CoronavirusCovid News: Medicare to Provide Free Home Virus Tests for Pickup

Medicare will provide free at-home virus tests for pickup, the Biden administration says.

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Residents of Stamford, Conn., lined up last month at a drive-up distribution site to receive free at-home coronavirus test kits. Medicare recipients will be eligible to pick up free at-home test kits in the spring, officials said.Credit...Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

Medicare, which covers roughly 60 million Americans, will provide free over-the-counter rapid coronavirus tests beginning in the spring, according to the federal government’s Medicare and Medicaid agency.

The policy would “allow Medicare beneficiaries to pick up tests at no cost at the point of sale and without needing to be reimbursed,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday, adding that it would be the first time Medicare covered the whole cost of an over-the-counter test.

The announcement followed weeks of clamor from lawmakers and health care advocates, who argued that Medicare recipients had been passed over in the administration’s push to require private insurers to cover the tests.

Under the plan, which will also apply to Medicare Advantage beneficiaries, Medicare will pay eligible pharmacies and health providers to offer the tests. The administration did not say how many pharmacies would participate.

Enrollees will be able to get up to eight tests each month, the same number covered for privately insured Americans as part of a set of new requirements the Biden administration announced last month.

The free tests covered by Medicare would go to some of the most vulnerable parts of the U.S. population. The vast majority of Medicare enrollees are 65 or older; others are younger people with disabilities.

The plan is the latest move in a patchwork of federal efforts to deliver more rapid tests, after President Biden received sharp public blowback over a limited supply of the tests around the holidays, when cases of the Omicron variant skyrocketed and demand for the tests soared. As the Biden administration hunted for tests to purchase, manufacturers scrambled to meet the demand from public and commercial buyers across the world.

Austria’s sweeping Covid vaccine mandate is becoming law.

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A woman receiving a Covid vaccine shot in Salzburg, Austria, last month.Credit...Lukas Barth/Reuters

Austria is the first Western democracy to mandate Covid vaccinations for nearly its entire adult population, a once-unthinkable move that is being seen as a test case for other countries grappling with pockets of vaccine resistance.

The sweeping measure, which easily cleared its final parliamentary hurdle on Thursday when it was approved by lawmakers in Austria’s upper house, was signed into law on Friday by President Alexander Van der Bellen of Austria.

The requirement will be introduced in phases.

First, the government plans to send a letter to all Austrians in the next few weeks, notifying them of the new rules and giving them a month to comply. Exemptions will be available only to pregnant women, people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons and people who have recently recovered from Covid-19. In this first phase, no fines will be imposed for failure to comply.

That changes in mid-March, when the police are to start conducting random checks of vaccination status — including during traffic stops. People who cannot produce proof of vaccination can be fined up to 600 euros (about $675). Those who contest their fines could eventually see them increased to €3,600 (about $4,100).

In a third phase, for which no starting date has yet been set, the government would create a formal vaccination registry of all residents, and automatically assess fines for noncompliance. If the pandemic recedes enough, though, this phase might never be put into effect, officials say.

Polls suggest that many Austrians support the mandate, but the issue has also galvanized a noisy protest movement there. Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets across the country in recent months to oppose pandemic restrictions, chief among them the vaccine mandate, which was first proposed in November. At the time, cases were surging in the country, driven mostly by unvaccinated people, and Austria introduced a lockdown that applied only to the unvaccinated.

About 76 percent of people in Austria are now fully vaccinated. Even so, a new surge that began in late December has sent new cases soaring to record levels; the daily average has nearly doubled in the past two weeks.

New reported cases by day
Mar. 2020
Oct.
May 2021
Dec.
Jul. 2022
Feb. 2023
20,000
40,000 cases
7-day average
4,999
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

Making vaccines mandatory rather than voluntary has been a threshold that European democracies have long seemed unwilling to cross. Leaders have stressed respect for civil liberties and drawn contrasts with the policies of more authoritarian governments.

But as the pandemic stretches into a third year with vaccination rates plateauing in a number of countries, some leaders have changed their minds.

“The path to freedom is the vaccine mandate,” Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria said when the law was debated in Parliament last month.

