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COVID-19

Biden: US to get 600M vaccine doses

BETHESDA (AP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday that the U.S. will have enough supply of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the summer to inoculate 300 million Americans. Biden made the announcement at the sprawling National Institutes of Health complex just outside Washington as he visited some of the nation’s leading scientists on the frontlines of the fight against the disease. He toured the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory that created the COVID-19 vaccine now manufactured by Moderna and being rolled out in the U.S. and other countries. The U.S. is on pace to exceed Biden’s ...

Patients’ release accelerated outbreak

NEW YORK (AP) — More than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients in New York state were released from hospitals into nursing homes early in the pandemic under a controversial order that was scrapped amid criticisms it accelerated outbreaks, according to new records obtained by The Associated Press. The new number of 9,056 recovering patients sent to hundreds of nursing homes is more than 40% higher than what had been previously released by the state health department. And it raises new questions as to whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s March 25 directive helped spread sickness and death ...

Poll: 1 in 3 won’t get COVID vaccine

NEW YORK — About 1 in 3 Americans say they definitely or probably won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new poll that some experts say is discouraging news if the U.S. hopes to achieve herd immunity and vanquish the outbreak. The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for ...

Vaccine demand outstrips supply

Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout problems that have received so much attention recently can be reduced to a pair of numbers, according to information presented by a spokesman for the Department of Health in a news conference Wednesday. Last week, the state’s vaccine providers made a collective request for 705,000 vaccine doses, said Barry Ciccocioppo. This week, the federal government is sending those providers a mere 166,000 doses, Ciccocioppo said. “There’s not enough vaccine,” Ciccocioppo stated, when asked why the state doesn’t set up a central vaccination ...

DoH defends itself over vaccinations

State Department of Health officials are defending themselves against what they contend is the unfair perception created by Pennsylvania’s low ranking in its percentage of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered, compared to what the state has received from the federal government. The low ranking is largely the result of the state’s policy of withholding second doses, to ensure they’re available when the time comes — coupled with providers who are also doing that, despite the department’s plea to stop, officials said this week. Initially, the federal government held back ...

Senators chipping away at payments

Even as they spent Thursday night proposing dueling additions to a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan, some U.S. senators in both parties appeared to agree on one point — limiting aid to a smaller share of Americans. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., took the floor to lambast the plan, which Democratic senate leaders sought to push through in a narrow vote using a legislative tactic called budget reconciliation. As initially proposed, the plan would include $1,400 checks for every American — a larger version of the payouts sent last year. “There’s nothing about unity in this exercise. ...