New York's executive order on polio is "no longer necessary" as the number of positive wastewater samples has declined, health officials said Dec. 12. Efforts to increase vaccination uptake, however, will continue as coverage rates in affected areas remain too low. 

States and healthcare organizations can use regulatory flexibilities permitted under the COVID-19 public health emergency to address capacity challenges stemming from a severe respiratory virus season, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told governors this month, according to AHA News.  

Respiratory virus activity is already high, and health experts anticipate the upcoming holiday season to accelerate virus spread. 

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are steadily rising nationwide, suggesting a winter surge may be near. At present, however, the duration, magnitude and scope of such a surge is still unclear, experts told The Atlantic.

Adults who were prescribed Paxlovid for mild to moderate COVID-19 were 50 percent less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the CDC's COVID-19 Weekly Tracker published Dec. 9. 

Nearly 26,000 lab-confirmed flu patients were admitted to hospitals for the week ending Dec. 3, up from the nearly 20,000 that were admitted the week prior. 

In addition to more funding, the CDC needs Congress to grant it more authority to improve COVID-19 data reporting and accelerate its response to public health crises, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, told Roll Call in a Dec. 8 report. 

Health experts are urging the public to mask up in crowded spaces to curb the spread of flu, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus during the holiday season. 

At least three partially vaccinated children in Central Ohio have contracted measles, marking the first cases in the region's outbreak that have not been among unvaccinated children. 

Clinicians should be prepared to treat cholera in travelers returning from countries with widespread cholera outbreaks, the CDC said in a Dec. 5 advisory. 

The nation is seeing its worst flu outbreak in more than a decade, with the CDC estimating there have already been 78,000 hospitalizations since the start of the season in October. 

Flu hospitalizations sat at a 10-year high the week of Thanksgiving and COVID-19 cases have risen since the holiday, though respiratory syncytial virus appears to have peaked in some parts of the U.S., CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, said Dec. 5. 

Health officials anticipate the measles outbreak in Columbus, Ohio — which has now infected at least 50 unvaccinated children — will last for several months. 

For weeks, New Mexico has reported the highest percentage of patients experiencing influenzalike illness compared to the rest of the nation.  

In about a week since the CDC started tracking omicron subvariant XBB, it has grown to account for 5.5 percent of U.S. cases, according to the latest variant proportionate estimates. 

Omicron subvariants BQ.1.1 and BQ.1, which knocked down the last monoclonal antibody treatment to be authorized for COVID-19, now account for 62.8 percent of COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC. 

Nearly 20,000 lab-confirmed flu patients in the U.S. were hospitalized for the week ending Nov. 26, up from 11,269 flu patients admitted the week prior, according to the CDC's latest FluView report. 

The last known Ebola patient has been discharged from a hospital in Uganda, signaling the country's largest outbreak in nearly two decades may be near its end, according to health officials. 

Rates of death from drug overdoses among seniors has more than tripled in the past two decades, the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics found.

Many health experts are voicing an outcry after Twitter dropped its policy to label tweets that promote misinformation about COVID-19 on Nov. 23.