Last year, when he was interior minister, Mr. Nehammer noted the difficulty governments faced in persuading skeptical people to get inoculated voluntarily.

“It is not a question of ideology, it is a question of convincing,” he said. “We can’t do and try enough to convince so that the unvaccinated get vaccinated.”

Other countries are watching Austria’s move to a near-universal mandate closely.

In neighboring Germany, where about one in three people are not considered to be fully vaccinated, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced plans for a general vaccine mandate, and the country is slated to introduce one next month for health care workers and residents of nursing homes and care facilities. Italy now requires nearly everyone over 50 to be vaccinated; Greece has a similar rule for residents over 60.

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A deluge of medical waste is swamping the globe, a U.N. report says.

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A dump with disposed medical waste bags outside a hospital in New Delhi in 2020.Credit...Adnan Abidi/Reuters

A new report from the World Health Organization has highlighted the overabundance of medical waste around the world caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The thousands of tons of extra garbage — discarded syringes, old test kits and used vaccine vials — has strained waste management systems and is threatening both human health and the environment, the W.H.O. said this week.

The agency, which is part of the United Nations, said that most of the estimated 87,000 tons of personal protective equipment and supplies for coronavirus testing and vaccinations — distributed to countries from March 2020 to November 2021 through a U.N. emergency initiative — has ended up as waste.

In addition, more than 8 billion coronavirus vaccine doses given globally have produced 143 tons of trash in the form of syringes, needles and safety boxes. Some of the waste could expose other people to needle punctures and disease-causing germs, the report said.

“It is absolutely vital to provide health workers with the right P.P.E.,” Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, said in a statement. “But it is also vital to ensure that it can be used safely without impacting on the surrounding environment.”

To combat these problems, the report recommends the use of “eco-friendly” packaging and shipping, along with reusable equipment and products made from recyclable or biodegradable materials.

The report also noted that 30 percent of health care facilities worldwide could not handle the amount of garbage they were creating even before the pandemic. And that number grows to as much as 60 percent in the least developed countries. The trash can contaminate the air in nearby communities when it is burned, pollute water and attract disease-carrying pests, the report’s authors wrote. They called for increased investment in cleaner waste-treatment technologies and recycling.

Solid waste experts have said that high volumes of personal protective equipment have been misclassified as hazardous. Much of that material is dumped in burn pits because it is excluded from normal trash.

“The report is a reminder that although the pandemic is the most severe health crisis in a century, it is connected with many other challenges that countries face,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O. director general.

The estimate does not include the trash from hundreds of tons of supplies that were not distributed through the U.N., or face coverings and at-home testing kits used by the general public.

Top aides to Boris Johnson quit, deepening his isolation amid a scandal over lockdown parties.

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Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson departs 10 Downing Street to attend Prime Minister Questions on Wednesday.Credit...Neil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock

An exodus of senior officials from 10 Downing Street on Thursday deepened the crisis engulfing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as he fought to hold on to power in the wake of a scandal over get-togethers that breached lockdown restrictions.

Mr. Johnson’s chief of staff, private secretary, communications chief, and head of policy all resigned, leaving the top of British government rudderless at a time when Mr. Johnson is struggling to avert a mutiny in the ranks of his Conservative Party. About a dozen party lawmakers have called publicly for a no-confidence vote in the prime minister.

The departure of one of his longest-serving and most influential aides, Munira Mirza, his policy chief, carried a particular sting. Some of the resignations fulfilled Mr. Johnson’s promise to overhaul the Downing Street operation, after the release of a government report on Monday that criticized the office for “excessive” workplace drinking, citing 16 social gatherings — some of them now under police investigation — during periods when England was under strict lockdowns.

The departures of the chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, and the principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, were not as unexpected as Ms. Mirza’s. Critics have faulted Mr. Rosenfield for his management of Downing Street, while Mr. Reynolds sent an email inviting nearly 100 staff members to a B.Y.O.B. garden party at a time when the government’s own lockdown rules prohibited people from gathering with more than one person outside their families.

The departure of the communications director, Jack Doyle, was also less of a surprise, as his name was linked with some of the parties now under investigation by the police.

