There are too few Latino nurses. Covid showed how important they are. Fewer than six percent of U.S. registered nurses are Latino as Covid-19 showed the need for more Hispanics in the profession. Some programs are trying to expand opportunity. NBC News

Registered nurse Luis Medina walked into his shift in December and was told a positive Covid-19 patient was resisting wearing his oxygen mask. Despite repeated attempts by a fellow nurse, they said, it was hard to communicate with the patient, because he spoke Spanish.

The F.D.A. tells Johnson & Johnson to throw out about 60 million doses made at troubled plant

WASHINGTON — After weeks of review of a troubled Baltimore factory, federal regulators have decided that about 60 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine produced there must be discarded because of possible contamination, according to people familiar with the situation.

The Food and Drug Administration plans to allow about 10 million doses to be distributed in the United States or sent to other countries, but with a warning that regulators cannot guarantee that Emergent BioSolutions, the company that operates the plant, followed good manufacturing practices. The agency has not yet decided whether Emergent can reopen the factory, which has been closed for two months because of regulatory concerns, the people said.

For weeks the F.D.A. has been trying to figure out what to do about at least 170 million doses of vaccine that were left in limbo after the discovery of a major production mishap involving two vaccines manufactured at the site.

FDA accuses firm of distributing an unapproved Covid-19 test - STAT The FDA noted significant concerns with the data Innova Medical Group is using to try to get regulatory approval and to promote its tests. Gideon Gil STAT

The Food and Drug Administration announced a recall Thursday of a coronavirus rapid antigen test, accusing the company that makes the tests of distributing them without regulatory approval and using falsified data that inflates their performance.

As the pandemic calms in the U.S., a growing number of states have started scaling back how often they update their dashboards tracking what's happening with the virus.

The moves are sparking alarm among many public health experts.

"One of the most troubling trends recently has been that states are making the decision to either slow or wind down their reporting efforts," says Beth Blauer, who helps run the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University, a leading source of information about the pandemic.

"I think it's absolutely appropriate for us to celebrate the progress we've made, but we still are very much navigating a pandemic. We haven't gotten to the point where we can stake victory," Blauer says.

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