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Omicron's Stealth Version; 3 Pfizer Doses for Omicron? Another Biden Mandate Blocked

— A daily roundup of news on COVID-19 and the rest of medicine

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COVID-19 UPDATE and Other News over a background of illustrated coronaviruses

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Researchers identified a that can't be differentiated from other variants in positive PCR tests, making it harder to track. (The Guardian)

Omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 mutations may affect the performance of , the FDA warned.

As more people use home COVID-19 tests, to public health officials. (STAT)

Pfizer reported that preliminary lab studies showed three doses of its COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) .

Close to received booster doses of a COVID-19 vaccine last week, a record number. (Reuters)

A judge issued a nationwide injunction to from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors. (NBC News)

As of Wednesday at 8 a.m. EST, the is 49,389,503 cases and 791,514 deaths, increases of 110,779 cases and 1,769 deaths versus a day ago.

Nearly 70 hospital employees in Spain, including intensive care nurses and doctors, after attending a Christmas party at a restaurant. (AP via USA Today)

What's the for SARS-CoV-2? (Nature)

People previously showed a robust immune response after one dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, but no additional benefit after another. (Science Translational Medicine)

A Gallup poll found that Republicans have less than they did in the past; Democrats have more.

of nearly a half-million adults in the U.S. rose during the pandemic. (Circulation)

One in three U.S. in 2019. (Pediatrics)

COVID-19 no longer was among the as of September, according to a FAIR Health analysis of private insurance claims.

Former FDA chief Steven Hahn, MD, , an early cancer testing company. (Fierce Biotech)

The pandemic worsened a in young people that was underway before 2020, the U.S. Surgeon General said. (NPR)

The FDA approved vaginal gel, 2% (Xaciato) to treat bacterial vaginosis in females age 12 and older, Dare Biosciences announced.

New diagnoses and hospitalizations increased during the first wave of the pandemic in Canada. (JAMA Network Open)

As drug deaths in Scotland climbed, the government launched a campaign to highlight the of problem drug and alcohol use. (BBC News)

How did the -- a hypothesis that cannabis leads to cocaine and heroin use -- get started? (Forbes)

  • Judy George covers neurology and neuroscience news for ľֱ, writing about brain aging, Alzheimer’s, dementia, MS, rare diseases, epilepsy, autism, headache, stroke, Parkinson’s, ALS, concussion, CTE, sleep, pain, and more.