Coronavirus category, Page 55
Allegheny, Westmoreland covid hospitalizations down more than 15% from last week
Covid hospitalizations have been trending in a positive direction recently for the state and local counties. New covid data show that from last week to Tuesday, hospitalizations in Pennsylvania as well as Allegheny and Westmoreland counties have decreased somewhat significantly. Hospitalizations Pennsylvania saw a sixth consecutive day of decrease to...
In fight against covid, Biden looks for path back to normal
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden spent his first 100 days in office encouraging Americans to mask up and stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus. His task for the next 100 days will be to lay out the path back to normal. When he entered office, Biden moved...
North Hills School District sets vaccine clinic for students 16 and older
North Hills School District officials are planning an appointment-only coronavirus vaccine clinic for students 16 and older next month. Students interested in getting the Pfizer shot can sign up on the district’s website. Officials from Giant Eagle will be administering the vaccines on May 11 at the high school, according...
Vaccinated Americans may get clearance to skip the masks outdoorsVideo
WASHINGTON — A growing call for health officials to relax rules about outdoor mask wearing could soon lead to one of the most significant changes in virus guidelines since the U.S. first told Americans to don face coverings to curb the spread of covid-19. Outdoor mask wearing has been the...
SOS messages, panic as coronavirus breaks India’s health systemVideo
NEW DELHI — Dr. Gautam Singh dreads the daily advent of the ventilator beeps, signaling that oxygen levels are critically low, and hearing his desperately ill patients start gasping for air in the New Delhi emergency ward where he works. Like other doctors across India, which on Monday set another...
West Virginia to give $100 savings bond for young vaccinatedVideo
CHARLESTON — West Virginia aims to entice residents aged 16 to 35 to get a coronavirus shot with the promise of a $100 savings bond. Republican Gov. Jim Justice said Monday the move was to “jump-start” immunizing the demographic that officials say are most likely to be currently spreading the...
Pennsylvania officials set sights on vaccinating homebound residents
As the pace of covid-19 vaccinations continues to accelerate in Pennsylvania, state officials have turned their attention to people who are unable to leave their homes. “Now we’re at the point where supply is coming close to demand,” Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday during a news conference in Reading. “We...
U.S. will share AstraZeneca vaccines with world
WASHINGTON — The U.S. will begin sharing its entire pipeline of vaccines from AstraZeneca once the covid-19 vaccine clear federal safety reviews, the White House told the Associated Press on Monday, with as many as 60 million doses expected to be available for export in the coming months. The move...
UPMC Magee encouraged by study of pregnant women receiving covid vaccine
Early findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine show the possible side effects of covid-19 vaccines in pregnant women were similar to those for all women. The first published results were released last week. Of the 35,691 participants ages 16 to 54 — at all stages of pregnancy...
Allegheny County posts lowest single-day covid case report in 6 months
For the first time since Oct. 26, Allegheny County has posted a single-day covid case number below 100. Monday’s report by the Allegheny County Health Department shows 94 new coronavirus cases, something that hasn’t happened in the past six months. While health officials have often said Monday’s case counts are...
Germany debates privileges for those who’ve been vaccinated
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel and the governors of Germany’s 16 states on Monday discussed whether people who have been fully vaccinated against covid-19 should be exempt from certain restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the virus. The issue of special privileges for vaccinated people has been...
France reopens schools as virus patients numbers peak
PARIS — Nursery and primary schools reopened on Monday across France after a three-week closure in the first step out of the country’s partial lockdown, despite numbers of covid-19 patients in intensive care units reaching their highest level since last spring. Authorities argue that daily numbers of new infections have...
Michigan became hotspot as variants rose and vigilance waned
ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Eric Gala passed up an opportunity to get a coronavirus vaccine when shots became available in Michigan, and he admits not taking the virus seriously enough. Then he got sick with what he thought was the flu. He thought he would sweat it out and then...
EU reportedly set to allow vaccinated U.S. tourists to visit this summer
The European Union plans to open its doors this summer to U.S. tourists who’ve been fully vaccinated against covid-19, The New York Times reported, citing the head of the bloc’s executive body. The change, which would come under certain conditions, would end the bloc’s more than one-year ban of nonessential...
The end of U.S. mass vaccination is coming sooner than laterVideo
After three months of vaccination across the United States, a majority of American adults have gotten shots, and the effort will soon shift from mass inoculation to mop-up. As of Saturday, 138.6 million people in the U.S. have received at least one covid-19 vaccine shot. About 1.3 million more are...
Coronavirus ‘swallowing’ people in India; crematoriums overwhelmedVideo
NEW DELHI — With life-saving oxygen in short supply, family members in India are left on their own to ferry coronavirus patients from hospital to hospital in search of treatment as the country is engulfed in a devastating new surge of infections. Too often their efforts end in mourning. The...
Why it’s dangerous that workers in Pa. prisons, covid-19 hot spots, aren’t getting vaccinated
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — A delayed upgrade to the state Department of Corrections’ dashboard on covid-19 rates in prisons has revealed that only...
Shelters struggle to vaccinate Pittsburgh’s homeless population
Light of Life Rescue Mission had a vaccine clinic planned to help vaccinate homeless people earlier this month. The shelter, which operates short- and long-term programs for the homeless, as well as addiction recovery and employment assistance, planned to administer the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Then, about three hours...
With OK from experts, some states resume use of J&J covid vaccine
NEW YORK — With a green light from federal health officials, many states resumed use of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on Saturday. Among the venues where it was being deployed: the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Among the other states ordering or recommending a resumption, along with Indiana, were...
Pennsylvania sees new trend in covid hospitalizations: 3 days of decline
To start the month, the state had increases in covid hospitalizations in 13 of the first 14 days of April. But a trend in the last few days shows numbers going the other way, with hospitalizations in Pennsylvania dropping by about 6% since Wednesday. Pennsylvania The state had 2,656 covid-19...
Westmoreland courthouse to host vaccine clinic on Tuesday
The Westmoreland County Courthouse in Greensburg will host a covid-19 vaccine clinic on Tuesday. County officials announced that county employees, their families and the general public are eligible to participate in the clinic, which will be conducted in the commissioners’ public meeting room off the main lobby of the courthouse....
Local health systems look to CDC guidance on resuming J&J covid vaccinations
U.S. health advisers on Friday urged resuming covid-19 vaccinations with Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot, saying its benefits outweigh a rare risk of blood clots — in line with Europe’s rollout. Federal health officials uncovered 15 vaccine recipients who developed a highly unusual kind of blood clot, out of nearly...
Biden spokeswoman: Pandemic ‘exposed what a problem we have on our hands’ in U.S. nursing homes
The pandemic shined a spotlight on problems that plagued low-performing nursing homes scattered across Western Pennsylvania and the rest of the nation long before covid-19 struck the United States, White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged Friday. As vaccinations ramp up and covid-19 hospitalizations go down, the Biden administration intends...
U.S. lifts pause, allowing J&J covid-19 vaccinations to resume
U.S. health officials lifted an 11-day pause on covid-19 vaccinations using Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot on Friday, after scientific advisers decided its benefits outweigh a rare risk of blood clot. The government uncovered 15 vaccine recipients who developed a highly unusual kind of blood clot, out of nearly 8...
Map shows where to get a covid vaccine in Allegheny County
Allegheny County has created a public map of active covid-19 vaccination locations. The Vaccine Provider map is available online at the county’s Covid Vaccine Information page. Users can access it directly at alleghenycounty.us/vaccinemap. “We are trying to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to...
