First Edition: Jan. 5, 2022

KHN: With Sexually Transmitted Infections Off The Charts, California Pushes At-Home Tests
California has become the first state to require health insurance plans to cover at-home tests for sexually transmitted infections such as HIV, chlamydia and syphilis — which could help quell the STI epidemic that has raged nearly unchecked as public health departments have focused on covid-19. The rule, part of a broader law addressing the STI epidemic, took effect Jan. 1 for people with state-regulated private insurance plans and will kick in sometime later for the millions of low-income Californians enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program. (Bluth, 1/5)

KHN: Medical Marijuana Users Brace For Shortages As Montana’s Recreational Market Opens 
More than a year after voters approved legalizing marijuana for recreational use in Montana, anyone older than 21 can now enter a dispensary and buy cannabis. That has medical marijuana user Joylynn Mane Wright worried. Wright lives in Prairie County, the state’s fifth-least-populated county, with nearly 1,100 people. She already drives about 35 minutes to get to the marijuana dispensary nearest her home, which is 2½ hours northeast of Billings. And now she wonders how much more difficult it will be to get the cannabis she uses to relieve the chronic pain she developed after a 2017 spinal surgery. (Franz, 1/5)

KHN: Listen: How The New ‘No Surprises’ Law Tackles Unexpected Medical Bills
The federal No Surprises Act, which aims to eliminate unexpected out-of-network medical bills, took effect Jan. 1, and KHN correspondents hit the airwaves to explain the new law. KHN senior correspondent Julie Appleby appeared on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” on Sunday to give background on why the law was necessary: Surveys showed that up to 1 in 5 emergency department visits and 1 in 10 elective surgeries resulted in an unexpected, out-of-network bill. (1/5)

USA Today: Biden Reassures Vaccinated, Warns Unvaccinated Amid COVID Surge
Addressing the country before a meeting with the White House COVID-19 response team, Biden once again exhorted Americans to get vaccinated and boosted and to wear masks in public to avoid spreading and catching the coronavirus. “We have the tools to protect people from severe illness due to omicron – if people choose to use the tools,’’ Biden said. “There’s a lot of reason to be hopeful in (2022), but for God’s sake, please take advantage of what’s available.’’ The U.S. topped the 1 million mark in new coronavirus cases for the first time Monday. Though the total of 1.08 million was likely enhanced by holiday weekend backlogs, it obliterated the previous record of 591,000 set Thursday. (Ortiz, Bacon and Tebor, 1/4)

The Hill: Biden: Schools Should Stay Open Despite Omicron Wave 
President Biden on Tuesday reiterated his belief that schools in the United States should remain physically open despite the wave of coronavirus cases driven largely by the omicron variant. Biden noted during remarks at the White House that his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan included billions of dollars to help support school reopenings during the coronavirus pandemic. (Chalfant, 1/4)

Politico: White House Embraces A Manage-Not-Contain Omicron Game Plan 
When President Joe Biden took office last January amid a winter Covid-19 surge, he vowed an all-out federal assault aimed at vanquishing the virus. A year later, with the country facing unprecedented levels of disease once again, his administration is now hoping to fight it to a draw. (Cancryn and Cadelago, 1/4)

AP: CDC Posts Rationale For Shorter Isolation, Quarantine 
In laying out the scientific basis for the revisions, the agency said more than 100 studies from 17 countries indicate that most transmission happens early in an infection. The CDC acknowledged the data come from research done when delta and other pre-omicron variants were causing the most infections. But the agency also pointed to limited, early data from the U.S. and South Korea that suggests the time between exposure and the appearance of symptoms may be shorter for omicron than for earlier variants. (Stobbe, 1/4)

