Two-and-a-half years after it first spilled into humans, the COVID virus has repeatedly changed its structure and chemistry in ways that confound efforts to bring it fully under control.
The pandemic’s toll is no longer falling almost exclusively on those who chose not to get shots, with vaccine protection waning over time and the elderly and immunocompromised having a harder time dodging increasingly contagious strains.
Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said the United States was in the “full-blown pandemic phase” in the winter, then entered a period he refers to as the “deceleration” phase. The country is transitioning, he said, to the control phase.
Paxlovid, when administered within five days of symptoms appearing, has been proven to bring about a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.
Officials are expressing increasing alarm that the U.S. is also losing out on critical opportunities to secure booster doses and new antiviral pills that could help the country maintain its reemerging sense of normalcy.
COVID-19 vaccinations are at a critical juncture as companies test whether new approaches like combination shots or nasal drops can keep up with a mutating coronavirus—even though it’s not clear if changes are needed.
The notice came minutes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked the Justice Department to appeal the decision handed down by a federal judge in Florida earlier this week.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett is experiencing “mild symptoms” and is isolating at home, his office announced Sunday afternoon.
With official reporting of COVID-19 cases and testing data becoming less frequent and less reliable, especially as people test at home, sewage monitoring has gained increasing importance.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to extend the order, which was to expire on April 18, to monitor for any observable increase in severe virus outcomes as cases rise in parts of the country, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The administration argued that the Constitution gives the president, as the head of the federal workforce, the same authority as the CEO of a private corporation to require that employees be vaccinated.
The compromise drew quick support from President Joe Biden, who initially pushed for a $22.5 billion package.
The government estimates that between 7.7 and 23 million people may already have long COVID.
The effort, which would finance steps like vaccines, treatments and tests, comes as President Biden and other Democrats have warned the government is running out of money to counter the pandemic.
In its response to lawmakers, IU emphasized the role of public health in health care costs and called on lawmakers to spend more on public health. It pointed to a recent study that ranked Indiana 47th among states in per-person public health funding.
When the end of the COVID-19 pandemic comes, it could create major disruptions for a cumbersome U.S. health care system made more generous, flexible and up-to-date technologically through a raft of temporary emergency measures.
The effort to stamp out the chemicals comes in response to an investigation by Consumer Reports that found toxic chemicals in a majority of the food wrappers and packaging from chain restaurants and grocery stores that were tested.
In making their case, executives cited the “persistent and steady decline” of hospitalizations and death rates related to the coronavirus.
Hospitalizations have plummeted 90% since hitting a pandemic high of 3,519 on Jan. 13. COVID patients occupy only 2.9% of Indiana’s intensive care unit beds.
Scores of projects across the United States are being funded with federal coronavirus relief money despite having little to do with combating the pandemic, a review by The Associated Press has found.
