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The U.S. government is planning to lift Covid-19 testing requirements on travelers from China on Friday, amid a decline in cases there following a winter surge, according to people familiar with the matter. Those traveling to the U.S. from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau were previously required to submit a negative Covid test before departure following a Biden administration order that went into effect on Jan. 5. At the time, U.S. officials said the restrictions were necessary because of a deadly wave of infections across China and cited a lack of transparency from Beijing about the scale of the surge or specific variants. (Siddiqui, 3/7)

The U.S. government paid around $10 billion in the early years of the pandemic to develop and purchase Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed. So far, any American who wants the shot has paid nothing out-of-pocket for it — the federal government has footed the bill. (Lupkin, 3/8)

In its decision Monday, the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles quoted a 1944 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on the limits of religious exemptions from secular laws: “The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease.” (Egelko, 3/7)

Bodies of individuals who died from COVID-19 potentially can transmit the virus to others, according to a new study that researched the issue with hamsters. Following up on previous evidence showing COVID-19 could still be active in dead bodies, researchers at the University of Tokyo in Japan used a Syrian hamster model to analyze the possibility of transmission from a human corpse and whether there are protocols that could reduce that risk. (Vaziri, 3/7)

The proportion of COVID-19 deaths among vaccinated people rose sharply toward the end of last year. But that is not a measure of the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines, according to a new report from the American Medical Association. “Fortunately, there are a lot more people who are vaccinated now,” said Elisa Choi, an infectious diseases physician and a member of the American College of Physicians’ delegation to the AMA House of Delegates. (Vaziri, 3/7)

People who have had COVID-19 may experience lingering chest pains for up to a year after infection, a new study found. "Long COVID," which refers to conditions that linger for months or even years after infection, impacts nearly one in five people who have had the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported. (Rudy, 3/7)