Iran fires air defence batteries in provinces as sound of explosions heard near Isfahan
Iran fired air defence batteries early Friday morning after reports of explosions near the city of Isfahan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The United States has reached another grim milestone in its fight against the devastating COVID-19 pandemic: 1 in 500 Americans have died from coronavirus since the nation's first reported infection.
As of Tuesday night, 663,913 people in the U.S have died of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population as of April 2020 was 331.4 million.
It's a sobering toll that comes as hospitals in the U.S. are struggling to keep up with the volume of patients and more children are grappling with the virus.
In hopes of managing the spread and preventing more unnecessary deaths, officials are implementing mandates for vaccinations in workplaces and masking in schools.
They're fighting against daily case, hospitalization and death rates that jumped after the early summer as the highly contagious Delta variant became dominant.
The country averaged more than 152,300 new COVID-19 cases each day over the past week as of Tuesday -- more than 13 times than what it was on June 22, when the average was at its lowest of 2021 (11,303 daily), according to Johns Hopkins University data.
The U.S. averaged 1,805 new COVID-19 deaths each day over a week as of Tuesday -- significantly higher than the low average of the year (218) reached July 5, according to Johns Hopkins.
With only 54 per cent of the population fully vaccinated, the rate of people initiating vaccinations each day (more than 341,900) is a 4 per cent drop from last week and 28 per cent drop from a month earlier, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Health experts have hailed vaccinations as the best source of protection against the virus, noting that the majority of people hospitalized with and killed by COVID-19 are unvaccinated.
In Pennsylvania, from January 1 to September 7, 97 per cent of the state's COVID-19 deaths were among unvaccinated people, Pennsylvania's acting secretary of health said Tuesday.
Another layer of strong protection, experts say, is masking.
The CDC recommends people -- even those fully vaccinated -- wear masks indoors in areas with substantial or high community transmission. More than 99 per cent of the population lives in a county with one of those designations.
In Ohio, where children's hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19 and respiratory cases, Gov. Mike DeWine is encouraging schools to issue mask mandates since the state legislature has told him it would overturn any mandate he issued.
"Reasonable people may disagree about a lot, but we can all agree that we must keep our children in the classroom so they don't fall behind and so their parents can go to work and not take time off to watch their kids at home," DeWine said.
The combination of masks and vaccinations is the way to keep children in school, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN on Tuesday.
"If you surround the kids with vaccinated people and you have everybody wear a mask, you can get a situation where the children will be relatively safe in school," Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper.
A CDC ensemble forecast that uses 10 models from other researchers predicts COVID-19 hospital admissions to decrease during the next four weeks for the first time since the June 23 report.
The forecast predicts the U.S. will see 5,000 to 15,300 new COVID-19 hospital admissions on October 11.
A total of 97,051 people are currently in hospitals with COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
To manage the spread of the virus, many officials and experts have promoted vaccine mandates -- but others are opposing such measures.
New York issued an order in August requiring all health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 by September 27. But on Monday, 17 Catholic and Baptist medical professionals filed a federal complaint seeking to prevent the state from enforcing the mandate, saying they oppose getting the vaccine for religious reasons.
On Tuesday, a federal judge issued a restraining order temporarily suspending New York state from enforcing its vaccine mandate if health care workers claim a religious exemption.
Because the mandate does not require health care workers to receive their first dose of the vaccine until September 27, the judge's order states the temporary restraining order "does not, as a practical matter, go into effect until that date."
A hearing is scheduled for September 28.
After the ruling, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's press secretary, Hazel Crampton-Hays, said that the governor is considering all legal options.
"Governor Hochul is doing everything in her power to protect New Yorkers and combat the Delta variant by increasing vaccine rates across the State," Crampton-Hays said.
In Los Angeles, despite a mandate that all city employees be inoculated against the virus, nearly a quarter of the police force is seeking an exemption, according to Mayor Eric Garcetti's office.
Those who are not vaccinated will be required to show evidence of weekly testing and a negative COVID-19 result if regularly reporting to work.
By November 1, Nevada workers who serve "vulnerable populations" must show proof of vaccination under a new emergency regulation passed Tuesday.
New hires must have at least one dose by their start date and must follow through on the required vaccination schedule to remain employed. Workers are allowed to ask for a medical or religious exemption.
Meanwhile, most American adults believe that the public health benefits of COVID-19 restrictions on activity are worth the economic and lifestyle costs they exact, a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center shows.
The Pew report also found about 80 per cent of adults say they believe mask requirements on airplanes and public transportation are necessary to address the spread of the virus, and that international travel should be restricted.
On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will meet to discuss whether most Americans need a booster of their COVID-19 vaccine.
Unlike other meetings to discuss the vaccine, this one, with requests from Pfizer to authorize a third dose for most people, won't be a slam dunk.
"This will be much messier than in December," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.
The FDA committee was quick to recommend authorization of vaccines made by Pfizer and rival Moderna last December.
When the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meets Friday, it will be presented with dueling data, some of it suggesting there's a need for boosters, but other pieces of data suggesting there is no such need.
Three separate articles published last week in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report suggest that we don't need boosters.
On the other hand, an Israeli study found that over time, the vaccines' power to keep people from getting very sick with COVID-19 diminished.
Looking at illnesses in the second half of July, that study found that those who'd received their second dose of Pfizer's vaccine in March were 70per cent more protected against severe disease than those who received the second shot in January.
U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans last month to begin administering booster doses next week. While she wouldn't say directly if that date would be met, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday she is hopeful about the timeline to get doses administered.
If the booster does get approved, experts will still have to wait and see how much protection is added by the third dose.
"I would hope that that would sustain us for an extended period of time, but I don't know that right now," Fauci said. "We're just going to have to do the boost, and then follow people long enough to determine what the durability of that protection is."
Moderna on Wednesday said booster doses of its COVID-19 vaccine recharged waning antibody levels and boosters formulated to match variants also worked as expected, according to their research team.
The 80 volunteers were given two doses of Moderna's vaccine. Their blood was tested six months later and they got a third shot.
Moderna has started its application for emergency use authorization of the third dose of its vaccine, but the FDA has not scheduled discussion of Moderna's application.
Iran fired air defence batteries early Friday morning after reports of explosions near the city of Isfahan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Nearly half of China's major cities are suffering 'moderate to severe' levels of subsidence, putting millions at risk of flooding especially as sea levels rise.
Prince Harry, the son of King Charles III and fifth in line to the British throne, has formally confirmed he is now a U.S. resident.
The judge presiding over the trial of a man accused of fatally running over a Toronto police officer is telling jurors the possible verdicts they may reach based on the evidence in the case.
Health Canada will change its longstanding policy restricting gay and bisexual men from donating to sperm banks in Canada, CTV News has learned. The federal health agency has adopted a revised directive removing the ban on gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, effective May 8.
Colin Jost, who co-anchors Saturday Night Live's 'Weekend Update,' revealed who he thinks is one of the best hosts on the show.
A male columnist has apologized for a cringeworthy moment during former University of Iowa superstar and college basketball's highest scorer Caitlin Clark's first news conference as an Indiana Fever player.
Sophie Kinsella, the best-selling author behind the 'Shopaholic' book series, has revealed that she is receiving treatment for brain cancer.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.
While many people choose to keep their medical appointments private, four longtime friends decided to undergo vasectomies as a group in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.