CNN – Health

By Travis Caldwell, Jason Hanna, Deidre McPhillips and Christina Maxouris, CNN As the Omicron variant spreads like wildfire across the United States, it’s likely just about everybody will be exposed to the strain, but vaccinated people will still fare better, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert said Tuesday. “Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of

By Katherine Dillinger, CNN A 57-year-old Maryland man is doing well three days after receiving a genetically modified pig heart in a first-of-its-kind transplant surgery, University of Maryland Medicine said in a news release Monday. David Bennett had terminal heart disease, and the pig heart was “the only currently available option,” according to the release.

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN Exercise is good for you. Breaking a sweat has been shown to improve nearly every organ in the body, fight nearly every disease doctors diagnose and improve nearly every health condition that you might live with on a daily basis. It gets even better. A new study finds exercise boosts levels

By Lisa Drayer, CNN The new year brings with it some old circumstances: working from home, self- isolating again, and having close access to food almost all of the time. Some of us may enjoy more home-cooked meals and not having to walk too far for a snack, but working close to the refrigerator poses

By Katie Hunt, CNN Like many people, historian A. Roger Ekirch thought that sleep was a biological constant — that eight hours of rest a night never really varied over time and place. But while researching nocturnal life in preindustrial Europe and America, he discovered the first evidence that many humans used to sleep in

By Dakin Andone and Susannah Cullinane, CNN About 24% of US hospitals are reporting a “critical staffing shortage,” according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services, as public health experts warn the Covid-19 surge fueled by the Omicron variant threatens the nation’s health care system. “Given how much infection there is,

By Eryn Mathewson, CNN The last 12 months have been weird for me. I’m a pretty healthy 39-year-old marathon runner. And yet I had a heart attack, was subsequently diagnosed with a rare disease, and broke my right clavicle — all within months of each other, all unexpected and unwelcome. This past year was supposed

By Travis Caldwell, CNN As a Covid-19 testing shortage compounds a burgeoning crisis of new hospitalizations, more states are racing to help hospitals and health care networks with staff and supplies. Staffing shortages are growing as frontline health care workers — who are at a higher risk of exposure — are infected and need to

By Jamie Gumbrecht, Naomi Thomas and Jen Christensen, CNN The US Food and Drug Administration is cautioning against using self-collected throat swabs for Covid-19 tests and says people should use the tests as instructed. “FACT: When it comes to at-home rapid antigen #COVID19 tests, those swabs are for your nose and not your throat,” it

By Jen Christensen, CNN Many people are hearing from their doctors that they have a “mild” Covid-19 infection amid a surge of the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus, but your illness may not feel as minor as “mild” sounds. It was true for Michelle Cordes, a dietitian at a Chicago-area hospital. She’s vaccinated

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN As a professionally trained dancer for nearly 20 years, I’ve found that a combination of pirouettes and leaps across the floor can leave me sweaty and breathing heavily on the other side — but I often don’t even notice it. The rush of joy, power and freedom of dancing far outweighs

By Travis Caldwell and Mallika Kallingal, CNN Covid-19 hospitalization rates among children are soaring in the United States, with an average of 4.3 children under 5 per 100,000 hospitalized with an infection as of the week ending January 1, up from 2.6 children the previous week, according to data from the US Centers for Disease

By Naomi Thomas, Virginia Langmaid and Jamie Gumbrecht, CNN Former health advisers to President Joe Biden say the US strategy for the Covid-19 pandemic needs to be updated to face a “new normal” of living with the virus, rather than aiming to eliminate it. In three pieces published in the Journal of the American Medical

By Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent With more than a half-million Americans being officially diagnosed with Covid-19 every day, the need for clear guidance on isolation and quarantine is critically important. Sadly, the guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is continuously changing, confusing and at times contradictory. Dr. Gerald

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN Wearing headsets, 18 subjects lay quietly while a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI) droned on around their heads. They listened as a female voice recited a famous line from a cherished children’s book, “The Little Prince.” “It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential

By Katia Hetter, CNN Schools are shutting down and children’s hospitals are filling up with young patients sick from the latest, most highly transmissible coronavirus variant, Omicron. Parents and caregivers are once again faced with what to do to keep their kids safe and occupied during another year of pandemic life. Is it OK to

