Axios

The White House announced Friday that Rochelle Walensky will be stepping down as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Driving the news: Walensky, who has served as CDC director since the beginning of the Biden presidency in 2021, "has saved lives with her steadfast and unwavering focus on the health of every American," President Biden said in a statement.

COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared Friday.

The big picture: It's been more than three years since the WHO first declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern — the global body's highest alert level. Since then, there have been more than 765 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly 7 million people have died of the virus.

Lawmakers should consider raising the legal age for purchasing guns and ban high-capacity magazines and assault-style weapons, former Republican Senate Majority Leader and physician Bill Frist wrote in Forbes.

Why it matters: Frist used to be one of the top GOP leaders in the country — but now he sees gun-related injuries as a public health crisis.

Endometriosis and fibroids in both Black and white women are associated with a greater risk for ovarian cancer, a new study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology found.

Why it matters: It is the first study to include enough Black women to confirm the association between fibroids — noncancerous tumors that develop in the uterus — and a modestly increased risk of ovarian cancer in this group, the study's authors said.

Death rates in the U.S. dropped an estimated 5.3% in 2022 compared to the previous year as the overall number of COVID-19 deaths fell, according to provisional data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday.

Why it matters: Even though the data is incomplete and not yet finalized, the estimates provide an "early signal" about shifts in mortality trends, the CDC said.

If the federal government breaches the debt ceiling, Medicare wouldn't be able to pay providers — and states wouldn't get their federal Medicaid funding, experts tell Axios.

Why it matters: Losing out on those payments, even for a short time, could be disastrous for providers’ bottom lines — and the effects could trickle down to patients.

Immigrant adults and children under the age of 65, including those who are undocumented, account for 8% of the U.S. population but make up nearly 32% of the uninsured population in the country, according to a new report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Why it matters: During the pandemic, states were required to keep residents on their Medicaid rolls. But as they reassess who is eligible, the number of uninsured people nationwide will likely increase.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday "gun violence is tearing the American family apart" as he confirmed a CDC employee died in this week's mass shooting in Atlanta.

Driving the news: Becerra said in a statement that officials were "still trying to process this heart-breaking news" of Wednesday's shooting that killed CDC worker Amy St. Pierre and injured four other women, per The Hill.