NBC News: Health Care Workers Concerned By Shorter Isolation After Covid Infections
Melody Butler, a registered nurse in New York, woke up the day after Christmas with a headache, chest tightness and a feeling of malaise — an at-home rapid test confirmed she was Covid-positive. Eight days later, she returned to work at the hospital, still a bit fatigued and prepared to wear full protective gear to prevent any potential spread. As the highly transmissible omicron variant took hold and spread throughout the holidays, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week revised its isolation recommendations, reducing the isolation time for asymptomatic health care workers from 10 days to seven with a negative test — or fewer days “if there are staffing shortages.” (Lee, 1/4)

Detroit Free Press: Nearly 700 Employees Test Positive For COVID-19 At Henry Ford Health
Nearly 700 Henry Ford Health System employees have tested positive for the coronavirus in the last seven days, the system's chief clinical officer said Tuesday. That's about 2% of approximately 33,000 employees in the health system that became the first in Michigan to announce last summer that it would mandate COVID-19 vaccines for its workers. The news comes as COVID-19 cases surge in Michigan and across the country, the highly transmissible omicron variant becomes more dominant, and short-staffed hospitals and testing locations continue to be overrun. (Hall, 1/4)

NPR: CDC Now Recommends Pfizer Boosters After 5 Months, Down From 6
People who were initially immunized with two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine should receive a booster shot after five months, rather than six, according to a new recommendation from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The move comes after the Food and Drug Administration on Monday authorized the change in the Pfizer booster interval, saying that a third shot after five months may "provide better protection sooner for individuals against the highly transmissible omicron variant." In a statement, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky ... urged eligible Americans to receive a booster as soon as possible. (Sullivan, 1/4)

Houston Chronicle: Gov. Abbott Sues To Shield Texas National Guard From Biden’s Vaccine Mandate
Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday sued the Biden administration over its military-wide COVID vaccine mandate, arguing the requirement should not apply to members of the Texas National Guard who have not been activated by the federal government. Abbott’s plan — laid out in a letter to Texas Adjutant General Tracy Norris, who oversees the state’s National Guard — follows efforts by other Republican governors who have tried to shield National Guard members from the federal vaccine requirement. Hours ahead of Abbott’s announcement, a federal judge struck down a similar lawsuit filed by the Oklahoma governor, noting that National Guard troops are already subject to nine other required immunizations. (Scherer, 1/4)

Los Angeles Times: Thousands Of U.S. Military Defy COVID-19 Vaccine Order
The latest data from the military show that roughly 30,000 active-duty service members remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, despite a Defense Department mandate issued in August and deadlines that have passed. Their defiance of a military order is a striking illustration of how deeply politicized the pandemic has become in the United States. “Racism, suicide, addiction to conspiracy theories — you name it. If you can find it in the civilian population, you can find it within the military,” said Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University who specializes in civil-military relations. “The difference is that the military has a wider range of tools to include more day-to-day control over the lives of its members ... to monitor and manage these problems.” (Hernandez, 1/5)

Bloomberg: Omicron Now Accounts For 95% Of U.S. Covid Cases, CDC Says
The omicron variant is accounting for the lion’s share of new coronavirus cases as Americans return to work and school following the holiday season, according to estimates from federal health officials. Omicron made up 95% of all sequenced Covid-19 cases in the U.S. in the week ending Jan. 1, up from a revised 77% in the previous week, according to a model by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Previously, the CDC estimated that the variant accounted for 58.6% of cases in the week ending Dec. 25. (Rutherford, 1/4)

CBS News: Children Represent 17.7% Of COVID-19 Cases As U.S. Sees Record High For Weekly Cases 
The United States recorded more than 3 million new COVID-19 cases this past week, a record high for weekly cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. As schools and businesses determine whether to resume in-person learning in the new year, children's cases are also up, with 325,340 cases in the week between December 23 and December 30, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. That week, children represented 17.7% of the reported cases in the U.S. (O'Kane, 1/4)

