A two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination appeared to provide just 33% protection against infection during South Africa’s current omicron wave, but 70% protection against hospitalization, according to the analysis.
Statewide hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have climbed 27% since Dec. 1 and 124% over the past month.
One year ago, the biggest vaccination drive in American history began with a flush of excitement in an otherwise gloomy December.
For the past year, Indiana employers have faced the challenge of whether to enforce COVID-19 vaccination mandates on workers who say the vaccines violate their religious beliefs.
CEO Mary Barra said General Motors now uses the same approach it learned making ventilators at a Kokomo factory for its own electric vehicles, software and partially automated driver-assist systems.
Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the origin of the virus tormenting the world remains shrouded in the unknown.
Some hospitals across Indiana warn they are operating near full capacity due to the latest COVID-19 surge and that their doctors, nurses and other staffers are already exhausted.
On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization for 16- and 17-year-olds to get a third dose of the vaccine made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech—if it’s been six months since their last shot.
The state’s largest hospital system said it continues to see “exceptionally high numbers” of COVID-19 patients in all 16 of its hospitals.
People who could benefit from the antibody drug include cancer patients, organ transplant recipients and people taking immune-suppressing drugs for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.
In their most public, forceful protest to date, Republicans led by Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana muscled to passage a proposal that aims to repeal rules ordering large private businesses to require vaccination or implement comprehensive coronavirus testing for their workers.
The state on Wednesday reported 80 more deaths from COVID-19, a two-day total of 173. The seven-day average of deaths from COVID rose from 23 to 27 per day.
Deaths are running close to 1,600 a day on average, back up to where they were in October. And the overall U.S. death toll less than two years into the crisis could hit another heartbreaking milestone, 800,000, in a matter of days.
The order came in response to a lawsuit from several contractors and seven states. It applies across the U.S. because one of those challenging the order is the trade group Associated Builders and Contractors Inc.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said that while two doses may not be protective enough to prevent infection, lab tests showed a booster increased by 25-fold people’s levels of virus-fighting antibodies against the omicron variant.
The Indiana State Department of Health on Tuesday reported 93 more deaths from COVID-19, increasing the state’s pandemic death toll to 17,230.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said the pandemic remains a real threat and is taking lives, but he maintains that the state’s role is to provide vaccines and other resources, not impose vaccine requirements or mask mandates.
Initial data indicate that omicron may be more transmissible even than delta, the variant that became dominant throughout the world this summer.
The Quebec City company said it will seek Canadian approval “imminently” and has also begun the process to file with regulators in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries.
Major corporations that had planned to shepherd all their employees back into offices in early 2022 now have to decide whether those dates make sense in light of further evidence of the pandemic’s unpredictability.
