TimeMagazine

President Joe Biden’s medical adviser said a domestic travel vaccination rule should be considered as the omicron variant fuels record Covid-19 case loads in some states and holiday travel continues to be disrupted around the U.S. Anthony Fauci said on MSNBC on Monday that it would be “reasonable to consider” a requirement to be vaccinated … Read more

Our ancestors started drinking booze millions of years ago, and we never stopped. Alcohol is embedded in nearly every culture in the world as a social lubricant, marker of taste and cornerstone of celebrations. If companies tried to bring it to market for the first time today, however, U.S. regulators would almost certainly forbid it. … Read more

(JERUSALEM) — Israel has begun trials of a fourth dose of coronavirus vaccine in what is believed to be the first study of its kind. The trial began at Sheba Medical Center, outside Tel Aviv, with 150 medical personnel who received a booster dose in August receiving a fourth shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The … Read more

People who have Covid-19 can leave isolation after five days if they are no longer experiencing symptoms, U.S. health officials said, cutting the previously recommended period in half as the omicron variant spurs a jump in infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Monday that following the initial five-day isolation … Read more

At least three major airlines said they have canceled dozens of flights because illnesses largely tied to the omicron variant of COVID-19 have taken a toll on flight crew numbers during the busy holiday travel season. Germany-based Lufthansa said Friday that it was canceling a dozen long-haul transatlantic flights over the Christmas holiday period because … Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic has not, to put it lightly, been a happy time. But it has been and continues to be a rich period for scientists who study happiness. Researchers around the world have followed what happens to wellbeing during the biggest collective threat to happiness most of us have ever known. First, an obvious … Read more

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 first-choice treatment against the virus, thanks to … Read more

Preliminary data suggest that people with the omicron variant of the coronavirus are between 50% and 70% less likely to need hospitalization than those with the delta strain, Britain’s public health agency said Thursday. The U.K. Health Security Agency findings add to emerging evidence that omicron produces milder illness than other variants—but also spreads faster … Read more

Last winter, A.S.—a 26-year-old from Minnesota who asked to go by her initials to protect her privacy while job searching—was terrified of seasonal affective disorder (SAD). No stranger to seasonal depression during Minnesota’s cold, dark, snowy winters, A.S. worried that pandemic isolation would only make the problem worse. She planned a regimen of prescribed antidepressants, … Read more

The arrival of Omicron, the latest and most transmissible COVID-19 variant to date, underscores the tremendous need for updated COVID-19 policy in the U.S. We always knew it would be difficult to contain a highly transmissible respiratory virus before Omicron. The arrival of the Delta variant forced us to abandon our goal of “herd immunity.” With the arrival … Read more