• Office romances still happen despite a shift toward hybrid and remote work.
• They now rely on digital communication, with less time to work out in-person chemistry.
• This means people have to be more bold and deliberate about pursuing a colleague they like.

Falling in love at work has changed.

Those who study relationships have long been confident about the factors that cause people to fall in love with colleagues. It's largely because of proximity, but also because working toward a common goal is a bonding experience.

Now, at companies where hybrid work is commonplace, teammates meet more sporadically. They certainly don't rack up almost 1,700 hours a year or more in the office together like they used to.

Channa Bromley, a relationship coach who specializes in helping high-achieving men and women, told BI the shift to remote and hybrid work "has completely changed" the way office romances unfold.

"The pandemic didn't kill workplace romance — it just changed the battlefield," Bromley told BI. If anything, the disruption with remote and hybrid work has only "made workplace relationships more intentional," she said.

Proximity bred familiarity in a traditional office setting, but now, without the casual watercooler chats or the slow burn of in-person camaraderie, connections at work require deliberate effort, Bromley said: "People aren't just falling into relationships because they spend eight hours a day together."

Manufactured serendipity

Bromley said the biggest shift is that office relationships no longer happen by accident. Now, they require strategy, with people having to "manufacture serendipity."

Before the pandemic, a marketing executive who was one of Bromley's clients fell for a coworker "over months of casual interactions."

"There was no single moment where it clicked," she said. "It was the accumulation of small, familiar ones. By the time they got together, there was already an unshakable foundation."

In 2025, the dynamic of finding love is different. Another of Bromley's clients, an engineer, barely knew a woman on his team beyond Slack messages and the occasional Zoom call, but he knew he was attracted to her.

Bromley said the relationship was then "built with intention," with her client finding ways to see the woman beyond work tasks, such as flirty Slack messages, virtual coworking sessions, and "lingering on video calls."

"When they finally met in person, it wasn't about discovering attraction," Bromley said. "It was about testing whether the connection they built in controlled, digital spaces could survive in the real world."

A double-edged sword

Jenn Gunsaullus, a sociologist, relationship expert, and corporate speaker, told BI that remote work is a double-edged sword when it comes to office relationships. On the one hand, there are fewer risks once a relationship develops, with less opportunity for scrutiny, less office gossip, and "no awkward run-ins if things don't work out."

"But on the other hand, it also makes it harder to read chemistry in real time," which can prevent relationships from forming in the first place, Gunsaullus said.

"You don't get to pick up on body language, shared eye contact, or that natural energy that can build when two people are around each other every day."

Stealth mode

The fundamental rules of attraction haven't changed. Shared goals, high-pressure environments, and the psychology of teamwork still create bonds.

Angelika Koch, a relationship and breakup expert at the dating app Taimi, told BI that during the pandemic, people became accustomed to communicating more through their phones and less in person.

"This distance allows more flexibility when it comes to conversations," she said. "And subtle flirtations through texts are more likely to begin with those who feel that spark."

Lucy Finter, an account and social media manager at Press Box PR, met her boyfriend at work 18 months ago, while they were both in the office part of the time.

At the beginning of their relationship, Finter said she was excited about the three days they would be in the office together, getting to go on "mini dates" in the day between their official ones.

Bromley said people have to be bolder now to pursue an office relationship. They must pick up on signals when they meet in person and rely on messages and emails in the interim.

"The intensity hasn't disappeared," she added. "It's just gone underground, where it simmers in private messages and well-timed emojis."

Workplace romance isn't dead, Bromley added: "It's just operating in stealth mode."

COVID-19 vaccines cut the risk of long COVID by between 57–73 percent in kids and teens, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open. And there's more good news: A second study published today in the journal offered more data that the now-annual shots are not linked to sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death in young athletes—a claim that gained traction on social media and among anti-vaccine groups during the acute phase of the pandemic.

Together, the studies bolster current recommendations that children and teens should stay up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines, which are estimated to have prevented more than 3 million deaths and more than 18 million hospitalizations in the first two years of their use.  So far, the recommendations for kids have largely gone unheeded; only 14 percent of children ages 5 to 17 are up to date on their 2024–2025 COVID shot. Surveys suggest that parents largely think the vaccines are unnecessary, given that most children only have mild COVID infections.

Still, not all infections are mild, and even mild cases can lead to long COVID, according to the authors of the first study. An estimated 1 percent to 3 percent of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 will develop long COVID, defined as having symptoms that continue or develop four or more weeks after the initial phase of infection. With tens of millions of kids getting infected with the pandemic virus, a large number of them are at risk of developing the condition.

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• Trump's nominee for NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, made $11,995 from posting on X last year.
• It's a relatively uncommon income source for a nominee for a top government job.
• He also made $457,743 from teaching at Stanford and $25,772 from giving speeches.

One of President Donald Trump's top health-related nominees has had a unique income source over the past two years: posting on social media.

Jay Bhattacharya, Trump's nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health, made $11,995 last year as part of X's content-creator revenue program, according to a financial disclosure filed this month.

Under that program, which Elon Musk instituted after he took over the social media platform and renamed it, users with a premium account can receive payouts based on engagement from other premium users.

Before Trump announced his nomination in late November, Bhattacharya was a frequent poster on X, where he boasts more than 680,000 followers. He joined the creator revenue program in 2023. His ethics agreement says Bhattacharya has "ceased creating content for compensation" and has "ceased sharing in revenue for content creation for X."

Bhattacharya rose to prominence in 2020 as a critic of COVID-19 lockdowns and was a coauthor of the "Great Barrington Declaration," which promoted a "herd immunity" strategy against the virus. In a statement, a White House spokesman, Kush Desai, argued that Americans had "lost confidence in the medical apparatus that let us down during the COVID pandemic" and touted Bhattacharya as the "perfect pick" for the role.

"Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has been a leading voice in support of greater transparency and efficacy in our healthcare bodies, and that's exactly why he is the perfect pick to lead the NIH and help deliver on President Trump's resounding mandate to Make America Healthy Again by restoring confidence, competence, and accountability in health care," Desai said. "We look forward to his swift confirmation by the Senate."

Bhattacharya's main occupation isn't posting on X: He earned $457,743 last year as a professor at Stanford University.

He also made thousands of dollars from paid speeches: $20,000 from the conservative Bradley Impact Fund in October, $3,500 from the Global Liberty Institute in July, and $2,272 from Hillsdale College in October.

Bhattacharya also owns thousands of dollars' worth of stock in Walmart, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor, which he has agreed to divest if confirmed.

Bhattacharya did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump's nominees are required to file public financial disclosures describing how they made money in recent years. Recent filings include those from Pam Bondi, the attorney general; Kash Patel, the nominee for FBI director; Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; and Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense.

In Raleigh, North Carolina's Brentwood neighborhood, standing out among the pawn shops, auto repair garages, and warehouses that dot the city's arterial Capital Boulevard, is a telltale new site: the Broadstone Oak City Apartments, a chic complex of muted earth tones, modern fonts, and a manicured lawn. The sprawl of one of America's fastest-growing cities hasn't quite reached Brentwood yet. But if the Broadstone and its cabana-draped pool and resident business center filled with podcasting gear is any indicator, gentrification is coming.

Anticipating the influx, the city of Raleigh did something unusual: It bought a hotel.

In 2021, the city used $8 million in funds from the COVID-era American Rescue Plan Act to purchase Hospitality Studios, a 117-room extended-stay hotel across the street from the Broadstone. As the city revamps the building, the goal, says Emila Sutton, Raleigh's director of housing and neighborhoods, is twofold: "to preserve tenancy for the folks already living there" as local rents are surely soon to rise, and to provide permanent housing for Raleigh's homeless population, which from 2021 to 2024 grew by 200%. Homelessness is surging nationwide: Some 770,000 people lived without housing in America in January 2024, 120,000 more than in 2023, and nearly 200,000 more than in 2022.

"Due to prior evictions and credit history, many people are turned away from housing," Sutton says. The hotel, which the city has renamed the Studios at 2800 Brentwood and dramatically reduced room rates, "provides a lower-barrier-for-entry option for those people."

While people at risk of homelessness have long found refuge in nightly or weekly rentals at hotels and motels, that number swelled during the COVID-19 pandemic, often with the help of state and federal funding. In New York City, 9,000 people were relocated from shelters into hotels. California's Project Roomkey moved some 62,000 people experiencing homelessness into hotels across the state. For many, this was life-changing. In a study published in the Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness, Deborah Padgett, a professor at New York University's Silver School of Social Work, and two colleagues interviewed more than a dozen formerly homeless people who stayed in hotels during stretches of the pandemic. "Benefits of hotel housing," the authors wrote, "included improvement in physical health, sleep, personal hygiene, privacy, safety, nutrition, and overall well-being." They concluded that "an unprecedented opportunity has arisen from the pandemic to end homelessness for many."

