CHICAGO - COVID-19 cases do not make news headlines much anymore but many people who experienced it can have persistent symptoms long after the infection.
A new study reveals a prescription drug used for another chronic illness shows promising results in reducing COVID's aftereffects. Metformin is what doctors often prescribe for managing Type 2 diabetes. The study said taking Metformin within a week of the onset of COVID-19 symptoms showed a 53% lower risk of symptoms lasting longer-term.
Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, internist and fibromyalgia specialist at Washington University in St. Louis, said the result of studies on 9 million people, with and without diabetes, revealed how the medication works.
"It turns out that Metformin acts like 'birth control' for COVID," Teitelbaum explained. "It suppresses the viral replication, keeps it from getting in cells, and basically, it's like the virus hits a red light."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Illinois is one of eight states where COVID infections are growing or likely growing. Some "long COVID" symptoms are dizziness, digestion problems, chest pain and thirst. Teitelbaum cautioned Metformin is not a cure for COVID and if taken in moderation, is safe and well tolerated.
A review published in Nature Medicine looks at the economics of using Metformin. It notes long COVID has affected more than 400 million people globally, costing $1 trillion a year, and suggested more than half of cases were preventable had Metformin been administered.
Teitelbaum pointed out the drug is inexpensive and he wants patients to take a more proactive role in their health.
"Doctors are just learning about it," Teitelbaum emphasized. "There's nobody paying to get this information to physicians, which (means) you're going to have to be the one as a patient to get this research to your doctor and to ask them. This is how doctors will hear about the studies."
The CDC has found American Indians and Alaska Natives are about 3.5 times more likely to experience long COVID. The likelihood for people who identify as Hispanic or Black is 2.5 times.
As many viruses continue to make the rounds in our communities, it is paramount to monitor your symptoms and know when the right time is to seek medical care in person.
PEORIA - OSF HealthCare hospitals, clinics, and emergency departments across the state continue to see a big influx of people seeking care. The increase in patients in waiting rooms can lead to elevated exposure of germs and viruses, plus longer wait times.
As many viruses continue to make the rounds in our communities, it is paramount to monitor your symptoms and know when the right time is to seek medical care in person. Sarah Overton, the Chief Nursing Officer for OSF Medical Group, Home Care and Employee Health, stresses the importance of virtual care when your symptoms are mild.
“That way we’re not exposing you to anyone in the public and you’re not exposing the health care worker to illness,” Overton says. “Unfortunately, we are seeing an increase in health care worker illness where our nurses and doctors have to stay home because they are being exposed to illness.”
Photo: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels
Hospitals across the state and in the OSF Ministry network have been seeing a spike in COVID-19 patients. If you suspect you have COVID-19 but your symptoms are mild, take an at-home COVID-19 test.
The federal government has another stockpile of at-home tests that are free to order on COVID.gov. Every household can receive four free rapid tests. Dr. Brian Curtis, Vice President of Clinical Specialty Services with OSF HealthCare, says taking tests at home will help free up space at medical facilities.
“Coming in just to get tested takes up spots for the people that are really sick or are high-risk,” Dr. Curtis says.
“The Emergency Room is reserved for those true emergencies,” Overton adds. “We have patients that have heart attacks and lung issues with their COPD. Additional patients overflowing the Emergency Room takes away precious time from assessing those patients who shouldn’t be exposed to those viruses while being in our waiting rooms.”
But COVID-19 isn’t the only virus making the rounds in our communities right now. Influenza, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and others are being seen often as well. So how can we stop the spread of viruses?
· Stay home when you aren’t feeling well.
· Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer regularly.
· Cough or sneeze into your elbow.
· Wipe down high-touch surfaces with disinfectant wipes.
· Don’t share glasses or silverware with others.
· Receive the flu shot.
For treating mild symptoms at home, Dr. Curtis offers some guidance for using over-the-counter options.
“You can take Tylenol or Motrin for fevers and aches. Make sure to drink plenty of fluids and get plenty of rest,” Dr. Curtis says.
Overton says to make sure you read the labels on any over-the-counter medication you buy. If you have any questions, you can ask a retail pharmacist, or send a message through MyChart to your OSF care team.
When is the right time to be seen?
