New Orleans officials issued a public health advisory on Wednesday "strongly recommending" that people wear face masks indoors, the Associated Press reports.
Why it matters: COVID-19 cases, driven by the Delta variant, are once again surging across the country. Earlier this week CDC Director Rochelle Walensky cited Louisiana among a handful of states with low vaccination rates that are driving a plurality of new cases.
France announced Wednesday that visitors will need a COVID-19 pass to visit tourist venues such as the Eiffel Tower as cases in the country begin to rise, CBS News reports.
Why it matters: The new requirement comes after cases are starting to soar in the country and the Delta variant accounts for 96% of new cases, France's Health Minister Olivier Véran said, per CBS News.
The three dominant prescription drug distributors — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — and Johnson & Johnson have agreed to pay a combined amount of $26 billion to settle allegations that they fueled the country's opioid crisis.
Why it matters: The companies, which have admitted no wrongdoing, are paying a sum of money that equates to 4% of their combined annual revenue. Meanwhile, a record 70,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses during the pandemic in 2020.
Anthem is "going to continue to evaluate" the data around Aduhelm, the controversial Alzheimer's drug, before making final insurance coverage decisions, CEO Gail Boudreaux told investors Wednesday.
Why it matters: Several other Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers have said they will not cover Aduhelm, but Anthem is still weighing the options like its competitor UnitedHealth, which also wants to wait and see what the federal government says.
Nearly 90% of the University of Alabama's football team has been vaccinated for COVID-19, head coach Nick Saban said at a press conference Wednesday.
Why it matters: The high percentage of vaccinated players on the team stands in contrast to the overall low vaccination rates in Alabama, where only 42.4% of people over the age of 18 have been fully vaccinated, according to the New York Times.
The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday warned that the world is in the early stages of another wave of coronavirus infections and deaths.
What he's saying: The global failure to share vaccines, testing and treatments has led to a "two-track pandemic — the haves are opening up, while the have-nots are locking down," said Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a speech to an International Olympic Committee meeting.
Pfizer and BioNTech will partner with The Biovac Institute, a South African biopharmaceutical company, to manufacture COVID vaccines for distribution within the African Union, the companies announced Tuesday.
Why it matters: Just 3% of people in Africa have received a single shot, a reflection of the growing gap in vaccine equity around the world. The number of new coronavirus cases in Africa has doubled every three weeks amid a wave of Delta variant infections.
Americans' medical debt added up to about $140 billion last year, according to new research published Tuesday in JAMA. Americans owe debt collectors more medical debt than any other source of debt.
By the numbers: Looking at 10% of all credit reports from credit rating agency TransUnion, researchers said they found nearly one in five Americans had medical debt in collections in June 2020.
Chicago added three states and a U.S. territory to its COVID-19 travel advisory Tuesday.
The big picture: State and local-level travel rules were a blunt-force approach to slowing the pandemic last year — and ones that often proved difficult to actually enforce.
Repealing one of former President Trump's last big moves on drug pricing may go a long way toward helping Democrats pay for two of their big legislative priorities.
The big picture: Repealing Trump's regulations on drug rebates could give Democrats upwards of $100 billion to help pay for other priorities.
If HCA Healthcare's second-quarter earnings are any kind of bellwether for hospital systems, then it's clear patients came back in droves to get emergency care or elective care that had to be delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The big picture: "Our volume, as indicated in the second quarter, will return to 2019 levels and perhaps moderately above that," HCA's CFO Bill Rutherford told investors.
U.S. life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020 — and the drop was some three years for Black and Hispanic Americans, CDC data published Wednesday shows.
Why it matters: The overall life expectancy decline to 77.3 years is the biggest since World War II to 77.3 years is driven by the COVID-19, per the provisional data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). It also underscores the racial disparities of the pandemic.
New York City will announce requirements Wednesday for health workers in city-run hospitals and clinics to get vaccinated or weekly testing, per the New York Times.
Why it matters: Though Mayor Bill de Blasio has dragged his feet on mandating coronavirus vaccinations, the Delta variant has ushered in fear amid a third wave of new cases. The new policy is likely to cover over 10% of the 300,000 people who work for city government.
Congress, staffers and reporters are wearing masks again as Capitol Hill faces a new wave of the coronavirus despite widespread vaccinations.
Why it matters: The Delta variant is surging, and Congress is a potential petri dish for the new variant. House and Senate leaders are weighing whether to reintroduce coronavirus protocols to the Capitol. While most lawmakers have been vaccinated, they fit high-risk profiles and work in close quarters.
