The CDC has issued COVID-19 testing recommendations urging fully vaccinated people to get tested three to five days after exposure to the virus even if they don't experience symptoms. Prior recommendations indicated fully vaccinated people only needed testing after exposure if they were symptomatic.

Visit the COVID Vaccine Facts for Nurses website for relevant, accurate and up-to-date information as well as expert perspectives about the safety, efficacy and importance of COVID-19 vaccines.

The White House is taking additional steps to boost the number of vaccinated Americans as a new wave of COVID-19 infections threatens areas with low vaccination rates with the mandate to require proof of vaccination from federal workers and contractors and payments of $100 for each newly vaccinated. "With freedom comes responsibility. So please exercise responsible judgment. Get vaccinated for yourself, the people you love, for your country," President Joe Biden said. Presently, the number of fully vaccinated Americans has reached 163.9 million, while the number of administered COVID-19 vaccine doses now totals 344.1 million, according to the CDC.

A study in Pediatrics found that depression screening among adolescents ages 12 to 21 years decreased from 77.6% to 75.8% and adolescents screening positive for depression increased from 5% to 6.2%, with greater increases seen among female, non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic white youths, during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared with the same period before the pandemic. The findings also showed that positive suicide risk screens increased from 6.1% to 7.1% during the same period.

AstraZeneca conducted a study to establish the risk of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome among people vaccinated with the company's COVID-19 vaccine. Results released Wednesday showed a risk of 8.1 per million among those vaccinated with the first dose and no additional risk after the second dose, according to findings reported in the journal The Lancet.

A study in the Journal of Critical Care found that sedation with propofol compared with midazolam was tied to reduced ICU stay, mechanical ventilation time and extubation time among acute surgical patients and tied to reduced extubation time for critically ill patients.

Researchers used hepatic venous and right heart ultrasound parameters to assess the development of acute kidney injury in patients who had cardiac surgery. The study is published in the Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia.

New artificial intelligence systems read people's lips by deciphering visemes -- the movements associated with speech. The technology can be useful for noisy situations, patients with vocal cord impairments and movie subtitling, but also raises concerns about corporate surveillance and deepfake production.

Eli Lilly's baricitinib was granted expanded emergency use authorization by the FDA as a COVID-19 drug that can be administered separately from Gilead's remdesivir. The expanded authorization was based on results from a trial involving 1,525 hospitalized COVID-19 patients that showed those treated with baricitinib had a lower risk of progressing to ventilator use or death compared with patients given standard of care.

A public alert has been issued by the FDA to warn health care professionals and patients that Oncopeptides' Pepaxto, or melphalan flufenamide, may cause early death in myeloma patients, citing data from a confirmatory trial. The agency has halted patient enrollment in all Pepaxto clinical studies and may convene a public meeting to "explore the continued marketing of Pepaxto," which received accelerated approval in February for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.

Johnson & Johnson said the FDA allowed the shelf life of the company's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine to be extended to six months. The decision was based on ongoing studies indicating the vaccine remains stable at six months when refrigerated.

Black Americans and Native Americans represent a disproportional number of COVID-19 deaths. Nurses are in the key position to have a direct and lifesaving impact on the recognition, care and treatment, and recovery from COVID-19 in these vulnerable populations. Learn how to recognize when there might be implicit bias and advocate for your patients. View all six 6- to 13-minute Quick Videos on this subject.