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Drivers relieved by the recent dip in gas prices may be in for a shock when the summer winds down, with energy analysts warning a fresh round of price surges could emerge as soon as October. The prospect of a new gas price jolt coinciding with midterm elections has the White House and many Democrats on edge. The price concerns are tied to the timeline for stricter sanctions on Russia that will further choke the global oil supply. J.P. Morgan has warned that in a worst-case scenario - in which Russia retaliates by shutting down its supply altogether - the...

As waves of new coronavirus variants circulate the globe, one thing has become clear: human immunity against the virus fades over time....But some of the nuances around why and how immunity against Covid-19 fades remain a mystery. The steepest drops in immunity – which come about four to five months after vaccination and up to eight months after infection, but can vary – are against Covid-19 symptoms, getting infected and getting sick. Protection against severe outcomes, hospitalization and death remains much higher for a longer period of time, but even this decays to some degree, especially for the elderly and...

Oil prices have topped $113 per barrel on optimism that China’s lockdowns are coming to an end and demand will not take a prolonged hit. In early afternoon markets Monday, news that Shanghai was seeing a strong recovery from COVID cases, with plans in place to ease lockdown restrictions beginning this week, outweighed a litany of bearish news for oil. Brent was at $113.97 per barrel on 3:20 pm EST, while WTI was trading at $113.77. WTI neared $115…Authorities in Shanghai on Monday said restrictions would finally ease, in stages, after nearly six weeks of lockdowns that have shaken the...

HONG KONG, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Hong Kong residents crowded supermarkets and neighbourhood fresh food markets on Monday to stock up on vegetables, noodles and other necessities after a record number of COVID-19 infections in the city and transport disruptions at the border with mainland China. The city of 7.5 million people reported a record 614 coronavirus cases on Monday, in the biggest test yet for the Chinese territory's zero-COVID strategy. Hong Kong imports 90% of its food supplies, with the mainland its most important source, especially for fresh food. Consumers have already seen a shortage of some foreign imported...

California’s least-populous county declared a public health emergency Tuesday morning, as COVID-19 cases, driven by the infectious omicron variant, soared in the area

"Some states have used National Guard to support depleted health care work forces COVID-19 vaccine mandates have put some vital U.S health and safety institutions in a tough spot after cutting personnel who didn’t comply. Overlapping federal mandates for military personnel, state mandates for health care workers, and other private mandates have created an increasingly difficult situation in the face of the omicron variant as numbers continue to surge in some states due to the much greater transmissibility of the variant. President Biden in August issued a federal vaccine mandate that required military personnel in each branch to receive a...

"... I’m not going to sugarcoat this and say that a doubling of the number of children hospitalized with COVID isn’t disturbing (and the “with” is important, as we’ll discuss in a moment). But we’re talking about 1,933 children here. That’s not 1,933 children in one city or one county or even one state. That’s in the entire country of 330 million people. And more than 73 million of those Americans are under the age of 18. That works out to a hospitalization rate of .00000026. ..."

Los Angeles County reported 7,425 new cases of Covid and nine additional deaths on Monday. But those numbers were artificially low due to reporting delays from the holiday weekend. The region’s test positivity rate — which is considered a more accurate indication of infection spread because it is an average and also a percentage, rather than a raw number — told a different story. Last Monday, L.A.’s 7-day average test positivity rate was 3.4%. Today, that same 7-day average has risen more than 300% to 12.4%. That’s a shockingly steep rise over the course of 8 days in a data...

Omicron has increased in California from a single infection three weeks ago to up to 70 percent of reported cases across the state, figures released Thursday reveal. AP reports omicron is present in 50-70 percent of new coronavirus cases in California, the state which has the largest population in the U.S.

Sir David Spiegelhalter (Professor of Statistics at Cambridge) has suggested the increase rate of hospitalisations "may be slowing down", with it not "looking quite as bad" as once thought. "If the case counts are accurate, then *growth* in new cases per day of Omicron in London has crashed - i.e. new cases are roughly constant. "There are still a LOT of new cases per day but if there really is zero growth in new cases then that is highly encouraging." He suggested the change in rate - different to the amount of cases being detected, which is still very high...

Quebec officials announced Monday that they are taking the drastic step of throwing the province into a lockdown amid an explosion of Omicron cases. “The situation is critical. The explosion of cases is overwhelming,” Health Minister Christian Dubé said at a press briefing. “Our health system is already in crisis.” Dubé said establishments such as bars, cinemas, concert venues, gyms and spas in the Canadian region will shut down starting at 5 p.m., CBC News reported. Working from home is now mandatory for all non-essential employees, including government staffers. Restaurants, which are allowed to operate at half capacity, must close...

The new mask mandate will be in place anywhere mass is celebrated, and for all events including weddings and funerals, the Archdiocese of Boston said Thursday. Face coverings are making a comeback for parishes within the Archdiocese of Boston for the holidays. “I will definitely feel safer coming to church knowing people are wearing masks,” said churchgoer Moran Brister of South Boston. “In fact I might not go otherwise.” The Archdiocese announced Thursday that masks will be required for a one-month period before and after Christmas and the New Year season. “Quite extraordinarily we’re seeing yet another spike and we...

I regularly test for COVID & while I tested negative earlier this week, today I tested positive with a breakthrough case,' Warren wrote. 'Thankfully, I am only experiencing mild symptoms & am grateful for the protection provided against serious illness that comes from being vaccinated & boosted.' In April 2020 Warren announced that her brother, Don Reed Herring, had died of the virus.

WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - U.S. health officials urged Americans on Sunday to get booster shots, wear masks and be careful if they travel over the winter holidays, with the Omicron variant raging across the world and likely to take over as the dominant strain in the United States. The government is gearing up for the next phase of battle in a two-year fight against a virus that has killed 800,000 and disrupted every aspect of daily life. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CBS' "Face the Nation" that the number of Omicron cases will...

With hospitalizations and a rapid rise in new coronavirus cases being driven by a surge of the Omicron variant, London’s mayor on Saturday declared a “major incident” — or emergency — for the first time since January. The declaration sets up special coordination procedures and indicates that emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response. The move came as the number of patients in London hospitals increased 29 percent over the last week. The city has confirmed 65,525 new cases in the last week and 26,418 cases in the last day, the highest number since the start...

The media in the United States have been oddly fastidious in failing to report one aspect of last week’s horror in Beslan: that several Russian girls were raped by Muslim terrorists in front of their parents and classmates. The failure to report rapes in the Russian school was at odds with the eagerness of American journalists, a decade ago, to report ad nauseam on the entirely fictitious "rape camps" supposedly run by Bosnian Serbs in which Muslim women were allegedly subjected to similar degradation. That Muslim propagandists and their Western abettors should have resorted to this particular whopper is especially...