In the News

Vaccinations are rising in response to the new variant. While much is unknown, health officials hope the public — and politicians — will be inspired to get back to the basics of protection.
 

New York City will now require employees at private companies to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in an interview with MSNBC early Monday.
 

Researchers in South Africa, where the variant is spreading quickly, say it may cause less serious Covid cases than other forms of the virus, but it is unclear whether that will hold true.
 

As the world waits for studies that give a clear picture of the Omicron variant, early clinical data emerging from South Africa hint at a virus that may cause less severe cases of Covid-19.
 

The arrival of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in the U.S. has health officials in some communities reviving contact tracing operations in an attempt to slow and better understand its spread as scientists study how contagious it is and whether it can thwart vaccines.
 

Some nations make Covid tests available at little to no cost for consumers. The U.S. plan for home testing includes submitting receipts to private insurers.
 

With the first case of omicron confirmed in California and more cases expected across the U.S., public health officials who know the difference between good and bad crisis communication say they can't afford to be quiet and wait until scientists know how risky the new variant is before they speak out.
 

Public health experts warned it could happen for months, but for many, that hasn’t made the news of the latest COVID variant any easier.
 

The emergence of a new Covid-19 variant with a startlingly large constellation of mutations has countries around the world sounding alarms.
 

The United States on Wednesday identified its first known COVID case caused by the Omicron variant, discovered in a fully vaccinated patient who traveled to South Africa, as scientists continue to study the risks the new version could pose.
 

After a slow start, the United States has improved its surveillance system for tracking new coronavirus variants such as omicron, boosting its capacity by tens of thousands of samples per week since early this year.
 

The Omicron variant contains more unusual mutations than previous strains, and it could be more transmissible and vaccine-resistant potentially.