Tag Archives: pandemic

The Washington Post reports: The rapid spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus is poised to divide the United States again, with highly vaccinated areas continuing toward post-pandemic freedom and poorly vaccinated regions threatened by greater caseloads and hospitalizations, health officials warned this week. The highly transmissible strain is taxing hospitals in a rural, lightly vaccinated part of Missouri …

Spectrum News reports: Nearly a week after New York relaxed almost all COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions, coronavirus cases continue to decline. According to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office, only 251 cases statewide were reported in the last 24 hours, putting the 7-day average positivity rate at 0.37%, a percentage that has decreased for the last 77 consecutive days. There were still 10 …

The Associated Press reports: A Florida county shuttered its main administration building after several employees contracted COVID-19 and two people died, officials said. Employees of the Manatee County Administration Building were ordered to leave Friday afternoon while the facility was disinfected and fogged. Epidemiologists were onsite initiating contact tracing, according to a press release from county officials. Read the full …

The Associated Press reports: Anti-government protesters have taken to the streets in cities across Brazil as the nation’s confirmed death toll from COVID-19 soared past half a million. It’s a tragedy many critics blame on President Jair Bolsonaro’s attempt to minimize the disease. Thousands gathered Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, waving flags reading “Get out Bolsonaro.” Other marchers hoisted posters …

Yahoo News reports: President Biden doesn’t believe the U.S. will see any new lockdowns in the coming months, even as he warned about the new Delta variant of the coronavirus, which is much more transmissible than other versions of the pathogen. “Where people have gotten the two shots, the Delta variant is highly unlikely to result in anything,” the president …

Politico reports: State efforts to juice Covid-19 vaccination rates through million-dollar lotteries haven’t reversed the steep decline in adults seeking out shots when many pockets of the country remain vulnerable to the coronavirus. While Ohio did see a two-week bump in adult vaccination rates last month after becoming the first state to offer sizable cash prizes, the pace of vaccinations …

The Wall Street Journal reports: The number of confirmed U.S. deaths from Covid-19 surpassed 600,000 on Tuesday. The milestone follows a significant slowdown in all Covid-19 metrics after a winter surge that reached every corner of the country and strained healthcare systems. Since the rollout of highly effective vaccines, deaths have plummeted, recently reaching their lowest point since March 2020. …

The New York Daily News reports: The men and women who saved lives and kept the city going through the darkest days of the pandemic will be honored with a parade down New York City’s “Canyon of Heroes” on July 7, Mayor de Blasio announced Monday. Healthcare workers, first responders and all kinds of essential workers will get the hero …

The Wall Street Journal reports: More people have died from Covid-19 already this year than in all of 2020, according to official counts, highlighting how the global pandemic is far from over even as vaccines beat back the virus in wealthy nations. It took less than six months for the globe to record more than 1.88 million Covid-19 deaths this …

The Washington Post reports: Vietnam’s Health Ministry announced Saturday that it had detected a highly transmissible new variant of the coronavirus that has helped fuel a recent wave of infections in the country. Genetic sequencing indicated that the new variant was a mix of the coronavirus strains first detected in the United Kingdom and India, said Health Minister Nguyen Thanh …

The BBC reports: India’s government has instructed social media companies to remove any content that refers to the “Indian variant” of Covid-19. The IT ministry said the World Health Organization (WHO) listed the variant as B.1.617 and any reference to “Indian” was false. Geographical terms have been used to describe a number of other variants, including the UK and Brazil. …

The Washington Post reports: For the first time in 11 months, the daily average of new coronavirus infections in the United States has fallen below 30,000 amid continuing signs that most communities across the nation are emerging from the worst of the pandemic. The seven-day average dipped to 27,815 on Friday, the lowest since June 22 and less than a …

The New York Daily News reports: As the pandemic wanes, US retailers are frantically moving to clear excess hand sanitizer. After frantically stocking up on disinfectants last year, consumers have largely stopped buying them, partly because the CDC now says that there is minimal risk of getting COVID-19 by touching surfaces. That’s a big headache for stores that have anti-germ …

Politico reports: State and federal lawmakers, with the support of unions, are looking to survivor registries created after 9/11 as a model for helping potentially millions of people with often-debilitating long-term symptoms of Covid-19. The efforts would center on creating data troves that so-called “long-haulers” could access to make informed decisions about their care, allow medical providers to study the …

Reuters reports: Canada on Friday said there would be a gradual return to a world with indoor sports and family gatherings as more people get vaccinated, but it did not go as far as the United States in telling people they could eventually ditch their masks. Canada has administered one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to just over half its …

The Associated Press reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday will ease indoor mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people, allowing them to safely stop wearing masks inside in most places, according to a person briefed on the announcement. The new guidance will still call for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and …

The Points Guy reports: U.S. airline customers are sitting on more than 20 million expiring airline vouchers and flight credits worth more than a combined $10 billion. Now, two U.S. senators are demanding that airlines waive those expiration dates for all credits issued during the pandemic. Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) co-signed a letter to each of …

Mediaite reports: Support for President Joe Biden is at its highest level since he took office in January, according to a new survey. Sixty-four percent of Americans approve of Biden’s performance, according to the survey, which was conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and released Monday. Another 54 percent say the country is on the “right …

The Associated Press reports: Americans set a record for pandemic-era air travel, then broke it again over the Mother’s Day holiday weekend. The Transportation Security Administration said that slightly more than 1.7 million people were screened at airport checkpoints on Sunday, the highest number since March 2020, when travel was collapsing because of the coronavirus outbreak. However, those crowds were …

NPR reports: A new study estimates that the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. is more than 900,000, a number 57% higher than official figures. Worldwide, the study’s authors say, the COVID-19 death count is nearing 7 million, more than double the reported number of 3.24 million. The analysis comes from researchers at the University …