Tag Archives: coronavirus

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 …

“You can be fully vaccinated, fully boosted, have all the booster — booster 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. You can have natural immunity but you can still catch COVID. You can still get it and get sick. You can still transmit the virus to others. That’s what the science tells us. “Look at the recent findings that show that …

NPR reports: The Food and Drug Administration is considering a major shift in the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine strategy. The goal is to simplify vaccination against COVID and perhaps adopt an approach similar to what is used for the flu vaccine, with annual updates to match whatever strain of the virus is circulating. Currently, people who want to be fully vaccinated …

The Guardian reports: New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said she is resigning, in an unexpected announcement that came as she confirmed a national election for October. At the party’s first caucus meeting of the year on Thursday, Ardern said she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job. “It’s time,” she added. “I’m leaving, because …

ABC News reports: A Utah plastic surgeon issued COVID-19 vaccination cards to large numbers of patients who never received their shots, dumping the vaccines down the drain while telling the CDC the recipients had been properly inoculated, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday. Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, who operates the Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, is charged along …

The Associated Press reports: China on Saturday reported nearly 60,000 deaths in people who had COVID-19 since early December following complaints it was failing to release data, and said the “emergency peak” of its latest surge appears to have passed. The toll included 5,503 deaths due to respiratory failure caused by COVID-19 and 54,435 fatalities from other ailments combined with …

ABC News reports: COVID-19 remained the leading cause of law enforcement deaths in 2022 despite the number attributed to the virus dramatically declining. A new report by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund looked at preliminary data and found that 226 federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement officers died last year while in the line of duty. Of …

Politico reports: The Pentagon formally dropped its Covid-19 vaccination mandate Tuesday, but a new memo signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also gives commanders some discretion in how or whether to deploy troops who are not vaccinated. Austin’s memo has been widely anticipated ever since legislation signed into law on Dec. 23 gave him 30 days to rescind the mandate. …

Reuters reports: Countries should consider recommending that passengers wear masks on long-haul flights, given the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19 in the United States, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Tuesday. In Europe, the XBB.1.5 subvariant was detected in small but growing numbers, WHO and Europe officials said at a press briefing. Passengers should be …

The Washington Post reports: House Republicans on Monday commissioned a special investigative panel focused on the coronavirus pandemic, hoping to leverage their new, powerful majority to press scientists and federal officials about the origin of the public health crisis and the government’s response to it. Republicans have long derided Democrats, public health experts and others who advocated for an aggressive …