I just saw a post on our local neighborhood Facebook group with a photo of a wiped-out childrens acetaminophen section from a local pharmacy, asking where they should look next, says Anna Patil, a Brooklyn mom of two. Thats pretty scary and is making me want to ration our OTC meds a little.

Is there a shortage of childrens Tylenol and Motrin?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not currently reporting shortages of childrens acetaminophen or ibuprofen. And Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Childrens Tylenol and Childrens Motrin, says that there is no nationwide shortage, but there has been an uptick in demand.

The companys spokesperson Melissa Witt told NPR via email, Consumer demand for pediatric pain relievers in the U.S. is high, but there are no supply chain issues and we do not have an overall shortage in the U.S.

Empty shelves at pharmacies tell a different story. 

What parents can do

Dr. Tina Tan, an infectious diseases physician at Lurie Childrens Hospital of Chicago, says that over-the-counter cold and flu medications should only be given when children have a fever or are uncomfortable.

Otherwise, she recommends supportive, or at-home care, which includes rest, hydration, and for babies and toddlers, removal of mucus through nasal suctioning. A cool-air humidifier can also be used to help ease congestion. To treat a cough, honey can be given to children 12 months and older and cough drops are suitable for children between the ages of 6 and 12.

To reduce fevers without the use medication, experts suggest:

• Giving your child a bath with lukewarm water
• Keeping your childs room cool and dressing them in light pajamas
• Offering your child popsicles or room-temperature water

Tan also advises caregivers look out for the following signs that they need to take their child to the emergency room:

• high fever isnt going down with the help of Tylenol or ibuprofen 
• theyre having to work harder to breath 
• theyre unable to stay hydrated (which is most noticeable with a decrease of wet diapers in babies and toddlers)
• symptoms are progressively worsening

Preventive measures, such as vaccinations and washing your hands, can go a long way toward keeping everyone healthy this flu season, Tan says. 

Most important is to get your infant or child vaccinated against influenza and COVID. Vaccines are effective at preventing the development of severe disease and keeping them out of the hospital, she says. Practice good hand hygiene and keep an infant or child at home if they are ill. Dont let them go to daycare, preschool or school. Sick individuals probably should wear masks in home if they are unable to physically distance themselves from others in the home that are at risk for severe disease. 

In the meantime, parents are advised to wait it out.

There is nothing specific other than time that will help an infant or child go over most viral infections, says Tan.

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In a rare comment on secret talks, he said the Biden administration had made a substantial proposal to Russia to end the imprisonment of two Americans: WNBA star Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.

The message was plain, for those closely following the cases:

To get Griner and Whelan home, the U.S. would agree to the release of Viktor Bout, an imprisoned Russian arms dealer with the ominous nickname of the Merchant of Death. The Russians had made no secret of their desire to get Bout home.

On Thursday, Bout and Griner began their journeys home after a dramatic one-for-one swap. Yet Whelan remains imprisoned in Russia. The deal wasnt all that U.S. officials had wanted. But after months of difficult private negotiations and angry public accusations, it was, they concluded, the best they could get.

It came together in the past few days after the administration grudgingly accepted that though the Russians would not budge on Whelan, they were prepared to relent on Griner, creating imperfect but ultimately workable options for a U.S. government under pressure to make a deal.

This was not a choice for us on which American to bring home. It was a choice between bringing home one American or none, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive who had regularly traveled to Russia, was arrested in December 2018 while visiting Moscow for a friends wedding. He was convicted of espionage charges that he and the U.S. government say are baseless and is serving a 16-year prison sentence.

For totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Pauls case differently than Brittneys, and while we have not succeeded in securing Pauls release, we are not giving up, Biden said Thursday.

Griners arrest in February on drug possession charges made her instantaneously the most high-profile American jailed abroad. Her status as a gay Black woman, her prominence in womens basketball and her imprisonment at a time of war combined for an unusual confluence of storylines in sports, politics and diplomacy.

For weeks, the focus seemed to center on legal aspects of the case and questions of her guilt or innocence. But that changed in May after the U.S. designated her a wrongful detainee, a move that placed her case with the governments top hostage negotiator and came just after a separate prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia.

Griners guilty plea last summer and nine-year prison sentence made it clear her best hope for release was through a prisoner swap. Blinkens public reveal of a substantial proposal created speculation of who beyond Bout, a notorious arms dealer serving a 25-year sentence, the U.S. might be willing to release in a two-for-two exchange and who else Russia might want.

Lawyers for Alexander Vinnik, an accused Russian cryptocurrency launderer recently extradited to California, advanced his clients name to officials in Russia and the U.S., but he was ultimately left out of Thursdays deal.

We think that he is a good candidate, remains a good candidate, said one of Vinniks lawyers, David Rizk. Hes somebody that both sides have a lot of interest in, and hes also somebody who hasnt killed anybody. He hasnt committed any violent crime.

A senior administration official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said Thursday that the U.S. explored a wide range of alternatives and permutations that we felt were, frankly, quite generous in resolving both cases. The official did not elaborate.

Throughout the fall, there were few signs of progress, with U.S. officials repeatedly saying that Russia had yet to respond in good faith to their offer. Blinken spoke by phone to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in July in the highest-level known contact between the two sides since Russia invaded Ukraine, but Russian officials gave no hint that headway had been made.

As U.S. officials talked directly with Russian counterparts, Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and top deputy Mickey Bergman held backchannel discussions in Russia and other countries with their own contacts to try to find middle ground.

We were aiming, working together, for a two-for-two but I think the geopolitical situation prevented us from doing the two-for-two in other words, the increasingly hostile relationship between the countries, Richardson said in an interview.

