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Everyone ages 6 months and older should get the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine. This includes people who have received a COVID-19 vaccine, people who have had COVID-19, and people with long COVID.

Americans are being left outraged as Covid era mask rules appear to be creeping back into daily life. This week a hospital system in Monterey, California, which treats nearly 400,000 patients a year, reinstated its face mask mandate for visitors and patients. Meanwhile several counties in the Bay Area have also brought back mask rules in healthcare facilities ahead of flu season.

The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence. HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission. ... The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and...

Masks are coming back to the Bay Area — for a limited time.... The orders are aimed at reducing the spread of flu, COVID and other respiratory viruses in medical settings during the winter virus season that typically spans late fall to early spring. For the most part, the orders apply to health care workers only and echo similar local health orders announced last year for the 2023-24 winter virus season. But two local jurisdictions, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, are also extending the requirement to visitors — and Santa Clara County is also asking patients to mask up....

CNN — The US Food and Drug Administration is poised to sign off as soon as this week on updated Covid-19 vaccines targeting more recently circulating strains of the virus, according to two sources familiar with the matter, as the country experiences its largest summer wave in two years. The agency is expected to greenlight updated mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech that target a strain of the virus called KP.2, said the sources, who declined to be named because the timing information isn’t public. It was unclear whether the agency simultaneously would authorize Novavax’s updated shot, which targets the...

A surge in COVID-19 infections has swept the country this summer, upending travel plans and bringing fevers, coughs and general malaise. It shows no immediate sign of slowing. While most of the country and the federal government has put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, the virus is mutating and new variants emerging. Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) no longer tracks individual infection numbers, experts think it could be the biggest summer wave yet. So far, the variants haven’t been proven to cause a more serious illness, and vaccines remain effective, but there’s no certainty...

Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is requiring its employees to be “up to date” on COVID-19 vaccines, according to a job listing from the campaign, which is searching for National Booker. The Harris campaign has a job listing for a “National Booker,” tasked with working “with the Surrogates Communications Director and Deputy Communications Director to execute Harris for President’s strategy for deploying surrogates and allies across national and regional media outlets.” According to the listing, the National Booker is also tasked with managing daily reservations with media bookers and “developing strategies to increase the visibility of campaign spokespeople and...

(KTLA) — Coronavirus levels in California’s wastewater have reached a “very high” level for the first time since last winter. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the trend matches what’s being reported in several other states. The Golden State was one of seven states with “very high” levels; the others were Arkansas, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon and Texas. In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, coronavirus levels in wastewater have also increased.

A summer COVID surge is underway in the U.S., warns the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — so should you be concerned? As of June 25, 2024, the CDC estimated that COVID-19 infections are "growing or likely growing" in 44 states and territories, according to a news alert on its website. Despite the rise in cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain low, the data shows. Given that the pandemic was declared officially over as of May 5, 2023, public health officials don’t collect the same amount of COVID data as they once did.

HONOLULU (KHON2) — COVID numbers are up statewide according to the Department of Health (DOH). At least 1,180 new cases were diagnosed this week alone. But some people said finding a COVID test isn’t as easy as it used to be and neither is getting vaccinated. “I woke up realizing that I’m having symptoms. And so luckily, we had a test that we got on Amazon. So I took the test and it was positive,” said Murti Hower. He immediately went to the doctor to get medication.

If you or any of your friends have gotten sick with COVID-19 recently, you’re not the only ones: Case rates are rising in the Bay Area and the proof is in the pipes. According to the California Department of Public Health, the region now has the most viral wastewater than anywhere else in California. In an email to SFGATE, Amanda Bidwell, a wastewater researcher and data analyst at Stanford, said that over the past 21 days “consistently high concentrations” of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected in wastewater samples collected across San Francisco. “Currently we are seeing some of the highest concentrations...

The Los Angeles City Council officially terminated its vaccination mandate for municipal employees Monday... The council members voted to end the city’s vaccination mandate .. The decision was unanimous, with all present council members voting 13-0 to rescind the mandate, effective retroactively from June 2. This move aligns with actions taken by other Southern California cities and comes more than a year after the city lifted its coronavirus emergency declaration. The ordinance ends the vaccine requirement for current and future city employees and allows those fired or who resigned over the mandate to seek re-employment, ABC 7 reported. The council...

In a survey, 22 percent of respondents said they knew of at least one vaccinated person who suffered health issues after taking the injections. People who did not comply with COVID-19 vaccine requirements were hesitant because they knew someone who had experienced a health problem after getting the injection, according to recent research. “Knowing someone who experienced a health problem following COVID-19 injection reduced the likelihood of injection, the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research reported. Such people “were more likely to oppose injection mandates and passports. .. Conversely, “knowing someone who had health problems following the COVID-19...

CHICAGO -- People age 65 and older should get an additional dose of the current COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends. The agency's independent vaccine advisers voted Wednesday to recommend the additional shot, and CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen endorsed the recommendation, CNN reported. The vaccine is recommended for everyone ages 6 months and older, but data from the CDC shows that people haven't been getting the shots.

An “unknown” outbreak aboard a cruise ship is spreading, and now 154 people are sickened, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an update this week. So far, 25 crew members and 129 passengers on the Carnival-owned Cunard Cruise Line’s Queen Victoria have become ill during the trip, which is up by about 15 cases from when the illnesses were reported earlier in February, according to the CDC. The Queen Victoria cruise has 1,824 passengers and 967 crew members on board, according to the agency. It’s still not clear what’s causing the outbreak on the cruise...

The new year is kicking off with a spike in respiratory illnesses across the U.S., including COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus. Considering all the circulating illnesses right now, it might be time for masking to make a comeback, experts say. "We're certainly in the winter peak of respiratory viruses," Dr. Albert Ko, professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Yale School of Public Health, tells TODAY.com. A post-holiday COVID spike alongside upticks of the usual winter illnesses, like flu and RSV, make this surge "very much expected," he adds. Amid this rise in the spread of illnesses, mask mandates...

While the U.S. is only a few weeks into winter, this year’s respiratory virus season is already looking different than last year’s. Covid and flu are both surging and there’s no peak in sight. During the previous winter, flu and RSV got off to an early start but were already declining by the time hospitalizations from the omicron virus started to spike in December 2022.

A new Covid variant that is behind a resurgence in hospital admissions may be more deadly than previously thought, research suggests. BA.2.86 — or 'Pirola' — is a mutation on the Omicron BA.2 subvariant and is the ancestor of the currently dominant JN.1, which is responsible for more than three in five Covid cases as of January 6. Both strains have around 60 more spike protein mutations than the original coronavirus and over 30 more than other Omicron variants such as BA.2 and XBB.1.5.

(NEXSTAR) — As Americans prepare to gather for the holidays, many say they fear becoming sick in the coming months. Based on the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those concerns may be genuine. While the CDC doesn’t track COVID-19 testing as closely as it did during the pandemic, it does still track other COVID-related data. That includes hospital admissions for COVID, jumped by almost 9% in the most recent week of data, through Nov. 11. The percentage of people visiting the emergency room and testing positive for COVID is up by 7%, and the number...

Covid-19 remains a threat as a virus variant has been spreading steadily around the globe, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday. "This virus, SARS-CoV-2, is circulating in every country right now and it still poses a threat," WHO expert Maria Van Kerkhove said. "We have to remain vigilant because the virus is circulating, evolving and changing," she told a discussion on the WHO's social media channels. Van Kerkhove was the WHO's technical lead during the coronavirus pandemic that struck in 2019 and is now the UN health agency's interim director for epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention