EXEC COVID-19 News
Limited Evidence of Mortality Displacement After COVID-19
2026 10 Mar
All-cause mortality trends shifted sharply during the COVID-19 years, interrupting long-standing declines in many high-income settings. Recent mortality data from 2024 suggest that some countries may be approaching prepandemic trends, but an apparent improvement can have different explanations. One possibility is mortality displacement, somet1 Read more
Information Theory Maps Hospital Workflow Shifts
2025 18 Nov
Hospitals generate continuous operational data that reveal how care routines form, shift and recover. Information-theory measures provide a practical lens on these patterns without relying on averages alone. Entropy summarises how predictable laboratory ordering is across a day, while surprisal captures how unusual a specific order time is co1 Read more
Global Mortality Patterns Shift as COVID-19 Recedes
2025 03 Nov
Regular, comparable assessments of causes of death help set health priorities. Updated estimates now cover 292 causes across 204 countries and territories, plus 660 subnational locations, for each year from 1990 to 2023. The analysis combines death counts, rates and years of life lost (YLLs) and adds two intuitive measures: the probability of1 Read more
Women’s Health and Arterial Ageing After COVID-19
2025 15 Oct
Dear readers, It’s time for my thoughts from the island. I read Luke Taylor’s recent article about the first major research study into women’s health following COVID-19 ( New Scientist , September 9, 2025), with great interest. The study of more than 2300 women over 50, across 16 countries, highlighted something both striking and u1 Read more
Outpatient Care Dynamics in Older Europeans from 2004 to 2022
2025 07 Oct
Understanding how older adults use outpatient care is central to planning services and safeguarding access after major disruptions. Longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe tracked 147,116 people aged 50 years or older across 27 European countries from 2004 to 2022, generating 505,607 observations. Outpatie1 Read more
European Court: Doctors’ Role in COVID 19 Vaccine Administration
2025 03 Feb
On 30 January 2025, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered a pivotal judgement in case C-586/23 P, involving Italian physician Giovanni Frajese and the European Commission. This ruling has significant implications for medical practitioners administering COVID-19 vaccines, particularly concerning the necessity of medical prescriptions and do1 Read more
Addressing Physician Burnout: A Focus on Well-Being and Performance
2025 09 Jan
Physician burnout is a critical issue in healthcare, directly linked to key performance indicators such as patient safety and care quality. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly amplified this concern, with nearly two-thirds of physicians reporting burnout symptoms, a sharp increase from previous years. Burnout not only affects the mental healt1 Read more
Urgency to Extend Telehealth Prescribing Flexibilities for Controlled Substances
2024 14 Oct
As the end of the year approaches, telehealth advocates are raising alarms about the potential expiration of virtual prescribing flexibilities for controlled substances. These temporary allowances, enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, have provided critical access to essential treatments for patients across the United States, particularly tho1 Read more
Addressing Physician Burnout: A Call for Meaningful Change
2024 02 Oct
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical community continues to struggle with unprecedented levels of burnout among physicians. According to a recent study by The Physicians Foundation, approximately 60% of doctors report experiencing burnout regularly—a troubling statistic that has remained consistent for four consecutive years1 Read more
Strategic Approaches to Enhance COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake
2024 01 Aug
As we brace for the upcoming fall and winter, the challenges posed by COVID-19 remain significant, particularly with the emergence of new variants and a noticeable decline in public acceptance of vaccination. The initial rollout of vaccines drastically altered the pandemic's course, preventing millions of hospitalisations and deaths. However,1 Read more
Accelerating Healthcare Transformation through Leadership Competencies
2024 11 Jul
The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably accelerated the adoption of digital healthcare technologies by both providers and consumers. In response, numerous companies have ventured into the healthcare arena, offering services such as pharmaceutical deliveries, telehealth visits, concierge primary care, and a myriad of other e-health solutions. This1 Read more
Bridging the Gap in Organ Transplants: Power in Technology, Data & Support
2024 27 Jun
Transplant surgeons continuously grapple with the daunting challenge of organ shortages, a struggle exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Technological advancements and medical research have improved post-transplant survival rates, but these successes have also heightened the organ demand. Innovative techniques and data-driven approaches are 1 Read more
Director-General’s Award: Barbados PM & mRNA Vaccine Developers Honored for COVID-19 Efforts
2024 27 May
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus presented his Award for Global Health to the Prime Minister of Barbados and two scientists for their contributions to advancing global health at the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly. The Director-General’s Award for Global Health, established in 2019, goes to Her Excellency, Mia Mot1 Read more
Moderna Wins COVID Shot Patent Case Against Pfizer-BioNTech in Europe
2024 17 May
Moderna said on Friday the European Patent Office had upheld the validity of one of the company's key patents, a win in an ongoing COVID-19 vaccine dispute with Pfizer and BioNTech The company has been locked in a legal battle with Pfizer-BioNTech over their COVID shot Comirnaty after suing them in 2022 for allegedly copying its mRNA 1 Read more
Implementation of Remote Monitoring Solutions: Barriers & Facilitators
2024 16 May
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of remote healthcare pathways worldwide, moving away from traditional face-to-face models. This shift includes integrating telemedicine and remote monitoring solutions, which offer advantages such as reducing viral exposure risk and providing quality care remotely. The concept of "virtual ward1 Read more
Novavax & Sanofi to Co-commercialize COVID-19 Vaccine & Develop Combo Vaccines
2024 10 May
Agreement provides individuals with broader access to a protein-based non-mRNA adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine through combined commercial strength, from 2025 onwards Provides Novavax with cash and an equity investment totalling approximately $1.2 billion (upfront payment of $500 million and up to $700 million in additional development, 1 Read more
AstraZeneca Says it Will Withdraw COVID-19 Vaccine Globally as Demand Dips
2024 08 May
AstraZeneca said on Tuesday it had initiated the worldwide withdrawal of its COVID-19 vaccine due to a "surplus of available updated vaccines" since the pandemic. The company also said it would proceed to withdraw the vaccine Vaxzevria's marketing authorizations within Europe. "As multiple, variant COVID-19 vaccines have since1 Read more
Long-term Impact of Telemedicine Adoption on Outcomes, Spending and ER Visits
2024 30 Apr
During the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine saw a significant surge in usage, which has persisted even after the initial spike. This was facilitated by temporary regulatory changes and reimbursement expansions by various payers. Congress extended Medicare's coverage of telemedicine until December 2024, but without further action, this coverage1 Read more
Google's HeAR: New AI Tool for Health Monitoring Through Sound Analysis
2024 05 Apr
A team of Google scientists has unveiled a groundbreaking machine-learning tool named Health Acoustic Representations (HeAR) designed to detect and monitor various health conditions by analysing sounds like coughing and breathing. This innovative artificial intelligence (AI) system, trained on an extensive dataset comprising millions of human 1 Read more
Long COVID Symptoms: Researchers Highlight Role of Enzyme-Like Antibodies
2024 04 Apr
Researchers at UVA Health, led by Dr. Steven L. Zeichner, have discovered a potential explanation for some of the mysteries surrounding COVID-19 and long COVID. They found that COVID-19 can induce the production of antibodies, termed "abzymes," that mimic enzymes regulating essential body functions like blood pressure, blood clotting, and infl1 Read more