News & Stories for Oregonians
This blog is periodically updated to reflect changes in treatment guidelines. Available in Spanish Update, 3/1/24 – The home delivery option for prescriptions obtained through Color Health is ending, and the last day to receive your prescription though home delivery is March 8. After that, the only option will be pharmacy pickup. The telehealth program […]
Available in Spanish Health officials are closely monitoring new subvariants of Omicron—BA.4.6, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. New variants and subvariants of the COVID-19 virus emerge regularly, and changes in their genetic codes sometimes make them more contagious. Here are a few things to know about the new subvariants: Public health officials are constantly monitoring COVID-19 variants […]
Available in Spanish Cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are increasing nationwide and are likely to rise in Oregon. This will strain the state’s hospital system, especially combined with an expected increase in flu and COVID-19 cases this winter. Pediatric hospital capacity is limited in Oregon and is expected to be heavily strained based on […]
Available in Spanish Here is the truth: COVID-19 vaccines and boosters are safe, and they work. They are highly effective at helping prevent hospitalizations and severe COVID-19 illness. Being vaccinated and boosted allows people to move through life with a semblance of normalcy. Unfortunately, there is a lot of false information out there about COVID-19 […]
Available in Spanish On Oct. 19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued emergency use authorization for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine to be administered as a single booster dose in some situations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed by recommending the Novavax monovalent COVID-19 booster be made available to people age 18 and older who […]
Available in Spanish Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people across the United States and the world have experienced lingering or new symptoms in the weeks and months after recovering from a COVID-19 infection. Although not fully understood yet, this condition is known as long COVID-19. Now three years in, researchers are […]
Available in Spanish Children as young as 5 years old are now eligible to receive an updated COVID-19 booster. The bivalent boosters, developed by Pfizer and Moderna, are designed to protect people from the currently predominant Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, as well as from the original COVID-19 strain. It’s a single dose that can […]
Available in Spanish Talking to kids about COVID-19 can be hard, especially when the messages surrounding the pandemic change often. But the importance of COVID-19 vaccines hasn’t changed. They slow the spread of the virus and help keep people safe. Vaccines are the best protection we have against severe COVID-19 illness , hospitalization and death. […]
Available in Spanish An unexpected upside of COVID-19 precautions such as masking indoors and avoiding crowds is that public health experts saw virtually no major flu outbreaks in the United States during the last two years. That will likely change this year. With most mandatory COVID-19 measures lifted and many people returning to pre-pandemic activities, […]
Available in Spanish The fact that we have an updated bivalent booster dose that targets the predominant variants circulating today is a wonder of science, but how do we know it’s safe and effective? In late June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) weighed administering the original COVID-19 vaccine as the next round of […]
