 | | | | The Biden administration has procured about 380 million of the first tranche of COVID-19 tests that it plans to make available to Americans grappling with the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Thursday. | | | | | | The Canadian province of Quebec is pressing ahead with a plan to levy a "health contribution" on adults refusing to get COVID-19 inoculations and will unveil details soon, premier Francois Legault said on Thursday. | | | | | | The organizer of CES, the world's largest technology show, said on Thursday it was unable to confirm the number of COVID-19 cases from its in-person event in Las Vegas last week after South Korean authorities said about 70 attendees from the country tested positive for the virus. | | | | | | Biogen Inc is working with investment bank Goldman Sachs to find potential targets for acquisitions, Stat News reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed source. | | | | | | Omicron has become Germany's dominant coronavirus variant accounting for 73.3 % of cases nationwide compared with 44.3 % seven days ago, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases wrote in its weekly report on Thursday. | | | | | | The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses - a policy the conservative justices deemed an improper imposition on the lives and health of many Americans - while endorsing a separate federal vaccine requirement for healthcare facilities. | | | | | | The son of a transplant recipient who was implanted with a genetically modified pig heart in a first-of-its-kind surgery, called his father's procedure "a miracle." | | | | | | France reported 305,322 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, down from a high of nearly 370,000 on Tuesday but the seven-day moving average of new cases continued rising to nearly 294,000, health ministry data showed. | | | | | | A fast-spreading Omicron variant that causes milder illness compared with previous versions of the coronavirus has fueled the view that COVID-19 poses less of a risk than in the past. | | | | | | A record 14.1 million Americans have signed up for health insurance since the start of the 2022 open enrollment period in November, the U.S. health department said on Thursday. | | | | | |
