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THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE will consider a health care bill that would impose increased scrutiny on hospital expansions, House Speaker Ron Mariano said Thursday. 

Now that children ages five to 11 are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, some epidemiologists are holding out hope that it might be possible to achieve “herd immunity,” which happens when enough people are immune to a virus to make spreading it unlikely.

MASS. - Jacqueline Fitzpatrick has her 5-year-old son’s COVID-19 vacation appointment booked. She says he has asthma and is immunocompromised.

“I’ve been worried about him this whole time. I mean, if he gets a common cold, he could end up in the ER with complications," Fitzpatrick said. "So I am nervous, but I’m really excited." 

WORCESTER, Mass. — Throughout the pandemic, one of the challenges for the medical community has been finding ways to treat a new disease.

Hope is now emerging as some promising new drugs become available.

One of the myriad negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a trend of people missing out on regular cancer screenings.

And while patients are starting to head back to hospitals for services like mammograms more regularly compared to the onset of the pandemic in 2020, one UMass Memorial Health doctor said, there has been a slight decline in the number of people coming in for screenings.

Human connection is essential for all of us. In fact, social isolation can be as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and can lead to other serious health problems. COVID-19 restrictions and quarantine measures over the past year and a half have impacted everyone: individuals had to decrease social gatherings, limit visits with loved ones, and adjust to an overall lack of connectivity.

WORCESTER, Mass. — Throughout the pandemic, one of the challenges for the medical community has been finding ways to treat a new disease.

Hope is now emerging as some promising new drugs become available.

The Shrewsbury (Mass.) Surgery Center performed its first outpatient spine procedure, the center said Oct. 25. 

UMass Memorial Health neurological surgeon Arno Sungarian, MD, performed the outpatient discectomy, which took less than one hour. 

The number of cases of COVID-19 among vaccinated individuals went down last week along with overall infections, according to data released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

The percentage of breakthrough cases also decreased from the previous week.