Mr. Johnson could be forced out of power if 54 Conservative lawmakers submit letters calling for a no-confidence vote, and then in that vote, a majority of Tory lawmakers in Parliament cast a ballot against him.

On Wednesday, three more Conservative lawmakers openly called on the prime minister to step down, bringing the total who have gone public to a dozen.

A correction was made on 
Feb. 4, 2022

An earlier version of this briefing item misspelled the name of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief of staff, who resigned. He is Dan Rosenfield, not Rosenfeld.

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Sweden says it will end Covid restrictions, joining other European nations.

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“The pandemic is not over, but we are headed into a new phase,” Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden said about the upcoming relaxation.Credit...Marko Saavala/TT News Agency, via AFP

STOCKHOLM — The Swedish government will lift most Covid restrictions next week, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden announced on Thursday. The move adds Sweden to the growing list of European nations, including Denmark and Norway, that are scrapping pandemic protocols even though new cases continue to soar in Europe.

Starting on Feb. 9, there will be no limit on how many people can gather at restaurants, sports stadiums, and other events, according to Lena Hallengren, the minister of health and social affairs. People will no longer be required to work from home. And travel restrictions on visitors from other Nordic countries will be relaxed.

“The pandemic is not over, but we are headed into a new phase,” Ms. Andersson said at a news conference on Thursday.

She pointed to research suggesting that while record numbers of people in Sweden are testing positive for the Omicron variant, they are straining hospitals less than earlier coronavirus surges did.

New reported cases by day
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000 cases
7-day average
115
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

The Swedish Public Health Authority reported that the average number of new coronavirus cases reported daily in Sweden peaked in late January and, while still high, is now declining. As of Thursday, Sweden, a country of about 10.3 million people, has reported a total of more than 2.2 million confirmed cases, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and more than 16,000 coronavirus-related deaths. More than 73 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated so far.

Ms. Anderson said that the country will continue to recommend that people take special precautions in certain situations — for example, that unvaccinated people avoid indoor events.

A number of Sweden’s neighbors and fellow European Union members have announced easing of their pandemic rules in the last week. Nightclubs in Denmark are reopening, and the government said it no longer considered Covid a “socially critical disease.” Norway is dropping its testing requirements for arriving travelers who are fully vaccinated. And Finland has said it would end all of its remaining restrictions this month.

Though Europe is still reporting large numbers of new cases, a top World Health Organization official in the region said on Thursday that the Omicron surge was giving the region an opportunity to bring virus transmission under control and reach an “enduring peace” with the coronavirus.

So many people will now have some level of immunity, either from vaccination or from surviving an infection, that the region may be moving into a “period of higher protection,” which should be seen as a “cease-fire” and “a plausible endgame” in the pandemic, the official, Dr. Hans Kluge, told reporters at a virtual news conference. Scientists have cautioned that the protection from a previous infection may wane over time, and may not apply as well to future versions of the virus.

Dr. Kluge is the regional director for the W.H.O.’s Europe region, which takes in all of Europe, plus Israel and all of the former Soviet Union, including the Central Asian republics — more than 50 countries in all.

Hospitalizations are still rising in the region, mainly in countries where vaccination rates among the more vulnerable parts of the population are relatively low, he said, while the number of Covid-related intensive care hospitalizations and deaths in the region has started to plateau.

Dr. Kluge’s comments were more upbeat than recent remarks by other W.H.O. officials, who have voiced alarm at the prospect of countries using Omicron’s relatively lower severity as a reason to scrap pandemic protocols.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director general, said this week that it was “premature” for any country to declare victory over a virus that “continues to evolve before our very eyes.”

Dr. Kluge cautioned against thinking the pandemic was finished, saying that achieving sustained relief from the coronavirus would depend heavily on countries vaccinating and boosting their populations, promoting responsible behavior and protecting the most vulnerable.

What has Omicron done to U.S. employment? Friday’s figures are likely to be puzzling.

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Many businesses have had difficulty filling staff openings during the Omicron surge. A retail store in Brooklyn posted a sign in January hoping to attract applicants.Credit...Gabby Jones for The New York Times

The January jobs report is arriving at a critical time for the U.S. economy. Inflation is rising. The pandemic is still taking a toll. And the Federal Reserve is trying to decide how best to steer the economy through a swirl of competing threats.