Raleigh joins several cities across the country attempting to make hotels a more permanent housing solution. In October, the city of Chicago purchased the historic Diplomat Motel, rechristening it Haven on Lincoln, which provides people experiencing homelessness with access to their own rooms. In Brooklyn's ultraexpensive Dumbo neighborhood, the recently renovated 90 Sands will provide housing — along with a gym, computer lab, and bicycle storage — to hundreds of people who had been living on the streets. In early 2024, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, a Democrat from Oregon, introduced the "Project Turnkey Act," which if passed would provide $1 billion annually, via the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to purchase and convert unused hotels, schools, hospitals, and office buildings across the country into housing or to add to shelter capacity.

Housing people without homes is not purely altruistic, Sutton adds. She notes that a 2017 study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness found the taxpayer cost of supporting homelessness (for public services from shelters to hospitals) can range anywhere from $35,000 to $96,000 a year, per person. If those people are housed, that cost drops to between $18,000 and $34,000. "It's more affordable to house people, overall," says Sutton. "And most of these people just need light-touch support, such as housing."

But Raleigh's and the country's other hotels-to-housing projects remain nascent, and face many hurdles to success.

Not everyone has been on board with the hotel-to-housing concept. Because they take away cities' hotel inventory, nightly rates at hotels around them can increase. Last May, The New York Times reported that one in five of New York City's hotels had entered a migrant shelter program, leading rates to jump sharply. (Some of that increase is also due to the city's crackdown on Airbnb properties along with general global inflation.) In contentious town meetings where hotel conversions have been proposed, residents have also shared fears that they'd make their neighborhoods more susceptible to crime.

In some cities, especially New York, hotel housing projects have faced significant opposition from hotel unions, as well as prohibitive remodeling expenses necessary to meet local zoning regulations and building codes, which are often stricter for affordable housing than they are for hotels. Some hotel elevators and doorways, for example, are smaller and shorter than what residential buildings require, and additional requirements that each unit have a full-size fridge, stovetop, and sink can be particularly pricey. In a 2022 Politico article, one New York architect called the city's stringent conversion legislation a "classic case of the perfect being the enemy of the possible."

In Raleigh, however, there hasn't yet been any noticeable pushback to the hotel project, says Sutton. For one, the Brentwood neighborhood is still a ways off from feeling the effects of Raleigh's sprawl. The city also decided to circumvent regulatory rigmarole by keeping the building zoned as a hotel. That said, getting the building ready has been a yearslong project.

The Studios at 2800 looks every bit the typical extended-stay hotel, with banks of rooms running along an exterior sidewalk on the first floor and an elevated walkway on the second, a cluster of oak trees out back, and a filled-in pool sitting among tangled weeds and cracked concrete.

Shortly after purchasing the property, the city received a $15 million quote from a local architect for a complete renovation. Given the steep cost, Raleigh took something of a triage approach in order to be able to move people in more expediently. After reviewing four bids for a property manager, Raleigh chose CASA, a 30-year-old nonprofit that specializes in providing stable and affordable housing for the homeless across North Carolina's Research Triangle region. Together, the city and CASA decided to first update the fire alarms and sprinklers, add a new WiFi system, and rebuild some of the hotel's crumbling exterior staircases. Since then, CASA has been rehabbing rooms as they become available, moving existing residents into recently finished rooms in order to tackle the outdated ones. Currently, 70 units are operational, all of which were occupied when I recently spoke with CASA's CEO Everett McElveen.

"It's important that we don't displace anyone while we renovate, which is why we have to do it in phases," he says.

A few days before I spoke with McElveen, employees from Sutton's office filled six rooms with people who were previously living in encampments scattered in and around Raleigh. Erika Brandt, Raleigh's assistant director of housing and neighborhoods department, said those rooms were filled with a mix of participants in Bringing Neighbors Home — a $5 million two-year pilot program aimed at mitigating homelessess that the city launched in the fall — and "a few folks who are not part of the pilot but who were referred to the Studios due to extreme medical vulnerability making it high priority to move them indoors."

Those rooms were given what McElveen calls "light facelifts" — a fresh paint job and new furniture — "so it feels more like an apartment than a hotel room." Once a new bank of rooms is ready, McElveen says, the residents in the facelifted rooms will be moved and those areas will be gutted for more thorough renovations.

The city and CASA plan to convert a small number of the building's suites into conference rooms within the next few years to provide on-site support services and office spaces for CASA's behavioral health intervention team to work with residents.

