Month: March 2021

Iowa has surpassed 5,500 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic. The state lists 4,933 deaths with COVID-19 as the underlying cause and 568 list it as a contributing factor.The Iowa Department of Public Health reported 703 new positive COVID-19 tests and three additional deaths Wednesday. At 10 a.m., the health department reported 364,893 total positive tests, 317,737 total recoveries and 5,501 total deaths since the pandemic began. Twenty-four hours earlier, the health department reported 364,190 total positive tests and 5,498 total deaths.State data shows 723,262 vaccine doses have been administered in Iowa, with 186,759 individuals receiving both doses. The first doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have arrived in Iowa. Find out how you can get vaccinated in Iowa h...

As vaccines are distributed around the world, an effective end to the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be on the horizon. There’s a new vaccine from Johnson & Johnson now being delivered, with supplies soon to be boosted by a deal with the pharmaceuticals giant Merck. President Biden now says the United States will have enough doses for every American by the end of May. But still, many still want to know why there aren’t more shots to go around right now. Here’s part of the answer: We’re still racing to make a special type of lipid, a relatively unknown but critical component of the vaccines being manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. These vaccines use messenger RNA, the genetic component commonly known as mRNA that instructs ce...

The recent declines in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths are showing signs of stalling, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on Wednesday, adding that the country is at a "critical nexus" in the pandemic. "We knew this would happen as variants emerged and reached more people in more communities, but we can still reduce their impact," Walensky said. The U.S. is currently seeing a seven-day average of 66,010 new coronavirus cases, marking an increase of 3.5% from the week prior, while deaths also increased 2.2% from the previous week’s average. KROGER TO CONTINUE REQUIRING MASKS AT US SUPERMARKETS DESPITE TEXAS, MISSISSIPPI LIFTING MANDATES "Today we are at a critical nexus in the pandemic, so much can turn in the next few weeks," Wal...

BERLIN (AP) — Slow off the blocks in the race to immunize its citizens against COVID-19, Germany faces an unfamiliar problem: a glut of vaccines and not enough arms to inject them into. Like other countries in the European Union, its national vaccine campaign lags far behind that of Israel, Britain and the United States. Now there are growing calls in this country of 83 million to ditch the rulebook, or at least rewrite it a bit. Germans watched with morbid fascination in January as Britain trained an army of volunteers to deliver coronavirus shots, then marveled that the U.K. — hit far worse by the pandemic than Germany — managed to vaccinate more than half a million people on some days. The U.S. drive-thru inoculation centers and the COVID-19 shots given out in American grocery store p...

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention says two more Mainers with COVID-19 have died as total cases top 45,000.The number of Mainers with COVID-19 who have died is now 705. The two new deaths were reported in York County.The Maine CDC reported an additional 147 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total since the beginning of the pandemic to 45,091.MAINE CORONAVIRUS DATA: Deaths: 705 Total cases: 45,091 Confirmed cases: 35,411 Probable cases: 9,680 Cumulative positivity rate: 2.84% 14-day positivity rate: 1.3% Currently hospitalized: 67 Patients in intensive care: 24 Patients on ventilators: 8Get more detailed COVID-19 data from the Maine CDCMaine COVID-19 Vaccine LatestBeginning March 3, Mainers 60 and older are...

An expert panel advising the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a strong recommendation against using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. Guidance published in the British Medical Journal this week draws on findings from six trials with over 6,000 participants, and "high certainty evidence" found that the anti-malarial drug "had a small or no effect" on deaths and hospital admissions, while "moderate certainty evidence" found little effect on lab-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. US HALTS PLASMA STUDY TO TREAT MILD COVID-19 CITING 'UNLIKELY BENEFIT' The drug is no longer considered a 'research priority,' the panel said. (iStock) "The panel considers that this drug is no longer a research priority and that resources should rather be oriented to evaluate other m...