Breaking News

COVID-19

CDC panel recommends Pfizer, Moderna shots over J&J

Most Americans should be given the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines instead of the Johnson & Johnson shot that can cause rare but serious blood clots, U.S. health advisers recommended Thursday. The strange clotting problem has caused nine confirmed deaths after J&J vaccinations — while the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines don't come with that risk and also appear more effective, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. It's an unusual move and the CDC's director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, must decide whether to accept the panel's advice. Until now the U.S. has treated ...

British surge seen as warning on omicron, but responses vary

LONDON (AP) — Spiraling infections in Britain driven in part by the new omicron variant of the coronavirus rattled many in Europe on Thursday, fueling a familiar dread that tighter restrictions will scuttle holiday plans again this year. Much remains unknown about omicron, but increasingly ...

Florida county: Omicron is dominant in wastewater samples

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Even though there have been practically no cases of clinical infection, wastewater samples show that the new omicron variant is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the Florida county that is home to the nation’s largest theme park resorts, officials said this week. The omicron variant has quickly surpassed the delta variant in collections taken from wastewater sampling sites in Orange County, officials said. A sampling this week showed that omicron represented almost 100% of the strains in the samples from the wastewater facilities, Orange County Utilities ...

PA asks FEMA for help with COVID

Pennsylvania asked the federal government on Wednesday to send health care workers to hospitals and nursing homes that are increasingly under stress from persistent staffing shortages and the latest COVID-19 surge. The Wolf administration requested Federal Emergency Management Agency “strike teams” for hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and ambulance companies in the hardest-hit areas of the state. Pennsylvania also asked FEMA for 1 million rapid at-home coronavirus tests and for an increase in the state’s allocation of monoclonal antibody treatments. Hospitals and nursing ...

Colleges go back to drawing board — again — to fight COVID

Facing rising infections and a new COVID-19 variant, colleges across the U.S. have once again been thwarted in seeking a move to normalcy and are starting to require booster shots, extend mask mandates, limit social gatherings and, in some cases, revert to online classes. The threat of the omicron variant comes as a gut punch to schools that were hoping to relax safety measures this spring. Now, many are telling students to prepare for another term of masking, testing and, if cases get bad, limits around social life. Cornell University shut down all campus activities on Tuesday and ...

US faces a double coronavirus surge as omicron advances

The new omicron coronavirus mutant speeding around the world may bring another wave of chaos, threatening to further stretch hospital workers already struggling with a surge of delta cases and upend holiday plans for the second year in a row. The White House on Wednesday insisted there is no need for a lockdown because vaccines are widely available and appear to offer protection against the worst consequences of the virus. But even if omicron proves milder on the whole than delta, it may disarm some of the life-saving tools available and put immune-compromised and elderly people at ...