Back in Washington, officials were repeatedly stressing the extent to which the U.S. viewed the cases of Griner and Whelan through the same lens and with the same urgency. In September, Biden hosted Griners wife, Cherelle, and Whelans sister, Elizabeth, for separate meetings at the White House.

But the reality, administration officials now say, is that Russia viewed Whelans case differently, with one official saying Moscow put him through sham proceedings that convicted him of trumped-up espionage charges. Russia, the official said, had rejected each and every one of our proposals for his release.

A potential thaw for Griner was evident in recent weeks. Biden told reporters after the midterm U.S. elections that he was hopeful Russia would now be more willing to negotiate her release. A Russian official said last week a deal was possible by the end of the year.

Progress escalated this week. Cherelle Griner was invited to the White House for a meeting with national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and she was with Biden Thursday morning when he was notified Griner was secure.

Brittney Griner was put through to the Oval Office and Biden said, Its Joe Biden. Welcome, welcome home! one official said of the conversation.

In anticipation of the transfer, Griner was relocated from the Russian penal colony where she arrived last month and was flown to the United Arab Emirates for the transfer. Arriving there, too, was Bout, who was not presented with his official clemency paperwork until U.S. officials knew Griner was also present.

The deal brought a joyful end to an agonizing wait for Cherelle Griner, who in June told The Associated Press how a phone mixup by the U.S. government left her unable to connect with her wife on the couples four-year wedding anniversary. Just two months ago she said her wife was at her absolute weakest moment in life right now.

The final outcome was less joyful for the Whelan family, though they said they supported the administrations action. Elizabeth Whelan was visited in Massachusetts by a U.S. official bearing the news. Paul Whelan himself was also briefed by the administration.

To realize now that not only didnt it include him, but also that there may not be any other things that the U.S. currently has control over that could bring Paul home thats a new thing to be thinking about, brother David Whelan said in an interview.

____

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Aamer Madhani and Colleen Long in Washington and Kathleen Foody in Chicago contributed to this report.

This midterm cycle was unique for many reasons, but one aspect stands out like no other: billionaires took to bankrolling these elections like never before.

American billionaires spent a whopping $880 million on the elections by the end of October, with the final total likely approaching an astronomical $1 billion. Thats a game-changing amount of money that undoubtedly influenced the electoral outcomes we are now seeing. 

Since the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United in 2010, billionaire wealth has been, as Americans for Tax Fairness Executive Director Frank Clemente puts it, drowning our democracy. Between 2009 and 2020, the top twelve billionaires alone spent one out of every 13 dollars given to candidates and political groups. 

In the 2020 cycle, billionaires contributed almost one out of every 10 dollars received by federal campaigns, with the top 20 having a combined spending of more than the entire Biden campaign. The problem is only getting worse: Billionaire spending in the 2022 midterms was up 44% compared to 2018.

It is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that excessive billionaire wealth is a danger to our democracy. It is being spent in massive amounts to shape both the public debate and the makeup of Congress while crowding out the voices of ordinary Americans. We need to reform our campaign finance system to prevent billionaires from having such an outsized influence in the political arena. But until that day comes, we must take steps to strip billionaires of the extreme wealth that enables their power in the first place by taxing them more.

Right now, the richest Americans pay almost nothing in taxes. Thanks to a dizzying array of loopholes and special rules for the rich, the 25 richest people in America paid a tax rate of just 3.4% between 2014 and 2018 on over $400 billion in wealth gains. In fact, sometimes these billionaires get away with paying literally nothing in taxes at all. The worlds richest man, Elon Musk, paid no federal income tax in 2018. (His company, Tesla, is no betterit paid nothing in corporate taxes in 2022.) 

Whats the result of this lax tax regime? Billionaire wealth grew by over 60% during the pandemic, increasing by more than $1 trillion in 2021 alone. Its no wonder theyre spending more to influence our elections. After all, theyve got an extra trillion dollars to throw around.

If we want to slow down this growth and make billionaires pay higher taxes, we can start by making them pay taxes, period. The U.S. tax code currently allows the rich to defer paying taxes on capital gains until those gains are realized when an asset like stock or real estate is sold. This allows the ultra-wealthy to hold onto their assets without selling them, live off low-interest loans using those assets as collateral, and pass on their assets directly to their heirs when they die, leaving their wealth gains permanently untaxed in a scheme tax experts call buy, borrow, die.

Theres a simple solution to this problem: We can make the ultra-wealthy pay taxes every year, just like everybody else. The Billionaire Minimum Income Tax (BMIT), introduced in Congress this July and endorsed by President Biden, would do exactly that. It would require the richest 0.01% of households to pay a minimum 20% tax on all of their wealth gains each year, including unrealized capital gains. That means no more perpetual deferment of tax payments, no more sheltering wealth for generations, and no more buy, borrow, die. If tens of millions of Americans can pay taxes every month on every single paycheck, the richest people in the country can pay once a year.

However, our tax goals can and should go beyond the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax. The current top capital gains rate of just 20% is far too low, especially when you consider that a worker earning $60,000 a year in ordinary income has a top rate of 22%. We could also be taking on billionaire wealth directly through a wealth tax, rather than focusing on income. 

The BMIT is the right place to start. It has already earned significant support in Congressand for good reason. Its hard to argue that billionaires cant afford to pay taxes every year when millions of working-class families manage it just fine. This is a no-brainer.

We already live in a country where support from the wealthy, rather than the public, is the key determining factor in a policy proposal becoming law. As billionaire wealth continues to grow, and their spending on our elections grows accordingly, this is only going to get worse. If we want to stop our slide into oligarchy and save our democracy, we need to shrink billionaire fortunes by taxing the ultra-richand we need to do it now.

Ron Guillot is the western U.S. VP of sales at HeartBeam and an investor in equities, options, and direct startups. This article was facilitated by the Patriotic Millionaires.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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