Coronavirus

Feds: Visitors From China Must Test Negative For COVID

CNBC reports: The Biden administration will require airline passengers traveling from China to test negative for Covid before entering the U.S., federal health officials said on Wednesday. All travelers originating from China, Hong Kong or Macau will be required to get tested for Covid two days before their departure to the U.S. The requirements, which apply regardless of nationality and …

Read More »

US May Restrict Visitors From China Due To COVID

CNBC reports: The U.S. government is considering imposing new Covid rules for travelers from China, officials said, citing concerns over virus-related data released by the Chinese government. The U.S. officials’ comments come after Japan’s recent measures which require a negative Covid test for travelers arriving from mainland China from Dec. 30. Travelers from China without a valid vaccination certificate will …

Read More »

Reuters: Chinese Hospitals “Overwhelmed” By COVID

Reuters reports: In more than three decades of emergency medicine, Beijing-based doctor Howard Bernstein said, he has never seen anything like this. Patients are arriving at his hospital in ever-increasing numbers; almost all are elderly and many are very unwell with COVID and pneumonia symptoms, he said. “The hospital is just overwhelmed from top to bottom,” Bernstein told Reuters at …

Read More »

China To Stop Reporting Daily COVID Case Figures

The Daily Beast reports: China’s National Health Commission announced that it will cease publishing national daily COVID-19 case figures amid a surge of infections. Earlier this month, China loosened its stringent “zero-COVID” policy after mass protests. Although the country has narrowed its definition of a COVID death and reported fewer than 10 deaths in the past two weeks, a health …

Read More »

China Estimates 37M Got COVID On One Day This Week

Bloomberg News reports: Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with Covid-19 on a single day this week, according to estimates from the government’s top health authority, making the country’s outbreak by far the world’s largest. As many as 248 million people, or nearly 18% of the population, likely contracted the virus in the first 20 days …

Read More »

Reuters: COVID Is Raging “Unchecked” In Shanghai

Reuters reports: A Shanghai hospital has told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with COVID-19 as it expects half of the city’s 25 million people will get infected by the end of next week, while the virus sweeps through China largely unchecked. Infections in China are likely to be more than a million a day with deaths at …

Read More »

Mayor Urges New Yorkers To Mask Up Again [VIDEO]

The New York Times reports: Mayor Eric Adams put his face mask on again on Tuesday and encouraged New Yorkers to do the same. Mr. Adams held a news conference at City Hall to urge residents to take precautions in the face of a winter surge of Covid-19 cases and other illnesses. “With the holiday season in full swing and …

Read More »

Updated Booster Prevents Majority Of Hospitalizations

The Hill reports: New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show the bivalent COVID-19 booster shot was effective at reducing the risk of hospitalization and emergency room visits. Reports released by the CDC Friday offer some of the first evidence of the booster’s effectiveness against hospitalizations and medical encounters. The boosters were especially effective in adults …

Read More »

Biden Administration Again Offers Free COVID Test Kits

The Associated Press reports: The Biden administration is again making some free COVID-19 tests available to all U.S. households as it unveils its contingency plans for potential coronavirus surges this winter. After a three-month hiatus, the administration is making four rapid virus tests available through covidtests.gov starting Thursday, a senior administration official said. The administration is putting personnel and equipment …

Read More »

Study Shows Long COVID Can Be Cause Of Death

The Washington Post reports: A study released Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics found that more than 3,500 Americans died of long-covid-related illness in the first 2½ years of the pandemic. While those deaths represent a small fraction of the 1 million deaths from the coronavirus, they reinforce the danger of ignoring the lingering symptoms that many patients …

Read More »

Anti-Vaxxers Far More Likely To Have Bad Car Accidents

Vice News reports: People who refused to get the COVID vaccine are far more likely to get into a traffic crash requiring hospitalization, a recently published study found, adding evidence to the theory that anti-vaxxers often demonstrate other kinds of dangerous antisocial behavior. The study, published in the American Journal of Medicine, looked at data from more than 11.2 million …

Read More »

Court Axes Nation’s “Most Extreme” Anti-Vax Law

ProPublica reports: In a victory for public health advocates, a federal judge in Montana has blocked the state from implementing a law that would make it illegal for hospitals to ask employees if they are vaccinated. The measure, which passed last year, was the country’s most extreme anti-vaccination law. Health care providers in Montana had sued the state over the …

Read More »

STUDY: Coronavirus Vaccines Averted 3M US Deaths

STAT News reports: This Wednesday will mark two years since nurse Sandra Lindsay became the first person in the U.S. to receive a Covid-19 vaccine outside of a clinical trial. A study released Tuesday by the Commonwealth Fund shows that in those two years, the Covid vaccines have averted over 3 million deaths in the U.S. The CDC estimates that …

Read More »

Fauci Shrugs Off Elon Musk’s Call To Prosecute Him

The Independent reports: Dr Anthony Fauci, the outgoing director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who helped steer the country through the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, brushed off criticism from Twitter’s Elon Musk on Monday. Dr Fauci, who has faced hostility from conservatives for years due to his support of public health measures to limit …

Read More »

NYC Issues Mask Advisory As COVID Cases Surge

Gothamist reports: New York City is experiencing a triple wave of respiratory viruses, and on Friday, city health officials warned residents to take extra precautions. Friday’s health advisory urged New Yorkers to mask up indoors and in crowded spaces, particularly if they’re at risk for severe illness (or know someone who is). The city health department is reporting more than …

Read More »

Face Masks Urged As “Tripledemic” Fills Hospitals

CBS News reports: As the holidays near and health care facilities grapple with a “tripledemic” of viral respiratory infections, people are being urged to consider donning masks and calling out sick. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked seasonal spikes in influenza, Sars-CoV-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — and respiratory syncytial virus or RSV, three viruses …

Read More »

Pentagon Furious Over Looming Vax Mandate Repeal

The Washington Post reports: The looming reversal — spurred by Republicans who had threatened to block passage of the $858 billion spending bill if the mandate wasn’t struck down — creates a rat’s nest for the Pentagon. Commanders whose job it was to enforce the mandate will face the onerous task of assessing whether — and how — to allow …

Read More »

GOP May Force Repeal Of Military Vaccine Mandate

Axios reports: Congress may consider legislation later this week that would scrap the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for military service members. A rollback of the policy may be included in the National Defense Authorization Act, which is set to be unveiled Monday, as a compromise between Republicans and Democrats. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is vying to become …

Read More »

Twitter Drops Policy Against COVID Misinformation

CNN Business reports: Twitter said it will no longer enforce its longstanding Covid misinformation policy, yet another sign of how Elon Musk plans to transform the social media company he bought a month ago. In 2020, Twitter developed an extensive set of rules that sought to prohibit “harmful misinformation” about the virus and its vaccines. Between January 2020 and September …

Read More »

China Sees Widespread Protests Against Leadership

The New York Times reports: Protests spread to cities and college campuses around China on Saturday night, reflecting rising public anger at the country’s draconian Covid controls, with some in a crowd in Shanghai directing their fury at the Communist Party and its top leader, Xi Jinping. The wider demonstrations followed an outpouring of online anger and a street protest …

Read More »