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For more than a year, President Joe Biden’s ability to avoid the coronavirus seemed to defy the odds. When he finally did test positive, the White House was ready. It set out to turn the diagnosis into a “teachable moment” and dispel any notion of a crisis. ... It was a day that began with Biden’s COVID-19 results and included repeated assurances over the coming hours that the president was hard at work while isolating in the residential areas of the White House with “very mild symptoms” including a runny nose, dry cough and fatigue. Biden, in a blazer and Oxford shirt, recorded a video from the White House balcony telling people: “I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done. And, in the meantime, thanks for your concern. And keep the faith. It’s going to be OK.” (Weissert and Megerian, 7/22)

If Biden emerges quickly from his bout with covid-19, it will be a high-profile demonstration of his broader vow: A return to normalcy is possible thanks to vaccines and treatments, despite surging cases and the ongoing pandemic. But if the president should be sick for an extended period or, worse, fall gravely ill, he’ll join many other Americans who have struggled to remain healthy in a world with scant mask-wearing and social distancing, and fuel further criticism that his virus strategy falls short, especially for the most vulnerable. (Diamond, 7/21)

Each subsequent avatar of the virus has become still better at sidestepping immunity. BA.5, which now accounts for nearly 80 percent of cases in the United States, is the most wily yet. Detailed data collected in Qatar suggests that immunity from previous infection and vaccines is weakest against BA.5 compared with its predecessors. BA.5 is also highly contagious. The nation is recording roughly 130,000 cases per day on average; that number is likely to be a huge underestimate, because most people test at home or do not test at all. (Mandavilli, 7/21)

Joe Biden’s age, 79, automatically puts him at greater risk for Covid complications, but infectious disease experts expect the president — who has had two Covid booster vaccines and is in relatively good health otherwise — to recover quickly. (Edwards and Bendix, 7/21)

While Biden's illness does not carry the dire outlook former President Donald Trump faced when he was infected in October, 2020 – before vaccines or treatments – the sitting president's illness brought up comparisons to Trump's handling of the matter. (Milligan, 7/21)

Both men are in their 70s. Both caught COVID-19. And both tested positive while serving in the White House. But, apart from those similarities, the experiences of President Joseph R. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump could not be more different — a contrast that tells the story of the pandemic so far. (Freyer, 7/22)

President Biden has begun taking a course of Paxlovid, after testing positive for COVID-19. The antiviral medicine is recommended for early treatment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Chappell, 7/21)

Jennifer Padgett was shocked last month when, during a Google search on new variants, she learned there was a drug available to protect patients like her daughter, a 23-year-old childhood cancer survivor whose immune system can’t make enough antibodies. (Mast, 7/22)

As of early June, four times as many Americans ages 75 to 84 were dying each week from the virus compared with people two decades younger, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Those death counts are provisional, the C.D.C. cautioned, because they were based on death certificates and did not account for all deaths in those age groups.) (Mueller, 7/21)

Robert Gallo apologized for still coughing. The day before President Biden tested positive for Covid-19, the famed HIV researcher said he was still recovering from a Covid infection that had left him unable to walk, put him in the hospital, and made him delusional, he said Wednesday during a roundtable discussion about long Covid. (Cooney, 7/22)

Dr. Vidya Sundareshan has seen a lot of patients who are frustrated because they’ve struggled to find help managing the lingering effects of the illness. (Whiteside, 7/21)

More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic — and amid another nationwide surge — nursing home residents are still disproportionately at risk for severe illness and death, according to new numbers from AARP. (Luterman, 7/21)

The country’s largest union of registered nurses called on the Biden administration to take action against rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations amid the surge of immune-evasive Omicron subvariant BA.5 in a letter on Wednesday, the day before President Biden tested positive for the coronavirus. (Mueller, 7/21)

Researchers have suggested that people with compromised immune systems should avoid re-using face masks due to germ growth. The finding was made as part of a Japanese study into face mask hygiene. In the study, the researchers surveyed 109 people on their face mask usage and collected bacteria and fungi samples from both the inner and outer sides of their masks. (Browne, 7/20)

Three Democratic lawmakers tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday and Thursday as President Biden announced his own positive test results. Sens. Tina Smith (Minn.) and Tom Carper (Del.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) announced their diagnoses over Twitter. (Folmar, 7/21)

Amazon is acquiring One Medical for $18 a share, an all-cash deal that values the primary health-care provider at roughly $3.9 billion, the companies said Thursday. The deal deepens Amazon’s presence in health care, which Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said is “high on the list of experiences that need reinvention.” (Palmer, 7/21)

