Disease Prevention

With the first case of omicron confirmed in California and more cases expected across the U.S., public health officials who know the difference between good and bad crisis communication say they can't afford to be quiet and wait until scientists know how risky the new variant is before they speak out.

"We don't want to just be silent on the matter, because then that can cause fear and then that can allow for misinformation to creep in," says Elya Franciscus, the epidemiology operations manager for COVID-19 in Harris County, Texas.

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White House shifts strategy to emphasize more testing to counter COVID spread

Fri, 2021-12-03 23:32 — mike kraft

WASHINGTON — President Biden, confronting a worrisome new coronavirus variant and a potential winter surge, laid out a pandemic strategy on Thursday that includes hundreds of vaccination sites, boosters for all adults, new testing requirements for international travelers and free at-home tests.

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Omicron overview: Biden tightens travel rules amid new Omicron cases

Fri, 2021-12-03 21:03 — mike kraft

Omicron: Biden tightens travel rules amid new Omicron cases The US winter plan includes millions of free tests and stricter rules for international passengers. BBC News

President Joe Biden has unveiled stricter Covid-19 travel rules as the US confirmed a handful of cases of the Omicron variant from coast to coast.

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Biden outlines multi-pronged plan to counter evolving pandemic and variants

Fri, 2021-12-03 02:51 — mike kraft

Biden lays out multi-pronged plan to deal with evolving pandemic President Biden on Thursday laid out a multi-pronged plan to confront the delta and emerging omicron variants of the coronavirus that includes an expansion of at-home diagnostic tests, stricter Morgan Chalfant TheHill

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Free testing at U.S. airports will aid monitoring omicron variant

Thu, 2021-12-02 22:26 — mike kraft

U.S. airports will aid effort to monitor omicron variant It's part of stepped-up efforts to monitor international arrivals amid growing concerns about the omicron variant. Lori Aratani Washington Post

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Many public health experts were opposed to a boosters-for-all approach. The new variant is changing some minds.

Thu, 2021-12-02 22:06 — mike kraft

As recently as last week, many public health experts were fiercely opposed to the Biden administration’s campaign to roll out booster shots of the coronavirus vaccines to all American adults. There was little scientific evidence to support extra doses for most people, the researchers said.

The Omicron variant has changed all that.

Scientists do not yet know with any certainty whether the virus is easier to spread or less vulnerable to the body’s immune response. But with dozens of new mutations, the variant seems likely to evade the protection from vaccines to some significant degree.

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Vaccines are finally available in many African countries, but some people there, as well as in South Asia, are wary of taking them.

Wed, 2021-12-01 23:01 — mike kraft

JOHANNESBURG — The detection of the Omicron variant in Africa signals the next stage of the battle against Covid-19: getting many more people inoculated in poorer nations where vaccines have been scarcest in order to deter new mutations from developing.

But while world leaders sometimes talk about this as if it were largely a matter of delivering doses overseas, the experience of South Africa, at least, hints at a far more complex set of challenges.

Like many poor countries, South Africa was made to wait months for vaccines as wealthier countries monopolized them. Many countries still do not have anywhere near enough doses to inoculate their populations.

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