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LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Researchers have detected a variant of coronavirus, first found in South America, in wastewater in southern Nevada, suggesting it is spreading in the community. Scientists at UNLV have found the Lambda variant, or C.37, in samples, Dr. Edwin Oh, an associate professor at the school’s Neurogenetics and Precision Medicine Lab, told the I-Team. Southern Nevada Water Authority scientists take samples from wastewater to see how much coronavirus is in our sewer system. Oh and other researchers analyze the samples, which help public health leaders find spikes and clusters before they can be identified through traditional testing...

(CNN)Twenty four states have seen an uptick of at least 10% in Covid-19 cases over the past week as health experts and the federal government keep pressing for more people to get vaccinated. The rapid spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus has only ratcheted up the pressure. We should think about the Delta variant as the 2020 version of Covid-19 on steroids," Andy Slavitt, a former senior adviser to Joe Biden's Covid Response Team, told CNN on Wednesday. "It's twice as infectious. Fortunately, unlike 2020, we actually have a tool that stops the Delta variant in its tracks:...

The highly transmissible delta variant is now the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. As of July 3, the latest date for which data was available, the delta variant accounted for 51.7 percent of new Covid-19 cases that had been genetically sequenced in the country. Two weeks earlier, on June 19, the variant accounted for just over 30 percent of new cases. During a news briefing Tuesday, President Joe Biden cited the delta variant's rapid spread to urge people to get vaccinated, "especially young people who may have...

A new study has found that COVID-19 vaccines may be somewhat vulnerable to the California “Epsilon” strain of virus. The variant has three spike protein mutations it uses to weaken current vaccines by up to 70 percent, according to researchers from University of Washington and the San Fransisco-based lab Vir Biotechnology. The strain’s mutations break down neutralized antibodies, which are produced by vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna and protect against infection, according to the study, published in the journal Science on July 1.

West Virginians choosing not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine are entering a “death lottery,” the state’s governor said, as the portion of residents fully inoculated against the virus hovers around 46.4%.

COVID-19 cases are trending upwards in nearly half of all states in the U.S., according to a new analysis of Johns Hopkins University data by USA Today. Coronavirus infections in Alaska and Arizona more than doubled in the last week, according to USA Today. Cases in South Carolina and Kansas have increased by more than 50 percent. The number of individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 spiked by almost 30 percent over the July 4th weekend in a hard-hit Missouri area, according to USA Today’s analysis.

Scientists fear that a highly contagious new COVID-19 variant that is ravaging Peru may be resistant to vaccines. The Lambda mutation, or C.37, appears to have emerged in Peru last August — and is now being blamed for the country having the highest pandemic death rate in the world. The concerning strain has since spread to around 30 countries, mostly in Latin America — but also as far as the UK, which has recorded at least eight cases, according to government figures. There are no known cases of the Lambda strain in the US, according to the Centers for Disease...

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Republicans who were not getting vaccinated for coronavirus are playing “the death lottery.”Guest anchor Martha Raddatz said, “Let’s go back to who is not getting vaccinated. Statistics show it’s poverty, race and you look at the map, it’s a lot of red states.”Justice said, “Well, there’s some truth to that and everything. Because the red states probably have a lot of people that, you know, are very, very conservative in their thinking, and they think, ‘Well, I don’t have to do that.’ But they’re not thinking right.”He...

A woman in Missouri was afraid of the effects from COVID-19 vaccines and chose not to get the shots, but later contracted the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus and died in the hospital. Deborah Carmichael, the mother of now-deceased 45-year-old Tricia Jones, is speaking out and urging those hesitant about the vaccine to get the jab after losing her daughter in June. She spoke to Kansas City's news channel Fox 4 WDAF-TV about her daughter's death and vaccine hesitancy in an interview broadcast this week. "She was afraid of the side effects, I think. You hear a lot of...

Unvaccinated people do more than merely risk their own health. They're also a risk to everyone if they become infected with coronavirus, infectious disease specialists say. That's because the only source of new coronavirus variants is the body of an infected person. "Unvaccinated people are potential variant factories," Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told CNN Friday. "The more unvaccinated people there are, the more opportunities for the virus to multiply," Schaffner said. When it does, it mutates, and it could throw off a variant mutation that is even more...

