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Another new variant of the novel coronavirus has been found in Japan, the health ministry said Sunday. The new mutant strain, which is partly similar to different variants reported in the U.K. and South Africa, was detected in four infected people who arrived from Brazil, the ministry said. The National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) said there was no evidence at present that the new variant was highly infectious, but it was investigating whether it could cause severe symptoms and whether or not it is resistant to vaccines. Of the four people, a man in his 40s showed no symptoms...

LAURENS, S.C. (WSPA) – City of Laurens Mayor Nathan Senn announced a healthcare emergency this week as Prisma Health Hospitals in the Upstate reach capacity, and said the National Guard has been called to assist what is becoming “a field medicine scenario.” In a recorded message, the mayor explained measures being taken at Laurens Hospital, saying the third floor has been converted to a surge area for COVID-19 patients to provide 29 extra beds. Workers are exploring other facilities to house patients, as critical care units are overflowing. “What we feared has now happened,” Senn said of hospitals being at...

U.S. National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger is doubling down on the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese government-run lab in Wuhan. Pottinger, a staunch critic of Beijing, allegedly made the claim in a recent Zoom meeting with British officials. “There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus,” Pottinger reportedly said, according to the Daily Mail.

Every day, states report on how many new hospitalizations they had for covid patients. During September and October, as cases were rising, we could reliably predict how many people would be hospitalized based on the number of new diagnoses. Clinically, we know that after someone is diagnosed, it usually takes a few days before they get sick enough to be hospitalized.... But as we entered November, something began to change. For instance, on Nov. 1, the Covid Tracking Project’s seven-day average showed about 80,000 new cases – which we would predict should lead to about 2,800 new hospitalizations a week...

Happy New Year and God bless FR!

The Canadian government said Wednesday that passengers must have a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days before they arrive in the country. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the measure will be implemented in the next few days. Canada already requires those entering the country to self-isolate for 14 days and it has already banned all flights from the United Kingdom because of the new variant of COVID-19 spreading there. The decision came a day after the premier of Canada’s largest province said he had ordered his finance minister to end a Caribbean vacation he took at a time...

Los Angeles police responded after a mass of maskless demonstrators forced their way into an Erewhon Market in the Fairfax district Tuesday afternoon in protest of coronavirus restrictions. “We’re not here coughing everything, smearing everything,” Jason Traver said. “We just want to shop, we want to take our own precautions that we’ve been doing all of our lives, and we’ll be fine.” Officers stayed on scene to monitor the situation and ensure it didn’t escalate, but police said no arrests were made. After leaving Erewhon, some protesters walked to a nearby Trader Joe’s and claimed medical reasons for being maskless....

Two new studies give encouraging evidence that having COVID-19 may offer some protection against future infections. Researchers found that people who made antibodies to the coronavirus were much less likely to test positive again for up to six months and maybe longer. The results bode well for vaccines, which provoke the immune system to make antibodies — substances that attach to a virus and help it be eliminated. Researchers found that people with antibodies from natural infections were “at much lower risk … on the order of the same kind of protection you’d get from an effective vaccine,” of getting...

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) is the latest state leader to urge residents to drastically limit their holiday gatherings by spending them only with members of the same household, signing an executive order limiting indoor public events to ten. In a Sunday evening address, the Republican governor identified Tennesee as “ground zero for a surge in sickness,” describing the ongoing pandemic as a “war.” Approximately 10,000 Tennesseans are getting sick daily, the governor said, largely attributing the spike to holiday gatherings — namely, the Thanksgiving gatherings

As of Dec. 18, 3,150 people reported what the agency terms “Health Impact Events” after getting vaccinated. The definition of the term is: “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional.” The people reporting the negative effects reported them through V-safe, a smartphone application. The tool uses text messages and web surveys to provide personalized health check-ins and allows users to quickly tell the CDC if they are experiencing side effects. The CDC and Pfizer, which produces the vaccine with BioNTech, didn’t respond to request for comments.

