Public health confidence in the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be waning as officials warn of enhanced danger — even for vaccinated individuals — from the “Delta variant” of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.
The politically charged dispute over the origins of COVID-19 spilled over at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, with the U.S. accusing China trying to “undermine” the investigation and Beijing’s envoy retorting that the U.S. was smearing China in a bid to deflect attention from “its botched response to the pandemic.”
The Biden administration on Thursday said that federal workers and contractors will have to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or wear masks, engage in social distancing, or submit to regular COVID-19 testing.
The U.S. economy rose at a disappointing rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in a sign that the U.S. has escaped the shackles of the Covid-19 pandemic but still has more work to do.
A Christian native missionary in Myanmar says “more than 200 Christian ministers” have died of COVID-19 as the military government restricts medicines and oxygen supplies.
Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is expected to support an initiative for older citizens to get a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine after a panel of government health experts approved the idea on Wednesday, the Times of Israel reports. Experts approved the initiative as the number of seriously sick patients rose from 20 on Monday to 33 on Tuesday to 41 on Wednesday.
Police in India’s Uttarakhand state arrested and tortured Christian leader Pastor Sanjay Kumar Bharati last month, accusing him of having illegal conversations about religion, International Christian Concern reports. India ranks 10 on the US Open Doors 2021 Watch List of top 50 countries which persecute Christians.
European-style health passes for admission to public venues “may very well be a path forward” in the United States, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky.
China on Wednesday told Brussels to stop “politicizing the issue of origins tracing” after a European Union official called for more investigations.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday that Israel could soon approve a third COVID-19 vaccine dose during a visit to a retirement home in Jerusalem.
President Biden will reportedly make an announcement on Thursday, requiring all federal employees and contractors to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or present regular testing results.
The U.S. federal government should have stopped funding research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2015 when China reduced its cooperation with the French in building and operating the lab, according to the leader of an investigation into COVID-19’s origins by the State Department under the Trump administration.
UNICEF reported last week that over 71% of people in Lebanon are at immediate risk of losing access to safe water as a grinding economic crisis causes water pumping to cease across the country. More than 4 million citizens are within ‘highly critical’ and ‘critical’ levels of risk.
The French parliament early Monday approved a bill that will make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for health workers as well as require a health pass in a wide array of social venues as France battles with a fourth wave of coronavirus infections.
Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine is just 39% effective in Israel where the delta variant is the dominant strain, but still provides strong protection against severe illness and hospitalization, according to a new report from the country’s Health Ministry.
A study published by the Lancet on Tuesday has found that more than 1.5 children worldwide whose parents, custodial grandparents, or other primary caregivers died with COVID-19, UPI reports.
Christians in Indonesia have been forced to pay for funerals of loved ones who died of COVID-19, sources say. At the same time, Muslims could bury coronavirus victims free of charge, Worthy News learned Wednesday.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem studies published in a pair of medical journals suggest that already-existing drugs can be repurposed to fight Covid, Hebrew-language news sites reported Monday.
England celebrated the end of many grueling months of COVID-19 restrictions as of midnight Monday, but the lifting of all restrictions came amid a surge in infections and warnings about supermarket shortages, Ynet News reports. Following an intense nationwide inoculation drive, 87% of the UK population has now received at least one dose of the vaccine; 68% of the population is fully vaccinated.
Christian pastors are among at least 100 people who have been beaten and imprisoned by the Cuban government amid nationwide protests against systemic rights violations, the severe economic crisis, and the surge in COVID-19 cases, the Christian Post reports. Pleading for help from the international community, the wife of an imprisoned pastor has called on Christians worldwide to pray for Cubans suffering government violence.