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COVID-19

Centre County Government: Get vaxxed or get tested

BELLEFONTE — If you work for Centre County Government, get those vaccine cards ready. Centre County Government employees will soon be required to show proof of a COVID vaccination or face weekly testing. County administrators say the new policy will be similar to the one at Penn State’s University Park campus. The new policy was approved by the Centre County commissioners on Thursday. The policy was approved by a 2-1 vote. Commissioners Michael Pipe and Mark Higgins voted yes, while commissioner Steve Dershem voted against the measure. “Unfortunately, Centre County Government ...

Supreme Court halts COVID-19 vaccine rule for US businesses

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has stopped the Biden administration from enforcing a requirement that employees at large businesses be vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing and wear a mask on the job. At the same time, the court is allowing the administration to ...

Biden to double free COVID tests, add N95s, to fight omicron

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Thursday that the government will double to 1 billion the rapid, at-home COVID-19 tests to be distributed free to Americans, along with the most protective N95 masks, as he highlighted his efforts to “surge” resources to help the country weather the spike in coronavirus cases. Biden also announced that starting next week 1,000 military medical personnel will begin deploying across the country to help overwhelmed medical facilities ease staff shortages due to the highly transmissible omicron variant. Speaking at the White House, he ...

Omicron may be headed for a rapid drop in US and Britain

Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19’s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically. The reason: The variant has proved so wildly contagious that it may already be running out of ...

Pope on COVID vaccines says health care a ‘moral obligation’

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis suggested Monday that getting vaccinated against the coronavirus was a “moral obligation” and denounced how people had been swayed by “baseless information” to refuse one of the most effective measures to save lives during the pandemic. Francis used some of his strongest words yet calling for people to get vaccinated in a speech to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, an annual event in which he sets out the Vatican’s foreign policy goals for the year. Francis, 85, has generally shied away from speaking about vaccination as a “moral ...

US hospitals letting infected staff members stay on the job

Hospitals around the U.S. are increasingly taking the extraordinary step of allowing nurses and other workers infected with the coronavirus to stay on the job if they have mild symptoms or none at all. The move is a reaction to the severe hospital staffing shortages and crushing caseloads ...