“If you have a super deep cough that’s hanging on for quite a while or have a fever that lasts for several days,” Overton says. “Or if you have high-risk factors and may benefit from some of our medications for COVID, like Paxlovid, which are readily available in our retail pharmacy locations. We also have COVID-19 boosters able to be administered in our primary care offices.”
“There is a medication for influenza, but if you have a mild case, you’ll have more side effects from the medication than you are having from influenza itself. As far as RSV goes, there’s really no treatment for it except for supportive care.”
If you are sick and plan to visit a medical facility, please cover your face with a mask to decrease exposure to the health care workers.
Colds and viruses tend to last one to two weeks. If your symptoms are more serious or linger on much longer than that, reach out to your primary care team and schedule an appointment. You can also consider an in-person or virtual visit to OSF OnCall Urgent Care. A virtual visit is available 24/7.
The virus sometimes causes severe illness even in those without underlying conditions, causing more deaths in children than other vaccine-preventable diseases...
Everyone over the age of 6 months should get the latest covid-19 booster, a federal expert panel recommended Tuesday after hearing an estimate that universal vaccination could prevent 100,000 more hospitalizations each year than if only the elderly were vaccinated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 13-1 for the motion after months of debate about whether to limit its recommendation to high-risk groups. A day earlier, the FDA approved the new booster, stating it was safe and effective at protecting against the covid variants currently circulating in the U.S.
After the last booster was released, in 2022, only 17% of the U.S. population got it — compared with the roughly half of the nation who got the first booster after it became available in fall 2021. Broader uptake was hurt by pandemic weariness and evidence the shots don’t always prevent covid infections. But those who did get the shot were far less likely to get very sick or die, according to data presented at Tuesday’s meeting.
The virus sometimes causes severe illness even in those without underlying conditions, causing more deaths in children than other vaccine-preventable diseases, as chickenpox did before vaccines against those pathogens were universally recommended.
The number of hospitalized patients with covid has ticked up modestly in recent weeks, CDC data shows, and infectious disease experts anticipate a surge in the late fall and winter.
The shots are made by Moderna and by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, which have decided to charge up to $130 a shot. They have launched national marketing campaigns to encourage vaccination. The advisory committee deferred a decision on a third booster, produced by Novavax, because the FDA hasn’t yet approved it. Here’s what to know:
Who should get the covid booster?
The CDC advises that everyone over 6 months old should, for the broader benefit of all. Those at highest risk of serious disease include babies and toddlers, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with chronic health conditions including obesity. The risks are lower — though not zero — for everyone else. The vaccines, we’ve learned, tend to prevent infection in most people for only a few months. But they do a good job of preventing hospitalization and death, and by at least diminishing infections they may slow spread of the disease to the vulnerable, whose immune systems may be too weak to generate a good response to the vaccine.
Pablo Sánchez, a pediatrics professor at The Ohio State University who was the lone dissenter on the CDC panel, said he was worried the boosters hadn’t been tested enough, especially in kids. The vaccine strain in the new boosters was approved only in June, so nearly all the tests were done in mice or monkeys. However, nearly identical vaccines have been given safely to billions of people worldwide.
When should you get it?
The vaccine makers say they’ll begin rolling out the vaccine this week. If you’re in a high-risk group and haven’t been vaccinated or been sick with covid in the past two months, you could get it right away, says John Moore, an immunology expert at Weill Cornell Medical College. If you plan to travel this holiday season, as he does, Moore said, it would make sense to push your shot to late October or early November, to maximize the period in which protection induced by the vaccine is still high.
Who will pay for it?
When the ACIP recommends a vaccine for children, the government is legally obligated to guarantee kids free coverage, and the same holds for commercial insurance coverage of adult vaccines. For the 25 to 30 million uninsured adults, the federal government created the Bridge Access Program. It will pay for rural and community health centers, as well as Walgreens, CVS, and some independent pharmacies, to provide covid shots for free. Manufacturers have agreed to donate some of the doses, CDC officials said.
Will this new booster work against the current variants of covid?
It should. More than 90% of currently circulating strains are closely related to the variant selected for the booster earlier this year, and studies showed the vaccines produced ample antibodies against most of them. The shots also appeared to produce a good immune response against a divergent strain that initially worried people, called BA.2.86. That strain represents fewer than 1% of cases currently. Moore calls it a “nothingburger.”
