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SHOCK As 4th Football Player Dies This Week – Algerian Sofiane Loukar Dead After Suffering Heart AttackAlgerian footballer Sofiane Loukar has died after collapsing during a match on Saturday in the Algerian 2nd football league. Loukar, who plays for MC Saïda, suffered a heart attack with medical staff unable to revive him. The Algerian is the fourth football player to die this week from cardiac arrest.The 30-year-old team captain fell to the ground in Saturday’s match against ASM Oran without taking contact from another player. Medical staff immediately rushed to the scene to resuscitate him but were unable to save...

The recent world spike in Covid-19 prompted the NHL on Wednesday to back out the Beijing Olympics, removing the world's best hockey players from the one of the Games' showcase sports. The National Hockey League had built in a Feb. 6-22 break from action to send its top players to Beijing, but Covid outbreaks throughout North America have put the sport on hold. Fifty NHL games have already been postponed and Commissioner Gary Bettman said sending players to Beijing "is no longer feasible."... ...“Certainly, the players and hockey fans are quite disappointed," he continued. "But playing a full 82-game season...

Texas A&M, the only team to beat No. 1 Alabama in 2021, suddenly ended its season on Wednesday by backing out of the Gator Bowl, citing injuries and a Covid-19 outbreak. The Aggies had been set to play Wake Forest a week from Friday at the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in Jacksonville before making the unexpected announcement..... ...“It is unfortunate, but we just don’t have enough scholarship players available to field a team,” A&M Coach Jimbo Fisher said. Aggies Athletic Director Ross Bjork called the decision "heartbreaking" for everyone associated with the famed 12th Man program....

Many Brits appear to have put themselves into self-imposed lockdown to save their Christmases as Covid cases rates rocket. As Omicron rampages across the UK, causing consecutive days of record high Covid cases, some would seem to be taking matters into their own hands in the absence of tougher restrictions. In the days leading up to Christmas, shops, restaurants, pubs and more have struggled with cancellations as potential punters try to avoid the virus that would force them to not see loved ones on December 25. This led to some of the country's usually busiest streets, shops and restaurants being...

Fifty people tested positive for COVID-19 aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship that departed from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Saturday. Royal Caribbean spokesperson Lyan Sierra-Caro confirmed to USA Today that 47 crew members and three passengers aboard the Odyssey of the Seas tested positive. The ship, which is carrying 3,587 passengers and 1,599 crew members, is on an eight-day trip but briefly returned to port Sunday to disembark a passenger who had COVID-19....

Former President Donald Trump says he received a booster vaccine shot for Covid-19 — but he doesn’t want to hear any criticism about it. “Oh, don’t, don’t, don’t!” said Trump, waving his hand dismissively, as some people in an audience in Dallas on Sunday afternoon seemed to react negatively to the Republican saying he got the booster.... ...Trump also said during the same show, “We saved tens of millions worldwide by creating the vaccine.” “It would have been like the Spanish flu without it. … We should take credit for it, and you play right into their hands” when you...

NEW YORK (AP) — Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health officials said Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in omicron’s share of infections in only one week. In much of the country, it’s even higher. Omicron is responsible for an estimated 90% or more of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. The national rate suggests that more than 650,000...

The omicron variant of COVID-19 shows no signs of being less severe than the delta variant, according to a new study in the United Kingdom. Researchers with Imperial College London, who analyzed PCR test-confirmed COVID-19 cases in England between Nov. 29 and Dec. 11, said their endeavor found "no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta," judged by looking at "either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection.".... ....The Imperial College London team also reported findings that show "the risk of reinfection with the Omicron variant...

The National Institute of Health's outgoing director says he ignored calls to ax Dr. Anthony Fauci and was confronted by Donald Trump for defying a request to endorse hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 remedy. In a preview of his CBS New interview, set to air Sunday, retiring NIH boss Dr. Francis Collins said he was pressured by the former president to endorse the malaria drug. 'And I got into a difficult place and got a bit of a talking-to by the president, but I stuck my ground,' he said. He said he would have resigned before acquiescing to such a request.

...The first real-world study in South Africa analysed 78,000 Omicron cases over the past month and estimated the risk of hospitalisation was a fifth lower than with Delta and 29 per cent lower than the original virus. As a crude rate, Omicron is currently leading to a third fewer hospital admissions than Delta did during its entire wave — 38 admissions per 1,000 Omicron cases compared to 101 per 1,000 for Delta.... The findings lend weight to the theory that the ultra-infectious variant is weaker than previous strains, something which doctors on the ground in South Africa have been claiming...

