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By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering loosening isolation requirements for people who test positive for COVID-19, meaning they would no longer have to stay at home for at least five days when infected with the virus.Under the...

By CHRIS LARABEE

GREENFIELD — With the recent swearing in of Glen Ayers, the Board of Health is back to its full three-member capacity, as its newest face looks to help “put the public back in public health.” Ayers, 66, was appointed to the board in January and...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — Four women representing western Massachusetts in the state Legislature visited Greenfield Community College on Monday for a panel discussion about health care with second-year nursing students.State Sen. Jo Comerford was joined by state...

With 1 to 3 inches of snow expected to blanket Greenfield on Tuesday morning, shovels will once again be put to use to clear sidewalks and driveways. Baystate Health officials have some tips for residents to ensure safe shoveling.According to the...

By MADDIE FABIAN

Child therapist Alice Barber says that she could discharge all 45 of her clients — children as young as 2 or 3 years old — and her practice would fill back up within a couple of weeks, “no questions asked.” Barber has colleagues who get 10 calls a...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — Representatives from organizations and towns across the region gathered at the John W. Olver Transit Center on Thursday afternoon to kick off a new five-year Community Health Improvement Plan, or CHIP.The Franklin County/North Quabbin...

GREENFIELD — Representatives from organizations and towns across the region will gather Thursday from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the John W. Olver Transit Center to kick off a new five-year Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP). The Franklin County/North...

By LIESEL NYGARD

BERNARDSTON — Cushman Library’s board of trustees is working to sanitize and declutter the library so that its doors can be open to the public again. The library has been closed since Jan. 9 after a building inspection was conducted by Regional Health...

By CHRIS LARABEE

For the first time since the beginning of December, the COVID-19 transmission risk for the four communities in the Contact Tracing Collaborative — Greenfield, Deerfield, Montague and Sunderland — has decreased from “high” to “moderate.” Wastewater...

By CHRIS LARABEE

As it has been for all of January, the COVID-19 transmission risk for the four communities in the Contact Tracing Collaborative — Greenfield, Deerfield, Montague and Sunderland — remains “high.” Last week’s wastewater testing results showed there were...

By MADDIE FABIAN

Less than a month after it began enforcing a longstanding policy restricting the use of anesthesia during colonoscopies and other procedures, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is pausing that action after physicians statewide lobbied the insurer...

By DOMENIC POLI

NEW SALEM — Swift River School’s new PFAS6 filtration system seems to be working perfectly, and 190 students and staff members will drink to that.A little more than three years after tests of the school’s tap water revealed elevated levels of the...

By DOMENIC POLI

The Democrat representing the 2nd Congressional District of Massachusetts has teamed up with a Republican colleague from Florida to sponsor a bill aimed at making it easier for Americans to get medically necessary foods.Jim McGovern and John...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

The slight uptick of influenza B cases countering a decrease in influenza A infections across Baystate Health’s facilities, including at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, is no cause for alarm, according to the health system’s chief of...

By ANITA FRITZ

January is National Blood Donor Month, and beginning Jan. 17, the Baystate Blood Donor Program at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield will be hosting monthly blood drives. Throughout the year, Baystate Franklin invites and encourages people...

By MARY BYRNE

BUCKLAND — In partnering with the University of Washington, Franklin County’s YMCA plans to contribute to a study on the effectiveness of delivering a particular group exercise program remotely versus in person. The program, EnhanceFitness, is an...

By ERIC WELD

Raise your hand if you get enough sleep.If you raised your hand, well done. Because in America, a large percentage of us do not sleep or rest enough, and the resultant detriments to our health are too numerous to count.More than one-third of adults do...

By DOMENIC POLI

ORANGE — The state’s Division of Animal Health is warning about an outbreak in Franklin County of a highly contagious, potentially fatal disease that spreads between dogs.Symptoms of canine parvovirus, commonly known as parvo, usually develop after a...

By ANITA FRITZ

Diabetes patients are now seeing better outcomes because of newer drugs, easier glucose monitoring, focusing on a healthy lifestyle, and coordinated approaches working with their health care teams.According to Dr. Cecilia Lozier, chief of the Division...

By EMILEE KLEIN

Before the pandemic, Dr. David Alpern, like many health care workers at the time, didn’t think twice about going to work with a runny nose or cough.But since symptoms of COVID-19 are indistinguishable from the common cold, the retired Cooley Dickinson...