnson & Johnson shot that can cause rare but serious blood clots, U.S. health advisers recommended Thursday. The strange clotting problem has caused nine confirmed deaths after J&J vaccinations — while the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines don’t come with that risk … Read more

America has begun the gradual process of accepting that COVID-19 is going to be endemic—meaning it will always be present in the population to some degree—due to inherent properties of the virus (animal reservoirs, high transmissibility, long period of infectiousness, symptoms similar to other pathogens), and will remain so for the foreseeable future. However, the … Read more

The recent surge in drug overdose deaths shocked even some of the most jaded observers of American addiction: 100,306 dead from April 2020 to April 2021, the first time the toll topped six figures in a 12-month period, according to provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics. New data released yesterday by the … Read more

Facing rising infections and a new COVID-19 variant, colleges across the U.S. have once again been thwarted in seeking a move to normalcy and are starting to require booster shots, extend mask mandates, limit social gatherings and, in some cases, revert to online classes. The threat of the omicron variant comes as a gut punch … Read more

Teenage drug, alcohol and nicotine use declined dramatically from 2020 to 2021, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey. Overall, the drop-off in illicit drug use was the most significant NIDA has seen in a single year since it began MTF in 1975. “It is really … Read more

BRUSSELS — Omicron is expected to be the dominant coronavirus variant in the European Union’s 27 nations by mid-January, the bloc’s top official said today amid concerns that a dramatic rise in infections will leave Europe shrouded in gloom during the holiday season. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU is well … Read more

This month, I did something both mundane and momentous: I went to a fitness class, in an actual gym, alongside other humans. In the Before Times, this was something I did multiple times a week. But—you know the rest. It felt good to be back for the first time in more than a year, until … Read more

The new, heavily mutated variant of SARS-CoV-2, Omicron first detected by scientists in South Africa, has put the public health community worldwide on high alert and the public on edge. Since then, evidence has mounted that the variant is highly transmissible. It is far more transmissible than, and is coming to predominate over, its immediately … Read more

Exactly one year ago, Sandra Lindsay became the first person in the U.S. to get vaccinated against COVID-19. As she sat before flashing cameras to receive her shot, the now 53-year-old critical care nurse in Long Island, New York, remembers feeling grateful for everyone who had a hand in developing the vaccine and making her … Read more