One year ago, the biggest vaccination drive in American history began with a flush of excitement in an otherwise gloomy December. Trucks loaded with freezer-packed vials of a COVID-19 vaccine that had proved wildly successful in clinical trials fanned out across the land, bringing shots that many hoped would spell the end of the crisis. That hasn’t happened. A year later, too many Americans remain unvaccinated and too many are dying. The nation’s COVID-19 death toll stands at around 800,000 as the anniversary of the U.S. vaccine rollout arrives. A year ago it stood at 300,000. An untold number of...

The whereabouts and condition of a state senator from Washington state are unknown weeks after his location was last reported at a Florida hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19. The whereabouts and condition of a state senator from Washington state are unknown weeks after his location was last reported at a Florida hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19. State Sen. Doug Ericksen (R) sent an email to other state lawmakers on Nov. 11 saying he had tested positive for the coronavirus during a trip to El Salvador, according to a Seattle NBC affiliate. In the email,...

(CNN)Using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as a booster for people initially immunized with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine produces a strong immune response and may do more to elicit protection against severe disease, researchers reported Sunday. Their small study of 65 volunteers who all initially got two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine showed that using the J&J Janssen vaccine as a booster produced a slower but more sustained antibody response against the original strain of the virus, as well as the Delta and Beta variants, they said.... ...after four weeks, antibody levels began to drop off in people who got boosted with...

For nearly 20 months, the roughly 1.3 million Americans living in nursing homes and their families grappled with strict visitation policies that, while designed to keep vulnerable residents safe from the coronavirus, caused distress for separated loved ones and had serious health consequences for many suddenly isolated seniors.... ...Now all that has changed. On Nov. 12, the federal agency removed virtually all such restrictions and advised the country’s nursing homes to allow visitation “for all residents at all times.” The agency noted that 86 percent of U.S. nursing home residents and 74 percent of employees were fully vaccinated, and that...

UK recommends Booster Vaccines every 3 months for all adultsMinimum dose interval for booster jabs to be halved from 6 months to 3 months and all adults to be offered booster Covid vaccine, Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirms https://t.co/q4Clo5uc6k pic.twitter.com/jHwMeteRzU— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 29, 2021 It’s just one booster… Every 3 months. For the rest of your life.

Dutch military police say they have arrested a married couple who left a hotel where they were in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 and were attempting to flee the country. The couple were arrested “in an airplane that was about to depart”, the police force, known as the Marechaussee, said in a statement.. The Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool reported that the couple, a Spanish man and Portuguese woman, were attempting to fly to Spain. Dozens of passengers who tested positive for Covid-19 after arriving on two flights from South Africa on Friday were being kept in quarantine....

A new drug cocktail is four times more effective at keeping Covid patients out of intensive care, initial tests have suggested. While the steroid dexamethasone was the first drug to be licensed for treating the virus, trials indicate that combining it with heart failure medication spironolactone yields better results. ...The treatment works by ‘turning off’ the impact the virus has on the body, rather than targeting the virus itself.

More than two-thirds of Germans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Nevertheless, significantly more people are currently dying due to the virus than they did in autumn 2020. Why is this happening?... ...current restrictions do not compare to those from last year. In the strict lockdown of last year, for example, clubs and bars were closed, and there personal meetings were tightly restricted. Indoor events were also largely prohibited... ..This considerable proportion of the population who are not vaccinated (or not fully vaccinated) plays a major role... Among people over 60, more than 3 million people have not yet been vaccinated....

..The dire warning comes as Germany is racing to contain a record rise in coronavirus infections, with the country reporting 49,206 cases on Sunday - the highest number of new coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. ...In Germany, the fourth wave is overwhelming hospitals, with health chiefs warning that the situation is 'extremely critical' in intensive care units across the country. ... Anger is mounting across Europe over the anti-Covid measures, which has seen thousands of people demonstrate in Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Italy, Northern Ireland, Austria and North Macedonia on Saturday, ... The frustration is extending to as...

Dr. Steven Templeton, an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, attends the inaugural conference of the Brownstone Institute in Hartford, Conn. on Nov. 13, 2021. Lockdowns, school closures, universal masking, vaccine mandates; these responses to COVID-19 are “self-destructive” and more politicized than scientific, according to immunologist Steven Templeton. Templeton once worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for four years. Now he’s an associate professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University. At the inaugural Brownstone Institute conference on Nov. 13, he shared his views with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders”...