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NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — COVID-19 hospitalization numbers have plunged to their lowest levels since the early days of the pandemic, offering a much needed break to health care workers and patients alike following the omicron surge. The number of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus has fallen more than 90% in more than two months, and some hospitals are going days without a single COVID-19 patient in the ICU for the first time since early 2020....

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles City Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to end a requirement that many indoor businesses and large outdoor events verify that customers have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The motion proposed by council President Nury Martinez would make vaccination verifications voluntary at such establishments as restaurants, bars, gyms and personal care businesses. The measure needs at least 12 votes to pass to meet the council’s “urgency” threshold and so it could go into effect quickly. A simple majority would also approve the measure, but it wouldn’t go into effect for several weeks...

New Zealand’s ruling class has released data showing that those who are fully “vaccinated” are getting acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS. The newly released data is showing a major degradation of the immune system.But just like Public Health Scotland originally did before they were exposed, and just like the Government of Canada is doing now, the New Zealand Ministry of Health only provides a cumulative total of COVID “cases” from the 16th of August 2021.This is both irritating and extremely misleading when you consider New Zealand is currently experiencing its largest wave of Covid-19 to date.But that isn’t the only...

In 2013, American virologist Ralph Baric approached Zhengli Shi at a meeting. Shi had detected the genome of a new virus, called SHC014, that was one of the two closest relatives to the original SARS virus, but her team had not been able to culture it in the lab. Baric had developed a way around that problem—a technique for “reverse genetics” in coronaviruses. Not only did it allow him to bring an actual virus to life from its genetic code, but he could mix and match parts of multiple viruses. He wanted to take the “spike” gene from SHC014 and...

State trooper who told off Inslee over vaccine mandate dies from COVID UPDATED: Sat., Jan. 29, 2022 By Craig Sailor Tacoma News Tribune A former Washington State Patrol trooper who told off Gov. Jay Inslee over the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, resigned and then became a sought-after media figure, has died, according to the State Patrol. Trooper Robert LaMay’s death was announced Friday. He was 50. According to FOX News, KIRO News Radio, Newsweek and other media sources, LaMay died after contracting COVID-19. His former boss, State Patrol Chief John Batiste, said he was deeply saddened to hear of LaMay’s death...

Reported Cases: The current 7-day moving average of daily new cases (744,616) decreased 5.0% compared with the previous week. (peaked Nationally on 13 Jan) Variants: Omicron 99.5%, and Delta 0.5% New Hospital Admissions: The current 7-day daily average was 20,990. This is a 1.1% increase from the prior week. (peaked Nationally on 15 Jan) Deaths: The current 7-day moving average of new deaths (1,749) has decreased 0.3% compared with the previous week. Vaccinations: 75.3% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose. 63.2% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated. (87.3% of Adults have at one, 73.8%...

I drove around with a workmate in a Chevy Sonoma last Wednesday for about 20 minutes. We were both masked. He is vaccinated and I am not. He is in his 50’s and obese. He doesn’t smoke and I don’t know if he drinks. I am 60 and smoke about 1/2 pack a day and drink. I am 5’9 and 189.. He tested positive and I went into quarantine last Thursday. I started having the sniffles on Friday. I went for a test on Monday and it came back positive today. Since I was positive, I was sent home from...

The previous head of the Chemnitz Clinic Dr. Thomas Jendges is dead. He fell from the roof of the clinic to his death. In his farewell letter, he is said to have justified his step by saying, among other things, that he could no longer stand the “constant lies and cheating about supposedly harmless vaccinations” associated with Covid. In his lengthy farewell letter that Dr. Thomas Jendges wrote before his suicide and demanded its publication, he is said to have sharply criticized the governments' information policy in dealing with the danger of the Covid vaccinations. He could no longer stand...

It’s been a weird start to 2022 for us, with lots of anxiety and uncertainty about the impact of the Omicron variant which is hamstringing UK healthcare at the moment – even while other parts of life such as school and football and work seem to be ploughing on regardless. We decided to return to musicals and something of a family classic – which was not a good fit earlier in the pandemic – and see if we could make it work to reflect that dissonance at the moment. So here’s our parody of the relentlessly upbeat musical show number,...

This was easy to miss since it wasn't specifically called out, but a CDC paper published a week ago confirmed (once again) that VAERS is very underreported, even when people are urged to report by HHSSteve Kirsch9 min ago 143 It’s hard to keep up with all the data coming out of the CDC, but I try my best.And sometimes, you strike gold every now and then.Here’s one such paper that was brought to my attention by Dr. David Wiseman. It was written by authors from the CDC and FDA. So you can trust it:COVID-19 Vaccine Safety in Children Aged...