Unfortunately, the new figures, which the Labor Department is scheduled to release at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, are unlikely to provide much clarity.

A slew of measurement issues and data quirks will make it hard to assess exactly how the latest coronavirus wave has affected workers and businesses, or to gauge the underlying health of the labor market.

“It’s going to be a mess,” said Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America, a research group.

The raw data for the report was collected in mid-January, around the time when new coronavirus cases, almost all caused by the Omicron variant, were peaking in the United States. There is no question that the surge was disruptive: A Census Bureau survey estimated that in late December and early January, more than 14 million people were not working because they had Covid-19 themselves or were caring for someone who did, more than at any other point in the pandemic so far.

But exactly how those disruptions will affect the closely watched monthly employment numbers is less certain.

On average, forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg expect the report to show that employers added 150,000 jobs in January, only modestly fewer than the initial report of 199,000 for December. But that average hardly reflects a consensus: the estimates were spread out over an unusually wide e range, from a gain of 250,000 jobs all the way to a loss of 400,000.

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The U.S. surgeon general tells parents that Pfizer’s vaccine for young children will get a rigorous F.D.A. review.

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Vaccines for Young Children Will Get ‘Rigorous’ Review, U.S. Official Says

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, pledged that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children younger than 5 would undergo a full “transparent review process” by the Food and Drug Administration before receiving authorization.

Pfizer’s application will now undergo the same independent, rigorous and transparent review process that was used to authorize the vaccine that now more than 250 million Americans have received, including millions of children ages 5 and up. It will involve the F.D.A. receiving the full data from Pfizer, posting that data publicly and then convening its advisory committee for a transparent discussion of the data. The F.D.A. will then render its opinion, after which the C.D.C. and its advisory group will assess the data and make their recommendation. This is the same rigorous process that was used to assess numerous vaccines long before the pandemic began. The vaccine for children under 5 would mean we would have vaccines available for essentially all age groups in America. This would be a major milestone. And there are a number of steps ahead to determine if the vaccine is both safe and effective for our kids under 5, and please know that the F.D.A. will not cut any corners in their review process.

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Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, pledged that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children younger than 5 would undergo a full “transparent review process” by the Food and Drug Administration before receiving authorization.CreditCredit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

The U.S. surgeon general sought to reassure parents who are nervous about their toddlers and preschoolers being vaccinated against the coronavirus, after federal regulators took a step toward authorizing vaccines for young children despite questions about their effectiveness.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, said Wednesday during a White House briefing that Pfizer’s application for emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration would “undergo the same independent, rigorous and transparent review process” that was used to authorize Covid-19 vaccines for adults.

Parents of young children are especially wary about the vaccines. A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, released on Tuesday, found that roughly 30 percent of parents of children younger than 5 now say they intend to vaccinate their children as soon as shots become available for that age group.

Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, asked the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to authorize two doses of their coronavirus vaccine for children younger than 5 while the companies continue to research whether three doses would be more effective for that age group.

Federal regulators had pressed the companies to submit the request even though two doses failed to produce the hoped-for immune response among children 2 to 4 years old in a clinical trial. Only children between 6 months and 2 years old demonstrated an immune response comparable to that of older teenagers and young adults, the standard for a successful trial.

The disappointing results, announced in December, prompted the companies to test a third low dose of the shot in that age group, and those studies have not been finished yet. But rather than wait until the end of March for the results, federal regulators encouraged Pfizer to apply for authorization of a two-dose regimen now in hopes of getting a head start on the vaccination effort.

Officials argued that two doses had proved safe, even if they failed to produce an adequate immune response in the whole age group, and that if children can get an initial injection this month, they will be ready for a third dose by the time researchers have results from the three-dose trial, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting F.D.A. commissioner, said on Tuesday that it was important to act quickly given the rapid rise in cases from the highly infectious Omicron variant, which has now peaked in many parts of the country, and the likelihood that other variants would follow.

