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COVID-19

Biden eyes home tests to confront omicron

WASHINGTON — Fighting the omicron variant surging through the country, President Joe Biden announced the government will provide 500 million free rapid home-testing kits, increase support for hospitals under strain and redouble vaccination and boosting efforts. At the White House on Tuesday, Biden detailed major changes to his COVID-19 winter plan, his hand forced by the fast-spreading variant, whose properties are not yet fully understood by scientists. Yet his message was clear that the winter holidays could be close to normal for the vaccinated while potentially dangerous for the ...

Changing traditions

From shaking hands and giving hugs to elbow bumps and social distancing, COVID-19 has changed daily life for everyone, but the pandemic has been doubly felt by area churchgoers, for whom gathering together, especially at the holidays, is the backbone of their faith. Pastor Gary Dull said ...

Blair inmates recovering from latest COVID wave

HOLLIDAYSBURG — The Blair County Prison is beginning to recover from its latest wave of COVID-19 infections. As of Wednesday, the prison removed quarantines on select male housing areas and opened its doors to allow behind-glass visitations with most inmates. “We’re getting back to semi-normal,” Warden Abbie Tate told the county prison board on Thursday. The exception, she said, is the women’s housing area, which remains under quarantine because of COVID-19 cases. The prison, on Dec. 1, halted inmate visitations and quarantined select housing blocks as COVID-19 cases ...

Region faring worse than state with COVID

Statistics for the past week from the state Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the six-county region is faring worse with COVID-19 than the state as a whole. The average number of new cases for the local counties per 100,000 residents — the incidence rate — is 469, compared to the state’s incidence rate of 336. Test positivity for the local counties is 15%, compared to 14.4% for the state as a whole. The 57 COVID-19 deaths in the region last week comprise almost 7% of the 824 deaths for the whole state, while the area comprises ...

Soaring cases rattle Europe

LONDON (AP) — Soaring infections in Britain driven in part by the omicron variant of the coronavirus rattled Europe on Thursday, prompting new restrictions on the Continent and fueling a familiar dread on both sides of the Atlantic about entering a new phase of the pandemic just in time for the holidays. Much remains unknown about omicron, but officials increasingly warn that it appears more transmissible than the delta variant, which has already put pressure on hospitals worldwide. With so many questions unanswered, uncertainty reigned over how quickly and how severely to crack down ...

Troops facing consequences

WASHINGTON — All of the U.S. military services have now begun disciplinary actions and discharges for troops who have refused to get the mandated coronavirus vaccine, officials said Thursday, with as many as 20,000 unvaccinated forces at risk of being removed from service. On Thursday, the ...