Month: May 2021

Bodies arrive at a mass cremation site in New Delhi on April 23. A second wave of Covid-19 has been devastating India. (Atul Loke/The New York Times/Redux) In the fight against the coronavirus, some countries are faring better than others. In the United States, for example, cases have been dropping as more and more people get vaccinated. President Joe Biden has set a goal to have at least 160 million Americans fully vaccin...

On Dec. 29, a National Guardsman in Colorado became the first known case in the United States of a contagious new variant of the coronavirus. The news was unsettling. The variant, called B.1.1.7, had roiled Britain, was beginning to surge in Europe and threatened to do the same in the United States. And although scientists didn’t know it yet, other mutants were also cropping up around the country. They included variants that had devastated South Africa and Brazil and that seemed to be able to sidestep the immune system, as well as others homegrown in California, Oregon and New York. This mélange of variants could not have come at a worse time. The nation was at the start of a post-holiday surge of cases that would dwarf all previous waves. And the distribution of powerful vaccines made b...

IOWA’S NEWS LEADER. LAURA: DESPITE THE GOVERNOR’S PROCLAMATION, THE CITY OF DES MOINES’ MASK MANDATE WILL REMAIN IN PLACE. MAYOR FRANK COWNIE MADE THE ANNOUNCEMENT THIS AFTERNOON. HE SPECIFICALLY EMPHASIZED THE NEED TO WEAR A MASK AS SINCE THE COVID VARIANT WAS CONFIRMED IN IOWA EARLIER THIS WEEK. THE CITY’S MASK MANDATE HAS BEEN IN EFFECT SINCE AUGUST. >> TO ME THE SCIENCE HAS BEEN YOU VERY CLEAR, WHEN YOU SEE A SEE IS VERY CLEAR, WHEN YOU SEE A SPREAD LIKE WE’RE SEEING IN THE STATE OF IOWA AND IN POLK COUNTY, WE NEED TO BE MORE DILIGENT THAN EVER. LAURA: WE ASKED MAYOR COWNIE WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO LIFT THE MANDATE. HE SAYS THERE’S NO SET STATISTIC, HE SAYS CIT Following CDC guidance, Des Moines drops mask requireme...