USA Today: Hospitalization Numbers Reflect COVID Vaccine Effectiveness: Experts
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that with many infections causing few or no symptoms, “it is much more relevant to focus on the hospitalizations as opposed to the total number of cases.” Those hospital admissions averaged 14,800 per day last week, up 63% from the week before. That's still short of the peak of 16,500 per day a year ago when the vast majority of the U.S. was unvaccinated. Deaths have been stable over the past two weeks at an average of about 1,200 per day, well below the all-time high of 3,400 last January. Other experts argue that case counts are still a cause for concern in their own right. (Thornton, 1/5)

The New York Times: In Omicron Hot Spots, Hospitals Fill Up, But I.C.U.S May Not 
In hospitals around the country, doctors are taking notice: This wave of Covid seems different from the last one. Once again, as they face the highly contagious Omicron variant, medical personnel are exhausted and are contracting the virus themselves. And the numbers of patients entering hospitals with the variant are surging to staggering levels, filling up badly needed beds, delaying nonemergency procedures and increasing the risk that vulnerable uninfected patients will catch the virus. But in Omicron hot spots from New York to Florida to Texas, a smaller proportion of those patients are landing in intensive care units or requiring mechanical ventilation, doctors said. (Anthes and Ghorayshi, 1/4)

AP: COVID Case Counts May Be Losing Importance Amid Omicron 
The explosive increase in U.S. coronavirus case counts is raising alarm, but some experts believe the focus should instead be on COVID-19 hospital admissions. And those aren’t climbing as fast. Dr. Anthony Fauci, for one, said Sunday on ABC that with many infections causing few or no symptoms, “it is much more relevant to focus on the hospitalizations as opposed to the total number of cases.” Other experts argue that case counts still have value. (Johnson, 1/5)

Reuters: WHO Sees More Evidence That Omicron Causes Milder Symptoms
More evidence is emerging that the Omicron coronavirus variant is affecting the upper respiratory tract, causing milder symptoms than previous variants and resulting in a "decoupling" in some places between soaring case numbers and low death rates, a World Health Organization official said on Tuesday. "We are seeing more and more studies pointing out that Omicron is infecting the upper part of the body. Unlike other ones, the lungs who would be causing severe pneumonia," WHO Incident Manager Abdi Mahamud told Geneva-based journalists. (Farge and Roy, 1/4)

CNN: Chicago Public Schools Cancels Classes After Union Votes To Go Virtual 
The Chicago Teachers Union voted to teach virtually rather than in the classroom, triggering a cancellation of classes Wednesday which the school district leadership warned would happen if the union vote passed. CPS, the third-largest school district in the country, resumed in-person learning Monday in conditions union leaders described as unsafe as the Omicron virus variant sent Covid-19 cases soaring around the country. (Waldrop and Jimenez, 1/5)

Politico: Thousands Of Teachers, Students Absent As Omicron Ravages Florida
Schools in Florida are reporting droves of absences among teachers and students this week, a sign that the highly contagious Omicron variant is already wrecking the budding new semester. With Covid-19 cases skyrocketing throughout the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis is pledging to keep schools open and in-person classes churning without any mask mandates or new restrictions. The DeSantis administration instead is messaging that asymptomatic people should resist being tested for the coronavirus as hundreds of students and teachers miss the first days of school in 2022. (Atterbury, 1/4)

Bay Area News Group: COVID: Tests Find Hundreds Of Bay Area Students Infected Before Return To Class
The Oakland school district said Tuesday that teachers, students and their families had reported 21,000 results from at-home tests and identified 472 positive cases — 396 among students, 64 among staff and 12 among family members. Combined with other testing over the winter break, the district reported a total of 920 infections among students or staff. At Berkeley Unified School District, of 7,687 students and staff who uploaded test results, 227 of them had tested positive, public information officer Trish McDermott said. On-campus surveillance testing, available since the fall, turned up an additional six positive cases Monday, she said. “The at-home testing kept a lot of COVID out of our schools,” McDermott said. “Their positive status was determined before they set foot on a campus. We think that’s a system that works.” (Jimenez and Woolfolk, 1/4)

The Washington Post: Colleges Scramble To Quarantine Students As Covid Cases Increase 
Thousands of college students ended 2021 and will begin 2022 in isolation and quarantine as the omicron variant surges in the United States. For school administrators, the sudden outbreaks sparked logistical scrambles to get students swiftly and safely housed away from others. (Svrluga, 1/4)

AP: High Court Confirms Justices Have Received COVID-19 Booster 
The Supreme Court says all nine justices have received COVID-19 booster shots. The court's confirmation came Tuesday amid the omicron variant surging and in-person arguments over vaccines scheduled at the court on Friday. The court confirmed that the justices have received boosters only after The Associated Press published a story saying the high court would not say whether the justices had received a third dose of the vaccine. That story followed repeated attempts to get an answer about the shots. (Gresko and Sherman, 1/4)

AP: Whitmer Isolating After Husband Tests Positive For COVID-19 
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was isolating from her husband in their home Tuesday after he tested positive for COVID-19. The governor, who was not experiencing symptoms, had a negative rapid test and was awaiting the results of a PCR lab test out of an abundance of caution, spokesperson Bobby Leddy said. Marc Mallory, whose home test came back positive after he became sick, was waiting for confirmation from a PCR test. (1/5)

NPR: Seth Meyers And Jimmy Fallon Test Positive For COVID-19
As the omicron variant of the coronavirus continues to spread across the U.S., both of NBC's late-night talk show hosts, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, have announced they've tested positive for COVID-19. "The bad news is, I tested positive for COVID (thanks, 2022!)," Meyers said in a tweet Monday. "The good news is, I feel fine (thanks vaccines and booster!)." Meyers said the network had canceled the remainder of shows scheduled from Tuesday to Friday. "Tune in next Monday to see what cool location we will try and pass off as a studio!!!" Meyers added. (Franklin, 1/4)

Modern Healthcare: GOP Senators Press HHS On COVID-19 Testing
Two senior Republican senators are pressing President Joe Biden's administration on the availability of COVID-19 testing after Congress appropriated tens of billions of dollars to improve access. In a letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra Monday, Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) ask how the department allocated $83 billion Congress authorized for pandemic response, following a holiday season when people scrambled for hard-to-find tests. Blunt is ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee with authority over HHS and Burr is ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. (Hellmann, 1/4)

Houston Chronicle: FEMA Will Open Six New COVID Testing Sites In Texas As State Awaits Antibody Treatments
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will open six new COVID-19 testing sites across Texas, after state officials last week asked the federal government to help manage the state’s rising caseloads. The six sites, approved Monday, will be located in Bexar, Cameron, Dallas, Harris, Hidalgo and Tarrant counties. State officials said they expect the centers to open sometime next week, and a FEMA spokesperson said the department is “working with our federal partners to quickly source the request.” The exact locations of the testing sites have not yet been determined. (Harris, 1/4)

CBS News: Social Media Users Rack Up Views By Wasting COVID-19 Tests 
Some Americans seem determined to throw cold water on the merits of COVID-19 testing — literally. In the latest sign of ongoing public resistance to what is by now conventional medical wisdom about how to detect the disease, social media users are deliberately misusing scarce at-home COVID-19 tests to produce false positive results by running the devices under tap water. (Cerullo, 1/4)

The Wall Street Journal: Find Covid-19 Home Tests Using Online Product Trackers 
You don’t have to run all over town hunting for self-test kits. Just be ready to buy when the bot says they are in stock. During the holidays, getting a PlayStation 5 under the tree required patience, luck and an online bot-powered product tracker. Now, the same shopping tools can help people find at-home Covid-19 tests, which have grown scarce as the Omicron variant rages across the country. (Brown, 1/4)

