PLUS: The Covid-19 headlines you need to know, a distraction, and something to read.
By Eve Sneider | 01.27.22 | Moderna's Omicron booster is in trials, a German Olympic supervisor tests positive, and an unvaccinated patient is unable to receive a heart transplant. But first, here's this week's big story: |  | On Tuesday, the US Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration withdrew its vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers. The move came after the Supreme Court ruled that the department doesn't have the authority to issue such a requirement. However, the court did sign off on a smaller policy that requires vaccines for most health care workers in places that receive Medicaid and Medicare money, some 10 million people. In general, the country's vaccine campaign continues to move slowly. Some 63 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and of those people only 40 percent have received a booster shot. Vaccination rates remain noticeably low among pregnant people. As of January 1, just over 40 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 49 who are expecting were fully vaccinated. Expectant parents often display more vaccine hesitancy in general, and misinformation about vaccines causing infertility or miscarriages has run wild, even though the data has clearly shown that shots are safe. | | Moderna recently announced that trials for an Omicron-specific booster shot are already in Phase II, and the company also published data showing recipients of its existing booster still had some antibodies six months after their third shots. (CNBC) A supervisor for Germany's Olympic team tested positive for Covid while in the Olympic bubble in Beijing, one of the first cases directly linked to a team within the "closed loop." (New York Times) A patient at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston was recently told he is ineligible for a heart transplant because he is unvaccinated. Covid shots are among the immunizations the hospital requires before a transplant procedure. (Associated Press) The Netherlands, Denmark, and France are among the EU countries moving toward reopening as hospital admissions stay stable despite surging case counts. (The Guardian) Yesterday, British and Australian navy ships tried to deliver aid to Tonga—following an undersea volcanic eruption and tsunami—without making contact with people ashore after Covid cases were detected onboard. (ABC News) | | Long before metaverses hit the mainstream, there was the immersive digital platform Second Life. Its founder, Philip Rosedale, has thoughts on the future of virtual reality. | | Earlier this month, Dave Bennett received a first-of-its-kind experimental pig heart transplant. But what was billed as a scientific milestone plays into a long and controversial history of animal-to-human transplant research. What's more, it raises ethically fraught questions about who deserves a human heart. | | The Winter Olympics kick off next week! Here's how to tune in to all of your favorite snowy events. | |
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