COVID-19

Dr. Joseph Bailey is TriHealth's pediatric medical director and deals with illnesses in kids and teens on a daily basis. He says this year has been a bit different.

"All of those preventive measures we know work, which is social distancing, staying home when you don't feel well, testing for both COVID and flu, and getting vaccinated," The Health Collaborative's Tiffany Mattingly says.

Pediatricians are dealing with an early flu season on top of RSV cases in children and continuing COVID cases.

Interim Health Commissioner Grant Mussman says the numbers look like the omicron surge. “Whether that means there’s exactly the same amount of transmission of COVID out there in the community as during omicron, that we don’t really know,” he says. “But it’s likely that there’s a fair amount of transmission out there that we’re not detecting.”

Even if your job has you returning to the office, what that means could change as the world tries to move on from the pandemic.

The expiration date printed on the free COVID-19 test distributed by the federal government may not be telling the full story. The FDA earlier this year approved a request from the manufacturer to extend expiration dates.

Education world has waited nervously for the first NAEP release since the pandemic. Scores show evidence of severe learning loss, especially in math.

The good news is the bivalent COVID-19 booster, that's now available, seems to be performing well in early tests at preventing the virus and also protecting against long COVID-19 symptoms.

University of Cincinnati Infectious Disease expert Dr. Carl Ficthenbaum says the public should be prepared for new COVID variants and an increase in cases as the weather gets colder and people congregate indoors more. But for now, the numbers are encouraging.

The first hint of what could be in store is what's happening in Europe. Infections have been rising in many European countries, including the U.K., France, and Italy.