Free tests are coming for American citizens, perhaps just in time for you to not need them. Starting Saturday, private health insurers must cover up to eight home COVID tests per month for people on their plans. Everyone else can submit receipts for reimbursement. This depends on your ability to find COVID tests. Later this month, the government is launching a website to start making 500 million at-home tests available via mail. 

We all kinda figured out this was true, but it’s still a little shocking to hear the Director of the CDC admit it. She said for the first time on CNN the vaccines are no longer effective at preventing transmission of the virus. And not just Omicron, for Delta as well. She said the vaccines are doing very well however protecting against serious illness and death.

A new reason to bless people who sneeze. An Imperial College London Study found that high levels of T-cells from the common cold can protect against COVID. A reminder…the common cold is a coronavirus. The findings could lead to more effective vaccines. The study did not say how long protection from these T-cells lasts.

Hospitals around the U.S. are letting more and more nurses and other workers currently infected with the coronavirus stay on the job. That’s if they have only mild symptoms, or none. It’s a way to cope with staffing shortages. That doesn’t completely go against the CDC, which says asymptomatic health care workers can go back to work after seven days, but it can be sooner if there are staffing shortages. 

Is the Deltacron variant real or a myth like the Loch Ness Monster? Our apologies if you believe in Nessie. Health experts are leaning on the side of dismissing reports of a fusion of Delta and Omicron, saying it’s probably just an error during genetic sequencing, specifically, the "lab contamination of Omicron fragments in a Delta specimen."

In the United States, cases were up 216%, deaths are up 17%, and hospitalizations are up 83% over 14 days. The 7-day average of new cases has been trending up since December 14.  

The five states that had the most daily deaths per 100,000 are Delaware, Wyoming, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

There are 18,945,427 active cases in the United States.

The five areas with the greatest increase in hospitalizations per capita: The U.S. Virgin Islands 858%. Puerto Rico 429%, Louisiana 364%. Florida 300%. And Washington, DC 221%.  

The top 10 areas with the highest number of recent cases per capita according to The New York Times: Miami-Dade, FL. Teton, WY. New York City, NY. Pitkin, CO. Nassau, NY. Passaic, NJ. Summit, UT. Essex, NJ. Florida, PR. And Rockland, N.Y. 

There have been at least 839,372 deaths in the U.S. recorded as Covid-related.

The top 3 vaccinating states by percentage of population that’s been fully vaccinated: Vermont at 77.9%, Rhode Island at 77.3%, and Maine at 76.8%. The bottom 3 vaccinating states are Wyoming at 47.7%, Mississippi at 48%, and Alabama at 48.2%. The percentage of the U.S. that’s been fully vaccinated is 62.5%.

Globally, cases were up 222% and deaths down 1% over 14 days, with the 7-day average trending up since October 15. 

There are now over 44 million active cases around the world, at 44,476,625.

The five countries with the most new cases: The United States 565,042. France 296,097. India 180,438. Italy 155,659. And the U.K. 141,438. 

There have been at least 5,493,864 deaths reported as Covid-related worldwide. 

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