Public Health

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise nationwide, though deaths are still falling on the heels of this winter's omicron surge, according to the CDC's COVID-19 data tracker weekly review published May 13.

As summer approaches, flu positivity levels in the U.S. remain unseasonably high, the CDC's latest FluView report shows. 

While the COVID-19 virus continues to evolve and American's immune protection wanes, $10 billion in federal aid to support the purchase of more tests, therapeutics and vaccines remains tied up in a congressional stalemate. 

Overdose deaths have reached a new high in the U.S., with the latest CDC data showing a 15 percent increase in fatalities last year. 

The latest CDC variant proportion estimates show a sublineage of the BA.2 omicron variant is gaining foothold in the U.S., coinciding with a nationwide increase in cases and hospitalizations. 

New reports of unusual hepatitis cases among children in the U.S. have brought the global total to 348 probable cases from 20 countries, the World Health Organization said May 10.

The nation's flu positivity test rate reached nearly 10 percent in mid-April, making it the first time such an increase has occurred so late in the flu season since 1982, according to an NBC News analysis of CDC flu data…

The omicron subvariant BA.2 accounts for a fewer proportion of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as the prevalence of another omicron sublineage — BA.2.12.1 — grows, according to the CDC's latest variant proportion estimates. 

The next generation of COVID-19 shots may only be available this fall to those at high risk of severe illness if Congress does not approve more emergency funding to buy the shots, a senior administration official told NBC News.

Hospitals will likely see new COVID-19 admissions increase through the end of the month, federal modeling suggests.