California’s statewide mask mandate goes into effect Wednesday. For those in the Golden State, this means everyone, vaccinated and unvaccinated, must wear a face covering in indoor public spaces — for the most part.

The U.S. government will not reimburse private health insurance companies for covering the cost of at-home COVID-19 tests, a White House official said on Thursday.

Three major issues will determine the magnitude of the impact of the new Omicron variant of the Covid virus will have on the nation and the rest of the planet. What is the transmissibility of this new Covid variant? How good is it at evading the antibodies and T-cells that make up a person’s immune defences?

Lobbyists for drugmakers, pharmacists and large employers are blanketing Congress with calls, emails and advertisements, pressing lawmakers to rein in pharmaceutical middlemen, who they say are behind soaring drug costs.

Dive Brief: * New government data puts in stark relief how dramatically telehealth use exploded last year, with the share of Medicare visits conducted virtually skyrocketing from just 840,000 in 2019 to 52.7 million in 2020. * That’s a nearly 63-fold increase. Specialists like behavioral health providers saw the highest telehealth use relative to their ...

President Biden emphasized how the bill would lower prescription drug costs, an issue his administration hopes will build support for the broader package.