Paxlovid

Rising COVID-19 cases are driving up the use of therapeutics, with Pfizer Inc.’s oral antiviral treatment Paxlovid seeing a 315 percent jump over the past four weeks, U.S. health officials said on May 17.

Abortion protestors

Protesters rallied under the slogan “off our bodies” in cities across the United States on May 3, demanding abortion rights be protected after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Philadelphia will again require masks in indoor public settings such as restaurants, schools and businesses starting next week, the city said on April 11, responding to what appears to be a fresh wave of coronavirus transmissions.

Children ages 5 to 11 who received the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were 68% less likely to be hospitalized during the Omicron wave in the United States than unvaccinated children, according to a study published on March 30.

New York Mayor Eric Adams is set to lift the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for performers and professional athletes as early as this week, Politico reported on March 23, a rule that has come under growing criticism by local sports teams.

The BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron was estimated to be 23.1 percent of the coronavirus variants circulating in the United States as of March 12, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on March 15.

Rhode Island was set to square off on March 14 against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., as a multibillion-dollar trial begins over whether the Israeli company contributed to an opioid crisis that has caused more than 500,000 deaths over the past two decades.

Two doses of the Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE COVID-19 vaccine was protective against severe disease in children aged 5 to 11 during the recent Omicron variant surge, but quickly lost most of its ability to prevent infection in the age group, according to a study by New York State researchers.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is ending her state’s mask mandate for most indoor public places, The New York Times reported, joining several states due to lift face-covering rules as the latest COVID-19 surge eases.

The discovery of the Omicron variant in white-tailed deer in New York raised concerns that the species – numbering 30 million in the United States – could become hosts of a new coronavirus strain, a lead researcher said on February 8.