COVID-19

Early in the pandemic, nurses were celebrated as heroes, with nightly symphonies of clapping or banging pots and pans. Now, many are being asked to go into work despite positive Covid tests — or they say they are being told they must use their vacation and sick days to stay home when they contract the coronavirus.

“You’re talking about a group of people who sat at bedsides — not one a night, multiple, because we were consistently losing people. We were holding the iPads as people said their last goodbyes,” said Ana Bergeron, a registered nurse who is the president of a local union affiliate. “I can’t tell you how sick it makes me now being called a hero, because that’s not how we’re being treated by our employers.”​​

Mask rules get tighter in Europe in winter's COVID-19 wave | AP News ROME (AP) — To mask or not to mask is a question Italy settled early in the COVID-19 outbreak with a vigorous “yes." Now the onetime epicenter of the pandemic in Europe hopes even stricter mask rules will help it beat the latest infection surge. AP NEWS

... Other countries are taking similar action as the more transmissible — yet, apparently, less virulent — omicron variant spreads through the continent.