A federal judge ordered an Annapolis man and his medical lab companies to pay $26.3 million for billing Medicare for unnecessary respiratory tests during the coronavirus pandemic.

The study looked at 1,502 American women who had been sick with COVID-19 for the first time while pregnant and had long covid symptoms at least six months after infection. Some 61% of participants had their first infection after December 2021, and 51.4%, were fully vaccinated before they became infected.

The risk of developing long COVID — enduring, sometimes punishing symptoms that linger well after a coronavirus infection — has decreased since the start of the pandemic. But the dip does not mean the risk of developing long COVID has vanished.

When Ariana Ramsey was a sophomore in high school, she was a speedster looking for more of a contact sport than track and field could offer. “But I didn’t really enjoy track,” Ramsey said. “It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t engaging. Then I started playing rugby, found out I could go to college for it, and I took off running.”

A summer COVIE wave has washed over most of the United States, bringing yet another round of gatherings turned into superspreaders, vacations foiled by illness and reminders that pandemic life has not been fully erased. Not even President Biden was spared.

In a nationwide survey conducted after the most isolating period of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 28% of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 said they “always” received the social and emotional support they needed.

The CDC’s timeline of the pandemic started Dec. 12, 2019, when patients in Wuhan, China, began having symptoms of a pneumonia-like illness that didn’t respond to standard treatments. Since that time, announcements of mutations of the virus have kept citizens on edge.

COVID infections are growing in nearly all states — with the sharpest increases in the West, according to CDC data. The FLiRT and LB.1 variants are most common.

The summer of 2024 is already bringing soaring temperatures to Georgia along with something else that has become almost a given: a seasonal COVID-19 wave. Cases are growing or likely growing in 39 states, according to the CDC, signaling that a summer bump is underway.

When Congress sent tens of billions of dollars to schools — an unprecedented sum — to battle the coronavirus pandemic, the hardest part was helping students recover from severe academic losses. The money did help, but it did not finish the job.