Florida's attorney general's office wants an appellate court to take up its challenge to the federal mandate because a nationwide injuction issued by a Louisiana judge will likely be appealed.

Pfizer researchers looking for a drug to treat SARS found clues that gave the company a head start in its quest for a pill to treat COVID-19, including the omicron variant.

Officials in Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota and New York reported their first cases of the variant on Thursday, one day after the first U.S. case was identified in California.

According to the ruling, the injunction will apply nationwide, except for 10 states where the mandate has been blocked by a prior federal court ruling out of St. Louis.

Sean Doody believes the coronavirus likely came from animals that were illegally trafficked to a wet market in China, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.

Parents of children under 5 have to wait a little bit longer before COVID vaccines are available. In the meantime pediatricians are still working to increase vaccinations in the 5-11 age group.

Scientists may not know for a couple weeks yet how risky the new coronavirus variant will be to public health. But getting out front now about what is known helps dispel misinformation, they say.

Among his new steps to fight COVID surges this winter: requiring private health insurers to reimburse people for at-home tests. It also calls for more people to get vaccines and boosters.

The individual returned from South Africa on Nov. 22 and had mild symptoms. Cases have been found in more than 20 countries, less than a week after the worrying new variant was first identified.

Protein subunit vaccines work by injecting people with a tiny portion of a virus. In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, that tiny portion is the spike protein that the coronavirus uses to enter cells.