BA.5 variant’s spread sparks concerns about contagiousness, hospitalizations Concerns are rising over a new omicron subvariant that is even more highly transmissible, called BA.5.  The new subvariant has risen to be a majority of COVID-19 cases in the United States and… vmorris The Hill

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BA.5 causes concern because of its increased contagiousness and because of its greater ability to evade the protection from vaccines and prior infection.   

After backlash, Beijing drops COVID vaccination mandate for crowded venues

BEIJING, July 8 (Reuters) - Beijing's city government has dropped plans to allow only vaccinated people to enter crowded venues such as libraries, cinemas and gyms from Monday, following a strong online backlash to the measure announced earlier this week.

The mandatory requirement would have marked a rare move in China, where the central government insists on voluntary vaccination and has quickly overruled other attempts by front-line officials to issue compulsory vaccination directives.

Opinion | How to Control the 'Information Fire Hose' of the Pandemic Government agencies need to hire a narrative officer Randy Olson, PhD medpagetoday

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Throughout the pandemic the biomedical community has unleashed a veritable fire hose of information on the public. Experts of all sorts have appeared on national television with countless explanations of the science. But for most of the public, it has simply been TMI: too much information. Not TMI of the silly personal type, but rather the more dangerous public health variety.

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COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday. AP NEWS

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The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom.