The omicron variant of COVID-19 has caused infections to surge in the United States. “The variant has changed, and it’s now become a pandemic of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated,” Straight Arrow medical expert and cardiologist Dr. Payal Kohli said. And according to the nation’s top doc, the United States has not yet reached a…

President Joe Biden wrapped up the last day of his first year in office taking questions from 30 reporters in a White House news conference. It marks just the 10th news conference Biden has held in his first year as president. For comparison, former President Donald Trump held 21 news conferences in 2017 alone, according…

Want to just get omicron and get it over with? Doctors say it’s not that simple. The omicron variant is more likely than delta to re-infect individuals who previously had COVID-19. Data show the omicron variant is more transmissible than previous variants, infecting vaccinated and unvaccinated people at record rates. Examining reinfection “If someone gets…

On the same day the new website offering free at-home COVID-19 tests officially launched, the White House announced it will start distributing 400 million N95 masks to be available for free across the country. The masks, which will be available for pickup at pharmacies and community health centers, will begin shipping this week for distribution…

Just when the U.S. was starting to see improvements in the supply chain, small COVID outbreaks in China resulting in big shutdowns threaten to wreak havoc on the world economy. “Particularly if China sticks to a no-COVID policy, Omicron can really disturb supply chains again,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on January 11. With…

Update (Jan. 24, 2022): Since it was announced that selected fans would be allowed at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, the city has seen a new cluster of COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant. In response, Beijing authorities have tested millions of residents and imposed new measures two weeks ahead of the games. Beijing officials…

President Joe Biden said on Thursday he was deploying more military health workers to hospitals in six U.S. states. The move is “part of a major deployment of our nation’s armed forces to help hospitals across the country manage this surge of the Omicron virus,” Biden said. “I know we’re all frustrated as we enter…

According to two Labor Department reports released Thursday, on producer prices and weekly unemployment respectively, the United States is still struggling to deal with the economic effects of COVID-19. According to the department’s latest Producer Price Index, prices at a wholesale level increased 9.7% in 2021. The department noted that is “the largest calendar-year increase…

The White House announced Wednesday it will send millions of COVID-19 tests each month to schools across the country. According to a White House fact sheet, the tests are just part of how the Biden administration “is doubling down on our commitment to keeping all schools safely open for full-time in-person learning.” The full list…

Two tense moments between committee members and the nation’s top disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, highlighted a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee hearing Tuesday. The hearing was held to examine if policy changes are needed to battle the surging Omicron variant of COVID-19. Testifying with Dr. Fauci were CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, FDA Acting…