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[ad_1] The number of children diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes continued to rise in the year after the Covid-19 pandemic began, according to research. Another study, also being presented at ENDO 2023, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Illinois, US, showed that more pregnant women developed gestational diabetes during the Covid-19 pandemic than in the preceding two years. In the first study, researchers from Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, "hypothesised that in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, many factors including school shutdowns causing kids to be less active, snacking more often, or eating more unhealthy foods led to increased weight gain and more cases of Type-2 diabetes." The retrospective study found that among all new-onset diabetes in youth, the relative proportion of Type-2 diabetes, in the first year after Covid was 24.8 per cent, in the second year was 18.9 per cent, and in the third was 32.1 per cent. The findings...

[ad_1] Pharmacist Ani Martirosyan administers an immunization to a patient at a CVS on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023 in Glendale, CA. Brian Van Der Brug | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images The rollout of a new round of Covid vaccines in the U.S. is off to a bumpy start as some patients report delays in health insurance coverage for the shots.  Private insurance plans and government payers such as Medicare are required to cover the new jabs from Pfizer and Moderna , which became available late last week. U.S. regulators have recommended all Americans ages 6 months and up get the new round of vaccines.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, some private health-care providers and CVS confirmed the temporary delays in coverage and emphasized that Americans can access Covid vaccines at no cost through insurance plans. They said the reason for the delays is that some insurers are still working to update their plans to include the new vaccines. Dozens of posts on social medi...

[ad_1] The Biden administration is planning to end the COVID-19 emergency declarations on May 11, and expects to run out of government-bought vaccines and treatments as soon as this summer and fall. Those moves could spell the end for a wide range of efforts launched by health authorities over the past few years to curb the virus, although Congress and the federal government have moved to ensure some can outlive the formal end of the COVID-19 emergency. Here's the latest on what we know about what's in store. Can health authorities still track COVID-19 spread and infections? Some data the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires to be reported about COVID-19 will still be uploaded through at least 2024, according to rules finalized last year . This includes data tracking infections from hospitals and nursing homes . "For over a year, CMS has been working alongside states, public health departments, and stakehol...

[ad_1] U.S. health officials want to make COVID-19 vaccinations more like the annual flu shot. The Food and Drug Administration on Monday proposed a simplified approach for future vaccination efforts, allowing most adults and children to get a once-a-year shot to protect against the mutating virus. This means Americans would no longer have to keep track of how many shots they've received or how many months it's been since their last booster. The proposal comes as boosters have become a hard sell. While more than 80% of the U.S. population has had at least one vaccine dose, only 16% of those eligible have received the latest boosters authorized in August. The FDA will ask its panel of outside vaccine experts to weigh in at a meeting Thursday. The agency is expected to take their advice into consideration while deciding future vaccine requirements for manufacturers. In documents posted online, FDA scientists say many Ame...

[ad_1] Some U.S. parents were not honest about their children's coronavirus symptoms, quarantine measures and testing guidelines, potentially contributing to viral spread, according to a study published in the  Journal of the American Medical Association  on Monday.  The study, which was conducted by researchers in the U.S. and England, aimed to examine "the prevalence of misrepresentations of and nonadherence to COVID-19–related [public health measures] by parents regarding their children, their reasons, and associations of individual characteristics with these behaviors." Over 1,700 U.S. adults were sampled in the study over the course of December 2021, as Omicron variant rates skyrocketed across the country, including 580 parents who had children younger than 18 years old living with them throughout the pandemic. Seventy percent of the respondents were women, and all participants were recruited online. A quarter of par...

[ad_1] A judge on Tuesday prohibited several federal agencies and officials of the Biden administration from working with social media companies about "protected speech," a decision called "a blow to censorship" by one of the Republican officials whose lawsuit prompted the ruling. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana granted the injunction in response to a 2022 lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. Their lawsuit alleged that the federal government overstepped in its efforts to convince social media companies to address postings that could result in vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or affect elections. Doughty cited "substantial evidence" of a far-reaching censorship campaign. He wrote that the "evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government s...