Situation Report

Omicron offshoot XBB.1.5 could drive new Covid-19 surge in US | CNN The CDC estimates that XBB.1.5 has more than doubled its share of the Covid-19 pie each week for the last four, rising from about 4% to 41% of new infections over the month of December. Brenda Goodman CNN

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COVID variant XBB.1.5 now accounts for 40 percent of cases in the US: CDC The omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 has rapidly spread to become the dominant COVID-19 mutation in the U.S., now accounting for 40.5 percent of all cases. The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant as of this week … jchoi The Hill

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A promising new Covid pill shows key advantages over Paxlovid in trial A Chinese antiviral pill was found to be as effective as Paxlovid in a Phase 3 trial, and it appeared to cause fewer side effects. NBC News

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"You have a medication that looks to be just as good as Paxlovid, but less cumbersome," said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.

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Are U.S. Healthcare Workers Better Off Unionized? Study finds higher earnings and benefits, but unionization still stalled Jennifer Henderson medpagetoday

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Out of 14,298 healthcare workers surveyed, 13.2% reported union membership or coverage, with no significant trend from 2009 through 2021, according to Xiaojuan Li, PhD, of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, both in Boston, and colleagues.

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