Latest COVID-19 Headlines
All the headlines from our COVID-19 Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Oregon Rolling Out Hospital Crisis Care Standards as COVID Surges
Jan 11 2022 // Oregon hospitals have new interim guidelines to help them determine which patients should get lifesaving care if the current COVID-19 surge forces them to choose between people because of a lack of beds, staff or critical...
Pandemic Adding Cost to Rebuild After Colorado Wildfire
Jan 11 2022 // Rex and Barba Hickman’s home of 23 years near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains has been reduced to a blackened heap by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history. Before the Dec. 30 blaze, which ripped...
Louisiana Supreme Court Upholds Employer COVID Vaccine Mandate
Jan 10 2022 // The Louisiana Supreme Court on Jan. 7 unanimously upheld a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the state’s largest healthcare system. The ruling was handed down the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about...
Kansas High Court Ruling Keeps Law Allowing COVID Lawsuits Alive
Jan 10 2022 // Kansas’ highest court on Jan. 7 kept intact a law that allows people to sue counties over mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions and obtain quick trial-court decisions. The Kansas Supreme Court declined to...
California Governor Wants $2.7B to Battle Pandemic, Seeks More Time off for Sick Workers
Jan 10 2022 // With new coronavirus cases surging across the state, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration on Saturday proposed spending another $2.7 billion to expand testing and boost hospital staffing, while calling for a...
Flurry of Briefs Filed Supporting, Opposing OSHA COVID-19 ETS in U.S. Supreme Court
Jan 6 2022 // With the January 7, 2022, oral argument over the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Vaccine or Test Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) in the U.S. Supreme Court fast-approaching, many amici curiae...
Study Questions Link Between In-Person Schooling and COVID Infection Rates
Jan 6 2022 // A new study shows that COVID-19 incidence rates were not statistically different in counties with in-person learning versus remote school modes in most regions of the U.S. Many educators believe that in-person learning...
COVID Spike Forcing Florida Hospital’s Maternity Ward to Close, For Now
Jan 5 2022 // A South Florida hospital has temporarily closed its maternity ward due to staff-shortages related to recent outbreaks of COVID-19. Mothers-to-be who had planned on giving birth at Holy Cross Health in Fort Lauderdale will...
COVID-Cautious Supreme Court Preparing to Rule on Biden Vaccine Mandates
Jan 5 2022 // The U.S. Supreme Court, which has restricted its own operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, is preparing to decide whether to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates for large businesses and healthcare workers...
COVID-19 Claims of $44B Are 3rd Largest Catastrophe Loss: Howden
Jan 4 2022 // Insured losses of $44 billion from COVID-19 so far represent the third largest cost to insurers of any catastrophe, behind Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attacks, insurance broker Howden said on Tuesday. However, initial...
Maryland Resumes Reporting COVID-19 Deaths After Cyber Attack
Jan 3 2022 // Maryland officials resumed reporting coronavirus deaths Tuesday after a more than three week interruption amid an apparent cyberattack, adding more than 400 deaths to the state’s tally. At least 415 Marylanders died...
Global COVID-19 Cases at Record High, as Omicron Variant Races Out of Control
Dec 29 2021 // SYDNEY/ROME – Global COVID-19 infections hit a record high over the past seven-day period, Reuters data showed on Wednesday, as the new Omicron variant raced out of control, keeping workers at home and overwhelming...
Study Finds Pandemic Lockdowns Only Work for a Limited Time
Dec 28 2021 // As the world struggles to contain the spread of COVID-19, many countries grapple with the possibility of imposing more lockdown measures, like those widely used in the spring of 2020. But how well do lockdowns work at...
Workplace Fatalities Fell 10.7% During Pandemic in 2020 But Severe Illness Cases Rose
Dec 27 2021 // During the pandemic, worker deaths decreased by 10.7% in 2020 compared to 2019, with 4,764 fatal workplace injuries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its annual report on workplace fatalities for 2020. This...
Supreme Court to Take Up COVID Mandate Jan. 7
Dec 27 2021 // The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Jan. 7 on whether the Biden administration can order workers at private companies and health care employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19. Until the court rules, millions of...
Unions Say Meat Plants Relaxed COVID-19 Safety Measures After Outbreaks
Dec 26 2021 // Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, last year assigned a team of dedicated employees to enforce social distancing and sanitize surfaces at a South Dakota slaughterhouse where COVID-19 infected nearly...
Berkshire’s Candymaker Must Face Worker’s Suit Over Husband’s COVID Death: California Court
Dec 22 2021 // A California candymaker must face a lawsuit by an employee who says she caught COVID-19 at work and gave it to her husband, resulting in his death, a state appeals court held on Tuesday, upholding what appeared to be the...
COVID-19 to Cut UK Life Expectancy by 9 Months: RBC Analysts
Dec 21 2021 // The coronavirus pandemic is seen cutting life expectancy in the UK by nine months, Royal Bank of Canada analysts said, helping to reverse trends of longevity. The estimate from insurance stock analysts Gordon Aitken and...
Medical Boards Under Pressure to Discipline Doctors Pushing False Covid-19 Claims
Dec 21 2021 // They have decried COVID-19 as a hoax, promoted unproven treatments and pushed bogus claims about the vaccine, including that the shots magnetize the human body. The purveyors of this misinformation are not shadowy figures...
Indiana Lawmakers Consider Vaccine Limits as COVID Surges
Dec 20 2021 // Some Indiana doctors and health experts warned last week that a Republican-backed proposal aimed at limiting workplace COVID-19 vaccination requirements would hurt efforts to stem the illness as the state’s hospitals...
