Maria Cheng

AP Medical Writer

Maya Goode, a COVID-19 technician, performs a test on Jessica Sanchez outside Asthenis Pharmacy in Providence, R.I., Dec. 7, 2021. Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically.

Omicron May Be Headed for Rapid Drop in U.S.

At the same time, experts warn that much is still uncertain about how the next phase of the pandemic might unfold.

Pfizer Agrees to Let Other Companies Make its COVID-19 Pill

Generic drug companies could produce the pill for use in 95 countries.

In this June 3, 2021 file photo an elderly patient receives a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, at a clinic at Orange Farm, near Johannesburg.

South African Firm to Make Pfizer Vaccine, First in Africa

The Biovac Institute will manufacture the vaccine for distribution across the continent.

In this Friday Nov. 6, 2020 file photo, Henrik Nordgaard Hansen and Ann-Mona Kulsoe Larsen kill their herd, which consists of 3000 mother minks and their cubs, on their farm near Naestved, Denmark.

Coronavirus Spread in Minks Could Speed Mutations

Agency warns that COVID-19 transmission among animals could speed up mutations before it potentially jumps back to people.

Compulsive Video-Gaming a Mental Health Problem

Studies show that compulsive gaming can trigger brain pathways in a manner similar to that of a drug addict.

In this undated photo made available on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 by Case Western Reserve University, Bill Kochevar feeds himself, in Cleveland, Ohio. A paralyzed man was able to feed himself for the first time in eight years, after doctors implanted electronic sensors into his brain and arm that restored the broken connection between them. Kochevar, 56, was paralyzed from the shoulders down after a cycling accident in Cleveland nearly a decade ago.

Paralyzed Man Moves Again After Implants

He was able to feed himself for the first time in almost a decade after doctors implanted sensors in his brain that sent signals to his arm.

This June 21, 2016 photo shows a smartphone held for a photograph in New York. In a letter published Wednesday, June 22, 2016 in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors detailed separate cases of two women who experienced 'transient smartphone blindness' for months. Doctors discovered it was caused when they looked at their device with one eye while in bed in the dark _ and their other eye covered by a pillow.

Blindness Tied to Smartphone Use

Warning: Looking at your smartphone while lying in bed at night could wreak havoc on your vision.