The Delta variant of COVID-19 has spawned a new, troubling variant known as Delta-plus that has been identified for the first time in Louisiana, according to officials at Ochsner Health. Delta-plus is thought to have the same higher rate of transmission as the Delta variant, which was originally identified in India and is about two times as infectious as the original coronavirus strain. But it also has a characteristic of variants from South Africa and Brazil that makes it harder for antibodies to block it from entering cells. “It gives you a double whammy,” said Dr. Lucio Miele, who has...

Now the biggest pandemic liar, Fauci, is saying that the delta variant of the COVID virus is the “greatest threat” facing people. True, that variant looks like it is rapidly becoming the dominant one in the global pandemic. But what should you fear?Here is the big new lie. Get vaccinated so you can be protected against the delta variant. In truth, data has just been released from the UK showing that vaccinated people are three times more likely to die from infection by the delta variant than unvaccinated people.The June 22 comments by Fauci included the facts about the level...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Local health officials Monday recommended everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks indoors due to increased circulation of the highly transmissible Delta variant. According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Delta variants comprised nearly half of all variants sequenced locally in the week ended June 12. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that Delta variants are now responsible for about one in every five new infections across the country, up from approximately one in 10 the week before. Due to the rate of spread of the variant, first detected...

Unfounded fears that the coronavirus vaccine causes infertility, a need to question authority and politicization of vaccines are cited as leading reasons for lagging rates of youth vaccination in Ohio and across the country. “It’s frustrating,” said psychologist Juanita Martin, executive director of counseling and accessibility at the University of Akron. “Young people have a sense of, ‘I’m invincible, I’m young, I’m healthy — nothing is going to happen to me.’ The wider implications just don’t resonate with them.” The fast-spreading Delta variant is infecting younger people worldwide. This makes vaccinating this population more important. The national trends also are...

The city of Sydney announced on Saturday that they will begin a two-week lockdown this week due to a surge in COVID-19 Delta variant cases, Reuters reported on Monday. Health officials said that parts of the city were already locked down due to the outbreak, saying cases and exposure sites are rapidly increasing. The lockdown will include parts of the Australian state of New South Wales and their three regions, Blue Mountains, Central Coast, and Wollongong.

The “delta variant” has come to dominate headlines, having been discovered in India where it provoked an extreme surge in Covid-19 cases before spreading around the world. But now a mutation of that variant has emerged, called “delta plus,” which is starting to worry global experts. India has dubbed delta plus a “variant of concern,” and there are fears that it could potentially be more transmissible. In the U.K., Public Health England noted in its last summary that routine scanning of Covid cases in the country (where the delta variant is now responsible for the bulk of new infections) has...

JERUSALEM, June 23 (Reuters) - Israel empowered health officials on Wednesday to quarantine anyone deemed to have been exposed to an especially infectious variant of COVID-19, even if they were previously vaccinated or recovered from the disease with presumed immunity.The decision followed a warning by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday over new outbreaks caused by the Delta variant, with daily infections rising after weeks of low plateau credited to Israel's record mass-vaccination drive.Under the updated Health Ministry directives, vaccinated or formerly infected people can be ordered to self-isolate for up to 14 days if authorities believe they may have...

The highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is the greatest threat to the United States’ attempt to eradicate COVID-19, White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said Tuesday. During a White House coronavirus briefing, the head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said the variant now makes up more than 20 percent of all new cases in the U.S., a significant increase from nearly 10 percent two weeks ago. The delta variant, first identified in India, recently became the dominant strain in the United Kingdom, surpassing the alpha variant first discovered in the U.K. in...

Recent reports of COVID-19 infections aboard cruise ships — along with simple math — suggest that it will be nearly impossible for any cruise line to return to the seas without the coronavirus lurking. All vaccines are less than 100% effective, so chances are strong that at least some passengers will be infected among the thousands aboard even “fully vaccinated” voyages. Chances of more severe outbreaks are even greater in light of a court ruling Friday in favor of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who wants to stop cruise lines from requiring vaccinations. Cruise lines faced with infections will have to perform...

President Biden on Friday said the United States will not enter another "lockdown," despite the "serious and deadly threat" of the delta variant of COVID-19, but he urged unvaccinated individuals to get their shots. Biden, who spoke at the White House, was asked whether the severity of the new strain of COVID-19 could send the U.S. back into a lockdown, to which he replied: "I don't think so." "So many people have already been vaccinated, but the delta variant can cause more people to die in areas where people have not been vaccinated," he said.