Why are some doctors not gung-ho about the booster?
Experience with the covid vaccines has shown that their protection against hospitalization and death lasts longer than their protection against illness, which wanes relatively quickly, and this has created widespread skepticism. Most people in the U.S. have been ill with covid and most have been vaccinated at least once, which together are generally enough to prevent grave illness, if not infection — in most people. Many doctors think the focus should be on vaccinating those truly at risk.
With new covid boosters, plus flu and RSV vaccines, how many shots should I expect to get this fall?
People tend to get sick in the late fall because they’re inside more and may be traveling and gathering in large family groups. This fall, for the first time, there’s a vaccine — for older adults — against respiratory syncytial virus. Kathryn Edwards, a 75-year-old Vanderbilt University pediatrician, plans to get all three shots but “probably won’t get them all together,” she said. Covid “can have a punch” and some of the RSV vaccines and the flu shot that’s recommended for people 65 and older also can cause sore arms and, sometimes, fever or other symptoms. A hint emerged from data earlier this year that people who got flu and covid shots together might be at slightly higher risk of stroke. That linkage seems to have faded after further study, but it still might be safer not to get them together.
Pfizer and Moderna are both testing combination vaccines, with the first flu-covid shot to be available as early as next year.
Has this booster version been used elsewhere in the world?
Nope, although Pfizer’s shot has been approved in the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, and Moderna has won approval in Japan and Canada. Rollouts will start in the U.S. and other countries this week.
Unlike in earlier periods of the pandemic, mandates for the booster are unlikely. But “it’s important for people to have access to the vaccine if they want it,” said panel member Beth Bell, a professor of public health at the University of Washington.
“Having said that, it’s clear the risk is not equal, and the messaging needs to clarify that a lot of older people and people with underlying conditions are dying, and they really need to get a booster,” she said.
ACIP member Sarah Long, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, voted for a universal recommendation but said she worried it was not enough. “I think we’ll recommend it and nobody will get it,” she said. “The people who need it most won’t get it.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.
Government pandemic policies that gave free Covid vaccines and tests to the general public will disappear in two months. The medical and insurance industries are gearing up to capitalize on what looks like a voluptuous revenue stream the virus that will likely never end starting on May 11.
by Julie Appleby Kaiser Health News
We see a double-digit billion[-dollar] market opportunity
The White House announced this month that the national public health emergency, first declared in early 2020 in response to the pandemic, is set to expire May 11. When it ends, so will many of the policies designed to combat the virus's spread.
Take vaccines. Until now, the federal government has been purchasing covid-19 shots. It recently bought 105 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent booster for about $30.48 a dose, and 66 million doses of Moderna's version for $26.36 a dose. (These are among the companies that developed the first covid vaccines sold in the United States.)
People will be able to get these vaccines at low or no cost as long as the government-purchased supplies last. But even before the end date for the public emergency was set, Congress opted not to provide more money to increase the government's dwindling stockpile. As a result, Pfizer and Moderna were already planning their moves into the commercial market. Both have indicated they will raise prices, somewhere in the range of $110 to $130 per dose, though insurers and government health programs could negotiate lower rates.
"We see a double-digit billion[-dollar] market opportunity," investors were told at a JPMorgan conference in San Francisco recently by Ryan Richardson, chief strategy officer for BioNTech. The company expects a gross price — the full price before any discounts — of $110 a dose, which, Richardson said, "is more than justified from a health economics perspective."
That could translate to tens of billions of dollars in revenue for the manufacturers, even if uptake of the vaccines is slow. And consumers would foot the bill, either directly or indirectly.
If half of adults — about the same percentage as those who opt for an annual flu shot — get covid boosters at the new, higher prices, a recent KFF report estimated, insurers, employers, and other payors would shell out $12.4 billion to $14.8 billion. That's up to nearly twice as much as what it would have cost for every adult in the U.S. to get a bivalent booster at the average price paid by the federal government.
As for covid treatments, an August blog post by the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response noted that government-purchased supplies of the drug Paxlovid are expected to last through midyear before the private sector takes over. The government's bulk purchase price from manufacturer Pfizer was $530 for a course of treatment, and it isn't yet known what the companies will charge once government supplies run out.
