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| Health |
| | Coronavirus Briefing: Omicron Pushes World Toward Accepting Covid as Fact of Life |
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| Good morning. The Omicron variant spreads so quickly and generally causes such a mild form of illness among vaccinated populations that countries are tolerating greater Covid-19 outbreaks, willingly letting infections balloon to levels that not long ago would have constituted public-health crises. Also in today's edition: The course of the pandemic has repeatedly forced the Biden administration to deviate from its plan, and some public-health officials say the president’s team overlooked steps that could have helped mitigate the Omicron surge. If someone forwarded today's briefing, we invite you to sign up here. |
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| Health authorities are offering a glimpse into the future as they abandon restrictive steps designed to contain the virus and focus on hospitalized patients. (full story) Hospitalizations for Covid-19 continue to slow in the U.S., with the seven-day average of hospital patients with confirmed or suspected infections about 8% down from a peak on Jan. 20. (full story) Tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside Canada’s parliament buildings, clogging up main arteries in the capital, as they demanded the government rescind all economic restrictions and vaccine mandates. (full story) |
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| Biden Had Strategy to Beat Covid-19. Then Variants Arrived: President Biden took office with a plan to battle Covid-19, but the course of the pandemic has forced the administration to deviate from that script. Here's how the president’s year-one plan has held up. |
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| In Italy, No Dolce Vita for the Unvaccinated: With travel and other restrictions, Italy wanted to make life difficult for people who refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19. It’s working. |
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| What We Know About the New BA.2 Omicron Strain: Researchers around the world are monitoring a new relation of the Omicron variant dubbed BA.2. Here’s what the experts know so far. |
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| 63.7% | of the U.S. population have received two vaccine doses |
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| 41.3% | of fully vaccinated people in the U.S. have had a booster shot |
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| 169,002 | new U.S. cases recorded yesterday |
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| 1,058 | deaths in the U.S. recorded yesterday |
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| 883,939 | total U.S. deaths |
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| 5,660,157 | total deaths world-wide |
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| Visit The Wall Street Journal's coronavirus tracker page. Sources: Johns Hopkins University as of 10 a.m. ET; Vaccination figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. |
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| Today’s newsletter was curated and edited by Gareth Vipers in London. Let us know what you think by replying to this email. |
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