By Megan Marples, CNN Homes adorned with twinkling holiday lights are a common sight in December, but by January, many lights are gone. Not this year. Many people are looking to keep the holiday spirit going. In communities big and small, people are calling on their fellow neighbors to keep their lights hung through the

By Travis Caldwell, CNN While the highly transmissible Omicron variant continues to drive up Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations — and the numbers are likely to get worse before they get better — health experts say it’s critical Americans continue safe practices to prevent infections. “I don’t buy the idea that we are all going to

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN There are lots of great reasons to decide to go “dry” in January and give up alcohol. Perhaps you imbibed a bit too much over the holidays, or want to start a diet or exercise routine and can’t afford the calories or the zap in energy and motivation that drinking can

By Travis Caldwell, CNN As the number of Covid-19 hospitalizations surpasses those during the Delta variant surge over the summer and fall, more states are enacting emergency protocols to deal with growing staff shortages at hospitals. The greater transmissibility of the Omicron variant — which in just one month has led to millions of new

By Katia Hetter, CNN The United States is facing an unprecedented surge of Covid-19 infections, driven in large part by the very highly contagious Omicron variant. New research is coming out every day about Omicron, and people have many questions about what this surge — and the new variant — means for considering personal risk.

By Phyllis L. Fagell, CNN While a seventh grade boy taught an eighth grade boy how to start a knitting row, a seventh grade girl put the finishing touches on her knit bunny and a diverse group of middle schoolers streamed into a classroom in Washington, DC, for knitting club. As the pandemic drags on,

By Holly Yan and Travis Caldwell, CNN More children are getting hospitalized with Covid-19 than ever before as the Omicron variant’s dominance intensifies. An average of 672 children were admitted to hospitals every day with Covid-19 during the week ending Sunday, the highest such number of the pandemic, according to data from the Centers for

By Miguel Marquez and Holly Yan, CNN At Texas Children’s Hospital, 4-month-old Graysen Perry has Covid-19 and is struggling to breathe. His mom, Gayvielle Goff, is struggling to talk. “It’s just really scary,” Goff said, trying to suppress tears. At the same Houston hospital, 17-year-old Halie Mulanax is fighting Covid-19 on a ventilator. She’s never

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN The US Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use authorization for booster doses of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 12 to 15 Monday. The agency also shaved four weeks off the waiting period for the booster after the administration of the second dose, from at least six months to at

By Lauren Kent, CNN New Year’s resolutions aren’t just for adults anymore. A new year can bring new excitement and opportunities to grow for kids, too. They can learn to focus on healthy habits and new goals just like adults. New Year’s resolutions can be a beneficial way for kids to get motivated, according to

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN The US Food and Drug Administration on Monday expanded the emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine boosters to children ages 12 to 15. The agency also shortened the time needed before receiving a booster shot from at least six months after completion of the initial series to at least five

By Chloe Melas, CNN I’m really tired. No, seriously. I don’t think I’ve slept through the night in four years. What could be causing my sleep issues, you ask? I’m the mom of two young boys, ages 2 and 4, and they haven’t ever slept through the night except for a few months when they

By Deidre McPhillips and Derrick Hinds, CNN More than 103,000 people are currently hospitalized with Covid-19, the first time the total has reached six figures in nearly four months, according to the latest data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. Covid-19 hospitalizations reached a record high of more than 142,000 about a

By Christina Maxouris and Holly Yan, CNN The new year is starting with a massive influx of Covid-19 that’s different from any other during this pandemic, doctors say. “We’re seeing a surge in patients again, unprecedented in this pandemic,” said Dr. James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University Hospital. “What’s coming for

By Katy Milkman, CNN It’s that time of year again. Champagne bottles have been popped, balls have dropped, and now your friends, family and colleagues are starting to ask, “What’s your New Year’s resolution?” Some people love the tradition of setting a goal each January 1. Others argue it’s a waste of time since most

By Christina Maxouris and Alaa Elassar, CNN The US is ringing in the new year amid a Covid-19 surge experts warn is exploding at unprecedented speed and could alter daily life for many Americans during the first month of 2022. “Omicron is truly everywhere,” Dr. Megan Ranney, a professor of emergency medicine at Brown University’s