With its acquisition of One Medical, Amazon is setting its sights squarely on shaking up primary care. (Ravindranath, Ross and Herman, 7/21)

Amazon's latest move to further entrench itself in health care will stoke heated competition by other major retailers to capture new customers by delivering primary care. ... Amazon will face plenty of regulatory hurdles and some challenges in gaining consumer trust. But it's positioned to capitalize on its ability to cater to consumers' whims, as well as patients' frustration with the status quo. (Reed, 7/21)

“This puts Amazon much further up the list” of entities trying to assemble vertically integrated health care businesses at a multi-billion-dollar scale, said Lisa Bielamowicz, president of consultancy Gist Healthcare. “If I’m Optum or I’m CVS-Aetna, I’m looking at this and saying, ‘these guys are serious and they’re starting to put their own pieces together in a way that will create a unified product.” (Tozzi and Day, 7/21)

One Medical's $199 annual subscription offers 24/7 access to telehealth services, same-day appointments, and an app. The company had 188 U.S. locations and more than 750,000 members, as of a May filing. The company's focus is on primary care and boasts virtually no wait times, and in its IPO filing expressed interest in moving into behavioral health. The Carlyle Group has been one of One Medical's key investors, and is reportedly set to exit after Amazon's acquisition. (Garfinkle, 7/21)

Amazon’s $3.9 billion acquisition San Francisco’s One Medical swiftly raised privacy concerns about what the online retail giant might have planned with the health care company’s medical data. (Echeverria, 7/21)

The right to use contraceptives would be enshrined in law under a measure that Democrats pushed through the House on Thursday, their latest campaign-season response to concerns a conservative Supreme Court that already erased federal abortion rights could go further. The House's 228-195 roll call was largely along party lines and sent the measure to the Senate, where it seemed doomed. The bill is the latest example of Democrats latching onto their own version of culture war battles to appeal to female, progressive and minority voters by casting the court and Republicans as extremists intent on obliterating rights taken for granted for years. (Fram, 7/21)

The measure passed 228 to 195, with eight Republicans joining Democrats in support. It would protect the right to purchase and use contraception without government restriction. The legislation drew only slightly more Republican support than two bills that the House passed last week, which aimed to ensure access to abortion in the post-Roe era; almost all Republicans were united in opposition. It was a far different result than just days earlier, when Democrats forced a vote on legislation to enact federal protections for same-sex marriages and drew the support of 47 Republicans — far more than expected. (Karni, 7/21)

Twelve years after the ACA became law, patients still struggle to get the appropriate medicine or device at no cost thanks to inconsistent insurance coverage. And the Supreme Court ruling that ended the federal right to abortion made access to affordable birth control and emergency contraception even more urgent for people seeking to prevent pregnancy. President Joe Biden's administration and congressional Democrats are paying renewed attention to how well health insurance companies adhere to the ACA's contraception coverage rule. Stiffer enforcement may follow. (Tepper, 7/21)

Customers are calling for a Walgreens boycott after claims that customers are being denied birth control and condoms went viral. Customers also claimed that they began receiving unsolicited baby formula samples in the mail after purchasing reproductive products or pregnancy tests. The stories reflect a tense transition period in America, as many U.S. states start adapting to the overturning of a federally protected right to a legalized abortion. (Edwards, 7/21)

KHN: A Nearly Century-Old Maternity Home For Teens In The South Makes Plans For Expansion

An old, brick house in Charleston’s Wagener Terrace district stands out from its gentrified neighbors in several ways: It’s 14,000 square feet, built to accommodate around 30 people, and was constructed 90 years ago to provide shelter for pregnant girls. It still does just that. Pregnant teenagers with few options, often escaping dangerous living situations, come here to stay, give birth at a nearby hospital, and then return to the home to learn how to raise an infant. In recent years, these girls have been as young as 12. They are often victims of sexual abuse. (Sausser, 7/22)

CVS Health is asking pharmacists in some states to verify that a few of the prescriptions they provide will not be used end a pregnancy. A spokesman said Thursday that the drugstore chain recently started doing this for methotrexate and misoprostol, two drugs used in medication abortions but also to treat other conditions. (Murphy, 7/21)

Georgia’s revived abortion law puts a new strain on people turning to medication to end pregnancies and adds to an ongoing battle over the boundaries between states and the federal government. The Eleventh Circuit’s decision to let Georgia ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected creates a thorny situation for people relying on mifepristone—a drug long ago approved by the Food and Drug Administration to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks. Many Georgians are now effectively blocked from using the drug after the sixth week of pregnancy, even though that time frame is allowed under FDA regulation, attorneys say. (Lopez and Castronuovo, 7/21)

