Public Health

Minnesota's death rate increased 17 percent during the first year of the pandemic, driven by both COVID-19 and other preventable deaths of despair from overdoses, alcohol use and malnutrition, according to new findings from researchers at Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic. 

In an effort to "correct the associated misinterpretations and misinformation" about COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA and CDC wrote a joint response to Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, MD, after he claimed the vaccines pose severe risks.

COVID-19 hospitalizations have been falling nationwide for weeks and now sit at the lowest level seen since May, according to data tracked by The New York Times. 

Three years into the pandemic, many medical experts have let their guards down and resumed some semblance of normal life, though most agree there is still a time and place for COVID-19 precautions, The Washington Post reported March 12. 

A bill to declassify information about the pandemic's origins passed the House on March 10 and now heads to President Joe Biden's desk, according to The Hill. 

Looking ahead to June, researchers released forecasts in a preprint for hospitalizations and death tolls of five different SARS-CoV-2 variant scenarios eyeing what might be next and how to prepare accordingly.

March 11 marks three years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. At that time, there were only 118,000 cases reported worldwide.

While infectious disease specialists are hesitant to never say "never," the current environment we live in would have to change considerably to create a real-life fungus pandemic based on cordyceps, the fungus on the hit HBO show "The Last of…

University of Wisconsin-Madison's State Laboratory of Hygiene found the rate of positive strep throat tests has doubled since last year, NBC affiliate WTMJ reported March 8.

A recent study found nearly half of all U.S. public health workers in state and local agencies left their jobs in the last five years.