Month: January 2021

Dozens of COVID-19 cases and one death among Kaiser Permanente employees in San Jose have been linked to an inflatable costume worn by a staffer on Christmas. Irene Chavez, senior vice president and area manager at San Jose Medical Center, said Sunday that 44 staff members in the emergency department have tested positive for the virus since Dec. 27. By Tuesday evening, that number had risen to 51, according to reporting from San Francisco’s KRON4.   The Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center is shown in San Jose, Calif. (Bay Area News Group via AP) The Oakland-based hospital chain is investigating the outbreak and said the source could be a blow-up, holiday costume worn by a staffer who "briefly" visited the department Dec. 25, according to its statement. Inflatab...

About a dozen people who work for The Williams School, a private school in New London, received a coronavirus vaccine that they weren’t eligible to get under the state’s current distribution phase. In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, Connecticut’s Department of Public Health said “This was a notification and user error. The school informed us of the error and was able to address it quickly, vaccinating early a small number of people.” A spokesperson for the college preparatory school for students in grade six through 12 said the Vaccine Administration Management System, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention online application used to manage vaccine administration, prompted the school’s coronavirus coordinator to send in employee contact information, which they...

Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned that vaccinating Americans against Covid is more critical than ever, especially as the new South Africa variant appears to inhibit antibody drugs.   "The South Africa variant is very concerning right now because it does appear that it may obviate some of our medical countermeasures, particularly the antibody drugs," said the former FDA chief in the Trump administration in an interview on CNBC's "The News with Shepard Smith" on Tuesday evening. "Right now that strain does appear to be prevalent in South America and Brazil, the two parts of the world, right now, that are in their summer, but also experiencing a very dense epidemic, and that's concerning.  The South African variant is also known as 501.V2, and in mid-December officials reported that 5...

ABIGAIL: LATE-BREAKING AT 6:00, MORE OKLAHOMANS ARE IN THE HOSPITAL FIGHTING COVID-19 THAN EVER BEFORE. 1,994 PEOPLE CURRENTLY IN THE HOSPITAL, SHATTERING THE PREVIOUS RECORD. 494 OF THOSE ARE MOST CRITICAL IN THE ICU. ANOTHER DEADLY DAY FOR OKLAHOMA’S FIGHT AGAINST THE CORONAVIRUS. 19 MORE OKLAHOMANS LOST TO COVID-19 Oklahoma coronavirus death toll rises by 19; nearly 1,500 new positive cases reported Updated: 7:59 PM CST Jan 5, 2021 The Oklahoma State Department of Health on Tuesday reported 1,497 new COVID-19 cases across the state, bringing the total cumulative number of the state’s positive cases to 308,268.According to the hea...