Dr. Murthy also cited the Omicron variant as the reason the administration was more urgently reviewing vaccine data on young children. That wave of cases has revealed more about how vaccinated and unvaccinated people fare against the virus.

“Whether that changes the risk-benefit profile is what the F.D.A. will be assessing,” he said.

There are more than 19 million U.S. children under 5, and they are the last remaining Americans not yet eligible for vaccination.

“For much of this pandemic, millions of parents have carried with them an added layer of worry, knowing that their children under 5 didn’t have protection from Covid the way older vaccinated children do,” Dr. Murthy said, noting that his own 4-year-old daughter is also too young to be vaccinated. “That’s why I am hopeful that we may be one step closer to having an added layer of protection for our younger children.”

Jeffrey D. Zients, President Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, said the administration was working closely with state and local health departments, doctors and pharmacies “to ensure the vaccine is available at thousands of locations nationwide.” The administration has already secured the necessary needles and supplies, designed for young children, he said.

Global Roundup

The Philippine president is quarantining, and other international news.

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President Rodrigo Duterte, center right, got a booster shot last month, according to local news reports.Credit...Aaron Favila/Associated Press

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is in quarantine after being exposed to a member of his household staff who tested positive for the coronavirus, Mr. Duterte’s spokesman said on Thursday.

The Southeast Asian leader tested negative for the virus, his cabinet secretary, Karlo Nograles said, but was quarantining out of caution. Mr. Duterte “continues to work while in quarantine and is in constant communication with the members of the cabinet,” Mr. Nograles added.

As of Wednesday, the country reported 7,661 new daily cases and 43 new deaths.

New reported cases by day
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
10,000
20,000
30,000 cases
7-day average
126
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

Concern about the health of Mr. Duterte, 76, has grown over the past two years. In 2019, he disclosed he has a chronic autoimmune disease that leads to skeletal muscle weakness. He also underwent an endoscopy and a colonoscopy the previous year, and announced that he had Barrett’s esophagus, which is associated with gastroesophageal reflux disease. Mr. Duterte also has an ailment that leads to constricted and inflamed blood vessels in the arms and legs.

Mr. Duterte received a second shot of a coronavirus vaccine in July and a booster last month, according to local news reports.

He has long used thuggery, threats and calls for violence as part of his political persona, including in managing the coronavirus crisis. Last year he threatened Filipinos with jail if they refused a coronavirus vaccine, as the country grappled with one of the worst outbreaks in Asia.

In other global news:

  • With 587 million vaccine doses delivered to Africa, the World Health Organization and its partners said Thursday that it was time to shift the focus from acquiring coronavirus vaccines to administering them. The new priority is overcoming delivery obstacles such as poor health infrastructure in rural areas and urban slums. Only 11 percent of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated. Vaccination drives in Africa have been hampered by a lack of supply, as well as the belief that Covid-19 is not as lethal as feared, after the Omicron-driven wave caused record infections but low deaths.

  • New Zealand will ease its strict border controls and quarantine rules under a five-stage plan announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Thursday, gradually reopening to travelers from abroad over the next nine months. “Families and friends need to reunite,” Ms. Ardern said. “Our businesses need skills to grow. Exporters need to travel to make new connections. It’s time to move again.” Starting just before midnight on Feb. 27, New Zealanders and other eligible travelers who have received at least two doses of a Covid vaccine will be able to arrive from Australia. On March 13, the border will reopen to all vaccinated citizens.

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The coronavirus continues to sideline Olympic athletes as they gear up for competition.

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Covid-19 infections among athletes and team officials have hampered some hopes for Olympic medals.Credit...Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

Coronavirus infections among athletes continue to jeopardize medal hopes in Beijing.

According to the Beijing Organizing Committee’s Covid tracker, 26 new infections among athletes and team officials were reported as of Thursday, bringing the number of total confirmed positive cases to 287.

The Ukrainian figure skater Ivan Shmuratko tested positive for the virus, sidelining him from the men’s component of the team figure skating event on Friday and preventing Ukraine from accumulating any points. The Ukrainian Olympic Committee said it hoped that Shmuratko, who is making his Olympic debut, could recover in time for the start of the men’s individual competition on Tuesday.

