Month: March 2021

SALT LAKE CITY — For physicians like Dr. Mark Briesacher, the COVID-19 trends over the past two months have been a welcomed sight. Utah's seven-day running average of new COVID-19 cases has fallen 87% since its latest peak on Jan. 9, according to Utah Department of Health data. The current average is now 419 new cases per day, which is the lowest the figure has been in over six months. As cases have dropped, the pressure the disease forced on hospitals has slowly eased as well. As of Friday, there were 130 people hospitalized for COVID-19, which is the fewest COVID-19 hospitalizations since mid-September. More severe cases have also gone down: 74% of the state's referral center ICUs were filled up, which is a tick below the warning threshold. Statewide ICUs were 69% full as well, which is...

Per state law, Oregon OSHA can't extend the current temporary rule. The agency plans to adopt a permanent rule and then repeal it after the pandemic. PORTLAND, Ore. — The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) wants to extend the COVID-19-related rules for masks, social distancing and training in workplaces until the pandemic ends. There has been a lot of misinformation circulating on social media about the plan, and that's led to a lot of questions in the KGW VERIFY inbox.  Melissa emailed VERIFY asking: A ...

Intensive-care unit and lung doctor Dr. Vin Gupta slammed the Republican governors of Arizona, Florida and Texas for what he said was premature reopenings, especially as new variants take hold across the country.   "It's not good public policy what the governors of Arizona, Florida and Texas are doing," Gupta said. "It just doesn't make sense from a scientific standpoint ... There is a deep concern here, especially in these populous states with generally older populations living in these states, that variants are already taking root there." The U.S. is reporting 58,618 daily new Covid cases on average, up 6.7% over the past week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. It's the highest week-over-week increase since mid-January. Centers for Disease Control...

ATLANTA (CNN) — The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are effective in pregnant and lactating women, who can pass protective antibodies to newborns, according to research published Thursday in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard looked at 131 women who received either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Among the participants, 84 were pregnant, 31 were lactating and 16 were not pregnant. Samples were collected between December 17, 2020, and March 2, 2021. The vaccine-induced antibody levels were equivalent in pregnant and lactating women, compared to nonpregnant women. The antibody levels were "strikingly higher" than those res...