Dec112021 DmediaNo Comments

South African Doctors See Signs Omicron Is Milder Than Delta

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As the omicron variant sweeps through South Africa, Dr. Unben Pillay is seeing dozens of sick patients a day. Yet he hasn’t had to send anyone to the hospital. That’s one of the reasons why he, along with other doctors and medical experts, suspect that the omicron version really is causing milder COVID-19 than delta, even if it seems to be spreading faster. “They are able to manage the disease at home,” Pillay said of his patients. “Most have recovered within the 10- to 14-day isolation period.” said Pillay. And that includes older patients and those with health problems that can make them more vulnerable to becoming severely ill from a coronavirus infection, he said. In the two weeks since omicron first was reported in Southern Africa, other doctors have…
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Dec112021 TechmanNo Comments

 ’Futures’ Exhibit Looks at Possibilities

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A self-driving flying taxi. A super-fast land-based transport vehicle. A sustainable floating city. Science fiction, or the wave of the future? The "Futures" exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, open Nov. 20, 2021, through July 6, 2022, gives visitors a peek at what may happen in the years to come. The exhibit opened as part of the 175th anniversary of the Smithsonian and is being held at the Arts and Industries Building, which reopened in November after being closed for almost two decades. With more than 150 ideas, innovations, technologies and artifacts, the exhibit invites visitors to think about the kind of future in which they want to live. It also provides food for thought by looking back to past innovations, like an 1800s experimental telephone and a spacesuit-testing…
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Daughter of Pioneering Astronaut Alan Shepard Set for Blue Origin Spaceflight

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The eldest daughter of pioneering U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard is set for a ride to the edge of space aboard Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin commercial rocket ship on Saturday, 60 years after her late father's famed suborbital NASA flight at the dawn of the Space Age. Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, who was a schoolgirl when her father first streaked into space, is one of six individuals due for liftoff at 8:45 a.m. Central time (1445 GMT) from Blue Origin's launch site outside the rural west Texas town of Van Horn. They will be flying aboard the crew capsule of a fully autonomous, 6-story-tall spacecraft dubbed New Shepard, designed to soar to an altitude of about 106 kilometers before falling back to Earth for a parachute landing on the desert floor.…
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Dec112021 TechmanNo Comments

As Democracy Summit Wraps, US Restricts Exports of Cyber Tools Used for Repression

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As the two-day virtual Summit for Democracy hosted by President Joe Biden wrapped up on Friday, the U.S., Australia, Denmark and Norway announced an export control program to monitor and restrict the spread of technologies used to violate human rights. “We focused on the need to empower human rights defenders" and ensure that technology "is used to advance democracies to lift people up, not to hold them down,” Biden said during his closing remarks. The Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative seeks to address the problem of authoritarian governments misusing dual-use technologies to surveil and hack into the communications of political opponents, journalists, activists and minority communities. The signees will work to develop a voluntary, written code of conduct intended to use human rights criteria to guide export licensing policy and practices,…
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Dec112021 DmediaNo Comments

US National Guard Helping Virus-Sapped States, Hospitals

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More U.S. states desperate to fight COVID-19 are calling on the National Guard and other military personnel to assist virus-weary medical staffs at hospitals and other care centers. Unvaccinated people are overwhelming hospitals in certain states, especially in the Northeast and the Upper Midwest. New York, meanwhile, announced a statewide indoor mask order, effective Monday and lasting five weeks through the holiday season. "We're entering a time of uncertainty, and we could either plateau here or our cases could get out of control," Governor Kathy Hochul warned Friday. In Michigan, health director Elizabeth Hertel was equally blunt: "I want to be absolutely clear: You are risking serious illness, hospitalization and even death" without a vaccination. The seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. rose over the past…
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Dec112021 TechmanNo Comments

As Democracy Summit Wraps, US Restricts Exports of Repressive Cyber Tools

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As the two-day virtual Summit for Democracy hosted by President Joe Biden wrapped up on Friday, the U.S., Australia, Denmark and Norway announced an export control program to monitor and restrict the spread of technologies used to violate human rights. The U.S. is also launching programs to support independent media and anti-corruption efforts and defend free and fair elections. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has more. ...
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Dec112021 TechmanNo Comments

‘The Internet’s on Fire’ as Techs Race to Fix Software Flaw

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A software vulnerability exploited in the online game Minecraft is rapidly emerging as a major threat to internet-connected devices around the world. "The internet's on fire right now," said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. "People are scrambling to patch and there are … all kinds of people scrambling to exploit it." In the 12 hours since the bug's existence was disclosed, he said Friday morning, it had been "fully weaponized," meaning that malefactors have developed and distributed tools to exploit. The flaw may be the worst computer vulnerability discovered in years. It opens a loophole in software code that is ubiquitous in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government. It could allow criminals or spies to loot valuable data, plant…
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Dec102021 DmediaNo Comments