Germany has also been thwarted in the team figure skating competition after the pairs skater Nolan Seegert tested positive. Minerva Fabienne Hase, his skating partner, has so far tested negative, but there are no alternates for the pair. Rather than withdraw altogether, Germany is moving forward in the team event but will not acquire any points in the pairs skating component, dashing any hopes for a medal.

The world’s No. 2 Nordic combined athlete, Jarl Magnus Riiber of Norway, also tested positive for the virus. Riiber, who won silver as part of a team event in the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, was a medal contender in Beijing. He posted a photograph of himself on Instagram with the caption, “The gold is yours, guys,” using a gold medal emoji and adding a virus emoji and a winking face at the end. The first Nordic combined event is on Wednesday.

The Czech hockey player and former Boston Bruins center David Krejci tested positive upon arriving in Beijing and missed the team’s first full pre-Olympic practice. Their first game is on Wednesday against Denmark.

The Czech team said that the ski jumpers Viktor Polasek and Cestmir Kozisek had also tested positive. Polasek entered isolation, while Kozisek, who recently recovered from an infection, is allowed to train while living separately from others.

The Japan Times reported that an unidentified skier had also tested positive after arriving in Beijing, the Japanese team’s first positive infection.

A correction was made on 
Feb. 3, 2022

An earlier version of this story misstated the professional status of a hockey player. David Krejci is a former Boston Bruins player, not a current one.

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Biden’s F.D.A. nominee faces a steep climb to Senate confirmation.

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Dr. Robert Califf, President Biden’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, testifying before a Senate committee in December.Credit...Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press

The White House is facing pressure from prominent lawmakers over its pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration, with abortion foes urging Republican senators to reject the nominee, Dr. Robert Califf, and with key Democrats withholding support over opioid policies and his industry ties.

Nearly six years after Dr. Califf received overwhelming bipartisan support to lead the agency in the final year of the Obama administration, lawmakers and aides are struggling to lock up the votes he needs to clear an evenly divided Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris serves as the tiebreaking vote.

Few, if any, nominees to the F.D.A. have faced as much opposition on both sides of the aisle, and the agency has been without a permanent commissioner for more than a year. The agency’s agenda includes a series of significant issues: oversight of drugs, tests and devices related to Covid-19; the pandemic-related decline in inspections of drug and device manufacturers; and the popularity of flavored e-cigarette products among teenagers.

Administration officials have been trying to rally support for Dr. Califf and say he continues to have the support of President Biden and top health officials. Senate Democratic leaders also continue to back him publicly. But a date has not been set for his confirmation vote before the full Senate. At least five Democrats are publicly opposing his nomination, so Dr. Califf needs at least five Republicans to support him.

“We are confident Dr. Califf will be confirmed with bipartisan support, and it is critical to have confirmed leadership at the F.D.A. in the midst of a pandemic,” Chris Meagher, a White House spokesman, said. Dr. Califf has declined interview requests while his nomination is pending.

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As Australia eases restrictions, many say they’re not ready to ‘live with the virus.’

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Sydney during New Year’s Eve celebrations. Australia has taken a plunge that other countries in the Asia-Pacific region have been unready to emulate.Credit...Jenny Evans/Getty Images

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia, the government says, is ready to “live with the virus,” ready for the authorities to get out of people’s lives and let them make their own health decisions. Hit the pub, enjoy life, spend some money.

But many Australians, it seems, weren’t ready.

Perhaps more than any other country, Australia in recent weeks has gone through a dizzying U-turn in its approach to the pandemic. For 18 months, it snuffed out every Covid outbreak, often through considerable public sacrifice. Then, late last year, the government declared itself done with all that: Australia would now “stare down” Omicron and “not go back.”

Suddenly, a nation that once imposed lockdowns over handfuls of cases was dealing with half a million active infections. Deaths, while still few by American or British standards, reached record highs. Australians accustomed to following official guidance and taking collective action to blunt a dangerous virus felt whiplash.

When one state announced that it was ending intensive contact tracing, a Facebook group popped up so people could do their own. After Australia’s prime minister declared lockdowns a thing of the past, so many residents of its two biggest cities stayed inside anyway as Omicron spiked that it was labeled a “shadow lockdown.” And even as the country’s borders opened for the first time since March 2020, this travel-loving nation mostly stayed put.

