What's the Benefit of a Fourth COVID Vaccine? Experts say additional boosters could provide diminishing returns Amanda D'Ambrosio medpagetoday

...  as daily infections break records and hospitals across the country near capacity during the Omicron surge, many people have raised questions about whether they'll need to get a fourth dose.

Covid-19 is "still a way off" of being endemic, WHO official says Covid-19 cannot yet be referred to as an endemic disease, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official has said. By <a href="/profiles/rhea-mogul">Rhea Mogul</a>, Adam Renton, Jack Guy and Ed Upright, CNN CNN

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Dr. Catherine Smallwood, Covid-19 incident manager at the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, told a virtual WHO Europe news conference Tuesday that Covid-19 is “still a way off” endemicity. 

Backround on why  rapid tests for COVID-19 are in such short supply

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At-home rapid antigen tests are reselling for triple the retail price on some digital marketplaces. Testing locations in L.A. County have been overwhelmed by mile-long lines, with some events canceled due to traffic. Some would-be self-testers have resigned themselves to driving between CVS and Walgreens locations, hoping to snag a kit at a reasonable price.

Companies are racing to fulfill the excess demand.

Abbott Laboratories, which makes the BinaxNOW rapid antigen test, expects to produce 70 million tests this month and is working to raise that to 100 million, said CEO Robert Ford.

U.S. breaks COVID-19 hospitalization record at over 132,000 as Omicron surges COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States reached a record high on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, as a surge in infections caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant strains health systems in several states. Maria Caspani,Lisa Shumaker Reuters

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There were 132,646 people hospitalized with COVID, surpassing the record of 132,051 set in January last year.

US hospitals letting infected staff members stay on the job | AP News Hospitals around the U.S. are increasingly taking the extraordinary step of allowing nurses and other workers infected with the coronavirus to stay on the job if they have mild symptoms or none at all. AP NEWS

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The move is a reaction to the severe hospital staffing shortages and crushing caseloads that the omicron variant is causing.