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Sure enough, the United States is again awash in virus, with the incidence of new COVID-19 cases having soared 131 percent in the third week of July. To be clear, the vaccines available work well—especially the Pfizer and Moderna products based on mRNA technology. But it is likely that waning vaccine efficacy, coupled with a stubborn one-fifth of the adult population refusing any immunization, has opened the door for the dangerous mutant delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 to wreak havoc among the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. That’s why the United States is going to need a third dose of mRNA vaccines;...

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration's decision to let states chart their own responses to the coronavirus crisis rather than impose a national strategy will cost thousands of lives and is likely to result in an open-ended outbreak rolling across the country, a dozen public health experts told NBC News. The only way to win what President Donald Trump has called a war against an "invisible enemy" is to establish a unified federal command, the experts insist - something Trump has yet to do. So far, the federal government hasn't leveraged all its authority and influence to dramatically expand testing and...

Crackdown on SARS Spread China: Penalty for passing illness is prison or execution By Laurie Garrett, STAFF CORRESPONDENT May 16, 2003 Beijing - China's State Council, the nation's primary government body, announced strict measures yesterday aimed at controlling SARS in poor, rural areas, even as the nation's Xinhua News Agency said people who spread SARS can be executed. The agency cited a Supreme Court warning that people who violate quarantines can be imprisoned for up to seven years, and those who cause death or serious injury by "deliberately spreading" the virus can be sentenced to up to life in prison...

<p>BEIJING, China (CNN) --Chinese censors Tuesday blocked the airing of a CNN International interview that criticized the government's handling of the SARS epidemic, despite a government pledge to be more open with information.</p> <p>The seven-minute segment was part of the 30-minute "Insight" program. In it, Newsday reporter Laurie Garrett, author of "The Coming Plague," commented on the decrepit state of China's public health system, and accused the government of ordering doctors to underreport the number of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome.</p>

A Chinese Lab's Race To ID And Halt SARS Politics and rivalry mix with research By Laurie Garrett Staff Correspondent May 6, 2003 Beijing -- In a dingy four-story building on a dark alley in this city's poorest district, 40 scientists toil through the day and night in the quest to understand and defeat the SARS virus. They know other researchers around the globe have greater resources, and all are essentially competing, aiming to be first to identify the virus' Achilles heel. And they know that their work is sensitive in a country where the Communist Party leadership has been...

Beijing -- A small but potentially intriguing clue has emerged in the SARS fight, even as China's epidemic continues to spiral. Amid the mounting toll, Newsday learned that a select population in Guangzhou, the southern Chinese city where the epidemic apparently began in November, appears to have resisted infection. At the peak of the outbreak there, in January and February, patients with the then-mystery illness were kept on the second floor of one hospital. The floor was already in use as an AIDS ward. Guangzhou authorities divided the floor of People's Hospital No. 8 in half, putting SARS patients on...

Guangzhou, China - Here, at the epicenter of the disease known as SARS, dinner can be bought live at a "wet market." Just outside the banking and commercial center of the capital of Guangdong Province stretches a wide, congested boulevard lined with machine shops, auto parts vendors and industrial parts outlets. Delivery trucks, lumbering buses and darting taxis vie for position.

SARS Mystery DeepensBy Laurie Garrett, Staff WriterApril 1, 2003, 8:47 PM ESTAmid heightened concern about the new illness known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the mystery of just what it is deepens. Scientists working on the Toronto outbreak reported that the agent responsible is "a novel virus that is not closely related to any of the known clusters” of coronaviruses, the prime family of suspected microbes.snip Autopsies revealed the virus caused parts of the lungs to hemorrhage blood, as would be the case with a hemorrhagic fever virus such as Ebola.snip ... Canadian SARS Study Team isolated viruses from several...

The following is a private e-mail from a World Economic Forum attendee that was inadvertantly released for general public viewing: -- With apologies for the group email... I thought this was interesting enough to pass along. These are the notes from a friend of a friend who writes for Newsday. Adam Davis Director, EPRIsolutions Environment Division 1299 4th Street, Suite 307 San Rafael, CA 94901 Main Office:415-454-8800 Direct:415-257-4631 Cell: 415-305-4786 Hi Guys. OK, hard to believe, but true. Yours truely has been hobnobbing with the ruling class. I spent a week in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum. I...