Kurt Papenfus, a doctor in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, started to feel sick around Halloween. He developed a scary cough, intestinal symptoms and a headache. In the midst of a pandemic, the news that he had COVID-19 wasn’t surprising, but Papenfus’ illness would have repercussions far beyond his own health.

With two promising vaccines primed for release, likely within weeks, experts in ethics and immunization behavior say they expect attitudes to shift quickly from widespread hesitancy to urgent, even heated demand.

In updated recommendations on youth sports during the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) encourages players of most sports to wear cloth face coverings at all times for group training, competition, and on the sidelines.

An estimated 8% of all physician practices nationally — around 16,000 — have closed under the stress of the pandemic. And another 7% of primary care practices were unsure they could stay open past December without financial assistance.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 1 million infants, children and adolescents have been diagnosed with the illness, according to data released Monday by the American ...

Attorneys for GOP-controlled states seeking to kill the Affordable Care Act told the Supreme Court last week that at least some of the 12 million people who newly enrolled in Medicaid signed up only because of the law’s requirement that people have insurance coverage — although a tax penalty no longer exists.

“Why does one 40-year-old get really sick and another one not even need to be admitted?” In some cases, provocative new research shows, some people — men in particular — succumb because their immune systems are hit by friendly fire.

This vaccine will require two doses to work, injections that must be given weeks apart. Scientists anticipate the shots will cause enervating flu-like side effects — including sore arms, muscle aches and fever — that could last days and temporarily sideline some people from work or school.

Historically, important scientific announcements about vaccines are made through peer-reviewed medical research papers that have undergone extensive scrutiny about study design, results and assumptions, not through company press releases. So did Pfizer’s stock deserve its double-digit percentage bump? The answers to the following five questions will help us know.

Lowering the Medicare eligibility age is popular. About 85% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans favor allowing those as young as 50 to buy into Medicare. Although opposition from the hospital industry is expected to be fierce, that is not the only obstacle to Biden’s plan.