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Hydroxychloroquine should not be used to prevent or treat COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) advised this week. The anti-inflammatory drug was once touted by former President Donald Trump, who said he was taking the treatment to prevent contracting coronavirus last spring. A panel of WHO experts found that the drug has no meaningful effect on deaths or hospitalizations due to coronavirus. They added that it may even increase the risk of adverse effects. With high certainty, "the guideline development panel made a strong recommendation against the use of hydroxychloroquine for individuals who do not have covid-19," the panel wrote...

States around the country are reporting a significant decline in the number of students enrolled in public school because of the coronavirus pandemic, leaving experts and educators concerned about the trend, and its potential long-term consequences. A notable number of students seem to have simply fallen off the grid, not showing up for online or in-person instruction, their whereabouts unknown by school officials. Given the chaos caused by the pandemic, and the lack of data, it is difficult to truly determine the exact magnitude of the problem, which seems to be disproportionately affecting already vulnerable student populations – among them...

TAIPEI, Taiwan - The plane laden with vaccines had just rolled to a stop at Santiago’s airport in late January, and Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, was beaming. “Today,” he said, “is a day of joy, emotion and hope.” The source of that hope: China – a country that Chile and dozens of other nations are depending on to help rescue them from the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccines to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press. China’s...

In a repeat of a Valentine’s Day protest, a group of anti-maskers with picket signs congregated outside of a Trader Joe’s in Santa Cruz to protest the city’s mask mandate. Unlike the organization’s earlier February demonstration, in which they stormed into the grocery store and took food from the shelves — while leaving cash at registers for cashiers who refused to serve them — this protest took place almost exclusively outside. This go-around, a line of Trader Joe’s employees guarded the entrances — prohibiting entry for the group of protesters while letting masked customers enter. Sunday, in fact, was allegedly...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- With the floodgates set to open on another round of unemployment aid, states are being hammered with a new wave of fraud as they scramble to update security systems and block scammers who already have siphoned billions of dollars from pandemic-related jobless programs. The fraud is fleecing taxpayers, delaying legitimate payments and turning thousands of Americans into unwitting identity theft victims. Many states have failed to adequately safeguard their systems, and a review by The Associated Press finds that some will not even publicly acknowledge the extent of the problem. The massive sham springs from prior identity...

WASHINGTON - Just five weeks ago, Los Angeles County was conducting more than 350,000 weekly coronavirus tests, including at a massive drive-thru site at Dodger Stadium, as health workers raced to contain the worst COVID-19 hotspot in the U.S. Now, county officials say testing has nearly collapsed. More than 180 government-supported sites are operating at only a third of their capacity. “It’s shocking how quickly we’ve gone from moving at 100 miles an hour to about 25,” said Dr. Clemens Hong, who leads the county’s testing operation. After a year of struggling to boost testing, communities across the country are...

This is an RFK letter in response to a critic who did not address RFK's supporting information. (...) Similarly, in 1977, Boston University epidemiologists (and husband and wife) John and Sonja McKinlay published their seminal work in the Millbank Memorial Fund Quarterly on the role that vaccines (and other medical interventions) played in the massive 74% decline in mortality seen in the twentieth century: “The Questionable Contribution of Medical Measures to the Decline of Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century.” In this article, which was formerly required reading in U.S. medical schools, the McKinlays pointed out that...

A great number of people around the world, who have their eyes open and realize what is going on, were hoping that Trump could have brought truth and justice to light, so as to continue to put the people of the USA and the people of the world FIRST, not the world dictatorship. Even a very great number of Japanese and Chinese citizens were praying and hoping for another four years with Trump. The Chinese are greatly suffering under a dictatorship that we will very soon be under. The elite of the world, with the Big Tech and their many...

BERLIN - Pollina Dinner returned to school in Berlin for the first time this week after two months of lockdown. The 9-year-old third-grader was thrilled to see her classmates and teachers again but frets about the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on her life. “I’m not afraid of the coronavirus, I’m afraid that everything will continue like this — that my school will close again, I won’t be able to see my friends, and that I can’t go to the movies with my family,” the girl said, fingering her blue medical mask and sighing deeply. “And wearing this mask is even worse...