A Johns Hopkins University medical professor slammed America's elite universities - including those in the Ivy League - for 'anti-scientific and cruel' COVID policies that ignore how little risk the virus actually poses to college students. Dr. Marty Markay blamed groupthink at such higher learning institutions as Georgetown, Cornell, Princeton, UMass and Emerson for creating undue harm on the mental health of college students, in an article published on Bari Weiss' Common Sense substack, Over the last six months, Markay wrote, the risk of a person 15 to 24 dying of COVID was 0.001 percent - and those who did...

A Southern California man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for shooting dead his garage bandmate's wife as she held her toddler son in her arms during a heated argument over the 2016 presidential election. John Kevin McVoy Jr, 40, of Corona, received the maximum sentence Monday after being convicted of murder last month. A jury found McVoy not guilty of two counts of attempted murder and a count of child endangerment. McVoy, who ran an online store selling musical instruments, was in a garage band, Below the Faultline, with Victor Garcia and two others. During practice on...

The British government’s all-out media blitz to make sure there can’t be a single person in the country who doesn’t know Downing Sreet wants them to take a third coronavirus vaccine continues unabated, with every cell phone in the nation due to ring out after Christmas Day with a reminder. An agreement with mobile phone network operators means the British government will be able to push a text message to every UK handset on the day after Christmas — Boxing Day — telling adult owners to get a third coronavirus shot.

<p>DETROIT (AP) – Hospitals across the country are struggling to cope with burnout among doctors, nurses and other workers, already buffeted by a crush of patients from the ongoing surge of the COVID-19 Delta variant and now bracing for the fallout of another highly transmissible mutation.</p>

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- Hospitals are slammed across Arizona. The state is asking the federal government for help with staffing, and Yavapai County is so inundated, it's running out of room at its morgue. Thursday, Yavapai County Community Health Services said it's requesting a refrigerated truck because so many people are dying from COVID. Their morgue is close to capacity, and they need to be prepared. In Maricopa County, public health leaders said it's not that bad here yet, although they are watching those numbers closely. "January marks two years from the first COVID-19 case in Maricopa County," said Marcy...

..... Professor Gili Regev-Yochay, head of the Infectious Diseases Department at the Gertner Institute for Health Policy and Epidemiology, on Saturday night briefed reporters on a new research done at Sheba Medical Center. The research showed that the COVID-19 vaccine is four times less effective against the Omicron variant than it was against the Delta variant. "Those who are vaccinated with a third dose have a much lower chance of serious disease from the Omicron variant, but there is still a chance they will contract it," Prof. Regev-Yochay said. According to her, the less great news is that those who...

Officials in Europe said this week that the Omicron coronavirus variant could overtake Delta in becoming the dominant strain of the virus in just a matter of days, and warned of a possible "tsunami" of new infections. "We expect it to overtake Delta within days, not weeks," First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon said Friday, according to the Washington Post. The U.K. Health Security Agency issued a similar warning, noting that Omicron has a "high growth rate," over Delta and that it will likely become the dominant version of the virus in Great Britain by mid-December. Meanwhile, in Denmark, researchers...

Explanation: Why are the regions above sunspots so hot? Sunspots themselves are a bit cooler than the surrounding solar surface because the magnetic fields that create them reduce convective heating. It is therefore unusual that regions overhead -- even much higher up in the Sun's corona -- can be hundreds of times hotter. To help find the cause, NASA directed the Earth-orbiting Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite to point its very sensitive X-ray telescope at the Sun. Featured here is the Sun in ultraviolet light, shown in a red hue as taken by the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)....

Beijing tightened entry restrictions into the city and Gansu province suspended all tourism as authorities across northern China took sweeping measures to stem a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak linked to travel groups. Beijing authorities moved on Sunday to restrict travellers from places with confirmed cases, requiring a negative Covid-19 test and 14 days of health monitoring for any person wanting to enter the capital. By Sunday afternoon, one Beijing district had recorded 10 cases in the space of two days, after more than two months without a case of community transmission in the capital. The moves came as China announced...

Controversial Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot hit the headlines again after breaking her city's own mask rules to pose for a photo bare-faced at a basketball game. Lightfoot shared the snap of herself smiling, while surrounded by scores of fans - all of them masked - after the game at Chicago's Wintrust Arena Sunday night. 'What a moment. Congrats champs! A first but not the last for Chicago Sky' she tweeted while holding her arms in the air in celebration at Chicago's first WNBA title with a 80-74 win over Phoenix,' she wrote.