South Korea’s COVID Battle: Storm Clouds Ahead

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South Korea, widely seen as a global model of coronavirus containment, faces its biggest pandemic challenge yet, as COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise after the country began removing pandemic related restrictions. Daily caseloads surpassed 7,000 Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That is quadruple the daily numbers reported at the beginning of November, when South Korea pivoted toward its living with COVID-19 plan. In the Seoul metropolitan area, where more than half the country’s population resides, intensive care hospital beds are full. The country has also hit new daily highs for the number of severely ill COVID-19 patients, which stood at 857 Thursday. Although South Korea has tallied only a fraction of the cases and deaths of other developed countries such as the United States and Britain, its fatality rate rose to 1.4% over the past…
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Dec102021 DmediaNo Comments

US Campaign to Vaccinate Young Children Off to Sluggish Start

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The United States rushed millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses for children ages 5-11 across the nation, but demand for inoculations for younger kids has been low, more than a dozen state public health officials and physicians said. Of the 28 million eligible U.S. children in that age group, around 5 million have received at least one dose, according to federal data, likely satisfying initial pent-up demand from parents who were waiting to vaccinate their kids. At the current pace, fewer than half of U.S. children ages 5-11 are expected to be fully vaccinated in the coming months, state officials told Reuters. Some states, including Mississippi, said thousands of vaccine doses are sitting idle. “We are concerned that the demand is not going to be as quick and as great as…
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Dec92021 DmediaNo Comments

Calls Grow Worldwide for COVID Booster Shots

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Health officials in the United States, Israel and other nations have for months been pushing for COVID-19 booster shots among older populations, and those calls are now growing worldwide.  The issue was discussed at an extraordinary meeting at World Health Organization in Geneva convened by SAGE, the 15-member Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on vaccination. Current data show that vaccines against COVID-19 provide a robust level of protection against severe forms of disease. However, emerging evidence indicates vaccines begin to lose their effectiveness about six months after they have been administered. This puts older adults and people with underlying conditions at particular risk.  Chair of SAGE, Alejandro Cravioto, says the group of experts agrees a booster shot would provide a greater level of protection for people at risk.  However, he…
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Dec92021 DmediaNo Comments

South African Hospitals Say Omicron Symptoms Less Severe

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As cases of COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant soar in South Africa, hospital officials monitoring the outbreak say patient reports offer compelling evidence the variant causes illness that is less severe than previous forms of the disease. “Most of the people we’re seeing are having mild or moderate form of COVID-19, and not the severe form that requires hospitalization and may lead to death,” said Dr. Richard Friedland, the chief executive of Netcare, one of South Africa’s largest private hospital groups, based in Johannesburg. “Patients present with mild to moderate flu-like symptoms, a scratchy or sore throat, a headache, or a runny or blocked nose,” he said.   Similar symptoms are being reported nationwide as hospitals monitor patients. World health authorities caution that the patient information is preliminary, and they…
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Dec92021 DmediaNo Comments

South Africa Avoiding Lockdown Despite Spike in COVID-19 Cases

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South Africa recorded more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, nearly double the number from one week earlier. The government is making a renewed push for people to get vaccinated, but so far is avoiding new lockdown measures, in an effort to protect the economy. Coronavirus cases are rising dramatically in South Africa with over 113,000 people currently infected. Experts say the omicron variant discovered in South Africa last month is most likely driving the latest wave. But Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele told reporters today that the government is trying to avoid stricter lockdown measures. “The damage the restrictions caused last year, level five and so on, thousands of business that stopped and the number of jobs that have been lost. The attitude the government is adopting is…
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Dec92021 DmediaNo Comments

Pakistan Reports First Case of Omicron

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Pakistan has detected its first case of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Official said Thursday the infection was found in a 57-year-old unvaccinated woman in Karachi, the country’s largest city and capital of the southern Sindh province. Local media reported the patient, who was isolating at home after being discharged from the hospital a day earlier, did not have a travel history and contact tracing was under way. “We have not yet concluded the genomic study of the patient’s sample but the way the virus is behaving, it seems like it is omicron,” provincial Health Minister Azra Fazal Pechuno said in a video statement.   Pechuno said people need not panic and urged them to get fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. “Omicron is highly transmissible, but deaths or serious…
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Dec92021 DmediaNo Comments

New Zealand’s Plan to End Smoking: A Lifetime Ban for Youth

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New Zealand’s government believes it has come up with a unique plan to end tobacco smoking — a lifetime ban for those 14 or younger. Under a new law the government announced Thursday and plans to pass next year, the minimum age to buy cigarettes would keep rising year after year. That means, in theory at least, 65 years after the law takes effect, shoppers could still buy cigarettes — but only if they could prove they were at least 80 years old. In practice, officials hope smoking will fade away decades before then. Indeed, the plan sets a goal of having fewer than 5% of New Zealanders smoking by 2025. Other parts of the plan include allowing only the sale of tobacco products with very low nicotine levels and…
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Dec92021 DmediaNo Comments

