NGWERERE, Zambia — Four people turned up at a health clinic tucked in a sprawl of commercial maize farms on a recent morning, looking for Covid-19 vaccines. The staff had vials of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine stashed in the fridge. But the staff members apologetically declined to vaccinate theContinue Reading
The detection of the Omicron variant has brought renewed attention, and a new urgency, to the worldwide Covid-19 vaccination campaign, which experts say remains among the most powerful tools at our disposal when it comes to preventing dangerous new variants. Most wealthy countries have vaccinated significant shares of their populationsContinue Reading
“You have to start somewhere,” said Kathrin U. Jansen, a senior vice president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, while awaiting the results of more complex studies and “real-world evidence that tells you what we need to know.” Scientists say it could take a month orContinue Reading
The No. 1-ranked tennis player Novak Djokovic will participate in the ATP Cup in Sydney, Australia, in January, the tournament’s organizers said on Tuesday. The announcement came after weeks of speculation about whether Djokovic would travel to Australia for the Australian Open Grand Slam because of vaccine requirements. The ATPContinue Reading
The coronavirus vaccine mandate for private employers in New York City, announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday, pushed the city’s workplace vaccination requirements well beyond those in most of the country, where local mandates are generally limited to the public sector and health care. “It’s a significantly moreContinue Reading
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a sweeping coronavirus vaccine mandate for all private employers in New York City on Monday morning to combat the spread of the Omicron variant. Mr. de Blasio said the aggressive measure, which takes effect Dec. 27 and which he described as the first of itsContinue Reading
On Sunday, officials in Britain said they were still gauging the potential impact of the new variant. But increasing the uptake of vaccines and boosters would be the “surest defense,” Dominic Raab, Britain’s deputy prime minister, said to the BBC. “Our message is this: Enjoy Christmas this year. The vaccineContinue Reading
NTUZUMA, South Africa — A few months ago, Sizakele Mathe, a community health worker in this sprawling hillside township on the edge of the city of Durban, was notified by a clinic that a neighbor had stopped picking up her medication. It was a warning sign that she had likelyContinue Reading
Underscoring increasing concerns about Omicron, scientists in South Africa said on Friday that the newest coronavirus variant appeared to spread more than twice as quickly as Delta, which had been considered the most contagious version of the virus. Omicron’s rapid spread results from a combination of contagiousness and an abilityContinue Reading
On Thursday morning at a vaccination center in Biella, Italy, a veteran nurse faced something she had never seen before. The nurse, Filippa Bua, was preparing to give a man a dose of Covid vaccine when she realized that the small patch of arm he offered in a gap betweenContinue Reading