This live coverage has ended.For the latest coronavirus news, click here .New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced Wednesday that all city workers would be subject to a coronavirus vaccine mandate.The city is taking a carrot and stick approach to its deadline for municipal employees, requiring them to show proof of at least one vaccine dose by Oct.29, and will give them an extra $500 for getting their first shot by the deadline.Unvaccinated employees will be placed on unpaid leave until they show a supervisor proof of vaccination, de Blasio’s office said in a statement.The move comes on the same day the Food and Drug Administration authorized the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson booster shots .The action, arriving as the U.S.
death toll from the pandemic exceeds 728,000 and tens of millions of Americans have yet to get their first shot against the virus, largely fulfills the Biden administration’s controversial pledge this summer that booster shots would be widely available.U.S.coronavirus cases tracker and map Here’s what to know During a week in which he announced the cancellation of four concerts at venues with coronavirus safety protocols, country artist Travis Tritt reiterated on Tuesday night to Fox News host Tucker Carlson how he was “putting my money where my mouth is” by not playing at places requiring vaccination, masks or negative coronavirus tests.The musician, who has said that promoters and venues requiring covid safety measures were “discriminating” against concertgoers, told Billboard this week that he was pulling out of shows in Muncie, Ind., Philadelphia, Miss., Peoria, Ill., and Louisville, becoming the latest performer to speak out against vaccination or masking rules.
Tritt, 58, who said he still plans to perform at venues without guidelines, noted that the decision was made after some fans reached out to him when they were turned away from buildings because they were not vaccinated or did not have a negative test.
Advertisement Updates continue below advertisement Health experts want Britain to bring back covid restrictions.The government says: ‘We don’t want to go back.’ By Annabelle Timsit 8:00 p.m.Link copied Link
Public health experts in the United Kingdom are calling on the government to reintroduce some coronavirus restrictions as cases climb — far outstripping those of its Western European neighbors — despite the country’s high vaccination coverage.The U.K.’s coronavirus case count could rise to as high as 100,000 a day, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said at a news conference Wednesday.But that was not grounds for the government to abandon its current “Plan A,” he said, and impose more restrictions — at least not yet.“We think it is the right decision to learn to live with this virus,” such as “asking people to take more responsibility” around measures such as face masks and vaccinations, Javid said.Other public health experts warn that Britain is, once more, facing a critical juncture: impose restrictions now before this wave becomes too big to contain.
Advertisement Updates continue below advertisement Washington State football coach to file lawsuit after being fired for noncompliance with vaccine mandate By Cindy Boren 6:30 p.m.Link copied Link
Nick Rolovich will reportedly take his dismissal as Washington State football coach to court, with his lawyer alleging he was illegally fired and accusing Athletic Director Pat Chun of “discriminatory and vindictive” behavior.In perhaps the highest-profile case to date of a public employee being terminated because of a state’s coronavirus vaccine mandate, the school on Monday announced the dismissal of Rolovich after he had not complied with a statewide order issued by Gov.Jay Inslee (D) in August.Rolovich, the state’s highest-paid employee at $3.2 million per year, had remained unvaccinated as the state’s Monday vaccination deadline arrived.Rolovich had cited his religious beliefs as the reason for not being vaccinated.
Advertisement Updates continue below advertisement FDA authorizes Moderna and Johnson & Johnson boosters By Carolyn Y.
Johnson , Laurie McGinley and Lena H.Sun 5:03 p.m.Link copied Link
Millions more people in the United States will soon be able to receive an extra shot of any coronavirus vaccine, regardless of their initial vaccination — a flexibility that comes along with the authorization Wednesday of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson booster shots by federal regulators.The decision by the Food and Drug Administration paves the way for boosters of all three authorized shots to be available to a wide swath of the U.S.population and promises to ease the logistics of the booster campaign for pharmacies and clinics offering vaccines.The action, arriving as the U.S.death toll from the pandemic exceeds 728,000 and tens of millions of Americans have yet to get their first shot against the virus, largely fulfills the Biden administration’s controversial pledge this summer that booster shots would be widely available.That move drew criticism because it leaped ahead of decisions by scientific agencies and triggered a fierce debate about whether those extra shots were warranted now, and for whom.
Advertisement Updates continue below advertisement New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announces vaccine mandate for city workers By Adela Suliman 5:00 p.m.Link copied Link
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced Wednesday that all city workers — excluding uniformed correction officers — would be subject to a coronavirus vaccine mandate in a bid to resume pre-pandemic life.The city is taking a carrot and stick approach to its deadline for municipal employees, requiring them to show proof of at least one vaccine dose within nine days.“Starting today, City employees will receive an extra $500 in their paycheck for receiving their first shot at a City-run vaccination site.This benefit will end at 5pm on Friday, October 29th, by which point City employees are required to have proof of at least one dose.
Unvaccinated employees will be placed on unpaid leave until they show proof of vaccination to their supervisor,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.The mandate is expected to apply to some 160,500 workers, according to the statement, including employees of the New York police, fire and sanitation departments.The city says 71 percent have already received at least one dose, meaning 46,545 are still yet to be vaccinated.Civilian employees of the Department of Correction and uniformed members assigned to healthcare settings are also immediately subject to the mandate, while other uniformed members at the department will be subject to mandate effective December 1.“As we continue our recovery for all of us, city workers have been a daily inspiration,” de Blasio said in a statement.“Now is the time for them to show their city the path out of this pandemic once and for all.”Vaccine mandates are already in place in a number of schools and hospitals in New York, which have prompted some resistance among unions and workers.About 65 percent of New York’s total population has been fully vaccinated so far, according to state data.
Key update Key coronavirus updates from around the world By Annabelle Timsit 4:07 p.m.
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Here’s what to know about the top coronavirus stories around the globe from news service reports.
Montgomery County officials and union leaders pushed back Tuesday against a proposed coronavirus vaccination mandate for county workers, testifying at a public hearing that it would cause dire cuts to essential services.But county lawmakers spearheading the mandate disagreed, arguing that other large employers, including the county’s school system, already have implemented vaccine requirements without dramatic repercussions.Per county data , about 80 percent of its 9,000-plus employees reported being partially or fully vaccinated as of Tuesday.The remaining 8 percent of workers who have not been vaccinated and 13 percent who have not reported their vaccination status include dozens of firefighters, more than half the nurses at the county’s correctional facilities and 205 police officers on patrol, according to a government report submitted to lawmakers Monday night.
Advertisement Updates continue below advertisement U.K.secures deal for two coronavirus antiviral treatments By María Paúl 2:49 p.m.Link copied Link
The British government has secured deals for “hundred of thousands of doses” of two covid-19 antiviral treatments, said Health Secretary Sajid Javid on Wednesday during a Downing Street news conference.One of the “landmark deals,” Javid said, included some 480,000 doses of molnupiravir — a pill produced by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics that has been proved in clinical trials to reduce by half the risk of hospitalization or death in adults with mild to moderate covid-19.The other agreement comprises 250,000 doses of PF-07321332/ritonavir — a Pfizer product for which clinical trials are ongoing.While a national study will be set up to gather more data on the treatments’ effectiveness, the antivirals would need approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency before being used.The announcement comes amid climbing virus cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Britain that have escalated tensions between experts calling for further restrictions and a government keen on not going back to lockdowns.While the case count could rise to as high as 100,000 a day — “all the metrics are moving in the wrong direction,” said Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency — health officials said the government will not yet impose its “plan B,” entailing mask mandates and vaccine status certifications.
Instead, Javid urged the 5 million still-unvaccinated individuals to received their shots, “not just to save lives, but to keep your freedoms, too.”Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said the new treatment will “add to the health service’s armory” in giving the country’s most vulnerable the best chance of recovery from covid-19.
In August, as the surge of the delta variant overwhelmed Hawaii’s hospitals, Gov.
David Ige (D) had a message for the tourists who were pouring into the state: “Now is not the time to visit the islands.”On Tuesday, he had a new message: Starting Nov.1, come on back — especially if you’re vaccinated.Speaking at the Kona airport, Ige said case counts are trending lower and hospitals are seeing fewer patients with covid-19.“Because of this, it is now safe for fully vaccinated residents and visitors to resume nonessential travel to and within the state of Hawaii,” he said.“Beginning November 1, we want to invite and encourage fully vaccinated visitors and residents to travel for business or leisure, trans-Pacific and inter-island.”
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Key update Biden nominee for ambassador to China accuses Beijing of ‘stonewalling’ on virus origin By John Hudson 1:16 p.m.Link copied Link
President Biden’s nominee for ambassador to China accused Beijing of “stonewalling” the international community about the origins of the coronavirus, telling a Senate panel Wednesday that China needs to be more transparent about the virus.“We need to push the Chinese to come clean about what happened,” Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat and former ambassador to NATO, said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.Burns also sharply criticized the Chinese government for what he called the “genocide” in the Xinjiang region and said its aggressive actions toward Tibet and Taiwan must stop.
China forcefully rejects the U.S.government’s view that its campaign of mass detention and sterilization of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang amounts to genocide.