KHN: Three Things About The Abortion Debate That Many People Get Wrong

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to abortion, things are more than a little confused. As lower courts grapple with rapidly changing state laws, patients wonder from day to day if abortion is still legal and, even if legal, whether it is still available in their state. Health professionals in states with abortion bans fear prosecution by state authorities for performing abortions or by federal authorities for not performing them in life- or health-threatening situations. (Rovner, 7/22)

YouTube said Thursday it would take a tougher line on abortion-related misinformation, as the video app and other social media platforms become a battleground for debates over abortion access. The Google-owned platform said it would start removing videos and other content with instructions for unsafe abortion methods or with false claims about abortion safety. (Ingram, 7/21)

A month after some members of Congress urged Google to limit the appearance of anti-abortion pregnancy centers in certain abortion-related search results, 17 Republican attorneys general are warning the company that doing so could invite investigations and possible legal action. (Rankin, 7/21)

A majority of Americans say Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide, according to a new poll that finds over half say they feel at least somewhat “sad” or “angry” about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. (Fingerhut, 7/21)

Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would provide grants for those who need to travel out of state for an abortion. The Reproductive Health Travel Fund Act is the latest endeavor by Democrats to mitigate the impact of the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. (Rahman, 7/21)

Several House progressives on Wednesday urged delivery companies FedEx, UPS and DHL to protect the private data of customers amid concerns that lawmakers in anti-abortion states will seek to access information about women who purchase abortion medication. (Dress, 7/21)

Georgia’s abortion law changed so abruptly Wednesday afternoon that some patients who were in an office waiting for abortions were told that what had been legal that morning was no longer legal in the state and sent home. (Amy, 7/22)

The preliminary injunction issued by state district judge Donald Johnson in Baton Rouge is the latest development amid a flurry of court challenges to state “trigger” laws that were crafted in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights, which it did June 24. (Cline, 7/21)

The 1st District Court of Appeal decided Thursday that it will consider the case rather than forwarding it immediately to the state’s highest court. The court also rejected a bid from abortion providers to temporarily block the law, meaning that for now the 15-week ban remains in effect in Florida. (Izaguirre and Anderson, 7/21)

“They intend to ban abortion in all cases,” said Anne Melia, 59, a former Republican who is now a Democrat and an environmental chemist who gave up a consulting job last year to focus on political activism. “Our law here could match something like what happened in Missouri with their trigger law that’s banned all abortion.” (Hanna, 7/21)

North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general declined Thursday to meet Republican legislative leaders’ demand that he ask a federal court to lift an injunction on a state law banning nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. (Schoenbaum, 7/21)

Calling it decisive action that empowers people to make their own health care decisions, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones signed legislation Thursday directing $1 million in federal coronavirus relief funds to help people cover the logistical cost of accessing abortion. (Lippmann, 7/21)

The Supreme Court's decision last month nullifying the constitutional right to an abortion has opened a path for organizations that aim to dissuade women from having abortions to expand their operations, especially in states that have banned the procedure or restricted access, prompting their few abortion clinics to shutter. (Quinn, 7/21)

The White House announced Thursday a $140 million, 22-target research agenda for monkeypox to better understand and handle rising case counts across the country. The agenda aims to improve data on transmission, testing, vaccines, equitable treatments and environmental factors. (Payne, 7/21)

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, on Wednesday asked the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to address the “barriers” to monkeypox treatment that people have reported dealing with so far. (Choi, 7/21)

Monkeypox patients around the world are suffering from symptoms not normally linked to the virus, leading to missed and mistaken diagnoses, researchers said. (Muller, 7/21)

The spread of monkeypox in the U.S. could represent the dawn of a new sexually transmitted disease, though some health officials say the virus that causes pimple-like bumps might yet be contained before it gets firmly established. Experts don’t agree on the likely path of the disease, with some fearing that it is becoming so widespread that it is on the verge of becoming an entrenched STD — like gonorrhea, herpes and HIV. (Stobbe, 7/22)

Vaccines for the monkeypox virus should be prioritized for men who have sex with men, according to experts. (Thomson, 7/21)

During opening remarks, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said worldwide cases are mostly still in men who have sex with men (MSM). (Soucheray, 7/21)

