WBFO Health & Wellness Desk

Author and surgeon Dr. Brian Williams will speak today at UB's Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Kaleida Health and its unions teetered on a path to a strike, until they resolved everything early on Monday. Now, they have to work on finances and filling hundreds of vacant jobs.

Workers from across Kaleida Health had approved a work stoppage, but CWA and 1199 SEIU hadn't issued the 10-day notice while talks continued to the deal early this morning.

Communications Workers of America Local 1168 and 1199 SEIU United HealthCare Workers East, which represent more than 6,300 workers within the Kaleida system, announced late Thursday evening that 96% of participating workers voted in favor of authorizing a strike.

As children head back to school, Ontario has lifted the mandatory 5-day isolation rule for people with COVID-19. However, at least one infectious disease expert is predicting a massive eighth wave of the virus.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday that COVID-19 rules will be eased for New York’s schoolchildren this year, and masks and social distancing will no longer be required.

Crowds of chanting Kaleida Health workers gathered outside Buffalo General Hospital and Oishei Children’s Hospital on Thursday to picket what their unions say are unacceptable working conditions.

For many in the LGBTQ community, the emergence of monkeypox is drawing parallels to another major public health crisis that was first dismissed as a “gay disease,” until heterosexuals began contracting it. Health experts say while the risk remains very low for most people, it’s unwise to dismiss monkeypox as an illness passed exclusively by homosexual contact, or exclusively by any sexual contact.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said masks will not be required in schools this year, but New York is stockpiling rapid tests and personal protective equipment in anticipation of yet another potential surge of COVID-19 as the fall gets under way.