Abbott

Abbott Laboratories beat fourth-quarter 2021 profit and sales estimates, aided by robust sales of COVID-19 test kits and strong demand for the company’s diagnostics products, but forecast lower-than-expected COVID-19 testing sales in 2022 due to uncertainties around the future of the pandemic.

New cases of COVID-19 in the Americas in the past week were the highest since the pandemic began and the very contagious Omicron variant has clearly become the predominant strain, the Pan American Health Organization said on January 26.

A third booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine made by AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson increases antibody levels significantly in those who have previously received two doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac shot, a study has found.

At least 1 in 5 Americans have been infected with COVID-19. In other news, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Gilead Sciences’ supplemental New Drug Application for Veklury (remdesivir) for adults and adolescents with COVID-19 who are not hospitalized but are at high risk of progression to severe COVID-19, hospitalization or death.

COVID-19, Madrid

After a five-day quarantine, about a third of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 might still be infectious, according to new data. In other news, according to research published in the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, e-cigarette users infected with the coronavirus may be more likely than infected non-vapers to experience COVID-19 symptoms

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration added another warning to the regulatory agency’s fact sheet for Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine. In other news, as the Omicron variant rips through the United States, top health officials have noted that the variant is so contagious that if you come into contact with it, you are likely to catch it.

President Joe Biden and top health officials on January 11 defended the government’s response to the unrelenting pandemic as daily U.S. COVID-19 cases reached a new high, largely fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Children of the COVID era flocked back to school in various nations on January 10 as the Omicron strain spread exponentially and tennis superstar Novak Djokovic’s battle to play laid bare global passions over vaccines.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States were poised to hit a new high as early as January 7, according to a Reuters tally, surpassing the record set in January 2021 as the highly contagious Omicron variant fuels a surge in infections.

The United States reported nearly 1 million new coronavirus infections on January 3, the highest daily tally of any country in the world and nearly double the previous U.S. peak set one week earlier as the spread of the Omicron variant showed no signs of slowing.