Month: July 2021

By imposing a sweeping indoor mask mandate, Los Angeles County has again pushed itself onto the front lines of the national battle to contain the hyper-contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus. The easily spread strain has been blamed for increases in infections across the country, and it created a new tightrope for public health officials to walk as they seek to balance the need to protect the unvaccinated while acknowledging that those who are can largely resume pre-pandemic life. While federal and state authorities continue to urge the unvaccinated to take safety precautions and get their shots, L.A. County has gone a step further: turning to mandatory masking in indoor public settings, even for those who are vaccinated, in hopes of turning the tide. The effect of the new health or...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Share of new U.S. virus cases from Delta variant May 1 July 14 50% 100% range of likely values Cases per 100,000 residents Hospitalized per 100,000 residents Sources: outbreak.info; New York Times database of cases and deaths | Note: Range of likely values represents a 95 percent confidence interval. Sequencing rates vary between states and sometimes reflect localized trends based on testing from a particular region or hospital. Chart shows the latest available data, which is lagged and may change as additional sequences are completed. The ...

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday warned people who are immunocompromised that the Covid-19 vaccine may not have been effective for them and encouraged them to take precautions as if they were not vaccinated.  “People who are immunocompromised should be counseled about the potential for reduced immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines and to follow current prevention measures (including wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart from others staying they don’t live with, and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated indoor spaces) to protect themselves against COVID-19 until advised otherwise by their healthcare provider,” according to the CDC’s website. The CDC did not go so far as to tell the millions of immunocompromised people in the US to get an additional shot of a Covid...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two weeks after celebrating America’s near “independence” from the coronavirus, President Joe Biden is confronting the worrying reality of rising cases and deaths — and the limitations of his ability to combat the persistent vaccine hesitance responsible for the summer backslide. Cases of COVID-19 have tripled over the past three weeks, and hospitalizations and deaths are rising among unvaccinated people. While the rates are still sharply down from their January highs, officials are concerned by the reversing trendlines and what they consider needless illness and death. And cases are expected to continue to rise in coming weeks. While the national emergency may have faded, officials say the outbreak is now a more localized crisis in communities where not enough people...

Israel can still rein in the Delta variant of the coronavirus, but if it doesn’t act decisively it will need “a lake-full of water instead of a bucket to put out the fire,” according to a leading immunologist. “The numbers of infections are not going down, so we will eventually have a few hundred people in critical care if we don’t stop the spread,” Professor Cyrille Cohen of Bar Ilan University told The Times of Israel. “That’s the trajectory. But it can be stopped.” He made his comments after Israel recorded 855 new cases of the coronavirus Thursday, and as the number of active cases reached 5,800, the highest figure since April. The number of Israelis seriously ill stood at 52. Also on Thursday, Nachman Ash, the new director-general of the Health Ministry, warned th...