The Grand County coroner is disputing the number of COVID-19 deaths the state is reporting for the county. Brenda Bock told county commissioners on Tuesday that the state is reporting two additional COVID-19 deaths in Grand, which she believes should not be included. The coroner maintains that only one person in the county has died from COVID-19, while two more people have died with it, for a total of three COVID-related deaths in the county. However, the state is reporting five for Grand. In disputing the numbers, Bock explained that a couple who died of gunshot wounds late last month...

The Grand County coroner is calling attention to the way the state health department is classifying some deaths. The coroner, Brenda Bock, says two of their five deaths related to COVID-19 were people who died of gunshot wounds. Bock says because they tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 30 days, they were classified as “deaths among cases.” “It’s absurd that they would even put that on there,” she said. “Would you want to go to a county that has really high death numbers? Would you want to go visit that county because they are contagious. You know I might...

In the five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, low-income Californians had begun to see substantial wage gains that were slowly chipping away at the long-growing income inequality gap between the state's haves and have-nots. But the coronavirus pandemic is “likely stripping away many of these gains,” according to a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California. The current coronavirus-induced recession has hit low-income workers the hardest, while higher-income workers, largely able to work from home, have escaped relatively unscathed. And the extent of the job losses among low-wage workers — particularly African Americans, Latinos, workers without college degrees...

The United Kingdom’s deputy chief medical officer has suggested that practices like wearing masks and using hand sanitiser could be habits Britons have to keep “for years”. Jonathan Van-Tam made the remarks 0n Wednesday alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a Downing Street coronavirus briefing. Professor Van-Tam said, according to The Sun: “I don’t think we’re going to eradicate coronavirus, ever. I think it’s going to be with humankind forever. I think we may get to a point where coronavirus becomes a seasonal problem. I don’t want to draw too many parallels with ‘flu, but possibly that is the kind...

Rosie Perez recently recalled her experience with the novel coronavirus, telling Uproxx she contracted the lethal virus a year ago. The 56-year-old actress, who currently stars in HBO Max’s “The Flight Attendant,” said she “contracted COVID when we flew to Bangkok,” to shoot the new series.

It’s an “open” rebellion. A Staten Island pub located in a coronavirus hot spot is stealing a page from Seattle’s anarchist cookbook, declaring itself an “autonomous zone,” free from the public-safety restrictions its owners say they will refuse to abide by. “!ATTENTION! We hereby declare this establishment an !!!AUTONOMOUS ZONE!!!” read signs outside and around Mac’s Public House in Grant City, invoking a phrase more commonly associated with the monthlong occupation of Capitol Hill in the Emerald City by anti-cop radicals. “We refuse to abide by any rules and regulations put forth by the Mayor of NYC and Governor of...

Public health officials are bracing for a new round of COVID-19 case spikes as many Americans traveled and held large family gatherings over the Thanksgiving holiday in defiance of mitigation guidance from the government, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned that as the nation heads into December, officials expect “we might see a surge superimposed on the surge we are already in.” “I don’t want to frighten people except to say it’s not too late at all for us to do something about this,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Fauci urged...

The minks were culled after 11 people were sickened in mink farms and factories Minks infected with a mutated strain of the novel coronavirus appeared to rise from the grave this week after thousands were culled in Denmark earlier in the month. The decision to kill the animals was made following the discovery that 11 people had been sickened by the same strain found in mink farms and factories. However, in the haste to dispose of the bodies, Danish authorities reported Thursday that some of the carcasses had risen to the surface of their makeshift graves after gases built up...

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) opened up on the viral confrontation caught on tape between his maskless dinner party and bystanders, who heckled him for dining out after he moved to retighten coronavirus restrictions and encouraged people to make their Thanksgiving plans “as small as possible.” “There’s no reason we should have to be having a political discussion about whether or not you’re wearing a mask. We were dining outdoors in the middle of our meal,” he said in a Tuesday appearance on CBS This Morning.

So, here is my question. Would you be willing to risk catching Covid if it would mean that your kids and grandkids would have a "normal" life? I am 65, but otherwise I have no co-mobidities, and I am very healthy. I don't want to get the disease, but I would rather be sick for a few weeks if it would mean that life could get back to normal for my family. I am sick of my kids suffering inadequate online classes (for college and graduate courses), of cancelled weddings (twice for us thus far), of cancelled summer plans to...