Author: Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

WASHINGTON • Fighting the omicron variant surging through the country, President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that the government would provide 500 million free rapid tests, increase support for hospitals under strain and redouble vaccination and boosting efforts. At the White House on Tuesday, Biden detailed major changes to his COVID-19 winter plan, his hand forced…

WASHINGTON • President Joe Biden’s administration announced Tuesday that it is moving to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines, freeing up more doses for states and beginning to distribute them to retail pharmacies next week. The push comes amid new urgency to speed vaccinations to prevent the spread of potentially more serious strains of the virus…

WASHINGTON • The Trump administration health official embroiled in a furor over political meddling with the coronavirus response is taking a leave of absence, the government said Wednesday. The Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that Michael Caputo was taking the time “to focus on his health and the well-being of…

WASHINGTON • Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that he is cautiously optimistic there will be a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year or early 2021, but warned that the next few weeks will be critical to tamping down coronavirus hot spots around the country. Fauci and other top health officials also said they…

WASHINGTON • A government scientist was ousted after the Trump administration ignored his dire warnings about COVID-19 and a malaria drug President Donald Trump was pushing for the coronavirus despite scant evidence it helped, according to a whistleblower complaint Tuesday. Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, filed the complaint…

WASHINGTON • The Trump administration announced a plan Wednesday to start paying hospitals and doctors who care for uninsured patients with COVID-19, but Democratic lawmakers and health industry groups are likely to press for more. Under the approach detailed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, hospitals and doctors would submit their bills directly…

WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that a widespread U.S. outbreak of the new respiratory virus sweeping the globe isn’t inevitable even as top health authorities at his side warned Americans that more infections are coming. Shortly after Trump spoke, the government announced a worrisome development: Another person in the U.S. is infected —…

WASHINGTON • Alarmed by a deadly new twist in the nation’s drug addiction crisis, the government will allow states to use federal money earmarked for the opioid epidemic to help growing numbers of people struggling with meth and cocaine. The little-noticed change is buried in a spending bill passed by Congress late last year. Pressed…