Government

White House shifts COVID-19 funds due to stalemate on new money The White House said Wednesday it is cutting funds from some areas of its COVID-19 response in order to shift money to vaccines and treatments, given that new funding remains stalled in Congress.  … lvella The Hill

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In the shift, $5 billion will go towards buying updated vaccines for the fall, $4.9 billion will go towards buying an additional 10 million courses of the Pfizer treatment Paxlovid and $300 million will go to buying more monoclonal antibody treatments...

French medics protest hospital crisis, deepened by COVID PARIS (AP) — Health workers protested Tuesday around France to demand more hiring and better salaries in public hospitals, after years of cost cuts that left medics submerged when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and are now forcing emergency rooms to cut services. AP NEWS

Nine unions and collectives organized a day of protest, including a demonstration outside the Health Ministry in Paris and in dozens of other towns and cities, to call the government’s attention to growing concerns about staff shortages.

Sacramento schools reinstate mask mandate amid COVID surge SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The Sacramento City Unified School District suggested that students resume wearing masks Friday as a soft start to a reinstated indoor masking mandate that takes effect on Monday amid a rising tide of COVID-19 in California. AP NEWS

The district announced the move Thursday when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moved Sacramento County into the “high” level of community transmission.

Gridlock could delay COVID funds until fall — or longer WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is headed for “a lot of unnecessary loss of life," the Biden administration says, if Congress fails to provide billions more dollars to brace for the pandemic’s next wave. AP NEWS

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