People of color are more likely to be relying on the relief, especially Black women. Half of Black Americans and 40% of Hispanics said they were counting on it, while 57% of Black women said the same. Additionally, 24% of Blacks and Hispanics need it but don’t think it will come to fruition.

LONDON — It seemed like a windfall in the campaign to vaccinate the world. President Joe Biden last week announced $4 billion for a humanitarian program called COVAX — short for Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access plan — which aims to fairly distribute vaccines between rich countries and the developing world. But in more than a dozen interviews, current and former officials involved with COVAX and experts with detailed knowledge of the plan suggest Biden's mountains of cash and rhetorical support will not address the real reasons behind the dire state of global vaccine inequality. Some critics say Biden is repeating...

The House version of Biden administration's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill contains funding for BART's planned expansion into San Jose and Santa Clara — and congressional Republicans are not happy about it. An analysis from Fox Business found that the expansion — long-planned but lacking funding — will be receiving $112 million in federal funds, and transportation officials told the San Francisco Chronicle the figure would actually be closer to $141 million. Twitter accounts for House and Senate Republicans began referring to the project as "Pelosi's Subway" in tweets railing against the legislation. "The Democrats’ $1.9 trillion spending bill is...

NEW YORK - February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors’ offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year. Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades. Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus — mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling — were a big factor in preventing a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people traveling, they say. Another possible explanation: The...

WASHINGTON - The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package now making its way through the U.S. Congress would provide $350 billion to help pandemic-hit state and local governments balance their budgets, more than twice the amount lawmakers approved last year. But not every state comes out ahead: urban, Democratic-led states like Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts that took drastic steps to stop the coronavirus’ spread would get about three times as much money per person as they did in the package passed at the beginning of the health crisis in March. Rural, Republican-led states including Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota...

Some residents of Marin County are misusing access codes intended for people living in Black and Latino communities to book vaccine appointments at the Oakland Coliseum through the state's vaccine scheduling system My Turn, SFGATE has learned. The codes are part of a California program to remedy inequities in vaccine distribution and provided to community organizations to distribute to vulnerable communities for vaccine appointments. Residents of other Bay Area counties could also be misusing these codes, but the instances SFGATE learned of were specifically in Marin. "We have set aside a number of vaccines a day for local community organizations...

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden wants to vaccinate teachers to speed school reopenings, but more than half the states aren't listening and haven't made educators a priority — highlighting the limited powers of the federal government, even during a devastating pandemic. "I can't set nationally who gets in line, when and first — that's a decision the states make," Biden said while touring a Pfizer plant in Michigan on Friday. "I can recommend." Under the Constitution, the powers of the federal government are far-reaching but not all-encompassing. States have always retained control over public health and safety, from policing crimes...

President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci declared Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the United States had “done worse than most any other country” in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “Five hundred thousand Americans, families grieving all across the country. Did this have to be?”

... As Biden has acted to strengthen the federal government's hand in coordinating vaccination efforts across the country — particularly in empowering FEMA as the lead response agency — he has also reversed the politics of combating the crisis. Former President Donald Trump used his power over federal resources and contracting dollars to reward governors, senators and business leaders who praised him privately and publicly as he sought re-election. By contrast, Biden has prioritized vaccinating people who are both vulnerable and representative of his political coalition. His administration is even providing support to vaccination sites in churches, hoping to persuade...

The risk of becoming ill with coronavirus falls by 95.8% after the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Israel's health ministry has said.The vaccine was also 98% effective in preventing breathing problems or a fever and 98.9% effective in preventing hospitalisations and death, the ministry added.It comes only days after a vaccine efficacy study in the country concluded that the Pfizer jab is up to 85% effective after the first dose.The latest findings were based on data collected nationally from around 1.7 million Israelis who had received both shots of the Pfizer vaccine by 30 January.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said...

The UK should donate vaccines to developing countries now rather than waiting until it has a surplus, the new head of the World Trade Organization has told the BBC. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said it was "in the interest" of wealthy countries that all nations access vaccines. It comes after PM Boris Johnson said the UK would donate most of its surplus supply to poorer nations. Addressing the UK government's plans to donate its surplus vaccines to the developing world, Ms Okonjo-Iweala told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was "welcome" - but cautioned against delay. "I don't think we should wait...