COVID updates: Hawaii is only state to not announce plans to lift mask mandates

Every other state has lifted or announced plans to lift mandates.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 934,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

About 64.6% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Queen Elizabeth tests positive for COVID

Britain's Queen Elizabeth has tested positive for COVID-19, Buckingham Palace said on Sunday.

The Queen, 95, has been experiencing "mild cold-like symptoms," the palace said.


Boston lifts indoor vaccine requirement

Boston has lifted its vaccination requirement for indoor dining, fitness and entertainment, effective immediately, Mayor Michelle Wu announced Friday evening.

The move comes after public health data showed that the city's COVID-19 metrics for test positivity, daily hospitalizations and intensive care unit capacity had fallen below all three thresholds required to loosen restrictions, she said.

"The public health data shows that we're ready to take this step in our recovery," Wu said in a statement. "This news highlights how much progress we’ve made in our fight against COVID-19 thanks to vaccines & boosters -- which have always been our most effective weapon against the pandemic."

Boston's mask mandate for public indoor spaces remains in effect. The Boston Public Health Commission is expected to review the masking order in the coming days, city officials said.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos


Pediatric ER visits during pandemic fell overall but teen girls see rise in mental health visits

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released two reports Friday examining the health and mental well-being of children and adolescents during the pandemic.

In the first report, researchers looked at pediatric emergency department visits and found that they decreased in 2020 and 2021 versus 2019.

The number of visits involving cannabis for children aged 0 to 4 years, however, increased by eight visits per week in 2020 and 15 per week in 2021 compared to 2019.

The second report examined pediatric emergency department visits for mental health conditions.

Girls between ages 12 and 17 saw the largest increases; visits for eating disorders doubled among this group during the pandemic and visits for tic disorders tripled.

"The highly complex nature of individual experiences makes it difficult to identify a single reason for changes in mental health conditions during the pandemic. While extended time at home could increase familial support for some youth, it may have increased challenges and stressors among others," the CDC wrote in a press release.



South Carolina to end public COVID testing options and daily data reporting

South Carolina health officials announced Friday that the state will start phasing out public COVID-19 testing options due to the increased availability of at-home tests.

Beginning March 1, publicly operated vendor testing sites will begin closing and publicly operated PCR sites will start shutting down in April.

"A prime driver of these changes is that with increased availability of rapid antigen testing, it is now the most effective testing tool to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and help people make informed decisions about whether to isolate," officials from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said in a press release.

"DHEC will continue to follow the science and update our guidelines and response to COVID-19 as conditions change," the release said.

Additionally, the state will no longer report daily COVID-19 case counts because at-home test results are rarely reported to health officials.

Instead, case totals will be reported weekly, although data on hospitalizations and deaths will continue to be reported every day.

-ABC News' Janice McDonald and Arielle Mitropoulos


Study: People who survived COVID in 1st few months of pandemic had significantly higher risk of mental health problems

A new study finds that people who survived COVID-19 during the first few months of the pandemic had a significantly higher risk of developing mental health disorders, including opioid use disorder, in the year after their COVID-19 diagnosis.

The study, published in The BMJ medical journal, evaluated medical records of nearly 154,000 COVID-19 patients in the Veterans Health Administration, comparing their experiences to a similar group of people that didn't have COVID-19.

After recovering from COVID-19, people with no prior history of mental illness were more likely to develop anxiety, depression, opioid use disorder, neurocognitive decline, and sleep disorders.

In an accompanying editorial, one of the lead researchers of the study argued that the mental health consequences of COVID-19 should be treated seriously and society shouldn't "gaslight or dismiss long covid as a psychosomatic condition."

The study only looked at people who survived COVID-19 from March 2020 to Jan. 2021 -- before vaccines were widely available. It's not clear if these findings apply to people diagnosed with COVID-19 more recently.

-ABC News' Sony Salzman, Arielle Mitropoulos