Japan to offer omicron COVID shots to people vaccinated at least twice

New COVID-19 vaccines considered effective against the omicron variant will be available to all people who have completed at least two inoculations from as early as mid-October, the government said Monday. The bivalent vaccines, so named for their combination of ingredients deriving from existing COVID-19 shots and from omicron’s BA.1…

5 stages of grief, and how to get through them

“In the actual book, she talked about more than five stages,” Kessler said. “Think about the context of 1969 — doctors and hospital personnel were not talking about the end-of-life process. … Elisabeth really hoped ‘On Death and Dying’ would start the conversation.” Grief and psychology experts and academics have…

Shifting your relationship from ‘me’ to ‘we’

What happens when you stop focusing solely on individual needs and start viewing your relationship as a shared ecosystem with your partner? That’s the premise of Real’s new book, “Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship.” And as soon as I read Springsteen’s foreword, I…

Japan confirms first monkeypox case as it steps up preparation for outbreak

Japan confirmed its first case of monkeypox Monday, with the news coming on the same day that the nation stepped up preparations for an outbreak following the World Health Organization’s declaration over the weekend that the viral disease constitutes a global public health emergency. The patient is a Tokyo resident…

US formula shortage persists and will ‘take a while to fix’

Formula stock rates have been dropping since the end of February, when the US Food and Drug Administration shut down a major formula plant and issued a recall of products manufactured there after an inspection found dangerous bacteria in several areas. The closure exacerbated shortages caused by supply chain disruptions,…

Hoping for a breakthrough, the search for answers on long Covid continues

A new US study is the latest to identify several factors that make some people more susceptible to long Covid than others. Yet with millions around the globe experiencing debilitating symptoms weeks or months after first being infected, the medical establishment does not yet understand why.  Patients who have been obese…