ABC News: 79th Annual Golden Globes Will Have No Red Carpet, No Audience, No Media Coverage 
The upcoming Golden Globes will be a very quiet affair -- a far cry from what used to be known as the rowdiest awards show of the season. The 79th annual Golden Globes will be held Jan. 9 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California -- the same location as usual -- but this year there will be no audience, no red carpet and no media credentials provided for journalists to cover the event. (Iervolino, 1/4)

AP: Tech Founder Out After Antisemitic, Anti-Vaccine Screed
A Utah tech company founder and onetime prominent figure in state Republican politics resigned from the board of the company he started Tuesday after sending an email outlining an antisemitic vaccination conspiracy theory. David Bateman, founder and board chair of the company Entrata, claimed the COVID-19 vaccine is part of a plot by “the Jews” to exterminate people, Fox13 reported. (1/5)

The Washington Post: Civil Rights Advocate Ben Frazier Is Detained After Trying To Attend A DeSantis News Conference In Jacksonville
The handcuffing of a Florida community activist who wanted to sit in on a news conference Tuesday with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) quickly overshadowed the governor’s daily message criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Footage of Ben Frazier being handcuffed in Jacksonville spread across the Internet, leading Democrats to criticize the governor for the community organizer’s detention. DeSantis’s news conferences, in which he often blames the Biden administration for holding up monoclonal antibody treatment doses, are usually tightly controlled. (Rozsa, 1/4)

The Washington Post: Israeli Study Says Second Booster Causes Fivefold Antibody Jump 
A fourth shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine generated a fivefold boost in antibodies a week after the jab, according to preliminary results of a study made public by the Israeli government Tuesday. The findings offer one of the first looks at how effective a second booster shot might be at reducing the health impact of the omicron variant spreading rapidly around the globe. (Hendrix, 1/4)

The New York Times: Covid Vaccinations Do Not Lead To Pre-Term Births, Study Says 
Women who received Covid vaccinations while pregnant were at no greater risk of delivering their babies prematurely or of giving birth to unusually small babies than pregnant women who did not get vaccinated, a new study reports. The study, one of the first to examine the health of babies born to women vaccinated during pregnancy, was a reassuring signal. Low-birth-weight babies and infants born early are more likely to experience developmental delays and other health problems. (Rabin, 1/4)

Modern Healthcare: HCA Purchases Florida Urgent Care Network
HCA Healthcare has acquired the largest urgent network in Florida, the for-profit health system announced Tuesday. The Nashville, Tennessee-based hospital chain closed its purchase of MD Now Urgent Care and its 59 locations last month. Prior to the deal, HCA Healthcare operated 170 urgent care facilities around the U.S. "The addition of MD Now Urgent Care in Florida enhances our already strong capabilities in a rapidly growing state by providing convenient outpatient care options for our patients," HCA Healthcare CEO Sam Hazen said in a news release. "It also connects MD Now patients to a comprehensive statewide network of care, including acute care and specialty services should they be needed." (Devereaux, 1/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: Smoke Damage Closes Colorado Hospital For Foreseeable Future
Centura-Avista Adventist Hospital — the only full-service hospital in Louisville, Colo. — has closed for the foreseeable future due to smoke damage from the Marshall fire that spread across Boulder County. "There are no care services available at the hospital at this time. Patients who are in need of immediate care should go to the nearest hospital to receive services, or if you are having a life threatening emergency, please call 911," the hospital said in a statement Jan. 1. (Carbajal, 1/4)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Delaware County Memorial Hospital Is Closing Its Birthing Unit
Crozer Health plans to close the maternity and neonatal intensive care units at Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill and consolidate services at the larger Crozer Chester Medical Center in Upland, about 12 miles away. The changes will be effective Jan. 21, Crozer said Monday. A statement said it “is exploring transportation options for patients who may struggle with reliable transportation.” Crozer, owned by the for-profit Prospect Medical Holdings Inc., is making the change “to be able to continue providing the highest-quality care and maintain staffing and services for our community,” Crozer’s statement said. (Brubaker, 1/4)