John Yoon and Manan Luthra contributed reporting.

Scientists still don’t know the origins of strange coronavirus sequences in N.Y.C.’s sewage.

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Manhattan on Tuesday. For the past year, oddball sequences have continued to pop up in New York City’s wastewater.Credit...Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times

Last January, a team of researchers searching for the coronavirus in New York City’s wastewater spotted something strange in their samples. The viral fragments they found had a unique constellation of mutations that had never been reported before in human patients — a potential sign of a new, previously undetected variant.

For the past year, these oddball sequences, or what the scientists call “cryptic lineages,” have continued to pop up in the city’s wastewater. There is no evidence that the lineages, which have been circulating for at least a year without overtaking Delta or Omicron, pose an elevated health risk to humans. But the researchers, whose findings will be published in Nature Communications on Thursday, still have no idea where they came from.

“At this point, what we can say is that we haven’t found the cryptic lineages in human databases, and we have looked all over,” said Monica Trujillo, a microbiologist at Queensborough Community College and an author of the new paper.

The researchers themselves are torn about the lineages’ origins. Some lean toward the explanation that the virus is coming from people whose infections aren’t being captured by sequencing. But others suspect that the lineages may be coming from virus-infected animals, possibly the city’s enormous population of rats. Even then, the favored theory can change from day-to-day or hour-to-hour.

Answers remain elusive.

“I think it’s really important that we find the source, and we have not been able to pin that down,” said John Dennehy, a virologist at Queens College and an author of the paper.

The scientists’ continuing quest to figure out where the sequences are coming from highlights both the potential of wastewater surveillance, which can help scientists keep tabs on how the virus is evolving, and the challenge of making sense of any anomalies pulled out of the murk.

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A D.C. bar that was closed after defying vaccination requirements has a new life as a conservative rallying point.

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Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was one of several Republicans in Congress who dined at a Washington bar shortly after it was ordered closed by the city’s health department.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Days before the first phase of Washington’s vaccination entry requirement went into effect on Jan. 15, The Big Board, a family-owned bar in the popular H Street Corridor, tweeted that it would “always” be open to everyone.

The Big Board’s owners kept their promise, at a high cost. This week, the bar, a mile from the U.S. Capitol, was shut down after refusing to abide by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s order to check that patrons over the age of 12 had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.

But the bar already seems to have another life, at least in conservative circles.

After a city health inspector posted a closure notice on The Big Board’s door on Tuesday saying that the bar “presents an imminent health hazard to the public,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, dined at the bar with staffers, according to The Washington Examiner and The Daily Caller, two conservative news outlets. But since then, the bar has remained closed to the public.

Mr. Paul has introduced a bill before Congress to overturn Washington’s vaccination requirements. He also previously claimed that “masks don’t work,” despite the consensus among public health officials that they do limit the spread of the virus. A California study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week also showed that consistent use of high-quality masks offers strong protection to wearers.

The Examiner and The Daily Caller reported that several other Republican members of the House joined Mr. Paul on Tuesday night, all of whom have also publicly criticized vaccine mandates, including Representatives Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, and Ronny Jackson, Republican of Texas. Grinning and maskless, some of the lawmakers posed for pictures with a co-owner of the bar, Eric Flannery.

In a YouTube video made that evening, Mr. Flannery, with some of the congressional representatives standing next to him, vowed to “keep on fighting” and said the mayor’s order needed to be challenged in D.C. Superior Court.

Mr. Massie then saluted Mr. Flannery’s defiance. “If the mandate is illogical, the only logical thing to do is to defy it,” Mr. Massie said. “If the mandate is unconstitutional, it is constitutional not to follow it. If the mandate is unscientific, the only scientific thing to do is to ignore it. And so God bless you and thank you for being in the fight.”

And Representative Tim Burchett invited Mr. Flannery to relocate. “If you want to come to Tennessee, we’re a freedom-loving state, and we’d love to have you, brother,” he said.

