TimeMagazine

South Africa’s noticeable drop in new COVID-19 cases in recent days may signal that the country’s dramatic omicron-driven surge has passed its peak, medical experts say. Daily virus case counts are notoriously unreliable, as they can be affected by uneven testing, reporting delays and other fluctuations. But they are offering one tantalizing hint—far from conclusive … Read more

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 warn of a tsunami of new infections … Read more

It’s clear that 2020 was a terrible year for health in the U.S., but just how terrible is now coming into focus. New mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics finds that life expectancy dropped by 1.8 years in 2020 compared to 2019, and more than 528,800 more U.S. residents died in 2020 … Read more

For most of 2020, avoiding the novel coronavirus was at the heart of almost every piece of public-health advice. Then, vaccinations largely gave Americans their lives back. Breakthrough infections were remarkably rare in the early months of mass vaccination. Only about 10,000 people—or 0.01% of the 101 million U.S. adults who had been fully vaccinated—reported … Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting the omicron variant surging through the country, President Joe Biden announced the government will provide 500 million free rapid home-testing kits, increase support for hospitals under strain and redouble vaccination and boosting efforts. At the White House on Tuesday, Biden detailed major changes to his COVID-19 winter plan, his hand forced … Read more

After nearly 2 years of calling for rapid tests, the U.S. is finally catching up to the rest of the world with these crucial public health tools. There is no time better than now, as the Omicron quickly spreads in the U.S., and is more infectious and better able to break through the immune protection … Read more

Moderna reported on Dec. 20 that its currently authorized booster dose raises the level of antibodies able to neutralize the Omicron variant. The company performed preliminary tests to determine how well blood sera from people who had received its booster dose could neutralize a version of the Omicron variant in the lab. Researchers collected sera … Read more

(NEW YORK) — Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., 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 omicron’s share of infections in only … Read more

The agonizingly slow upward creep of the U.S. COVID vaccination rate, coupled with the emergence of the Omicron variant, has observers speaking in tones of gloom. What is wrong with people who refuse to get the shots? Some point to diseases such as smallpox and polio as evidence of a less-broken time when people trusted … Read more

Studio E School of Dance in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens in New York City is losing students. A city-wide policy that went into effect on Dec. 14 bars children ages 5 and up from attending certain extracurricular activities unless they’ve received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Because the majority of … Read more