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The leader of the World Health Organization said Friday that he expects the organization to declare an end to the COVID-19 pandemic later this year because statistics on the virus keep declining. “I am confident that this year we will be able to say that COVID-19 is over as a public health emergency of international concern,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a Geneva briefing. For the first time, the weekly number of reported COVID deaths over a four-week period was lower than when WHO declared COVID a global pandemic three years ago. (Ellis, 3/18)

Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the comments to reporters at a media briefing in Geneva. "We are certainly in a much better position now than we have been at any time during the pandemic," Dr. Ghebreyesus said. (Rudy, 3/19)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly coronavirus report released on Friday — the fourth-to-last before the report is discontinued — the number of reported cases in the U.S. decreased by 19.7% to 21,422 a day, compared with 26,685 in the previous week. The seven-day average for new hospital admissions was down 9.5% — 2,757 a day versus 3,046 last week. That compares with a peak of 22,000 per day during the omicron surge in early 2022. (Vaziri, 3/17)

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, the chamber's No. 2 Democrat, said on Sunday that he will quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19, adding to a number of lawmakers from both parties who have been absent from the Senate. (3/19)

The estimated percentage of people who have contracted the coronavirus ranges from 70% to 90% of the U.S. population, but it’s unclear how many have truly not been infected, as asymptomatic infections and at-home testing have muddied the waters. (Hwang, 3/19)

A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit that says detainees at an Arkansas jail were given the drug ivermectin to fight COVID-19 without their knowledge. The lawsuit contends detainees at the Washington County Jail in Fayetteville were given ivermectin as early as November 2020 but were unaware until July 2021. Ivermectin is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to address parasitic infestations such as intestinal worms and head lice and some skin conditions, such as rosacea. It is not, and was not at the time, approved to treat COVID-19. (3/18)

When Priya Mathew recovered from a mild case of COVID-19 in November, she thought she was out of the woods. Then came long COVID. "At one point I counted 23 symptoms," Mathew told CBS News. "The most alarming ones were shortness of breath, labored breathing, heart palpitations." One of the most crippling symptoms? Insomnia. (George and Moniuszko, 3/17)

The turmoil at Sarasota Memorial, one of Florida’s largest public hospitals, began last year after three candidates running on a platform of “health freedom” won seats on the nine-member board that oversees the hospital. Board meetings, once sleepy, started drawing hundreds of angry people who, like the new members, denounced the hospital’s treatment protocols for Covid-19.An internal review last month found that Sarasota Memorial did far better than some of its competitors in saving Covid patients’ lives. But that did little to quell detractors, whose campaign against the hospital has not relented. By then, the hospital had become the latest public institution under siege by an increasingly large and vocal right-wing contingent in one of Florida’s most affluent counties, where a backlash to pandemic policies has started reshaping local government. (Mazzei, 3/19)

A Republican proposal to cancel unspent COVID-19 relief money could undercut healthcare for military veterans and pensions for blue-collar workers while doing little to improve the U.S. fiscal picture, a Reuters review of federal spending figures found. The flood of COVID-relief aid -- $5.2 trillion in all -- that Congress approved in 2020 and 2021 under Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic successor Joe Biden has emerged as an early target for House of Representatives Republicans as they search for ways to rein in federal spending. (Sullivan, 3/17)

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel is starting to reap gargantuan gains from the stock he first got when he started with the company a decade ago, although nearly all of this chunk of his fortune remains earmarked for unknown charities. Bancel made $398 million in 2022 based on the actual realized gains of stock that was exercised and sold, according to STAT’s calculations from Moderna’s annual compensation disclosure filed this week. (Herman and Garde, 3/17)