Coronavirus category, Page 100

Pending emergency authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, UPMC hopes to have the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine distributed to all of its front-line workers by the end of January, leaders in the hospital system said Tuesday. The system anticipates arrival of its first allocation of Pfizer vaccine doses in...

Pennsylvania reported 10,170 new covid cases and 169 new deaths Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health. Total cases and total deaths in the state now stand at 436,614 and 11,542, respectively. Thus far in December, the state has reported 75,150 covid cases and 1,159 deaths. The seven-day average...

With new covid-19 deaths reported, Westmoreland County reached a milestone Tuesday. The eight new coronavirus-related deaths reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Health bring the county’s total to 250 deaths. To put deaths in Westmoreland County in perspective, it took from March 19 (when the county’s first cases were reported)...

Two Westmoreland County elected officials said Tuesday they tested positive for coronavirus. Sean Kertes, chairman of the county commissioners, and Clerk of Courts Bryan Kline both said they are experiencing symptoms of the virus and both are at their respective homes in isolation. “I had a 100-, 101-degree temperature and,...

A friend of Paul Offit’s volunteered for one of the covid-19 vaccine trials but, like everyone who participated, was not told whether he was injected with a placebo or the real thing. The morning after getting the second dose, the North Carolina man woke up feeling crummy, with a headache...

LONDON — British health authorities rolled out the first doses of a widely tested and independently reviewed covid-19 vaccine Tuesday, starting a global immunization program that is expected to gain momentum as more serums win approval. The first shot was given to Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, at...

More than 350 people tuned in to a virtual Hempfield Area School Board meeting on Monday to hear the rationale for why the administration chose to move students to remote learning until after the holidays — a decision made days after the board reaffirmed students would return to the hybrid...

Officials at Excela Health plan to add beds for coronavirus patients, possibly as early as Tuesday, at one of its Westmoreland County facilities as hospitalizations continue to increase. Dr. Carol Fox, Excela’s chief medical officer, said Monday the move to convert a procedure room into one for inpatients will add...

Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday issued his most dire warning yet as covid-19 mitigation efforts fail to stem the rising tide of cases, and he hinted that more drastic, targeted measures could be on the horizon if the situation remains grim. He pointed to the warning he and Secretary of...

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration on Monday lengthened, by 12 days, a partial shutdown of businesses and schools to curb the coronavirus. The extended order, now due to end Dec. 20, will enable the state health department to assess how Thanksgiving travel affected the spread of covid-19,...

Pennsylvania added 14,960 new covid cases over the past two days, according to a report Monday from the Department of Health. Officials said there were 8,630 new cases Sunday and 6,330 cases Monday. While down nearly 40% from the previous two days (24,647), it’s more than 50% higher than last...

A massive coronavirus outbreak at Westmoreland County Prison has seen more than 100 inmates and a number of staffers infected over the past 10 days, and officials believe additional cases are possible at the lockup in Hempfield. Interim Warden George Lawther said Monday two units are in lockdown in an...

Westmoreland County added another 522 covid-19 cases over the past two days, according to a report Monday from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Of the new cases, 285 were reported Sunday, 237 on Monday. With those additions, the county’s seven-day total surpassed the 2,000 mark for the first time, standing...

TORONTO — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday Canada will get up to 249,000 doses of the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech before the end of December. The vaccine is expected be approved by Health Canada as soon as Thursday. Trudeau had come under criticism from...

After posting record high daily covid-19 cases last week, Allegheny County saw a slight reprieve in the numbers over the past two days. The county health department reported 854 new cases Sunday and another 616 cases Monday. While encouraging, officials have long cautioned that weekend numbers generally run lower because...

NEW YORK — It’s back to school again for some New York City schoolchildren, weeks after the schools were closed to in-person learning because of rising covid-19 cases. The nation’s largest public school system, which shut down in-person learning last month, on Monday brought back preschool students and children in...

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chinese vaccine company Sinovac announced Monday that it is planning to complete a new facility to double its annual vaccine production capacity to 600 million doses by the end of the year, while also securing a $500 million investment in a boost to its covid-19 vaccine development...

Prison officials in Pennsylvania reported three inmate deaths in two days as the active covid-19 case count in state correctional facilities neared 1,800. The Department of Corrections reported two deaths Friday, at SCIs Mercer and Smithfield and one on Saturday at SCI-Pine Grove. Two of the incarcerated individuals were in...

It has long been a fashionable and celebrated pastime in Republican circles to mock Hollywood celebrities for their elitist, superficial and often silly proclivities, their inability to relate to average Americans and the belief that rules don’t apply to them. Hollywood is in fact a reviled category of people for...

More than 8.1 million people in the U.S. have turned their iPhones and Android devices into pandemic contact-tracing tools, but it hasn’t been of much use when their neighbors, classmates and coworkers aren’t on the same system. Apple and Google co-created “exposure notification” technology to alert phone users if they...