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COVID-19

States prepare for coronavirus vaccine

With a COVID-19 vaccine drawing closer, public health officials across the country are gearing up for the biggest vaccination effort in U.S. history — a monumental undertaking that must distribute hundreds of millions of doses, prioritize who’s first in line and ensure that people who get the initial shot return for the necessary second one. The push could begin as early as next month, when federal officials say the first vaccine may be authorized for emergency use and immediately deployed to high-risk groups, such as health care workers. “The cavalry is coming,” Dr. Anthony ...

Schools and states strategize as virus surges

School systems in Detroit, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and suburban Minneapolis are giving up on in-person classes, and some governors are reimposing restrictions on bars and restaurants or getting more serious about masks, as the coast-to-coast resurgence of the coronavirus sends deaths, hospitalizations and new infections soaring. The crisis deepened at hospitals, with the situation so bad in North Dakota that the governor this week said nurses who test positive but have no symptoms can still work. Idaho clinics struggled to handle the deluge of phone calls from patients. And one of ...

Parents, schools push back over shutdown order

Don’t you dare close the schools. That was the impassioned message that dozens of parents and school administrators sent to public health officials in Pennsylvania’s third-most populous county on Thursday, forcing delay of an expected vote on whether to temporarily ban in-person instruction because of a surge in coronavirus cases. The Montgomery County Board of Health had been scheduled to vote on a proposed order mandating that all public and private K-12 schools in the suburban Philadelphia county offer online-only instruction for at least two weeks — and potentially for ...

709K seeking jobless aid in US

WASHINGTON — The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits fell last week to 709,000, a still-high level but the lowest figure since March and a further sign that the job market might be slowly healing. Yet the improvement will be put at risk by the sharp resurgence in confirmed viral infections to an all-time high well above 120,000 a day. Cases are rising in 49 states, and deaths are increasing in 39. The nation has now recorded 240,000 virus-related deaths and 10.3 million confirmed infections. As colder weather sets in and fear of the virus escalates, consumers may ...

Virus activity grows in UPMC system

UPMCs Altoona, Bedford Memorial, Somerset and Western Maryland are experiencing “disproportionate” “growth in (corona)viral activity,” but the UPMC system’s flexibility and sharing of resources has ensured that none of those hospitals are overwhelmed, according to UPMC officials on a Zoom call Wednesday. There are high levels of both coronavirus and other patients in those hospitals but they’re “not beyond capacity,” said Donald Yealy, chairman of UPMC’s Department of Emergency Medicine. System leaders are in touch with local leaders “multiple times a day,” ...

Union: Schools should be virtual

With coronavirus running rampant, a suburban Philadelphia county said Wednesday that it will consider ordering schools to pause in-person instruction for two weeks. The state’s largest teachers union, meanwhile, demanded that school districts in nearly two dozen counties with the worst outbreaks tell students to temporarily learn from home. The state recommends virtual instruction in counties with a “substantial” level of community transmission — a number that has been rising rapidly as the virus surges statewide and across the nation. Twenty-three Pennsylvania counties were ...