Month: August 2021

The current Harris County threat level is at Level 2 orange, which means the COVID threat is 'significant.' Later today, it will increase to Level 1. HOUSTON — Houston and Harris County leaders will talk about the latest COVID trends today, while updating residents on the threat level. Editor's note: Video above is from news conference Wednesday, 8/4 A county health official confirms to KHOU 11 that Judge Lina Hidalgo will increase the county's coronavirus threat level to "red," which is level 1. The county's scale indicates this threat level advises residents to "Stay Home, Work Safe — unless vaccinated." ...

Even as the current surge of Covid-19 in the United States surpasses those in the spring and summer of 2020, trailing only the devastating winter wave, it is being driven by a different mix of cases than the prior waves. Back then, the coronavirus was still new and most people had no immunity to it. The vaccines were still months away. When cases started to rise, experts issued dire warnings that deaths would soon rise in accordance. They were right. But this wave comes as the US is hitting a milestone: 70 percent of the over-18 population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. There are still large pockets of the country without robust protection, with vaccination rates lagging in the 40s. Those places are driving the current surge. Still, immunity is much more wid...

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As the school year approaches in most of the country, there's increasing evidence — both numerical and anecdotal — of children's vulnerability to the coronavirus and its highly transmissible delta variant. The American Academy of Pediatrics said as of July 29, almost 4.2 million children have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began, nearly 72,000 of them in the last week. That's almost twice as many as the 39,000 infections from the previous week. For perspective, about 79,000 Americans of all ages tested positive in a week of late June. Two children with COVID-19 died over the weekend at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. One of the children was a patient at the hospital, said Le Bonheur's Dr. Nick Hysmith, a pediatric infectious disease specialist. Anot...