Stat: Some Drug Makers Quietly Resumed Donations To Lawmakers Who Denied Biden's Election Victory 
Three major drug makers each donated tens of thousands of dollars last year to Republican members of Congress who voted against certifying President Biden’s election, despite pledges to withhold or pause such contributions, a new analysis found. During the second half of 2021, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson gave $32,500, $49,500, and $22,500, respectively, to members of the so-called “Sedition Caucus,” after claiming they would suspend contributions to members of Congress who voted against certifying the election, according to Accountable.US, a government watchdog that analyzed political contributions. (Silverman, 1/4)

The New York Times: N.Y. Prisons Punished 1,600 Based On Faulty Drug Tests, Report Finds
New York’s prison system unjustly penalized more than 1,600 incarcerated people based on faulty drug tests, putting them in solitary confinement, delaying their parole hearings and denying them family visits, the New York State inspector general said in a damning report released on Tuesday. The arbitrary penalties were meted out across the state over an eight-month period in 2019, while the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision relied on improperly administered drug tests made by the company Microgenics, the report found. The tests led to “rampant false positive” results for buprenorphine, an opioid used to treat addiction, as well as synthetic cannabinoids. (Zraick, 1/4)

The Washington Post: D.C. Students Will Get Free Pads And Tampons In School Bathrooms 
D.C. students will have access to free pads and tampons in school bathrooms, under legislation approved Tuesday by the D.C. Council. The bill, which was introduced by Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) — whose 2020 council campaign focused on the need for the legislature to better include the perspectives of women — requires public and private schools to stock period products in every girls’ and non-gender-specific bathroom in middle and high schools. (Weil, 1/4)

Stateline: More Americans Can Use Food Stamps For Restaurants, Prepared Meals
Maryland resident Rhona Reiss began speaking out about gaps in the food stamp program the day she learned it wouldn’t cover rotisserie chicken. Under long-standing federal policy, benefits can’t be used to buy hot or prepared foods—even for older adults like Reiss, who is 77. But that policy is shifting in Maryland and in states across the country. In the past two years, six states have opted in to a little-used federal program that allows older adults to use their food benefits on select, low-cost restaurant meals. The Restaurant Meals Program, as it’s known, also covers people with disabilities and people experiencing homelessness. The program is most widely available in California and Arizona, with newer entrants such as Maryland and Illinois still ramping up their operations. (Dewey, 1/4)

The Guardian: Okinawa May Declare Emergency Covid Measures As Virus Spreads From US Base 
Japan’s government is poised to declare a quasi-state of emergency on the southern island of Okinawa, media reports said, after a Covid-19 outbreak traced to US military bases spread to the civilian population. The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, could announce the measures this week, the Mainichi newspaper said, after Okinawa officials reported 225 new cases on Tuesday, including 47 of the Omicron strain. Tokyo, by comparison, registered 151 new infections. (McCurry, 1/4)

Fox News: COVID-19 Variant Found In France Nicknamed IHU: Report
An official from the World Health Organization told a press conference Tuesday that another COVID-19 variant has infected a dozen people in France and has been on the agency’s radar, according to a report. Bloomberg reported that the ‘IHU’ variant, which was nicknamed by researchers at the Marseille-based Mediterranee Infection University Hospital Institute (IHU), has infected individuals in the southern Alps region in the country. Abdi Mahamud, a WHO incident manager, told researchers in Geneva that it's too soon to "speculate on virological, epidemiological or clinical features" of the variant that was identified in November—at about the same time as omicron. (DeMarche, 1/5)

