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The Trump administration reversed a plan to shut down the government website that ships free coronavirus tests to households late Tuesday, after The Washington Post reported that the administration was preparing to end the program and was evaluating the costs of destroying or disposing of tens of millions of tests. (Sun and Johnson, 2/18)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: The Covid ‘Contrarians’ Are In Power. We Still Haven’t Hashed Out Whether They Were Right

In October, Stanford University professor Jay Bhattacharya hosted a conference on the lessons of covid-19 in order “to do better in the next pandemic.” He invited scholars, journalists, and policy wonks who, like him, have criticized the U.S. management of the crisis as overly draconian. Bhattacharya also invited public health authorities who had considered his alternative approach reckless. None of them showed up. (Allen, 2/19)

Jessica Farren, 38, a stay-at-home mom from North Attleboro, received COVID shots during the pandemic but regrets rolling up her sleeve. She doesn’t understand why she still caught COVID after being vaccinated. Farren and her husband Nick have now forsworn all vaccines for themselves and their 2-year-old daughter. “I’m no longer going to let them stick me with a needle,” she said. Five years after the COVID outbreak sparked a frantic push for vaccines to build what public health officials called “herd immunity,” a growing number of Americans don’t want to be part of the herd. (Weisman and Hagen, 2/18)

Viruses, wildfires, emissions from manufacturing ... the list of natural and man-made airborne contaminants is long. Our air quality is affected by nearby environmental factors, as well as ripple effects from thousands of miles away. Understanding how these factors affect our health and planet is crucial. In his upcoming book, Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe (Dutton), award-winning science journalist Carl Zimmer chronicles the beginnings of the field of aerobiology, exploring how microorganisms, particles and pollutants populate the air we breathe—for good and ill. In this exclusive excerpt, Zimmer shares the story of how COVID-19 affected a small choir group and, more generally, how airborne viruses are transmitted and their implications for public health. (Zimmer, 2/19)

Investment in medical oxygen systems could save millions of lives by filling gaps in oxygen access for more than half the world's population and boosting pandemic preparedness, says a report published yesterday in The Lancet Global Health. The Lancet Global Health Commission on medical oxygen, made up of an international slate of experts, was convened in 2022 to prevent crises such as the COVID-19 supply shortages from recurring and to speed achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by making recommendations on medical oxygen to governments, industry, global health agencies, donors, and the healthcare workforce. (Van Beusekom, 2/18)