How Much of That Pinch Will Consumers Feel?
One thing is certain: How much, if any, of the boosted costs are passed on to consumers will depend on their health coverage.
Medicare beneficiaries, those enrolled in Medicaid — the state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes — and people with Affordable Care Act coverage will continue to get covid vaccines without cost sharing, even when the public health emergency ends and the government-purchased vaccines run out. Many people with job-based insurance will also likely not face copayments for vaccines, unless they go out of network for their vaccinations. People with limited-benefit or short-term insurance policies might have to pay for all or part of their vaccinations. And people who don't have insurance will need to either pay the full cost out-of-pocket or seek no- or low-cost vaccinations from community clinics or other providers. If they cannot find a free or low-cost option, some uninsured patients may be forced to skip vaccinations or testing.
Coming up with what could be $100 or more for vaccination will be especially hard "if you are uninsured or underinsured; that's where these price hikes could drive additional disparities," said Sean Robbins, executive vice president of external affairs for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Those increases, he said, will also affect people with insurance, as the costs "flow through to premiums."
Meanwhile, public policy experts say many private insurers will continue to cover Paxlovid, although patients may face a copayment, at least until they meet their deductible, just as they do for other medications. Medicaid will continue to cover it without cost to patients until at least 2024. But Medicare coverage will be limited until the treatment goes through the regular FDA process, which takes longer than the emergency use authorization it has been marketed under.
Another complication: The rolls of the uninsured are likely to climb over the next year, as states are poised to reinstate the process of regularly determining Medicaid eligibility, which was halted during the pandemic. Starting in April, states will begin reassessing whether Medicaid enrollees meet income and other qualifying factors.
"This is our No. 1 concern" right now, said John Baackes, CEO of L.A. Care, the nation's largest publicly operated health plan with 2.7 million members.
"They may not realize they've lost coverage until they go to fill a prescription" or seek other medical care, including vaccinations, he said.
What About Covid Test Kits?
Rules remain in place for insurers, including Medicare and Affordable Care Act plans, to cover the cost of up to eight in-home test kits a month for each person on the plan, until the public health emergency ends.
For consumers — including those without insurance — a government website is still offering up to four test kits per household, until they run out. The Biden administration shifted funding to purchase additional kits and made them available in late December.
Starting in May, though, beneficiaries in original Medicare and many people with private, job-based insurance will have to start paying out-of-pocket for the rapid antigen test kits. Some Medicare Advantage plans, which are an alternative to original Medicare, might opt to continue covering them without a copayment. Policies will vary, so check with your insurer. And Medicaid enrollees can continue to get the test kits without cost for a little over a year.
State rules also can vary, and continued coverage without cost sharing for covid tests, treatments, and vaccines after the health emergency ends might be available with some health plans.
Overall, the future of covid tests, vaccines, and treatments will reflect the complicated mix of coverage consumers already navigate for most other types of care.
"From a consumer perspective, vaccines will still be free, but for treatments and test kits, a lot of people will face cost sharing," said Jen Kates, a senior vice president at KFF. "We're taking what was universal access and now saying we're going back to how it is in the regular U.S. health system."
KHN correspondent Darius Tahir contributed to this report.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
A summary of our stories from December 18 through 19. Subscribe to get your daily notification of The Sentinel's latest news and photos here. It's free and unsubscribe any time.
Prep Sports Notebook | Area basketball teams post losses
Junior Aziyaha Davis led all Urbana scorers with six points in loss to Normal Community.
Owen Root and fellow junior Wyatt Eisenmann hauled in four rebounds apiece in win over Horizon Science Academy Southwest.
Addie Brooks came off the bench to post two third-quarter treys for six points for SJO at Pleasant Plains.
Unity snagged 21 rebounds and tallied eight assists in the 2-point overtime loss to Pleasant Plains.
Senior Abbie Piecaynski knocked down six fourth-quarter points, but it wasn't enough to close the gap with the generous Lady Braves' lead.