Bloomberg: WHO Downplays Threat Of Covid-19 Variant Found In France
The World Health Organization said a coronavirus variant found in France hasn’t become much of a threat since it was first identified in November. The variant “has been on our radar,” Abdi Mahamud, a WHO incident manager on Covid, said at a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. “That virus had a lot of chances to pick up.” The variant was identified in 12 people in the southern Alps around the same time that omicron was discovered in South Africa last year. The latter mutation has since traveled the globe and kindled record levels of contagion, unlike the French one that researchers at the IHU Mediterranee Infection -- helmed by scientist Didier Raoult --nicknamed IHU. (Fourcade and Mulier, 1/4)

Newsweek: French President Emmanuel Macron Says Someone Who Refuses COVID Vaccine Is 'Not A Citizen'
French President Emmanuel Macron has insisted that French people who continue to refuse to get COVID-19 vaccines are not acting like citizens. Macron made the remark during in interview published by the Le Parisien newspaper on Tuesday. The French president said he hoped to "hassle" those who were "irresponsible" enough to refuse vaccines into getting their jabs. ... "When my freedoms threaten those of others, I become someone irresponsible," he added. "Someone irresponsible is not a citizen." (Slisco, 1/5)

The New York Times: Britain Can ‘Ride Out’ The Omicron Wave Without A Strict Lockdown, Boris Johnson Says 
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain on Tuesday said that despite the record surge in coronavirus cases, the limited restrictions currently in place in England were the right approach and would be maintained. “We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again,” Mr. Johnson said at an evening news conference, adding, “We can keep our schools and businesses open, and we can find a way to live with this virus.” (Specia, 1/4)

CNBC: Omicron Wave Seems To Have Peaked In South Africa, London Next?
In a matter of weeks, the omicron Covid-19 variant — first detected in South Africa and Botswana in November — has surged around the world, leading to millions of new cases and the re-imposition of coronavirus restrictions in many countries. The U.S. and Europe have been rolling out booster shots as fast as they can following research findings by Covid vaccine makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna that the omicron variant undermines the effectiveness of the standard two doses of their Covid shots, but that booster shots significantly increase the level of protection against the variant. (Ellyatt, 1/5)

ABC News: COVID Outbreak In Belgian Research Station In Antarctica 
A research station in Antarctica is battling a COVID-19 outbreak despite being located in one of the most remote corners of the world. Since mid-December, 11 of the 33 workers at Belgium's Princess Elisabeth Polar Station have tested positive for the virus. (Kekatos, 1/4)

Bloomberg: Brazil Faces Virus Onslaught As Influenza Spreads With Omicron
Brazil’s hospital system may be at risk as a surge of influenza courses through the country just as the omicron strain takes hold. Some people have been hit by back-to-back infections -- or even come down with both at the same time, what’s been dubbed “flurona.” It’s happened in at least three states so far, and experts say that number is likely to grow as omicron, a more contagious variant of coronavirus, becomes more prevalent. “It’s not a surprise considering there are two highly infectious viruses circulating in Brazil at a time when people are being less careful with the use of masks and social distancing,” said Jean Gorinchteyn, the health secretary for the state of Sao Paulo, one of the three that has reported cases of simultaneous infections. (Viotti Beck, Aragaki and Gamarski, 1/4)

AP: Djokovic Medical Exemption Sparks Australian Open Debate 
With his medical exemption approved, Novak Djokovic may have some explaining to do when he gets to Melbourne to defend his Australian Open title. The exemption allows the top-ranked Djokovic entry to the tournament regardless of his vaccination status for COVID-19, a subject he has declined to clarify amid months of speculation he could miss the season-opening major unless he can prove he’s had two doses of a coronavirus vaccine. (Pye, 1/5)

Reuters: Djokovic Needs To Prove Exemption Or Go Home - Australian PM
Novak Djokovic needs to prove that he has a genuine medical exemption from COVID-19 vaccination when he lands in Australia or he will be "on the next plane home", Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday. The world No. 1 announced on Tuesday he received an exemption to play in the Grand Slam tournament in Melbourne and said he was heading to Australia. (1/5)