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Here we go again. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Friday to postpone elective hospital surgeries — something that hasn’t been done since the worst of the initial coronavirus outbreak last year. Hochul said she made the move to deal with staffing shortages and boost bed capacity amid an anticipated “spike” in new cases and the emergence of the new Omicron variant in South Africa. The strain is named after a letter of the Greek alphabet. “We’ve taken extraordinary action to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and combat this pandemic. However, we continue to see warning signs of spikes...

No cases of the newly identified variant have been detected in New York or the rest of the United States, for that matter. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has declared a state of emergency ahead of potential COVID-19 spikes this winter due to the already-circulating Delta and newly-identified Omicron variants of coronavirus. The declaration, which goes into effect on Dec. 3, will allow the state to acquire pandemic-fighting supplies, increase hospital capacity and fight potential staffing shortages. It would also allow the state Health Department to limit non-essential and non-urgent procedures at hospitals. "We continue to see warning signs of...

Blue states, some of which had the most restrictive requirements in the country throughout the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, are experiencing massive surges of the virus as the holiday season arrives, prompting some to reimplement mitigation strategies and keep others in place. Michigan is reporting one of the biggest surges in the nation, experiencing a daily average of 8,457 cases, or 85 per 100,000, according to the New York Times‘ tracker. That reflects an 88 percent increase in cases in the last 14 days alone. This week, the federal government agreed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) request to send “two medical...

Pfizer and BioNTech said Friday that a COVID-19 vaccine could be tweaked and produced within 100 days to counter a "vaccine-escape" variant. [cut] In an emailed statement to FOX Business, Pfizer said the vaccine-makers are "remaining vigilant" and "constantly conducting surveillance efforts focused on monitoring for emerging variants that potentially escape protection from our vaccine." [cut] "As always, we will continue to follow the science as we examine the best approaches to protecting people against COVID-19," Pfizer wrote. "In the event that vaccine-escape variant emerges, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to be able to develop and produce a tailor-made vaccine against...

President Biden said Friday that he delayed implementation of a new ban on travel from southern Africa on the advice of his medical advisers, who are led by Dr. Anthony Fauci. A reporter asked Biden why the emergency precaution will take effect Monday, rather than immediately to contain the potentially more contagious Omicron version of COVID-19. “Why not do it now like other countries have done?” the journalist asked Biden, who is spending a long Thanksgiving weekend in Nantucket. Biden said “because that was the recommendation coming from my medical team.” Fauci is Biden’s chief medical adviser and led a...

Top U.S. infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday that a ban on flights from southern Africa was a possibility and the United States was rushing to gather data on the new COVID-19 variant. No decision to halt flights had yet been made, he said.