EL PASO, Texas — It’s another major setback for Johnson & Johnson after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration added a warning that the J&J vaccine could be linked to a neurological condition. However, local experts say the benefits of the vaccine still outweigh the risk. The FDA announced the warning, flagging about 100 reports
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TORONTO, Canada — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that Canada could start allowing fully vaccinated Americans into Canada as of mid-August for non-essential travel and should be in a position to welcome fully vaccinated travelers from all countries by early September. Trudeau spoke with leaders of Canada’s provinces and his office released a
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EL PASO, Texas — ABC-7 has learned that the City of El Paso does not have the capability of testing for the Delta variant of Covid-19, which is the dominant strain in the U.S. “We do not have the capacity to test locally at our lab but our laboratory response network partners, where our testing
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SANTA FE, New Mexico — While many businesses have reopened and restrictions have been lifted, New Mexico’s top public health officials warned that the coronavirus pandemic is not over. Health Secretary Dr. Tracie Collins and Human Services Secretary Dr. David Scrase said during a briefing that their agencies are closely watching the spread of the more-contagious
Continue Reading AUSTIN, Texas — Austin city and Travis County public health officials on Thursday raised their coronavirus risk-based guidelines to Stage 3 for the first time since the winter surge, urging unvaccinated people to avoid nonessential travel and take other precautions after seeing a “dramatic increase” in new Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations in recent days. ABC affiliate KVUE
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GENEVA, Switzerland — The World Health Organization warned Thursday that the surging Covid-19 pandemic in many parts of the world increases the likelihood that new, potentially dangerous variants may emerge in the future. “The pandemic is nowhere near finished,” said Professor Didier Houssin, chair of the WHO Emergency Covid-19 Committee. The global surge in new cases has
Continue Reading LOS ANGELES, California — Los Angeles County’s public health officer says a rapid and sustained increase in Covid-19 cases in the nation’s largest county requires a return to mandatory mask-wearing indoors even when people are vaccinated. Dr. Muntu Davis told a virtual press conference Thursday that a public health order requiring masks indoors will go
Continue Reading WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned in a new advisory that health misinformation is “a serious threat to public health,” as administration officials grow increasingly concerned about misleading claims about coronavirus vaccines. Murthy appeared at Thursday’s White House press briefing to discuss the newly-released 22-page advisory. (You can watch it in
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WASHINGTON, DC — The Biden administration is starting to deposit child tax credit money into the bank accounts of more than 35 million families. President Joe Biden has expanded the credit for one year as part of coronavirus relief. The result is that most families will now qualify for monthly payments of as much as
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SANTA FE, New Mexico — A federal freeze on most evictions enacted last year is scheduled to expire July 31, after the Biden administration extended the date by a month. The moratorium, put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September, was the only tool keeping millions of tenants in their
Continue Reading DALLAS, Texas — A federal freeze on most evictions that was enacted last year is scheduled to expire July 31, after the Biden administration extended the date by a month. The moratorium, put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September, has been the only tool keeping millions of tenants in
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EL PASO, Texas — It’s a population that often gets overlooked, but El Paso County organizations are working to make sure the homeless population has the ability to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. More than 500 residents living at emergency and transitional shelters have received the Johnson & Johnson one-dose vaccine thanks to the El Paso
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NEW YORK, NY — Overdose deaths nationwide soared to a record 93,000 last year in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. government reported Wednesday. That estimate far eclipses the high of about 72,000 drug overdose deaths reached the previous year and amounts to a 29% increase. “This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever
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El PASO, Texas — The start of the school year for the El Paso Independent School District is just a couple weeks away. EPISD on Tuesday hosting a pair of virtual community meetings to provide parents with information on its plans to reopen schools. This upcoming semester starting Aug. 2 will be the first time
Continue Reading By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN The Department of Homeland Security is administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to immigrant detainees as part of an effort to scale up vaccinations for Covid-19 at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, ICE told CNN in a statement. DHS received an initial allocation of 10,000 vaccine doses and nationwide distribution is