The video was uploaded by the Daily Signal, a conservative site, and later shared by The Big Board on its Facebook page.

On Thursday, Glenn Beck, the unvaccinated conservative radio host who has previously been criticized for spreading misinformation about Covid vaccines, also interviewed Mr. Flannery and promoted the bar, directing listeners to a fund-raising campaign on GiveSendGo, a self-described Christian crowdfunding site. Another conservative talk radio show, The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, which took over the time slot previously filled by right-wing talk radio star Rush Limbaugh, interviewed Mr. Flannery on Thursday and linked to the crowdfunding site. By Saturday afternoon, that site had logged more than $16,500 in donations.

And an earlier GoFundMe campaign for The Big Board’s owners set up by a correspondent with the Daily Caller on Jan. 19 and tweeted by Mr. Paul had logged more than $32,700 in donations by Saturday afternoon.

Mr. Flannery and The Big Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In December, when Mayor Bowser announced that the vaccination entry requirement would be put into place, Washington was experiencing surging rates of positive Covid tests as the Omicron variant became dominant.

Covid deaths in the district have risen only slightly in the aftermath, likely because more than 92 percent of the population has had at least one dose of the vaccine.

Food prices hit a two-decade high, threatening the world’s poor.

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Cattle in Billings, Mont., last year. Food prices have increased sharply around the globe, straining incomes in poorer countries.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Food prices have skyrocketed globally because of disruptions in the global supply chain, adverse weather and rising energy prices, increases that are imposing a heavy burden on poorer people around the world and threatening to stoke social unrest.

The increases have affected items as varied as grains, vegetable oils, butter, pasta, beef and coffee. They come as farmers around the globe face an array of challenges, including drought and ice storms that have ruined crops, rising prices for fertilizer and fuel, and pandemic-related labor shortages and supply chain disruptions that make it difficult to get products to market.

A global index released on Thursday by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization showed food prices in January climbed to their highest level since 2011, when skyrocketing costs contributed to political uprisings in Egypt and Libya. The price of meat, dairy and cereals trended upward from December, while the price of oils reached the highest level since the index’s tracking began in 1990.

Maurice Obstfeld, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who was formerly chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said that food price increases would strain incomes in poorer countries, especially in some parts of Latin America and Africa, where some people may spend up to 50 or 60 percent of their income on food.

He said that it wasn’t “much of an exaggeration” to say the world was approaching a global food crisis, and that slower growth, high unemployment and stressed budgets from governments that have spent heavily to combat the pandemic had created “a perfect storm of adverse circumstances.”

“There’s a lot of cause for worry about social unrest on a widespread scale,” he added.

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NBC is opening its Olympics coverage with ‘the worst hand imaginable.’

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A set at the NBC Sports studios in Stamford, Conn., where the network is basing its 2022 Winter Olympics coverage. Credit...Landon Speers for The New York Times

Last year, NBC Sports executives called the Tokyo Olympics their most challenging undertaking ever. Now, that experience is starting to look like a cakewalk.

For Beijing, NBC confronts an even trickier mix of challenges, threatening to diminish one of the network’s signature products and one of the last major draws for broadcast television.

The list of headaches is long: an event nearly free of spectators, which drains excitement from the arena and the ski slopes; the threat that star athletes will test positive for the coronavirus, potentially dashing their Olympic dreams; and the fact that a vast majority of the network’s announcers, including Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski, are offering color commentary from a company compound in Stamford, Conn., instead of from China.

The rising political tensions between the United States and China, including those related to claims of human rights abuses by China, add a troubling cloud to what is typically a feel-good spectacle.

“My friends and colleagues at NBC have been dealt the worst hand imaginable,” said Bob Costas, who served as the network’s prime-time Olympics host for more than two decades.

The success of the Games is critical to NBC. Even as streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ have lured millions of people from broadcast networks, sports have remained a reliable moneymaker for the traditional outlets. The company has exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympics through 2032, at a cost of $7.75 billion.

Ratings for the Games have dipped in recent years — and fell sharply during last year’s Summer Olympics. NBC has told advertisers to expect the ratings to be lower than the 2018 Winter Games, according to three people familiar with the network’s ratings estimates.

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