Recipe | Impress guests at your next wine party with this tasty tapas
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Sticker shock: Government to halt footing bill for Covid treatment
Nearly 6 million Americans have taken Paxlovid for free, courtesy of the federal government. The Pfizer pill has helped prevent many people infected with covid-19 from being hospitalized or dying, and it may even
Pleasant Plains - Hoping to extend their 1-game winning streak to two, the St. Joseph-Ogden girls basketball team came up short after this afternoon's road game at Pleasant Plains. Addisyn Martinie led the Spartans' in scoring with 10 points in the 55-26 loss to the host Cardinals.
Nearly 6 million Americans have taken Paxlovid for free, courtesy of the federal government. The Pfizer pill has helped prevent many people infected with covid-19 from being hospitalized or dying, and it may even reduce the risk of developing long covid. But the government plans to stop footing the bill within months, and millions of people who are at the highest risk of severe illness and are least able to afford the drug — the uninsured and seniors — may have to pay the full price.
And that means fewer people will get the potentially lifesaving treatments, experts said.
“I think the numbers will go way down,” said Jill Rosenthal, director of public health policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. A bill for several hundred dollars or more would lead many people to decide the medication isn’t worth the price, she said.
In 2022 alone, 250,000 Americans have died from covid, more than from strokes or diabetes.
In response to the unprecedented public health crisis caused by covid, the federal government spent billions of dollars on developing new vaccines and treatments, to swift success: Less than a year after the pandemic was declared, medical workers got their first vaccines. But as many people have refused the shots and stopped wearing masks, the virus still rages and mutates. In 2022 alone, 250,000 Americans have died from covid, more than from strokes or diabetes.
But soon the Department of Health and Human Services will stop supplying covid treatments, and pharmacies will purchase and bill for them the same way they do for antibiotic pills or asthma inhalers. Paxlovid is expected to hit the private market in mid-2023, according to HHS plans shared in an October meeting with state health officials and clinicians. Merck’s Lagevrio, a less-effective covid treatment pill, and AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, a preventive therapy for the immunocompromised, are on track to be commercialized sooner, sometime in the winter.
The U.S. government has so far purchased 20 million courses of Paxlovid, priced at about $530 each, a discount for buying in bulk that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla called “really very attractive” to the federal government in a July earnings call. The drug will cost far more on the private market, although in a statement to KHN, Pfizer declined to share the planned price. The government will also stop paying for the company’s covid vaccine next year — those shots will quadruple in price, from the discount rate the government pays of $30 to about $120.
Bourla told investors in November that he expects the move will make Paxlovid and its covid vaccine “a multibillion-dollars franchise.”
Nearly 9 in 10 people dying from the virus now are 65 or older. Yet federal law restricts Medicare Part D — the prescription drug program that covers nearly 50 million seniors — from covering the covid treatment pills. The medications are meant for those most at risk of serious illness, including seniors.
Paxlovid and the other treatments are currently available under an emergency use authorization from the FDA, a fast-track review used in extraordinary situations. Although Pfizer applied for full approval in June, the process can take anywhere from several months to years. And Medicare Part D can’t cover any medications without that full stamp of approval.
Black and Hispanic patients with covid were much less likely to receive Paxlovid than white patients.
Paying out-of-pocket would be “a substantial barrier” for seniors on Medicare — the very people who would benefit most from the drug, wrote federal health experts.
“From a public health perspective, and even from a health care capacity and cost perspective, it would just defy reason to not continue to make these drugs readily available,” said Dr. Larry Madoff, medical director of Massachusetts’ Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences. He’s hopeful that the federal health agency will find a way to set aside unused doses for seniors and people without insurance.
In mid-November, the White House requested that Congress approve an additional $2.5 billion for covid therapeutics and vaccines to make sure people can afford the medications when they’re no longer free. But there’s little hope it will be approved — the Senate voted that same day to end the public health emergency and denied similar requests in recent months.
Many Americans have already faced hurdles just getting a prescription for covid treatment. Although the federal government doesn’t track who’s gotten the drug, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study using data from 30 medical centers found that Black and Hispanic patients with covid were much less likely to receive Paxlovid than white patients. (Hispanic people can be of any race or combination of races.) And when the government is no longer picking up the tab, experts predict that these gaps by race, income, and geography will widen.
People in Northeastern states used the drug far more often than those in the rest of the country, according to a KHN analysis of Paxlovid use in September and October. But it wasn’t because people in the region were getting sick from covid at much higher rates — instead, many of those states offered better access to health care to begin with and created special programs to get Paxlovid to their residents.