CDC Chief Says Omicron Cases in US Mostly Mild So Far

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More than 40 people in the U.S. have been found to be infected with the omicron variant so far, and more than three-quarters of them had been vaccinated, the chief of the CDC said Wednesday. But she said nearly all of them were only mildly ill.  In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the data is very limited and the agency is working on a more detailed analysis of what the new mutant form of the coronavirus might hold for the United States.  "What we generally know is the more mutations a variant has, the higher level you need your immunity to be. ... We want to make sure we bolster everybody's immunity. And that's really what…
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Dec92021 DmediaNo Comments

US Authorizes AstraZeneca COVID Drug for a Few Who Can’t be Vaccinated

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U.S. health authorities on Wednesday authorized the use of synthetic antibodies developed by AstraZeneca to prevent COVID-19 infections in people who react badly to vaccines. It was the first time the Food and Drug Administration has given emergency authorization for such a purely preventative treatment. The FDA warned the drug Evusheld is "not a substitute for vaccination in individuals for whom COVID-19 vaccination is recommended" and can only be authorized for people with weakened immune systems or those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, such a strong allergic reaction. In those cases, the drug can be administered to people 12 and older. Evusheld combines two types of synthetic antibodies (tixagevimab and cilgavimab), and is given as two intramuscular injections, one right after the other. These antibodies help the immune…
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Dec92021 DmediaNo Comments

US Senate Rejects Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for Businesses

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The Senate narrowly approved a resolution Wednesday to nullify the Biden administration's requirement that businesses with 100 or more workers have their employees be vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to weekly testing. The vote was 52-48. The measure now goes to the Democratic-led House, which is unlikely to take up the measure, which means the mandate would stand, though courts have put it on hold for now. Still, the vote gave senators a chance to voice opposition to a policy that they say has sparked fears back home from businesses and from unvaccinated constituents who worry about losing their jobs should the rule go into effect. "Every so often Washington, D.C., does something that lights up the phone lines. This is one of these moments," said Sen. Steve Daines,…
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Dec82021 DmediaNo Comments

California Plans to Be Abortion Sanctuary if Roe Overturned 

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With more than two dozen states poised to ban abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court gives them the OK next year, California clinics and their allies in the state legislature on Wednesday revealed a plan to make the state a safe place for those seeking reproductive care, including possibly paying for travel, lodging and procedures for people from other states.  The California Future of Abortion Council, made up of more than 40 abortion providers and advocacy groups, released a list of 45 recommendations for the state to consider if the high court overturns Roe v. Wade, the 48-year-old decision that forbids states from outlawing abortion.  The recommendations are not just a liberal fantasy. Some of the state's most important policymakers helped write them, including Toni Atkins, the San Diego Democrat who…
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Dec82021 TechmanNo Comments

What Caused Amazon’s Outage?

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Robotic vacuum cleaners halted in their tracks. Doorbell cameras stopped watching for package thieves, though some of those deliveries were canceled anyway. Netflix and Disney movies were interrupted, and The Associated Press had trouble publishing the news. A major outage in Amazon's cloud computing network Tuesday severely disrupted services at a wide range of U.S. companies for hours, raising questions about the vulnerability of the internet and its concentration in the hands of a few firms.  How did it happen?  Amazon has said nothing about exactly what went wrong. The company limited its communications Tuesday to terse technical explanations on an Amazon Web Services dashboard and a brief statement delivered via spokesperson Richard Rocha that acknowledged the outage had affected Amazon's own warehouse and delivery operations but said the company…
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Dec82021 DmediaNo Comments

Omicron Spreading Rapidly as Answers on Risk Remain Elusive

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The World Health Organization says new data is emerging every day about the potential impact of the new omicron variant on the coronavirus pandemic, but that it is premature to draw conclusions about the severity of the infection. Since omicron was detected two weeks ago in South Africa, it has spread rapidly to 57 countries. The World Health Organization says certain features of the new coronavirus variant, including its global speed and large number of mutations, suggest it could have a major impact on the evolution of the pandemic.  WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says omicron appears to be extremely contagious, with cases in South Africa rising more quickly than the delta variant. That indicates an increased risk of re-infection with omicron, he says, but adds that more data is…
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Dec82021 DmediaNo Comments

