Tag Archives: pandemic

DC Metro Won’t Return To Pre-Pandemic Service Levels

The Washington Post reports: The public transit service that riders were accustomed to before the pandemic is not coming back, a result of fewer trips to downtown Washington and a rise in workers abandoning commutes, Metro leaders testified Wednesday at a hearing on problems plaguing the transit agency. Hundreds of suspended rail cars could return in April, but Metro officials …

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US Death Toll From COVID Surpasses 900,000

ABC News reports: Propelled in part by the wildly contagious omicron variant, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 hit 900,000 on Friday, less than two months after eclipsing 800,000. The two-year total, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is greater than the population of Indianapolis, San Francisco, or Charlotte, North Carolina. The milestone comes more than 13 months into a …

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Omicron Deaths Now Higher Than During Delta Peak

The Associated Press reports: Omicron, the highly contagious coronavirus variant sweeping across the country, is driving the daily American death toll higher than during last fall’s delta wave, with deaths likely to keep rising for days or even weeks. The seven-day rolling average for daily new COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. has been climbing since mid-November, reaching 2,267 on Thursday …

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Fauci “Confident” Omicron Will Peak By Mid-February

The Hill reports: “You never want to be overconfident when you’re dealing with this virus,” Fauci said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “But if you look at the patterns that we’ve seen in South Africa in the U.K. and Israel … they’ve peaked and starting to come down rather sharply.” Fauci said there are some states, particularly in …

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New COVID Cases On Decline In 15 States And DC

Reuters reports: New coronavirus cases are falling in parts of the United States hardest hit by the fast-spreading Omicron variant, according to a Reuters analysis of public health data, offering an early indication the virus might once again be on retreat. COVID-19 infections have decreased in 15 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, an analysis of the past week …

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New Gallup Poll: Majority Say Pandemic Is Worsening

Gallup reports: With the highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19 infecting hundreds of thousands of Americans daily, optimism about the trajectory of the pandemic in the U.S. has fallen sharply, and worry about contracting the virus has risen to its highest level in a year. The latest update to Gallup’s COVID-19 data, from a survey conducted Jan. 3-14, finds U.S. …

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Forecast: Up To 300K More COVID Deaths By Mid-March

The Associated Press reports: The fast-moving omicron variant may cause less severe disease on average, but COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are climbing and modelers forecast 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans could die by the time the wave subsides in mid-March. The seven-day rolling average for daily new COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. has been trending upward since mid-November, reaching …

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NYC Subway Ridership Still Only 40% Of Usual Average

The New York Times reports: Stations in lower-income areas in Brooklyn, Queens and Upper Manhattan, where residents are less likely to be able to work from home and typically depend more on public transit, have rebounded far faster than stations in office-heavy sections of Manhattan, including some that were once the busiest in the system, where many workers are still …

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Site To Order Free COVID Tests Launches Wednesday

The Washington Post reports: A federal website where Americans can order free coronavirus rapid tests will be launched Wednesday and allow each household to order up to four tests, senior administration officials said. The website, called covidtests.gov, will require that users provide their names and addresses to receive the tests. The government purchased 500 million rapid tests that will be …

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Experts: Next Variant May Be Worse Than Omicron

The Associated Press reports: Get ready to learn more Greek letters. Scientists warn that omicron’s whirlwind advance practically ensures it won’t be the last version of the coronavirus to worry the world. Every infection provides a chance for the virus to mutate, and omicron has an edge over its predecessors: It spreads way faster despite emerging on a planet with …

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Rolls Royce CEO: COVID Has Been Great For Business

The Guardian reports: The company’s chief executive, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, said the pandemic had led to customers, whose average age was 43, responding to the reminder of their own mortality by splashing out on luxury cars. “Many people witnessed people in their community dying from Covid and that made them think life can be short and you’d better live now rather …

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US Again Breaks Daily Record With 1.35M New Cases

Reuters reports: The United States reported 1.35 million new coronavirus infections on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, the highest daily total for any country in the world as the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant showed no signs of slowing. The previous record was 1.03 million cases on Jan. 3. A large number of cases are reported each …

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US Breaks All-Time COVID Hospitalizations Record

Reuters reports: COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States reached a fresh high of 132,646, according to a Reuters tally on Monday, surpassing the record of 132,051 set in January last year, amid a surge of the highly contagious Omicron variant. While potentially less severe, health officials have warned that the sheer number of infections caused by the Omicron variant could …

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NYT: Two Million New COVID Cases Per Day Globally

The New York Times reports: The pace of daily new infections of the coronavirus has nearly doubled in the past week, surpassing two million known cases a day, underscoring just how quickly the Omicron variant has spread around the world. On April 25 last year, the global average hit a high of more than 827,000 cases, a level that has …

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CA Extends Indoor Mask Mandate Through Feb. 15th

Los Angeles’s ABC News affiliate reports: California’s indoor mask mandate has been extended one month, through at least Feb. 15, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly announced in a briefing Wednesday. The mandate went into effect on Dec. 15, 2021, and was set to expire Jan. 15, 2022. It requires that masks be worn in all indoor public …

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US Sets Global Daily Record With Over 1M New Cases

Bloomberg News reports: More than 1 million people in the U.S. were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Monday as a tsunami of omicron swamps every aspect of daily American life. The highly mutated variant drove U.S. cases to a record, the most — by a large margin — that any country has ever reported. Monday’s number is almost double the previous …

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Another 1400 Flights Canceled Today, 2000 Delayed

ABC News reports: Over 1,400 flights going into, out of and within the U.S. were canceled on Friday as the year comes to a close with snarled travel due to the impact of COVID-19 and the omicron variant on airlines and their crews. According to FlightAware’s live delay and cancellation statistic, just over 1,400 flights in the U.S. were canceled …

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CDC Reports Record Pediatric COVID Hospitalizations

The Associated Press reports: The omicron-fueled surge that is sending COVID-19 cases rocketing in the U.S. is putting children in the hospital in record numbers, and experts lament that most of the youngsters are not vaccinated. “It’s just so heartbreaking,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious-disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It was hard enough last year, but now …

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Experts: Omicron Surge Could Peak In Mid-January

The Washington Post reports: The rapid surge of omicron infections in the United States may be relatively brief, measured in weeks rather than months, according to infectious-disease experts who have been astonished by the speed of the coronavirus variant’s spread — and who are hoping this wave ebbs just as quickly. The idea of a rapid peak and swift decline …

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Officials: Florida Has No Plan To Open Testing Sites

The Orlando Sentinel reports: Orange County officials said Wednesday the state has balked at opening testing sites amid a tidal wave of demand and denied a request this week for flashing signs to help provide information to people in miles-long lines. A state testing site, like one that was operated at the Orange County Convention Center in 2020, would alleviate …

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