Month: January 2021

A Federal Aviation Administration employee and QAnon follower from California who had been on the FBI's radar is facing federal charges after he confessed to taking part in the siege of the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents released Friday. Kevin Strong, 44, of Beaumont, surrendered to authorities on Friday and appeared in a federal court in Riverside, where a judge ordered him held on $50,000 bond, said Laura Eimiller, spokeswoman for the FBI in Los Angeles.

Defying all expectations, the US developed two surprisingly effective COVID-19 vaccines in record-shattering time, spurring hopes of the pandemic’s eventual end. Vaccine rollout began in December, but getting those shots into people’s arms nationwide has so far been plagued by chaos. Right now, the US is averaging around 970,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots a day, according to the CDC. At that rate, the country’s 330 million people will see nearly two more years pass before everyone gets their second shot of the authorized vaccines. “It feels like we're being punched in the mouth,” said Bob Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, speaking at a recent briefing held by the JAMA medical journal...

MECCA, Calif. — Advocacy groups are heading into farm fields in California to bring vaccines and information to migrant laborers in Spanish and other languages. Some immigrants in the country illegally may fear that information taken during vaccinations could be turned over to authorities and not seek out vaccines. Those who speak little or no English may find it difficult to access shots. These challenges are particularly worrying for Latino immigrants, who make a large portion of the workforce in industries where they have a significant risk of exposure. In California’s sprawling Riverside County, home to a $1.3 billion agriculture industry, a health care nonprofit went to a grape farm to register workers for vaccine appointments. The Desert Healthcare District and Foundation also sha...

A mutant strain of the novel coronavirus discovered in South Africa appears to be able to ward off antibodies from individuals who had previously recovered from COVID-19 — meaning if the new strain becomes widespread, we may see more people getting infected multiple times.  A group of South African scientists made this discovery in a paper published earlier this week by South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases. In it, researchers describe how they studied blood samples from a small group of people who had developed COVID-19 but ultimately recovered. When the human body recovers from a disease, it produces a protein known as an antibody to identify and ultimately protect itself in the future from the bacteria or virus which caused it to become ill. (These illness-causing...

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported four new coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday and 324 new cases.There are now 36,598 total cases since the beginning of the outbreak.The four new COVID-19-related deaths bring the total since the beginning of the pandemic to 544.Cumberland County reported two new deaths and Penobscot and Androscoggin counties each reported one new death.MAINE CORONAVIRUS DATA: Deaths: 544 Total cases: 36,598 Confirmed cases: 29,780 Probable cases: 6,818 Cumulative positivity rate: 2.94% 14-day positivity rate: 4.7% Currently hospitalized: 190 Patients in intensive care: 61 Patients on ventilators: 19Get more detailed COVID-19 data from the Maine CDCCOVID-19 symptomsPer the U.S...