The Biden administration has selected Monica Bertagnolli, a renowned surgical oncologist, as the next director of the National Cancer Institute, according to two sources familiar with the decision. (Facher, 7/21)

Only half of the 180 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers across the country currently have a designated area for nursing, or lactating, parents. (Padilla, 7/21)

Senate leaders are introducing sweeping legislation Thursday meant to lift federal prohibitions on marijuana more than 50 years after Congress made the drug illegal. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act would decriminalize weed on the federal level and allow states to set their own marijuana laws without fear of punishment from Washington. (Fertig, 7/21)

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a staunch ally of former President Trump and perhaps the most vulnerable GOP senator facing reelection in November, announced Thursday that he would vote for a bill protecting same-sex marriage. (Bolton, 7/21)

Senators from Maine and Delaware want to establish a national mercury monitoring program to try to safeguard human health from the neurotoxin. Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic Sen. Tom Carper introduced the proposal. Collins said she was motivated to propose it because some lands and water bodies in her state have higher mercury pollution levels than the nation at large. (7/22)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Drug Price Bill Is A Go In The Senate

President Joe Biden is the latest top Washington official to test positive for covid-19, following Vice President Kamala Harris, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But work continues, particularly on a Senate bill that could, for the first time, allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and cap seniors’ out-of-pocket medication costs. Meanwhile, both supporters and opponents of abortion rights are struggling to find their footing in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturn of the federal right to abortion in Roe v. Wade. (7/21)

With overall inflation raging at 9 percent, the White House is eager to portray any action as an element to bring price inflation down. But how likely is it that the prescription-drug provision in this bill will make a difference? It’s a surprisingly complicated question. Let’s take a look. (Kessler, 7/22)

Health insurance companies, providers, and millions of policyholders would suffer significant disruptions if President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats fail to extend the enhanced subsidies that drove record enrollment on the health insurance exchanges. (Tepper and Berryman, 7/22)

Magic mushrooms are moving from the margins to the mainstream. In the past two years, at least six ’shroom dispensaries have opened in Vancouver, which recently decriminalized hard drugs and has become a key testing ground for broader policy reform. Similar—albeit more discreet—shops are opening in US cities where mushrooms have been decriminalized, such as Oakland, Calif., and Portland, Ore. (Lhooq, 7/21)

Medical devices maker Hanger Inc (HNGR.N) said on Thursday it has agreed to be taken private by healthcare investment firm Patient Square Capital in a deal worth about $1.25 billion, sending its shares up more than 20%. (7/21)

In 5- to 11-year-old children, two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were 36.8% effective in preventing all SARS-CoV-2 infections, 63.5% against test-confirmed cases, and 82.7% against hospitalization amid the Omicron variant surge in Singapore, finds a real-world study published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). (7/21)

An experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the form of an oral tablet has shown promising immune responses in a small preliminary trial designed mainly to evaluate its safety, according to drug manufacturer Vaxart Inc (VXRT.O). The South San Francisco, California-based company had earlier said the tablet was well tolerated, with no one dropping out of the study because of adverse effects. On Tuesday, they reported on immune responses in the 35 healthy volunteers who received the tablet. (Lapid, 7/21)

Getting a booster can generate enough of an antibody response and protection from severe disease outcomes to hold up against any of the new Omicron subvariants, according to an early release paper published this week in Science. That extends to BA.5, now the most prevalent COVID strain in the U.S. and a driver of COVID-19 reinfections across the country. (Mui, 7/21)

People who have high blood pressure and Omicron-variant COVID-19 are at more than double the risk for hospitalization—even if they received three mRNA vaccine doses, according to a single-center study published yesterday in Hypertension. (Van Beusekom, 7/21)

A new study of more than 5,000 women shows that contracting COVID-19 during the third trimester of pregnancy is linked to a more than double increased risk of preterm birth. The study was published yesterday in PLOS One. (7/21)

Three studies published Thursday found that an AI platform developed by Bayesian Health and Johns Hopkins University reduced deaths from sepsis by 18.2% in real-world use when physicians responded promptly to its alerts, a finding that suggests AI has potential to become an important tool in battling a leading cause of deaths in hospitals. (Muthukumar, 7/21)

A salmonella outbreak has been linked to small turtles, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday. So far, 15 people have been sickened across 11 states, with five requiring hospitalization. (Freiman, 7/21)

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it has received 17 more reports of unexplained pediatric hepatitis cases that are under investigation, raising the nation's total to 355. The number of states reporting cases remained the same, at 42. (7/21)

