Tag Archives: pandemic

Changing America reports: Is it safe to use a COVID-19 test that is past the expiration? The answer, it turns out, depends on what brand of test you have. The FDA has extended that date for a number of different at-home COVID-19 tests. The expiration date for multiple lots of BinaxNow COVID-19 antigen tests that were sold at CVS, for …

The Associated Press reports: Criminals and gangs grabbed the money. But so did a U.S. soldier in Georgia, the pastors of a defunct church in Texas, a former state lawmaker in Missouri and a roofing contractor in Montana. All of it led to the greatest grift in U.S. history, with thieves plundering billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief aid …

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Reuters reports: COVID-19 no longer represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said on Friday, a major step towards the end of the pandemic that has killed more than 6.9 million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 …

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 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: 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 …

The Associated Press reports: Patients, mostly older people, laid on stretchers in hallways or took oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as a COVID-19 outbreak stretched public health facilities’ resources in China’s capital Beijing, even after its reported peak. The Chuiyangliu hospital in the city’s east was packed Thursday with newly arrived patients. Beds ran out by midmorning, even as ambulances …

NBC News reports: A new version of omicron has taken hold in the U.S., according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The subvariant of omicron, named XBB.1.5, has raised concerns about another potential wave of Covid cases following the busy holiday travel season. The CDC projected Friday that about 40% of confirmed U.S. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Reuters reports: The world has never been in a better position to end the COVID-19 pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, his most optimistic outlook yet on the years-long health crisis which has killed over six million people. “We are not there yet. But the end is in sight,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told …

ABC News reports: U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday. In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the estimated American lifespan has shortened by nearly three years. The last comparable decrease happened in the early 1940s, during the height …

The Associated Press reports: The nation’s top public health agency relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines Thursday, dropping the recommendation that Americans quarantine themselves if they come into close contact with an infected person. The CDC also said people no longer need to stay at least 6 feet away from others. The changes, which come more than 2 1/2 years after the …

USA Today reports: “COVID is over” might trend within social media circles, but weekly U.S. death tolls tell a different story. The pace of COVID-19 deaths has remained relatively steady since May, despite an uptick in July to about 400 a day, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. In July, more than 12,500 Americans died …

NPR reports: President Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Saturday, according to a letter from White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, but he will continue to isolate until he tests negative a second time. “The President continues to feel very well,” O’Connor wrote The president first tested positive for the virus on July 21. The administration said he experienced only …