Tag Archives: coronavirus

Pew Research reports: With the U.S. national emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic now at an end, Americans have sorted themselves into three groups based on their vaccination decisions. Roughly a third of U.S. adults (34%) are enthusiastic about the vaccines and up-to-date, being fully vaccinated and having gotten a recent booster shot. A similar share of the public …

Politico reports: Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who guided President Joe Biden’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic from his first day in office, is leaving her post, the White House announced Friday. Her announcement comes days before the Biden administration plans to end the public health emergency in place since early 2020, and …

Reuters reports: COVID-19 no longer represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said on Friday, a major step towards the end of the pandemic that has killed more than 6.9 million people, disrupted the global economy and ravaged communities. “Yesterday, the Emergency Committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to …

Reuters reports: The United States will end its COVID-19 vaccination requirements for international travelers and federal workers on May 11, when the coronavirus public health emergency ends, the White House said on Monday. In February, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to lift the requirement that most foreign air travelers be vaccinated against COVID-19, one of the few remaining pandemic …

From the Justice Department: Five individuals, including two certified nurse midwives, one licensed practical nurse and two health care business owners, have been charged for their participation in separate schemes that fraudulently distributed more than 2,600 fake COVID-19 vaccination records cards and defrauded the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program of more than $1.7 million. The defendants …

CNBC reports: Eighteen people, some of them doctors, were criminally charged with Covid-19 health-care fraud schemes that netted hundreds of millions of dollars from false billings and theft from federally funded programs, the Department of Justice said Thursday. The charges, which span nine federal judicial districts, comprise the largest coordinated law enforcement action in the U.S. targeting fraud schemes that …

Gothamist reports: The COVID-19 pandemic shortened average life expectancy for New Yorkers by more than four years, hitting the city’s minority populations hardest, according to a report released on Friday. The study by the city’s health department looked at trends in births and deaths in New York City during 2020, the year when COVID-19 arrived. The analysis found that from …

The Washington Post reports: The White House will shut down its covid response team after the public health emergency ends in May, with some staffers already departing and national coordinator Ashish Jha likely to leave the administration once his team is disbanded. The move to disband the White House covid team, created in February 2020 and expanded to about three …

The Atlantic reports: Many scientists have stood by the notion that this outbreak—like most others—had purely natural roots. But that hypothesis has been missing a key piece of proof: genetic evidence from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, showing that the virus had infected creatures for sale there. This week, an international team of virologists, genomicists, and evolutionary …

The Daily Beast reports: A prominent scientist who helped develop Russia’s COVID vaccine, Sputnik V, was killed in his apartment in Moscow on Thursday, according to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. Andrey Botikov, who worked as a senior researcher at the Gamaleya National Research Center for Ecology and Mathematics, was found dead in his apartment on Thursday. His …

New York City’s CW affiliate reports: Customers should be required to show their faces before being allowed into businesses, NYPD officials urged on Tuesday. Removing a mask and allowing identification can be a “condition of entry,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said. Businesses can then allow people to put masks back on after they’ve shown their face. “We’re seeing …

Axios reports: China’s Foreign Ministry claimed on Tuesday that the country has been “open and transparent” about its efforts to trace the origins of COVID-19 and accused the U.S. of politicizing the issue. The U.S. Department of Energy concluded in a “low confidence” assessment that the pandemic most likely started from a laboratory leak. China has repeatedly dismissed the lab …

Fox News reports: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Monday called for the Biden administration to declassify government documents that reportedly show the Energy Department assessing the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China. Paul was hardly the only Republican lawmakers to call for answers and accountability following news of the Energy Department’s assessment. Congressional Republicans quickly …

Politico reports: The U.S. government still has not reached a consensus on how the coronavirus pandemic started, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday — despite news reports that the Energy Department has concluded the virus most likely leaked from a lab in China. “The intelligence community and the rest of the government is still looking at this,” …

Axios reports: A new U.S. government assessment that COVID-19 likely originated from a lab leak in China has ignited yet another round of political furor around the issue, adding to many Republicans’ anger over how the pandemic was handled even as many scientists remain convinced the virus most likely originated naturally. Department of Energy scientists concluded in a “low confidence” …

Via press release from the FDA: Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the first over-the-counter (OTC) at-home diagnostic test that can differentiate and detect influenza A and B, commonly known as the flu, and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The Lucira COVID-19 & Flu Home Test is a single-use at-home test …

The Los Angeles Times reports: The California exodus has shown no sign of slowing down as the state’s population dropped by more than 500,000 people between April 2020 and July 2022, with the number of residents leaving surpassing those moving in by nearly 700,000. The population decrease was second only to New York, which lost about 15,000 more people than …

The Hill reports: House Republicans are officially relaunching their investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic by calling for testimony and information from Anthony Fauci and other current and former Biden administration officials. Reps. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, …

The Associated Press reports: President Joe Biden informed Congress on Monday that he will end the twin national emergencies for addressing COVID-19 on May 11, as most of the world has returned closer to normalcy nearly three years after they were first declared. The move to end the national emergency and public health emergency declarations would formally restructure the federal …

The Associated Press reports: The coronavirus remains a global health emergency, the World Health Organization chief said Monday after a key advisory panel found the pandemic may be nearing an “inflexion point” where higher levels of immunity can lower virus-related deaths. Speaking at the opening of WHO’s annual executive board meeting, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “there is no …