The coronavirus will hit millions of Americans in a "viral blizzard" within a few weeks as infections from the Omicron variant pile on top of Delta, an expert predicts. Already, hospitalizations are rising as the holiday season gets into full swing. Long lines for Covid-19 testing formed Thursday in metro areas, including New York, Boston and Miami.
Federal judges in Louisiana and Texas continue to chip away at Biden administration COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The latest of the piecemeal blows to the vaccine mandates came Thursday in lawsuit filed by Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi. In that case, U.S. District Judge Dee Drell in Alexandria, Louisiana, declined to block a requirement that all employees of federal contractors get vaccinated — noting that there is already a nationwide block on that mandate issued by a Georgia-based federal judge.
The Supreme Court on Monday left in place New York's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers, turning away a challenge by a group of medical providers who sued because it does not include a religious exemption.
In an open letter published in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, the executives of nine large health care providers said their emergency rooms are over capacity and their hospital beds are filled.
Hospital officials in the North Country say the health care system in the region is being overwhelmed more than at any other time of the COVID-19 pandemic.