Pien Huang

The White House is allocating an additional $1 billion to purchase millions of rapid at-home tests for COVID-19, in response to an ongoing national shortage of these tests. The announcement was made by White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeffrey Zients at a briefing on Wednesday.

Through July and August, Julie Smith watched her husband, Jeffrey, get worse and worse from COVID-19. In early July, the healthy outdoorsman, 51, had tested positive for the coronavirus. Within a week, he was admitted to the intensive care unit at a hospital near their home in the suburbs of Cincinnati.

Health officials are preparing to roll out COVID-19 booster shots in the United States this September. According to a plan announced Wednesday, all U.S. adults who received a two-dose vaccine would be eligible for an additional jab of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine eight months from when they got their second one.

It's inevitable that when kids mix — returning from camp or heading back to school — germs spread. And in a pandemic year fueled by the delta variant, some of those germs may cause COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advice for keeping your child protected from this highly contagious version of the coronavirus now and this fall: Mask up in schools and other crowded venues, and make sure everyone age 12 and older in the family gets a COVID-19 shot.

Alba Feliz is a little nervous about getting the vaccine. At 17, she's the first person in her immediate family to seriously consider getting it. "In my house, they never really trust the vaccine," she says. Social media has been her main source of information, and the contradictory messages have been confusing.

The summer surge in COVID-19 cases is an unwelcome surprise for health officials and experts who thought, for a brief period, that the U.S. had the coronavirus pandemic largely under control.

The first cruise set to sail from American ports in more than 15 months is headed to the Caribbean this summer.

Celebrity Cruises got approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to bring passengers aboard for the seven-night cruise on June 26, the company announced this week.

"CDC and the cruise industry agree that the industry has what it needs to move forward and no additional roadblocks exist for resuming sailing by mid-summer," CDC spokesperson Caitlin Shockey confirmed in an email.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revised earlier guidelines regarding mask use and vaccinations at summer camps. The updated guidelines, released Friday, now say that at camps where everyone has been fully vaccinated, campers can sing, play sports and weave baskets mask-free – except where required by local law.

It's been a long year for basically everyone — and especially for Dr. Henry Walke. For months on end, Walke has been pulling 13-hour work days as the COVID-19 incident response manager at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a job he took on last July.

He never expected the job to last this long. "The scale of this pandemic is mind-boggling, and it's affected all of us — every facet of our work and home," he says.

COVID-19 vaccinations are on the rise in the U.S. — and so are coronavirus cases.

After a plateau lasting several weeks, the number of cases is once again on the increase in parts of the country.

New cases, test positivity rates and hospital admissions are creeping upward. An increase in daily COVID-19 deaths is likely to follow, health officials say.

Two suicide bombers attacked a Roman Catholic church compound in Makassar, Indonesia, on Sunday morning, injuring at least 20 people, according to state officials. While no deaths among the churchgoers have been reported, police say both attackers died in the blast.

The attack happened at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral around 10:30 a.m., as a round of mass was wrapping up at the church. The bombers attempted to enter the church compound on motorbike and detonated at least one bomb by an entrance to the compound, according to news reports.

More than 500,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S.

This week President Biden is asking Americans to mark the 500,000 deaths with a moment of silence at sunset Monday. He's also ordered flags on all federal buildings lowered to half-staff for five days.

COVID-19 vaccines are scarce. Many people who want the shots can't get them yet, either because they're not yet eligible, according to priorities set by their state or county, or because there aren't any available appointments.