TimeMagazine

The number of reported cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. surpassed 50 million on Monday as the pandemic reached yet another inglorious milestone. While this is very unlikely to be the final time the odometer’s seventh wheel turns over—“50 million” is also known as 50,000,000—there remains some hope that the endless accumulation is at least … Read more

WASHINGTON — Pfizer said today that its experimental pill to treat COVID-19 appears effective against the omicron variant. The company also said full results of its 2,250-person study confirmed the pill’s promising early results against the virus: The drug reduced combined hospitalizations and deaths by about 89% among high-risk adults when taken shortly after initial … Read more

The use of gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) is significantly related to lower rates of depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth, according to a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health on Tuesday. The peer-reviewed study comes from researchers at The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among … Read more

A two-shot course of Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine may have just 22.5% efficacy against symptomatic infection with the omicron variant, but can thwart severe disease, according to laboratory experiments in South Africa. Researchers at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban issued additional data on a small study released earlier this week from which they made … Read more

NEW YORK — Facing a winter surge in COVID-19 infections, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced today that masks will be required in all indoor public places unless the businesses or venues implement a vaccine requirement. Hochul said the decision to impose a mask mandate was based on state’s weekly seven-day case rate, as well … Read more

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now says that 16- and 17-year olds can get a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The decision expands the agency’s emergency use authorization for booster doses, which it issued on Nov. 19 for adults 18 and older. As with the previous group, the FDA recommends that those … Read more

As Katharine Silbaugh sees it, one mark of a good public policy is being both big and small: big in its potential impact, small in its disruption to people’s lives. Silbaugh, a lawyer and one of the 240 elected “town meeting members” who make up local government in the picturesque Boston suburb of Brookline, thinks … Read more

Media and pop culture often portray prescription opioid addiction in the U.S. as a scourge of white communities. But recent data suggest a changing reality. While white Americans were more likely than Black Americans to die from overdoses in 2019, the rate of opioid overdose deaths rose 38% among Black Americans from 2018 to 2019, … Read more

Pfizer-BioNTech today reported the first, early results of studies examining how well their vaccine protects against the fast-spreading Omicron variant. The companies say that adding a booster to the two-dose vaccine regimen neutralizes the Omicron variant in lab studies. In a press release, the companies noted that while two doses of their COVID-19 vaccine show … Read more

The latest COVID-19 variant, Omicron, is raising new fears—among policymakers, parents, educators, business owners and, well, just about everyone. And for good reason, as initial reports suggest that it is significantly more transmissible than prior variants. But for those of us engaged in clinical care and public health—we’re an emergency physician and trauma surgeon—there’s a … Read more