Residents of seven northeast Illinois counties — McHenry, Lake, Cook, Kendall, DuPage, Will and Grundy — face a medium level of COVID-19 risk, according to the CDC. Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said Chicagoans should consider the CDC’s medium level of risk warning as “a yellow light of caution.”
CDC
The Illinois Department of Public Health on Monday announced it has learned about three suspected cases of severe hepatitis in children under 10 that are potentially linked to a strain of the adenovirus.
Rates were close to 94% for measles, whooping cough and chickenpox vaccinations for the 2020-21 school year. That was down 1% from a year earlier and means 35,000 U.S. children entered kindergarten without evidence that they were vaccinated for extremely contagious diseases, the CDC said in a report.
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is extending the nationwide mask requirement for public transit for 15 days as it monitors an uptick in COVID-19 cases.
State health officials adopt new COVID-19 reporting guidelines
Most of Illinois is experiencing low levels of community transmission of COVID-19, but with case rates slowly rising, state health officials are sharing tips for how residents can prevent infection.
According to the newly released data, 26.3% of gay, lesbian or bisexual students attempted suicide between Jan. and June 2021. For heterosexual students, the number was 5.2% and other or questioning students at 16.5%.
The Food and Drug Administration’s decision opens a fourth dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to those age 50 or over at least four months after their previous booster.
Top Chicago public health officials say that the BA.2 omicron subvariant will be making up most of Chicago cases by the end of the month.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is developing guidance that will ease the nationwide mask mandate on airplanes, buses and other mass transit next month, according to a U.S. official, but the existing face covering requirement will be extended through April 18.
Cook County is now at the lowest level of COVID-19 risk, under new guidance set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The White House has told CNN that federal officials are “thinking about” what comes next, after the United States transitions out of the current COVID-19 emergency and into a greater state of normalcy – but officials still have not released a plan for that transition.
It depends, but you should be able to use N95s and KN95s a few times.
The papers echo previous research — including studies in Germany, South Africa and the U.K. — indicating available vaccines are less effective against omicron than earlier versions of the coronavirus, but also that boosters significantly improve protection.
One year into Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s tenure as director, her bid to make the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention more agile is being challenged by political pressures, vocal scientists and the changing virus itself.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisers voted that a booster was safe for younger teens and should be offered to them once enough time — five months — has passed since their last shot.
The decision to keep the initial definition, established more than a year ago when the vaccines first rolled out, means that federal vaccination mandates for travel or employment won’t require a booster dose.