CASA also plans to turn the hotel's filled-in pool into a common area, with grills, green grass, chairs, and benches for residents to relax and socialize, and to convert the entire building to solar power to lower utility costs. All these updates require additional funding, and Sutton's office has been submitting a capital improvement plan request to the city to continue to support the estimated $11 million in remaining improvements over the next five years.

Because the building remains a hotel, to book a room, prospective tenants can simply call or visit the front desk. A room at Hospitality Studios could cost as much as $379 a week. For now, most rooms go for $200 a week. Though there's no work requirement to get a room, tenants who are employed can get a lower rate if they provide income documentation to the city, which ensures that no one pays more than 30% of their income for rent. If there's no vacancy, the city will work with people to help them find housing elsewhere.

Lynnette Moore is the hotel's longest-tenured resident. In her 17 years there, she's seen hundreds, if not thousands, of people come and go.

"People mostly stay to themselves. It's quiet. People are just trying to live," she says, adding that the recent changes have begun to foster more of a sense of community. "Now people seem to talk a bit more. Maybe when that area is done," she says, referring to the planned common space, "we'll all get to know each other."

CASA hopes to have the Studios at 2800 fully renovated by 2030. By then, Raleigh's sprawl will have likely swallowed up the Brentwood neighborhood, transforming it into something wholly unrecognizable.

Michael Venutolo-Mantovani has written for The New York Times, National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveler, Wired, and many others. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his wife and their two children.

• President Trump spoke about his plans for the US military on his first day back in office.
• He promised to reinstate and give back pay to service members dismissed for refusing COVID-19 vaccines.
• He also wants to use the military in mass deportation operations and has referenced culture war issues.

President Donald Trump outlined several key US military policies on his first day back in office.

Many of his pledges, such as reinstating service members who were dismissed for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine and engaging in controversial culture war issues in the Pentagon, tie into the Commander-in-Chief's goal of a major US Armed Forces overhaul.

Trump was officially sworn into office on Monday and began signing a flurry of executive orders, including reversing former president Joe Biden's policies on oil and gas drilling in Alaska, keeping TikTok open while it finds a potential buyer, and declaring emergencies on national energy and immigration at the US-Mexico border.

He also signed an executive order declaring Mexican cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations and suggested he could send US Special Forces to Mexico to take them out. "Could happen," he said. "Stranger things have happened."

During his inauguration speech, Trump presented attendees, including former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, with his vision of the US military.

"America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before," he said. "We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into," Trump said.

The statement echoes comments the President made on the campaign trail and after the election, as well as those made by his Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, who vowed to restore the military's "warrior ethos," readiness, and lethality during his confirmation hearing last week.

Here's everything Trump said about the US military during his first day back in office — and what to expect next.

Trump promised to reinstate service members who refused the COVID-19 vaccine — with back pay

The President said he'd reinstate the more than 8,000 troops dismissed from military service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

The mandate was originally issued in August 2021 by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and lasted until January 2023, with limited exceptions for medical or religious reasons. It was repealed when Biden signed a defense spending bill in December 2022.

Congressional Republicans have previously argued the rule hurt the US military's readiness amid a recruitment crisis. Pentagon officials have denied this and said only a small number of dismissed personnel reapplied for military service after the mandate was lifted. Around 99% of the active-duty Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force had been vaccinated, as well as 98% of the Army.

In his inauguration speech, Trump also promised full back pay to the reinstated service members. Hegseth also suggested this last week.

Trump plans to use the military in his crackdown on illegal immigration

On Monday night, Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency at the US-Mexico border, as well as an executive order to send US Northern Command to "seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities."

Throughout his campaign, Trump heavily focused on illegal immigration and indicated plans to launch a mass deportation campaign. After the election, he suggested he could use the US military to do so.

Legal experts have said using the military to control immigration and deportation is complicated due to different rules governing military forces, state defense forces, and civilian law enforcement, Cassandra Burke Robertson, a professor of law at Case Western Reserve University, and Irina D. Manta, a professor of law at Hofstra University, wrote in The Conversation on Monday.

Deploying National Guard units to the southern border has precedent — Trump did it himself in April 2018, as did Obama and Bush — but the military is generally forbidden from enforcing domestic laws. Trump could use the military in a support role, though.

Trump said he'd end "radical political theories" and other culture war issues in the military

During his inauguration speech, Trump said he'd sign an executive order "to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty," referencing his larger ideological fight.

