In the News

The BA.5 surge is a reminder that we need to take precautions to avoid illness, slow the relentless cycle of new variants and minimize the disruption to our daily lives.
 

To get more money to treatment centers like Lily's Place, Cabell County and its main city of Huntington decided to take the problem to the source: pharmaceutical companies that pushed millions of opioids into the county over the last decade. Now, a federal judge ruled on July 4 that the three major pharmaceutical companies were not liable, leaving one county at the center of the opioid epidemic in the dark without the critical resources it needs to save lives.
 

There have been more than 16,000 cases in 75 countries, overwhelmingly among men who have sex with men.
 

Does it feel like we can’t catch a break? With rising COVID-19 cases, increasing cases of monkeypox and now the first case of vaccine-derived polio in the United States in nearly a decade, it feels like the hits just keep coming.
 

The CDC is recommending that immunized adults and children 5 years and older follow up with a vaccination booster in five months, and those 50 and older get a second booster shot for renewed protection. But so far, the CDC reports that only about half of adults have gotten a booster and just 28% of those age 50 and older have received a second dose, which provides even further protection from the illness.
 

Here's a rundown of possible treatments U.S. President Joe Biden will receive for COVID-19 and the risks he faces, having been infected most likely with the fast-spreading but less severe BA.5 variant.
 

President Biden tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday morning. The White House says he has mild COVID symptoms.
 

Experts say that interacting with other infected people will unlikely make your COVID-19 infection longer or worse. But this doesn’t mean that you should fill up your social calendar while you’re trying to recover from the virus.
 

While possible, it’s unlikely BA.5 will keep circulating over the next few months as the population builds up immunity against the subvariant. It’s more likely that a new variant or subvariant of omicron will emerge as the virus attempts to bypass that immunity and infect as many people as it can.
 

Vaccine supply is limited, distribution has run into roadblocks, and it has proven difficult to prioritize the highest-risk individuals for shots. The result is that, at least in certain areas, demand is overwhelming available supply.
 

Experts are tracking a collision of high influenza and COVID-19 cases in countries like Australia, where winter has already arrived. The country is already in winter and the caseloads there could be a harbinger of things to come this fall and winter in the U.S.
 

The boom in home testing for the coronavirus has meant that health officials never hear about many COVID cases, deflating official counts.