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CORONAVIRUS

California becomes first state to top 3 million virus cases

California became state to record more than 3 million known coronavirus infections. The grim milestone, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, wasn’t entirely unexpected in a state with 40 million residents but its speed stunning. The state only reached 2 million reported cases on Dec. 24. The first coronavirus case in California was confirmed last Jan. 25. It took 292 days to get to 1 million infections on Nov. 11 and 44 days to top 2 million. California’s caseload is also far ahead of other large states. Texas had more than 2 million and Florida topped 1.5 million. The ...

W.V. sets pace on vaccine rollout

By CUNEYT DIL Associated Press KENOVA, W.Va. (AP) — Griffith & Feil Drug has been in business since 1892, a family-owned, small-town pharmacy. This isn't their first pandemic. More than a century after helping West Virginians confront the Spanish flu in 1918, the drugstore in Kenova, a community of about 3,000 people, is helping the state lead the nation in COVID-19 vaccine distribution. West Virginia has emerged as an unlikely success in the nation's otherwise chaotic vaccine rollout, largely because of the state's decision to reject a federal partnership with CVS and ...

Expanded vaccine rollout in US spawns new set of problems

The rapid expansion of COVID-19 vaccinations to senior citizens across the U.S. has led to bottlenecks, system crashes and hard feelings in many states because of overwhelming demand for the shots. Mississippi's Health Department stopped taking new appointments the same day it began accepting them because of a "monumental surge" in requests. People had to wait hours to book vaccinations through a state website or a toll-free number Tuesday and Wednesday, and many were booted off the site because of technical problems and had to start over. In California, counties begged for more ...

Minnesota expands vaccine eligibility

MINNESOTA — The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is allowing hospitals, health care systems and other vaccination partners to start vaccinating a “broader category of Minnesotans” against the COVID-19 virus where possible, but Brown County is still working on vaccinating frontline health care workers. Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said in a statement that the move is intended to free providers to use all available doses as quickly as possible while still ensuring that doses are targeted to those most in need of the vaccine. The state’s priority has been to ...

Calls to reopen classrooms grow as many teachers get vaccinated

State leaders around the U.S. are increasingly pushing for schools to reopen this winter — pressuring them, even — as teachers begin to gain access to the vaccine against the raging pandemic. Ohio’s governor offered to give vaccinations to teachers at the start of February, provided their school districts agree to resume at least some in-person instruction by March 1. In Arizona, where teachers began receiving shots this week, the governor warned schools that he expects students back in the classroom despite objections from top education officials and the highest COVID-19 ...

California opens scarce vaccines to those over 65

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California is immediately allowing residents 65 and older to get scarce coronavirus vaccines, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday. The move puts seniors in line before emergency workers, teachers, childcare providers and food and agriculture workers even as counties complain they already don’t have enough doses to go around. “There is no higher priority than efficiently and equitably distributing these vaccines as quickly as possible to those who face the gravest consequences,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “To those not yet eligible for ...