Coronavirus category, Page 21

WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators on Thursday authorized the second pill against covid-19, providing another easy-to-use medication to battle the rising tide of omicron infections. The Food and Drug Administration authorization comes one day after the agency cleared a competing drug from Pfizer. That pill is likely to become the...

ATHENS, Greece — Christmas concerts and other events have been canceled in Greece under new restrictions announced Thursday that include a general mask mandate for outdoors and all public areas. Incoming travelers will also be required to have follow-up tests for covid-19 on the second and fourth days after their...

Two new British studies provide some early hints that the omicron variant of the coronavirus may be milder than the delta version. Scientists stress that even if the findings of these early studies hold up, any reductions in severity need to be weighed against the fact omicron spreads much faster...

More than 400 people have died in Allegheny County covid-related deaths in the past three months, including 97 in December, county Health Director Dr. Debra Bogen said Wednesday. Covid-19 case counts remain at a daily average of 600 per day, while “hospitalizations remain high, as do deaths,” Bogen said. “I...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has tested negative for covid-19, the White House said Wednesday. “This morning, President Biden received a PCR test and the test result was negative,” the White House press office said in a statement emailed to reporters, referring to a sensitive test used to detect the...

WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators on Wednesday authorized the first pill against covid-19, a Pfizer drug that Americans will be able to take at home to head off the worst effects of the virus. The long-awaited milestone comes as U.S. cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all rising and health officials...

Almost two years since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, cases are surging and the threat of another highly contagious variant looms, but projections show people still plan to travel for the holidays. Nearly 28 million more people will travel this year compared to 2020, according to AAA, and airlines...

VIENNA — The World Health Organization’s top official in Europe urged governments on Tuesday to prepare for a “significant surge” in coronavirus cases across the continent due to the omicron variant, which is already dominant in several countries. “We can see another storm coming,” WHO Europe regional director Dr. Hans...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Intel has told workers that unvaccinated people who don’t get an exemption for religious or medical reasons will be on unpaid leave beginning in April. The California-based semiconductor company told employees last month they had a Jan. 4 deadline to be vaccinated against covid-19 or seek an...

CHICAGO — When the coronavirus pandemic began, Patrick Malia was an energetic, 37-year-old father of two. In March 2020, coughing sent him to an Illinois emergency room. Two years later, the West Dundee, Illinois resident is still suffering from covid-19 symptoms he never could have imagined persisting so long after...

WASHINGTON — With the omicron variant on the march, President Joe Biden plans to announce 500 million free rapid tests for Americans, increased support for hospitals under strain and a redoubling of vaccination and boosting efforts. In a speech scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, Biden is announcing major changes to his...

Workers and customers at restaurants, gyms and many other indoor businesses in Boston will be required to show proof of coronavirus vaccination starting in mid-January in an effort to curb a rise in new cases across the city and state, Mayor Michelle Wu said Monday. In addition, city employees will...

NEW YORK — Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the United States, accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health officials said Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in...

Westmoreland County Prison Warden Bryan Kline said that as of Monday there are 21 current coronavirus infections at the jail but no additional cases have been reported since late last week. Kline said the last inmate to test positive for the virus was on Dec. 17. “It’s getting better,” Kline...

There’s still a lot we don’t know about the omicron coronavirus variant, including whether it causes more severe covid-19 or the degree to which it evades vaccines’ defenses in real-world settings. But early data collected in London reveals the answer to a question we’re all asking: Does omicron cause different...

Moderna said Monday that a booster dose of its covid-19 vaccine should offer protection against the rapidly spreading omicron variant. Moderna said lab tests showed the half-dose booster shot increased by 37 times the level of so-called neutralizing antibodies able to fight omicron. And a full-dose booster was even stronger,...

Editor’s note: This story first published on Dec. 20, 2021. Sue Lovgren’s family member was sick with covid-like symptoms the week after Thanksgiving, and they had decisions to make, depending on what the result was. “We were waiting on a PCR test and it was taking too much time, and...

MIAMI — Forty-eight passengers and crew members tested positive for covid-19 on Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas ship, which docked Saturday at PortMiami, the cruise company said. Miami-based Royal Caribbean said in a statement Sunday that each person who tested positive immediately went into quarantine. Six people who had...

BOSTON — Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey say they have tested positive for covid-19, as the country deals with another surge in cases and the emergence of the omicron variant. In separate statements Sunday, the Democrats said they had been fully vaccinated with two...

SEATTLE — Washington state Sen. Doug Ericksen, a staunch conservative, has died at age 52. Ericksen’s death Friday came weeks after he said he had tested positive for the coronavirus while in El Salvador, though his cause of death wasn’t immediately released. The state Senate Republican Caucus confirmed his passing...

VIENNA — Germany should implement stricter measures this week to slow the spread of the omicron variant, the German government’s new expert council said Sunday, a day after the government announced it would impose travel restrictions on people coming from Britain. The council — comprised of Germany’s top virologists and...

WILMINGTON, Del. — The covid-19 omicron variant is “just raging around the world,” the White House’s top medical adviser said Sunday, and President Joe Biden is planning to give “a stark warning of what the winter will look like” for unvaccinated Americans. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease...

The U.S. government has overcounted the number of Americans who are at least partly vaccinated against the coronavirus, state officials warn, meaning millions more people are unprotected as the pandemic’s winter surge gathers steam. Last weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised a bellwether metric — the share...

Tens of millions of workers across the U.S. are in limbo as federal courts have issued different rulings related to President Joe Biden’s covid-19 vaccine mandates for larger private companies, certain health care workers and federal government contractors. A federal appeals court panel has allowed a vaccine requirement for employers...

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration said Saturday that it would not issue citations tied to its coronavirus vaccination mandate before Jan. 10, so that companies have time to adjust to and implement the requirements. The federal agency separately said there would be no citations of companies regarding its testing...