Latest COVID-19 Headlines

All the headlines from our COVID-19 Topic Page, ordered by recency.

What the Supreme Court Justices Said in Blocking OSHA’s COVID-19 Workplace Rule

Jan 14 2022 // The Supreme Court yesterday blocked the Biden Administration from implementing an order requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to require COVID-19 vaccines or testing and masks for their employees.In National...

Workplace Class Action Payouts Unexpectedly Grew During Pandemic in 2021

Jan 14 2022 // The cost of settling workplace class-action lawsuits reached a record high in 2021, defying expectations that the COVID-19 pandemic would decrease the size and reduce the number of payouts, according to a new report by the...

Health Insurers Cooperating With Plan to Pay for Home COVID Tests Starting Saturday

Jan 13 2022 // Starting Saturday, private health insurers will be required to cover up to eight home COVID-19 tests per month for people on their plans. The Biden administration announced the change Monday as it looks to lower costs and...

Global Life Insurers Adapt Pandemic Risk Models After Unexpected Jump in Claims

Jan 13 2022 // A coronavirus pandemic which lasts five years, another pandemic in a decade, and ever more transmissible variants are among the scenarios life insurers are predicting after COVID-19 claims jumped more than expected in...

Employers Fear Long-Term Liability From ‘Take-Home’ COVID-19 Lawsuits

Jan 12 2022 // As COVID-19 cases surge in the United States, businesses say they fear a California court ruling has increased the likelihood that companies will be sued for infections, even by people who are not employees or...

Oregon Rolling Out Hospital Crisis Care Standards as COVID Surges

Jan 11 2022 // Oregon hospitals have new interim guidelines to help them determine which patients should get lifesaving care if the current COVID-19 surge forces them to choose between people because of a lack of beds, staff or critical...

Pandemic Adding Cost to Rebuild After Colorado Wildfire

Jan 11 2022 // Rex and Barba Hickman’s home of 23 years near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains has been reduced to a blackened heap by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history.Before the Dec. 30 blaze, which ripped...

Louisiana Supreme Court Upholds Employer COVID Vaccine Mandate

Jan 10 2022 // The Louisiana Supreme Court on Jan. 7 unanimously upheld a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the state’s largest healthcare system.The ruling was handed down the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about...

Kansas High Court Ruling Keeps Law Allowing COVID Lawsuits Alive

Jan 10 2022 // Kansas’ highest court on Jan. 7 kept intact a law that allows people to sue counties over mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions and obtain quick trial-court decisions.The Kansas Supreme Court declined to...

California Governor Wants $2.7B to Battle Pandemic, Seeks More Time off for Sick Workers

Jan 10 2022 // With new coronavirus cases surging across the state, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration on Saturday proposed spending another $2.7 billion to expand testing and boost hospital staffing, while calling for a...

Flurry of Briefs Filed Supporting, Opposing OSHA COVID-19 ETS in U.S. Supreme Court

Jan 6 2022 // With the January 7, 2022, oral argument over the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Vaccine or Test Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) in the U.S. Supreme Court fast-approaching, many amici curiae...

Study Questions Link Between In-Person Schooling and COVID Infection Rates

Jan 6 2022 // A new study shows that COVID-19 incidence rates were not statistically different in counties with in-person learning versus remote school modes in most regions of the U.S.Many educators believe that in-person learning...

COVID Spike Forcing Florida Hospital’s Maternity Ward to Close, For Now

Jan 5 2022 // A South Florida hospital has temporarily closed its maternity ward due to staff-shortages related to recent outbreaks of COVID-19.Mothers-to-be who had planned on giving birth at Holy Cross Health in Fort Lauderdale will...

COVID-Cautious Supreme Court Preparing to Rule on Biden Vaccine Mandates

Jan 5 2022 // The U.S. Supreme Court, which has restricted its own operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, is preparing to decide whether to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates for large businesses and healthcare workers...

COVID-19 Claims of $44B Are 3rd Largest Catastrophe Loss: Howden

Jan 4 2022 // Insured losses of $44 billion from COVID-19 so far represent the third largest cost to insurers of any catastrophe, behind Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attacks, insurance broker Howden said on Tuesday.However, initial...

Maryland Resumes Reporting COVID-19 Deaths After Cyber Attack

Jan 3 2022 // Maryland officials resumed reporting coronavirus deaths Tuesday after a more than three week interruption amid an apparent cyberattack, adding more than 400 deaths to the state’s tally.At least 415 Marylanders died...

Global COVID-19 Cases at Record High, as Omicron Variant Races Out of Control

Dec 29 2021 // SYDNEY/ROME – Global COVID-19 infections hit a record high over the past seven-day period, Reuters data showed on Wednesday, as the new Omicron variant raced out of control, keeping workers at home and overwhelming...

Study Finds Pandemic Lockdowns Only Work for a Limited Time

Dec 28 2021 // As the world struggles to contain the spread of COVID-19, many countries grapple with the possibility of imposing more lockdown measures, like those widely used in the spring of 2020.But how well do lockdowns work at...

Workplace Fatalities Fell 10.7% During Pandemic in 2020 But Severe Illness Cases Rose

Dec 27 2021 // During the pandemic, worker deaths decreased by 10.7% in 2020 compared to 2019, with 4,764 fatal workplace injuries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its annual report on workplace fatalities for 2020. This...

Supreme Court to Take Up COVID Mandate Jan. 7

Dec 27 2021 // The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Jan. 7 on whether the Biden administration can order workers at private companies and health care employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19. Until the court rules, millions of...