President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Thursday proposed a $1.9 trillion rescue package to combat the economic downturn and the Covid-19 crisis, outlining the type of sweeping aid that Democrats have demanded for months and signaling the shift in the federal government’s pandemic response as Mr. Biden prepares to take office. The package includes more ...

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Friday said he would order increased production of syringes and other supplies to ramp up vaccinations against COVID-19 and improve upon the Trump administration rollout that he called a “dismal failure.” Under Biden’s plan, federal disaster-relief workers would set up thousands of vaccination centers, where retired doctors would administer shots ...

CMS on Friday finalized a rule it estimates will save the federal government $75.4 million over the next decade in Medicare Advantage and Part D payments, with the agency crediting cost-savings to several measures enacted to curb prescription drug spending. Under the new rule, CMS expanded drug and medication therapy management programs that require Medicare ...

California lifted a stay-at-home order in the 13-county Sacramento region on Tuesday as hospital conditions improved, a rare turn of good news as the state pushes through what Gov. Gavin Newsom called “its most intense surge” of the coronavirus. The order imposed Dec. 10 banned gatherings outside a household and shuttered or restricted many businesses. ...

As the total number of coronavirus infections in California approaches 3 million, health officials said Sunday that a new strain — different from a highly contagious variant first identified in the United Kingdom — is popping up more frequently across the state. Researchers have identified the strain in a dozen counties and have linked it ...

California on Monday became the first state to record more than 3 million known coronavirus infections. The grim milestone, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, wasn’t entirely unexpected in a state with 40 million residents but its speed stunning. The state only reached 2 million reported cases on Dec. 24. The first coronavirus case in ...