About 10 mostly Democratic states and several large counties in the Northeast and elsewhere created free “test-to-treat” programs that allow their residents to get an immediate doctor visit and prescription for treatment after testing positive for covid. In Massachusetts, more than 20,000 residents have used the state’s video and phone hotline, which is available seven days a week in 13 languages. Massachusetts, which has the highest insurance rate in the country and relatively low travel times to pharmacies, had the second-highest Paxlovid usage rate among states this fall.
States with higher covid death rates, like Florida and Kentucky, where residents must travel farther for health care and are more likely to be uninsured, used the drug less often. Without no-cost test-to-treat options, residents have struggled to get prescriptions even though the drug itself is still free.
“If you look at access to medications for people who are uninsured, I think that there’s no question that will widen those disparities,” Rosenthal said.
People who get insurance through their jobs could face high copays at the register, too, just as they do for insulin and other expensive or brand-name drugs.
Most private insurance companies will end up covering covid therapeutics to some extent, said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms. After all, the pills are cheaper than a hospital stay. But for most people who get insurance through their jobs, there are “really no rules at all,” she said. Some insurers could take months to add the drugs to their plans or decide not to pay for them.
And the additional cost means many people will go without the medication. “We know from lots of research that when people face cost sharing for these drugs that they need to take, they will often forgo or cut back,” Corlette said.
One group doesn’t need to worry about sticker shock. Medicaid, the public insurance program for low-income adults and children, will cover the treatments in full until at least early 2024.
HHS officials could set aside any leftover taxpayer-funded medication for people who can’t afford to pay the full cost, but they haven’t shared any concrete plans to do so. The government purchased 20 million courses of Paxlovid and 3 million of Lagevrio. Fewer than a third have been used, and usage has fallen in recent months, according to KHN’s analysis of the data from HHS.
Sixty percent of the government’s supply of Evusheld is also still available, although the covid prevention therapy is less effective against new strains of the virus. The health department in one state, New Mexico, has recommended against using it.
HHS did not make officials available for an interview or answer written questions about the commercialization plans.
The government created a potential workaround when they moved bebtelovimab, another covid treatment, to the private market this summer. It now retails for $2,100 per patient. The agency set aside the remaining 60,000 government-purchased doses that hospitals could use to treat uninsured patients in a convoluted dose-replacement process. But it’s hard to tell how well that setup would work for Paxlovid: Bebtelovimab was already much less popular, and the FDA halted its use on Nov. 30 because it’s less effective against current strains of the virus.
Federal officials and insurance companies would have good reason to make sure patients can continue to afford covid drugs: They’re far cheaper than if patients land in the emergency room.
“The medications are so worthwhile,” said Madoff, the Massachusetts health official. “They’re not expensive in the grand scheme of health care costs.”
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
Nearly half of older Americans can’t even afford basic needs
I worked hard my whole career and retired feeling secure. Then I lost every last dime in a scam. I was left with $1,300 a month in Social Security benefits to live on in an area where monthly expenses run about $3,700.
I’m a smart woman, but scams against older Americans are increasing in number and sophistication. Whether through scams, strained savings, or costs of living going up, half of older Americans — that’s 27 million households — can’t afford their basic needs.
I find myself in dire need of sincere counsel, as I am increasingly convinced that my romantic life has taken on the unfortunate semblance of a rom-com wherein I alone remain bereft of the script. I'm 31, will defend my thesis this May, and have a great job lined-up.
My boyfriend, aged 32, embodies the quintessential extrovert—gregarious, enamored with nightlife, and perpetually surrounded by a coterie of approximately twenty friends who reside in close proximity and convene incessantly. Initially, I admired his vivacity and character.
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What da funk? A stinky body can be a sign of a health issue
Death, taxes and body odor.
They’re things we can all expect in life, no matter how clean you are. But health care providers want you to know when body odor is a sign of a more serious health problem.
B.O. basics
Luis Garcia, MD, an OSF HealthCare pediatrician, says sweat and bacteria are the main culprits behind body odor. Warmth and moisture in parts of the body (like your armpits and feet), plus going through puberty and general poor hygiene, can make the smell worse.