Trump and the Republican Party made so-called "woke" policies, including diversity, equity, and inclusion, top platform issues, arguing they hurt military readiness. Hegseth has made varied statements on this issue, many of which — such as his flip-flopping comments against women serving in the military — were the center point of his confirmation hearing.

It remains unclear which of these issues will become concrete policies and how the President will implement them, although they align with other plans to cut spending in the Pentagon, gut top ranks, and roll back federal DEI efforts.

On Monday, Trump signed an executive order revoking Biden's policy allowing transgender people to serve in the military, clearing the way for a ban on trans service members similar to the ban in his first term.

• The secretary of defense nominee pledged to re-recruit troops discharged over COVID-19 vaccine refusal.
• Over 8,400 troops were separated due to the vaccine mandate, which has now been rescinded.
• Hegseth said discharged troops should receive back pay, restored ranks, and an apology.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, pledged Tuesday to re-recruit troops forced out of the military for refusing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and said they would receive back pay, restored ranks, and an apology.

"Service members who were kicked out because of the experimental vaccine," Hegseth told lawmakers, "they will be apologized to. They will be reinstituted with pay and rank."

Hegseth, if confirmed by the Senate, would build on the groundwork laid by Trump, who told supporters last summer he would "rehire every patriot who was fired from the military," because of the vaccine mandate.

Over 8,400 troops were separated from the services after refusing to receive the vaccine following a lawful order from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in 2021. The Pentagon argued that the vaccines, similar to over a dozen others servicemembers receive, were crucial to military readiness.

The Pentagon reversed course and dropped the vaccine mandate in 2023 following a decision by Congress. At that time, it stopped separating troops who had not received the shot. Roughly 99% of the active-duty Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force had been vaccinated and around 98% of the Army. Guard and Reserve rates were lower but over 90%.

Sen. Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana, asked if Hegseth Tuesday if he would commit to "recruit these folks back" with back pay.

"I will commit to this because the Commander in Chief has committed to this," Hegseth replied. "Not only will they be reinstated, they will receive an apology, back pay, and rank that they lost because they were forced out due to an experimental vaccine."

Top military brass considered the possibility of providing back pay to troops after the vaccine mandate was repealed in early 2023, but Hegseth's remarks Tuesday drive home the incoming administration's intent to re-recruit separated troops back into the military. It is the first such indication since Trump won reelection in November.

Such a change could affect the Marine Corps, the DoD's smallest service, the most — of the roughly 8,400 troops discharged, 3,717 were Marines. For the other services, 2,041 were discharged from the Navy, 1,841 from the Army, and 834 from the Air Force.

Republicans have long criticized these separations, arguing they were unnecessary and detrimental amid US military recruitment struggles. The military, however, maintained that the mandate was a lawful order essential to readiness and the well-being of the force.

• Human metapneumovirus is spreading in China, but health experts say it's not a repeat of COVID-19.
• Unlike COVID-19, HMPV has been around for decades, so we know how it spreads and how to treat it.
• But China must still monitor the situation to keep it under control.

Five years after COVID-19 began spreading in the Chinese city of Wuhan, cases of human metapneumovirus, which also causes respiratory infections, have risen in the country, particularly among children.

Between December 23 and 29, cases of HMPV rose from the week before, particularly in northern China and in children under 14, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. Cases of influenza, rhinovirus, and mycoplasma pneumoniae also increased, it said.

Online videos of crowded hospitals in China are reminiscent of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Google searches in the US related to HMPV and the likelihood of a coming pandemic and lockdowns have spiked in recent days.

But HMPV doesn't pose a similar threat to COVID-19 because it's not a new virus, meaning we understand how it affects humans and most people already have some immunity against it.

HMPV causes coldlike symptoms that don't typically require treatment

HMPV usually causes coldlike symptoms, such as coughing, wheezing, a runny nose, and a sore throat, that clear on their own in three to six days. But it can lead to more serious conditions, such as bronchitis or pneumonia, particularly in young children, adults over 65, and people who are immunocompromised. Infections are most common in colder seasons.

Most people get HMPV before they turn 5, so symptoms tend to be more severe in children as they haven't yet built up immunity against it. A person gains some immunity to the virus when they first catch it, so symptoms are typically mild if they're reinfected.

It spreads through coughing and sneezing, direct contact with an infected person, or touching surfaces contaminated with the virus, such as phones.

