Public Health

Adventist Health St. Helena (Calif.) will reopen to patients Dec. 9 after a wildfire caused the hospital to close for more than two months.

Starting Dec. 11, Massachusetts hospitals must scale back the number of elective surgeries performed, Gov. Charlie Baker said during a press conference, according to The Boston Globe.

Over the past seven days, the U.S. recorded 15,813 COVID-19 deaths, surpassing a weekly record that stood since mid-April, reports The New York Times. 

With so many testing supplies dedicated to COVID-19, U.S. labs are now facing a shortage of supplies needed to test for sexually transmitted infections and other common diseases like strep throat and pneumonia, NBC News reports. 

A memorial park dedicated to New Jersey residents who died of COVID-19 will replace the site of a former waste ground in Jersey City, according to The New York Times. 

The FBI raided a laboratory in Ventnor, N.J., Dec. 4 and is encouraging patients who had COVID-19 tests at the facility to get retested, reports NBC10 Philadelphia. 

COVID-19 test positivity increased in all but one region in the week ending Nov. 28, according to the CDC's latest COVIDView report published Dec. 4. 

New York will order hospitals in the state to boost bed capacity by 25 percent, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a media briefing Dec. 7. 

New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham will likely implement a measure this week that would allow hospitals to move to "crisis standards," and ration care based on patients' chances of survival, The Washington Post reports. 

The U.S. reported a record 224,831 new COVID-19 cases Dec. 4, exactly 30 days after the nation first crossed the 100,000-case threshold, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project.