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Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that Oregonians will be required to start wearing masks in all indoor public spaces regardless of their COVID-19 vaccination status -- a move that comes as the pandemic spirals out of control and new projections show COVID-19 hospitalizations could nearly double by September from today’s record numbers. Brown didn’t specify a date for when the mandate will take effect, but she is expected to share more details during a news conference Wednesday. Brown also announced Tuesday that starting as early as Oct. 18 she will require all state employees in the executive branch -- which...

There are 716 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19, up from 452 on July 16, officials said. The county also reported four new deaths, bringing the total to 24,628 fatalities since the pandemic began early last year. On Saturday, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned that the Delta variant was "one of the most aggressive and infectious respiratory diseases known and currently makes up over 80% of sequenced cases in L.A. County." Although cases remain at a lower point than they have been during any of the previous surges, the rate of increase between July 3 and 16 was...

Dr. Anthony Fauci said on CNN Saturday that bringing back mask mandates is "under active consideration," and that he is "part of the discussion" around the decision. [cut] Critics slammed Fauci’s comments as being about "control," and "constantly changing." "Fauci chirping this weekend the vaccinated may well be back behind masks soon," tweeted conservative columnist Chris Stigall. "Proving this isn’t about anything other than control. It’s sure as hell not about science." "And they wonder why the public doesn’t know who to trust when the messaging is constantly changing," tweeted Independent Women’s Voice, a conservative policy advocacy organization. "Fauci is...

Dr. Anthony Fauci said there seem to be "two kinds of America" as some people remain skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines even in the face of the more severe delta variant. [cut] To help those individuals, Fauci has suggested that even vaccinated people may need to consider wearing face masks in public indoor spaces. "The CDC agrees with that ability and discretion capability to say, you know, you're in a situation where we're having a lot of dynamics of infection," Fauci explained. "So even if you are vaccinated, you should wear a mask."

Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, said on Sunday top US health officials were discussing whether to revise mask guidance for Americans vaccinated against Covid-19. “This is under active consideration,” Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union, though he also emphasized that local governments can issue their own rules under current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that the return of local mask mandates due to the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 is “quite understandable,” but stopped short of saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s should reverse current guidance regarding mask-wearing for vaccinated people. “The general CDC guidelines still hold, that you do not need to wear a mask indoors if, in fact, you’ve been vaccinated,” the White House chief medical adviser told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. “But what’s very clear is that at the local level, in the trenches as it were,” Fauci went on, “you’re seeing...

Austin-Travis County's top health authority on Friday requested that residents return to wearing masks as the area moved back into Stage 4 coronavirus guidelines, a sign of worsening pandemic conditions in Central Texas due to the presence of a highly contagious variant known as delta. Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County's health authority, announced the stricter recommendations after the weekly average of daily hospital admissions reached 35 Thursday night, the highest it had been since late February. "In just five months, we have evidenced four new variants of this virus," Walkes, who was joined by five other local doctors during a...

St. Louis County in Missouri is mandating face masks for everyone over the age of 5 when indoors regardless of vaccination status amid the spread of the delta variant, officials announced Friday. Masks are also "strongly encouraged" for groups when outdoors. "We’ve lost more than 500 St. Louisans to COVID-19, and if our region doesn’t work together to protect one another, we could see spikes that overwhelm our hospital and public health systems," Dr. Fredrick Echols, acting director of health for the City of St. Louis, said Friday. St. Louis County reported 241 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday,...

LOS ANGELES — A rapid and sustained increase in COVID-19 cases in the nation’s largest county requires restoring an indoor mask mandate even when people are vaccinated, Los Angeles County’s public health officer said Thursday. Dr. Muntu Davis said at a virtual press conference that a public health order requiring masks indoors will go into effect Saturday. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment,” he said. Davis didn’t fully detail what he said would be some exceptions but said for example, people could still go out to eat and take off their masks only while eating and drinking. The county has been...

The delta variant is driving up coronavirus cases in California, landing the Bay Area on a federal “hot spot” watch list and spurring renewed urgency to get shots into the arms of people who haven’t been vaccinated, even in areas where immunization rates are already high. In San Francisco, public health officials are now requiring all workers at hospitals, nursing homes, jails and shelters to be vaccinated by Sept. 15. That’s a shift from an earlier order that mandated vaccination only after at least one vaccine was fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which now allows the shots...

As the highly transmissible delta Covid variant continues to spread rapidly across the United States and elsewhere around the world, scientists and other health experts are warning that indoor mask mandates and other public health measures will likely make a return in the U.S. this fall. The country, which just celebrated the Fourth of July with some of its first large gatherings in more than a year, is headed toward a "dangerous" fall season when delta is expected to cause another surge in new coronavirus cases, health experts say. Already the dominant variant in the U.S., delta will hit the...

A startling new surge in cases suggests that Delta is established in Louisiana and the previously beaten-back virus is once again on the rise... Over the last week, cases have increased by 3,360, the biggest spike since March 4, the tail-end of the winter surge. Cases have more than doubled over the last 14 days, likely an effect of the more contagious Delta variant making its way into unvaccinated hosts. Delta is now the dominant strain in the U.S., making up 52% of new cases. In Louisiana and neighboring states, it is responsible for up 59% of new cases. With...

With new mutations discovered every few weeks, many scientists now predict that Covid will continue circulating around the world for at least the next two to three years, requiring nations to reinstitute public health measures on an ad hoc basis for the foreseeable future

(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:...

Dozens of children and adults have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a Texas church camp. Three tested positive for the highly contagious delta variant. Fifty-seven adults and youths from Galveston County tested positive, including six patients who were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, said Dr. Philip Keiser, the county’s local health authority. More than 90 others, including some from outside the county, have reported positive test results to Galveston County health officials, he said. More than 450 adults and grade-six-to-12 youths attended the camp organized near Giddings, Texas