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The NorthShore University Health System has agreed to pay $10.3 million in a COVID-19 vaccine lawsuit. More than a dozen health care workers sued the Evanston-based group after they were denied religious exemptions for vaccinations. In a statement, NorthShore said the settlement reflects its new vaccine policy at Edward-Elmhurst Health. (8/1)

With new research showing that people are often infectious for more than five days, the CDC guidance has drawn criticism from some infectious-disease experts. The Biden protocol strikes many of them as the right way to go — because it’s empirical evidence that a person isn’t shedding virus. (Sun and Achenbach, 8/1)

You’ve got covid-19. When can you exit isolation? If you do resume activities outside your home, can you be sure you’re no longer contagious? It’s complicated. Be forewarned: Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are nuanced but a little confusing. (Sun and Achenbach, 8/1)

As the coronavirus mutates, though, that’s no longer a given. And each individual infection carries the risk not only for acute illness but the potential to develop long COVID. “The additive risk is really not trivial, not insignificant. It’s really substantial,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis and chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Healthcare System. (Lin II and Money, 8/1)

KHN: The Time Has Come For DIY Mandates On Covid 

Here we are in the grip of yet another covid-19 surge, yet most people I see out and about are behaving as if the pandemic is over. And I live in Los Angeles County, whose public health department is arguably one of the most vigilant and proactive in the U.S. We all have pandemic fatigue. Even people who should know better have let precautionary measures slide. If you are sensing a mea culpa on the way, I won’t disappoint. (Wolfson, 8/2)

As students around the country start a new school year, providers say childhood immunization rates are too low, in some places, to prevent outbreaks of diseases like measles. (Dreher, 8/2)