There are no antiviral medications for HMPV, but if a patient becomes seriously ill, doctors may use oxygen therapy to help them breathe or antibiotics to treat secondary infections. There isn't a vaccine, but there are some in development.

Unlike COVID-19, HMPV is not a new virus

HMPV was first identified in the Netherlands in 2001 but is believed to have been infecting humans for decades.

"This is very different to the COVID-19 pandemic," Jill Carr, a virologist at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in Australia, said.

"The virus was completely new in humans and arose from a spillover from animals and spread to pandemic levels because there was no prior exposure or protective immunity in the community," Carr said of COVID-19.

There's a broad understanding of how HMPV spreads and affects humans, as well as diagnostic tests to identify it.

"HMPV can certainly make people very sick, and high case numbers are a threat to effective hospital services, but the current situation in China with high HMPV cases is very different to the threats initially posed by SARS-CoV-2 resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic," Carr said.

The World Health Organization does not view HMPV in China as an emergency

A spokesperson for the World Health Organization told Business Insider via email that higher levels of respiratory illnesses, including HMPV, are expected at this time of year, adding that the rate of "influenza activity" was lower than in the same period last year.

On Thursday, the Chinese CDC advised people to take health precautions, such as maintaining good hygiene, covering their mouths and noses with a tissue or elbow when coughing or sneezing, washing their hands frequently with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, and wearing masks in crowded spaces.

But in a press conference on Friday, the Chinese government appeared to push back against online speculation that the situation could overwhelm hospitals and lead to a new pandemic, The Guardian reported.

"Respiratory infections tend to peak during the winter season," Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry, said Friday. "The diseases appear to be less severe and spread with a smaller scale compared to the previous year."

China needs to share its data on the virus to lower the risk of a public health crisis

Vasso Apostolopoulos, a professor of immunology at the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences at RMIT University in Australia, said that the growing number of cases and pressure on healthcare systems in densely populated areas like China highlighted the need for enhanced surveillance strategies.

"Ensuring effective monitoring and timely responses will be key to mitigating the public health risks of this outbreak," she said.

Flu season is ramping up across the US, but Louisiana—the state that has reportedly barred its health department from promoting flu shots, as well as COVID-19 and mpox vaccines—is leading the country with an early and strong surge.

Louisiana's flu activity has reached the "Very High" category set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the latest data. The 13-category scale is based on the percentage of doctor's visits that were for influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) in the previous week. Louisiana is at the first of three "Very High" levels. Oregon is the only other state to have reached this level. The rest of the country spans the scale, with 13 jurisdictions at "High," including New York City and Washington, DC. There are 11 at "Moderate," 10 at "Low," and 19 at "Minimal."

Last week, NPR, KFF Health News, and New Orleans Public Radio WWNO reported that the state had forbidden the health department and its workers from promoting annual flu shots, as well as vaccines for COVID-19 and mpox. The policy was explicitly kept quiet and officials have avoided putting it in writing.

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Recently, Congress' Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its final report. The basic gist is about what you'd expect from a Republican-run committee, in that it trashes a lot of Biden-era policies and state-level responses while praising a number of Trump's decisions. But what's perhaps most striking is how it tackles a variety of scientific topics, including many where there's a large, complicated body of evidence.

Notably, this includes conclusions about the origin of the pandemic, which the report describes as "most likely" emerging from a lab rather than being the product of the zoonotic transfer between an animal species and humans. The latter explanation is favored by many scientists.

The conclusions themselves aren't especially interesting; they're expected from a report with partisan aims. But the method used to reach those conclusions is often striking: The Republican majority engages in a process of systematically changing the standard of evidence needed for it to reach a conclusion. For a conclusion the report's authors favor, they'll happily accept evidence from computer models or arguments from an editorial in the popular press; for conclusions they disfavor, they demand double-blind controlled clinical trials.

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Scientists could win back trust lost during the COVID-19 pandemic if they just showed a little intellectual humility, according to a study published Monday in Nature Human Behavior.

It's no secret that scientists—and the science generally—took a hit during the health crisis. Public confidence in scientists fell from 87 percent in April 2000 to a low of 73 percent in October 2023, according to survey data from the Pew Research Center. And the latest Pew data released last week suggests it will be an uphill battle to regain what was lost, with confidence in scientists only rebounding three percentage points, to 76 percent in a poll from October.

Building trust

The new study in Nature Human Behavior may guide the way forward, though. The study encompasses five smaller studies probing the perceptions of scientists' trustworthiness, which previous research has linked to willingness to follow research-based recommendations.

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