“This is a critical question,” said John Palmieri, a senior medical advisor at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration official. “The suicide rate trends are alarming for Black youth. SAMHSA is committed to working with trusted partners in the Black community to address inequity in access to mental health care services.” (Goldberg, 7/21)

The New York State Department of Health and its Rockland County counterpart confirmed that the infection was transmitted from someone who received the oral polio vaccine, which has not been administered in the United States since 2000. Officials said in a news release that the virus may have originated outside the United States, where the oral vaccine is still administered. (Meko, 7/21)

New Hampshire has agreed to repay nearly $8 million to the federal government after an audit found shortcomings in opioid treatment programs for the state's Medicaid patients. (Fam, 7/21)

Mississippi’s incoming state health officer has stated his support for expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage. The policy, which some Republican lawmakers oppose, would give poor mothers in the state access to more Medicaid coverage after they give birth. (7/21)

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and several law enforcement agencies are calling on lawmakers to take legislative action to reduce the number of fentanyl-related deaths. (Krebs, 7/21)

The Republican governor said he’ll likely recommend additional money in his budget that will be considered by lawmakers early next year. But he said urgent action is needed now for the fentanyl problem that law enforcement officials say can spur property crimes as well as crimes against individuals. (Ridler, 7/21)

A new study from researchers at USC offers some insights into the prevalence of long COVID and suggests some early clues for who might be more likely to develop long-term symptoms. ... Patients who reported sore throats, headaches and, intriguingly, hair loss after testing positive were more likely to have lingering symptoms months later. (Purtill, 7/20)

There are no winners in a pandemic. That said, if you’ve made it to the summer of 2022 without yet testing positive for the coronavirus, you might feel entitled to some bragging rights. ... You might suspect that you are special — immunologically superior, a super-dodger. You also might have come up with some bizarre theories about why you’ve lasted longer. (McCarthy, 7/21)

As the outbreak spreads—with more than 2,000 cases in the U.S., by the latest count—public-health authorities have doubled down on this restriction: Testing for the virus must make use of swabs taken from a lesion, according to a “Safety Communication” issued by the Food and Drug Administration last Friday. “The FDA is not aware of clinical data supporting the use of other sample types, such as blood or saliva, for monkeypox virus testing,” the communication said, and testing of these other types “may lead to false test results.” This alarming messaging, delivered at a crucial moment in the virus’s spread, will have a profound effect on how quickly new monkeypox infections can be identified, isolated, and treated. (Mazer, 7/21)

Even though they're social media natives, the majority of Gen Zers want to see their doctor face to face. Sixty-two percent of survey respondents say they want to communicate with their primary care provider in-person. Half say convenient location is the number-one criteria for selecting a primary care provider, compared to 29% who prioritize telehealth capabilities. Only one-third of those surveyed say they use an app for their health care needs. (Mikhail, 7/18)

Several years ago, scientists studying aging at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute used a somewhat Frankensteinian technique known as parabiosis — surgically joining a young mouse and an old mouse so that they share blood — to see what would happen to the heart and skeletal muscle tissue. ... The Harvard researchers, Amy Wagers and Dr. Richard Lee, found that the old mouse’s heart tissue had been repaired and rejuvenated, becoming young again. (Zimmerman, 7/19)

Over the past century, the public’s understanding of seizures has been gleaned mostly from depictions in movies and television, which are often as disturbing as they are inaccurate. While these dramatic representations intensify visual storytelling, they frequently perpetuate stigma and understate the complexity of seizures. The truth is, seizures are far more varied than what you see in popular culture. Instead, they are often subtle, silent and unseen. (Pellinen, 7/21)

As Houston sets heat records and other parts of the world see unusually high temperatures, people taking certain medications — including those that reduce blood pressure — face an increased risk of exhaustion and dehydration. In more serious cases, the combination can lead to fainting, kidney failure or life-threatening heart problems. (Gill, 7/21)

Hot weather is flat-out bad for most medications. The heat can degrade the components of a medicine. Now that so many prescriptions are delivered, how will they fare when they sit in a mailbox or delivery truck while high temperatures bake patches of the planet this summer? (Tompkins, 7/21)

Erik Bowen naturally gravitated to golf. He played several sports growing up near San Diego and then Denver — soccer, football, baseball, basketball — but his dad, Jeff, was an avid golfer. So young Erik often hung out in the pro shop as a kid, until he was old enough to join his dad on the course. ... He never imagined he would need to learn how to play golf all over again a year later — after losing both of his feet. (Kroichick, 7/17)