Biden Signs Executive Order to Combat Climate Change

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U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday to "leverage" the federal government's scale and purchasing power to make it carbon neutral, cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 65% in less than a decade and establish an all-electric fleet of vehicles. The order will cut emissions in federal operations as part of the government's effort to combat climate change. Biden's directive requires that government buildings consume 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2030, the U.S. fleet of vehicles be 100% electric by 2035, and federal contracts for goods and services be carbon-free by 2050. "The United States government will lead by example to provide a strong foundation for American businesses to compete and win globally in the clean energy economy while creating well-paying union jobs at home,'' the White House said…
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Dec82021 DmediaNo Comments

WHO Chief Says World Must Act to Prevent Spread of Omicron Variant

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The World Health Organization said Wednesday that there is a lot to learn about the omicron variant of the coronavirus, but the world is not defenseless against it and nations need to act now to keep it from spreading.  At a briefing at the agency's headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the omicron variant has been reported in 57 countries, and that number is expected to grow. He said certain features of omicron, including its global spread and large number of mutations, suggest it could have a major impact on the course of the pandemic. It will be important to monitor carefully what happens around the world in order to understand if omicron can become the dominant variant.  Tedros said even though answers are still needed to…
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Dec82021 TechmanNo Comments

Google Releases 2021’s ‘Most Searched’ Items

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While the COVID-19 pandemic lingers on, one might not know it by looking at 2021’s most searched items on Google.  According to the list released by Google Wednesday, “NBA” was the most searched term in the U.S., but it’s unclear why.  Other most searched topics were rapper DMX, who died; Gabby Petito, an apparent murder victim who died during a cross-country trip with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie, who was also on the most searched list. Laundrie was declared a person of interest in Petito’s death, but he died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.  Also on the list is Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted last month of killing two protesters and wounding a third during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020.  The most searched news item was “mega millions” as people were curious about…
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Dec82021 DmediaNo Comments

Japanese Tycoon Takes Off for International Space Station

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A Japanese billionaire and his producer rocketed to space Wednesday as the first self-paying space tourists in more than a decade.  Fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and producer Yozo Hirano, who plans to film his mission, blasted off for the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.  The trio lifted off as scheduled at 12:38 p.m. (0738 GMT) aboard Soyuz MS-20 from the Russia-leaded Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan.  Maezawa and Hirano are scheduled to spend 12 days in space. The two will be the first self-paying tourists to visit the space station since 2009. The price of the trip hasn’t been disclosed.  “I would like to look at the Earth from space. I would like to experience the opportunity to feel weightlessness,” Maezawa said during a pre-flight news conference on Tuesday. “And I also have a personal…
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Dec82021 DmediaNo Comments

UN Chief Isolating After COVID-19 Exposure

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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was exposed to the coronavirus Tuesday by a U.N. official who already had COVID-19 and is isolating for the next few days, diplomatic sources said.  Guterres, 72, has canceled his upcoming in-person engagements, sources told AFP.  The U.N. chief was to be the guest of honor of the U.N. Correspondents Association at its annual gala in New York City on Wednesday. On Thursday, he was to participate in a U.N. Security Council meeting on the challenges of terrorism and climate change, led by Niger President Mohamed Bazoum.  Bazoum, whose country holds the council presidency, arrived in New York on Tuesday and is expected to stay until the end of the week, when he heads to Washington.  The spokesperson for the secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, declined to…
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Dec82021 TechmanNo Comments

Amazon Cloud Outage Hits Major Websites, Streaming Apps

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A major outage disrupted Amazon's cloud services on Tuesday, temporarily knocking out streaming platforms Netflix and Disney+, Robinhood, a wide range of apps, and Amazon.com Inc.'s e-commerce website as consumers shopped ahead of Christmas.  "Many services have already recovered; however, we are working towards full recovery across services," Amazon said on its status dashboard.  Amazon's Ring security cameras, mobile banking app Chime and robot vacuum cleaner maker iRobot, which use Amazon Web Services (AWS), reported issues, according to their social media pages.  Trading app Robinhood and Walt Disney's streaming service Disney+ and Netflix were also down, according to Downdetector.com.  "Netflix, which runs nearly all of its infrastructure on AWS, appears to have lost 26% of its traffic," said Doug Madory, head of internet analysis at analytics firm Kentik.  Amazon said…
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Dec72021 DmediaNo Comments

America Should Prepare for More Omicron Cases, US Health Officials Say

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The omicron variant is making headlines as the world's newest strain of coronavirus. In the United States, where nearly 200,000 new coronavirus cases were reported Tuesday by Johns Hopkins University, top public health officials warn Americans to stay vigilant even as vaccination rates rise and travelers from countries where the variant was first detected are shut out.  Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a news briefing on Tuesday that the delta variant accounts for 99% of positive cases sequenced in the United States. She and other members of the White House's COVID-19 response team asked the public for patience as researchers learn more about the omicron variant, which was first reported in South Africa on November 24. In the U.S., 19 states…
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