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Erin Marie In an effort to keep up with the emergence of new COVID-19 strains, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in a press release on August 31, that they have issued emergency authorization for the use of both Pfizer and Moderna's "updated booster." As a bivalent vaccine, the formula... read more →

Air travel is pretty much back to normal now for U.S. citizens. There are no pre-departure testing requirements for any travelers, and Americans arriving from abroad do not need to show proof of vaccination. The same applies to immigrants and lawful permanent residents as well. The CDC does still recommend pre-departure testing... read more →

Damian McNamara People who get reinfected with the virus that causes COVID-19 have more health risks with each round of reinfection, a large national database study reveals. Researchers saw worse health effects during active infection, but some symptoms lasted as long as 6 months, suggesting a direct link between reinfection... read more →

LAURA UNGAR and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL  The quickly changing coronavirus has spawned yet another super-contagious Omicron mutant that’s worrying scientists as it gains ground in India and pops up in numerous other countries, including the United States. © Provided by LA TimesA nurse prepares to administer a COVID-19 shot at a private... read more →

Alice Park  On June 28, a panel of experts convened by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 19 to 2 to change the vaccines that have been used since December 2020 to protect against COVID-19. © Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket—Getty ImagesA health worker draws the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine as she... read more →

Gitanjali Poonia Omicron variants are driving new infections across the world, proving to evade antibodies. © Illustration by Alex Cochran, Deseret NewsIllustration of the omicron variant. Why it matters: Preliminary research from the University of Tokyo suggests that the alpha and delta strains produced more severe illnesses compared to omicron, which creates... read more →

There's a new omicron subvariant taking over: BA.5. Scientists expect it will soon be responsible for most COVID-19 infections. But how dangerous is it? And what protection can vaccines offer? Due to the global increase in coronavirus cases caused by the BA.5 subvariant, the World Health Organization (WHO) currently classifies... read more →

 Andrea McCollum, the poxvirus epidemiology team lead in the CDC’s division of high consequence pathogens and pathology, had many answers. Do we know how efficient monkeypox virus is at transmitting from person to person? Monkeypox is transmissible really from the time when signs or symptoms appear, throughout the entire course... read more →

This electron microscopic image depicts a monkeypox virion.CDC/ CYNTHIA S. GOLDSMITH Monkeypox appears to have exploded out of nowhere in the past two weeks, spreading across Europe, the Americas, and other regions. But warning signs appear to have gone unheeded. An unusual and long-running outbreak in Nigeria should have served... read more →

BA.2.12.1 -- a highly contagious sub lineage of the BA.2 omicron subvariant that now accounts for 57.9% of all cases, according to CDC estimates. Monitoring Variant Proportions SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is constantly changing and accumulating mutations in its genetic code over time. New variants of SARS-CoV-2 are... read more →