Key update FDA strongly considers authorizing vaccine boosters for people as young as 40 By Laurie McGinley 12:55 p.m.
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Federal regulators are seriously considering authorizing coronavirus vaccine boosters for everyone 40 years old and above, a move that could sharply increase the number of people eligible for the shots, according to two federal officials familiar with the plans.Action would not occur until next month, after the Food and Drug Administration deals with two big items on its agenda, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue.The FDA is expected Wednesday to authorize a booster shot of the Moderna vaccine for people 65 and older and for people at special risk of covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, and an extra shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for people 18 and older.The broader age criteria for Johnson & Johnson reflects lower protection offered by the initial single-shot regimen compared with other coronavirus vaccines.A booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine already is cleared for people 65 and older and for people at higher risk because of medical conditions or exposure on the job.Read the story
In July, an unvaccinated woman with low oxygen levels and a fever arrived at the emergency room of a hospital in Washington state.She had used up the tank of oxygen that a physician assistant in Washougal had shipped to her home days before, the woman told hospital staff.The unidentified woman, whom Scott C.Miller also had allegedly treated with ivermectin — a deworming drug that some people are using to prevent or treat covid-19, despite several public health agencies’ advising against it — died about a week later.That same month, according to a statement of charges released by the State of Washington Medical Commission, the family of an unvaccinated man hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms filed an emergency injunction requesting that the hospital give him ivermectin.
Miller, who had never treated or examined the man, his wife said, had recommended that course of action, the document states.
The family later dropped the request.The patient died Aug.2.
Israel identifies case of mutated ‘descendant’ of delta variant By Bryan Pietsch 11:52 a.m.Link copied Link
Israel said it has identified a mutated delta variant, AY.4.2, the first case of the mutant confirmed in the country.The Israeli Health Ministry confirmed that it was detected in an 11- year-old-boy at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, and that the child, who was arriving from Moldova, went into isolation.The ministry said the child is doing fine and plans to return to school Thursday.During a Wednesday White House briefing , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said AY.4.2 has occasionally been found in the United States — but “not with recent increased frequency or clustering to date.”“In the United States, delta remains the dominant variant with more than 99.7 percent of sequence cases in the country being caused by delta,” Walensky said.“There are new variants that continue to emerge as cases continue to spread, and in particular, the AY4.2 variant has drawn some attention in recent days.”The AY.4.2 variation of the coronavirus, which was described by one expert as a “descendant” of the delta variant, is being monitored in Britain, though it is unclear whether AY.4.2 poses a significant risk of being more contagious or more capable of evading protection provided by vaccines.It has not been categorized as a “variant of interest” or a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization.The coronavirus is constantly mutating , as is normal for viruses.Health experts have warned, however, that as some of the world’s population, mostly in wealthy countries, becomes vaccinated, it becomes increasingly important to vaccinate the rest of the population, as the virus can mutate more quickly among the unvaccinated.
María Luisa Paúl contributed to this report.
While a pandemic that has killed close to 5 million people across the world is no laughing matter, researchers found that humor can be a positive and healthy mechanism when it comes to dealing with these challenging times.According to a study published Monday in the American Psychological Association’s journal, Psychology of Popular Media, viewing memes helped lower stress levels and made people feel more confident in their ability to cope with the global health crisis.“As the pandemic kept dragging on, it became more and more interesting to me how people were using social media and memes in particular, as a way to think about the pandemic,” said Jessica Gall Myrick, the study’s lead author, in a news release.“We found that viewing just three memes can help people cope with the stress of living during a global pandemic.”The researchers surveyed 748 people and showed popular memes from websites, including Imgur and IMGflip , to half of them, while the other half was shown other media.Among the meme-viewing group, some participants were provided with covid-related captions while others saw the same image with its original caption.For example, when it came to a picture of an angry cat, it was captioned “New study confirms: Cats can’t spread covid-19 but would if given option” for one set of participants.
For the other group, it read “New study confirms: Cats can’t sabotage your car but would if given option.”Individuals then rated how cute and funny they found the displayed media and reported their levels of anxiety and states such as relaxation and calmness.They were also asked pandemic-related questions, including their stress about the virus and how much the images caused them to think about other information they knew about covid-19.Those who viewed memes reported more positive emotions and had “increased covid-19 coping efficacy,” according to the study.Another key finding was that memes about the virus aided people in processing the stressful news without getting overwhelmed by it — something researchers said public officials could benefit from in their attempts to communicate information to the public.“The positive emotions associated with this type of content may make people feel psychologically safer and therefore better able to pay attention to the underlying messages related to health threats,” Myrick said..