Continue Reading WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. regulators on Monday added a new warning to Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine about links to a rare and potentially dangerous neurological reaction, but said it’s not entirely clear the shot caused the problem. The Food and Drug Administration announced the new warning, flagging reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an immune system
Continue Reading PARIS, France — French President Emmanuel Macron has ordered all French health care workers to get virus vaccines by Sept. 15 and urged all of his compatriots to get vaccinated as soon as possible. In a televised address on Monday, Macron also mandated special Covid-19 passes for anyone who wants to go to a restaurant,
Continue Reading By Jacqueline Howard, CNN Even though the biopharmaceutical company Pfizer has announced that it might be time to consider giving a third dose of its coronavirus vaccine to people, many doctors and public health officials argue that it’s more beneficial to get shots into the arms of the unvaccinated right now than to boost those
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NEW YORK, NY — Pfizer is about to seek U.S. authorization for a third dose of its Covid-19 vaccine, saying Thursday that another shot could dramatically boost immunity and maybe help ward off the latest worrisome coronavirus mutant. Pfizer and BioNTech have released initial data from a study on booster shots for their Covid-19 vaccine, saying
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EL PASO, Texas — An El Pasoan who was fully vaccinated has died of a Covid-19 infection, the first such incident in the Sun City, officials confirmed Thursday. A spokeswoman for the El Paso health department identified the victim as a woman in her 60s with underling health issues. Out of 2,658 El Paso County
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CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — More than a month after México announced its border vaccination efforts, people aged 18 to 39 in Ciudad Juárez now know they’re set to get their first Covid-19 shot next week. During a news conference Thursday morning, Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said Juárez will vaccinate that age group from July
Continue Reading BALTIMORE, Maryland — The global death toll from Covid-19 eclipsed 4 million Wednesday night as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant. The tally of lives lost over the past year and a half, as compiled from official sources by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to
Continue Reading By Keith Allen and Holly Yan, CNN A Covid-19 outbreak stemming from a Texas church summer camp has grown to about 160 cases, including infections of the highly contagious Delta variant, the Galveston County local health authority said. More than 450 people attended the camp for sixth through 12th graders in late June, hosted by
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EL PASO, Texas — Local doctors say exposures to household cleaning products increased dramatically during the height of the pandemic. As kids have more time on their hands during the summer, it’s important to keep an eye on items in order to prevent your kids from getting sick. Dr. Sarah Watkins with Texas Tech Physicians
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EL PASO, Texas — The El Paso Independent School District wants input from parents on how to bring your students back this fall safely. The district will host two virtual meetings next week on Tuesday, July 13.EPISD officials said they will discuss their plans on reopening schools for the upcoming school year.The meetings will also
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UPDATE, July 6: On Tuesday, the maquiladora vaccination effort was underway at the Tornillo port of entry. El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego told ABC-7 that almost 1,500 shots had been administered to Juarez factory workers on the first day of the bi-national program. As many as 200 maquiladoras are participating in the cross-border vaccination
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CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — Almost half of the contestants in the recent Miss Mexico pageant held in Chihuahua have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in what government leaders signaled was a super-spreader event. According to Mexican health officials, of the pageant’s 32 participants, 15 have tested positive. Two others associated with the pageant also tested positive, for
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CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO — México announced Tuesday morning that it will begin administering the Covid-19 vaccine to people aged 18 to 39 in Chihuahua border cities starting on Thursday, but Ciudad Juárez is not among the first ones. Mexican border cities have been vaccinating people from that age group in hopes that the U.S. will
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EL PASO, Texas — Fourteen El Pasoans were confirmed to have died from Covid-19 over the past week, health department officials announced Tuesday, with the youngest victims being in their 20s and 30s. Those fatalities brought the a cumulative pandemic death tally in El Paso County to 2,656. The latest victims included: 1 man in
Continue Reading Jobless residents of Maryland and Texas have filed lawsuits in state courts seeking to force their governors to reinstate pandemic unemployment benefits. They join an effort begun by out-of-work Indiana residents, who have yet to see their payments restart despite a court ruling last week ordering the state to continue the benefits. A judge in
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