The alt text feature on social media platforms allows a person to describe through words an image so that someone who is blind or visually impaired can use screen-reader technology to know what is being shown. In other words, it makes an image accessible to everyone. And in the case of the recent photos shared by NASA, it allowed everyone to know they were looking at celestial scenes bursting with colors and shapes. (Vargas, 7/20)

The blitz of Omicron variants has felt like one long wave. And many questions have arisen amid the tumult. Are we seeing the emergence of entirely new coronavirus variants that are impervious to immunity from vaccines and previous infections? If we keep getting reinfected, is it inevitable that most of us will end up developing long Covid? (Jeremy Kamil, 7/22)

Given the latest surge in COVID-19 cases — thanks to omicron subvariant BA.5, deemed the most transmissible yet — and the relatively new threat posed by monkeypox, which has been spreading globally since May, one might expect the public health establishment to be asking for heightened precautions or at least vigilance. (7/21)

It’s the summer of the subvariants. The summer you or at least someone you know got COVID. The summer masks were off all over town, but not for much longer. I’m a doctor and I know better than most that there is bad news — and good news — about the never-ending pandemic. (Nina Shapiro, 7/21)

The news that President Joe Biden has tested positive for Covid should serve as a wake-up call for the rest of us: Almost three years on, the pandemic is still not going very well. (Tyler Cowen, 7/21)

In some ways, this is one of the cases the entire world has been waiting for—not sadistically, necessarily, but simply because, like so many other infections as of late, it has felt inevitable. Once, it might have seemed possible to avoid this virus; now most Americans have had it. SARS-CoV-2 has been spewing out variants and subvariants at an absolutely blistering clip, and wave after wave of infections has slammed the nation, collapsing case peaks into a never-ending plateau. Vice President Kamala Harris caught the coronavirus in April; Anthony Fauci got it in June. (Katherine J. Wu, 7/21)

My husband and I have several frozen embryos in storage somewhere in suburban Rockville, Maryland. Over the past decade, this possibility to expand our family one day has held a place in our hearts. But now, we are rushing to fill out the paperwork to thaw and respectfully dispose of our embryos — before they potentially gain legal personhood status in this country. (Laura Cronin, 7/22)

When I wrote two weeks ago that medical care after miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy is not abortion, I received a lot of emails from people who remain confused about how the reversal of Roe v. Wade will affect healthcare provided to women in those difficult and tragic circumstances. (Cynthia M. Allen, 7/20)

In the days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had established the constitutional right to an abortion, some Christians have cited the Bible to argue why this decision should either be celebrated or lamented. But here’s the problem: This 2,000-year-old text says nothing about abortion. (Melanie A. Howard, 7/20)

There’s a paradox that sits at the center of our mental health conversation in America. On the one hand, our treatments for mental illness have gotten better and better in recent decades. Psychopharmaceuticals have improved considerably; new, more effective methods of psychotherapy have been developed; and we’ve reached a better understanding of what kinds of social support are most helpful for those experiencing mental health crises. (7/22)

California achieved a first in the nation this month: implementing a statewide law setting limits on the earliest school start times for adolescents. California’s law is a real victory, considering that sleep deprivation is the norm for far too many teens — a situation with worrying implications across the board, but especially for the growing crisis of youth mental health. (Lisa L. Lewis, 7/22)

On Thursday, almost 400 people in the Dallas County jail were waiting for a bed in a psychiatric hospital. That’s because courts had deemed those inmates incompetent, meaning they weren’t well enough to participate in their defense because of mental illness. Although some have the means to seek treatment at a private facility, most of them have no choice but to go to a state hospital to recover. (7/22)

Let’s not mince words: The monkeypox outbreak is a crisis. And the Biden administration’s response to that crisis has been a chaotic, anemic and bumbling mess. (Gregg Gonsalves, 7/21)

In the pantheon of pandemic heroes, surely nurses rank near the top. They have ministered to untold numbers of dying patients, worked grueling hours under war-zone conditions, and endured verbal abuse and even physical assault by the very patients they cared for. (7/22)

The term “rare disease” is both an apt descriptor and a misnomer. Individually, each rare disease affects a relatively small number of people. But taken together, more than 30 million Americans, and 400 million people worldwide, are affected by one of the 10,000-plus rare diseases — 95% of which have no approved treatment. (Craig Martin, 7/22)

Many Americans are accustomed to shopping around for the best deal. We can access reams of information that help us make smarter decisions — except when it comes to health care services. (Seema Verma and Aneesh Chopra, 7/22)