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With Nevada hospitals reporting a staffing “crisis” and health officials reporting COVID-19 patient tallies at pandemic highs, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak highlighted a program...to enlist nursing students to help meet the demand for medical providers...“The state continues to work with all of our partners to leverage existing resources and break down barriers so Nevadans in need can access care,” the governor...said on a day that health officials reported what Dr. John Hess, a University of Nevada School of Medicine associate faculty member, called a “challenging time” with case counts “incredibly high right now.”...READ MORE

Hospitals throughout Nevada are facing twin challenges as beds fill with COVID-19 patients and staff falls ill from the highly contagious omicron variant...“Nevada is experiencing an abrupt increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations, predominantly in the southern region following the holidays. People are flocking to hospital emergency departments seeking COVID-19 testing, compounding the staffing problem,” they said, describing the second week of January...“Hospitals are not over-run by a COVID-19 surge as much as being understaffed as employees in all fields report being sick and unable to work. This is also further compounded by a significant increase in people coming to the emergency department solely for testing. Hospitals are not testing sites,” the Nevada Hospital Association said...READ MORE

A booster shot of Moderna's authorized coronavirus vaccine significantly increases antibody levels against the omicron variant, according to the results of laboratory tests the company disclosed... The update comes days after another analysis indicated the initial two-shot regimen is less effective at neutralizing omicron than other variants like delta...As a result of the booster's apparent cross-protection against multiple variants, Moderna said it will focus its efforts away from a more complex "multivalent" shot and toward further study of its existing booster dose formulation. The biotech said it will still develop an omicron-specific booster, however, and aims to begin clinical testing of that in early 2022...READMORE

The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to preserve its vaccination mandate for healthcare workers after legal challenges in several states...The Department of Justice released a legal filing...that seeks to overturn a ruling from a federal court late last month that blocked the mandate in 10 states...a divided panel in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government’s motion to hold off enforcing the ruling until an appeal can be heard...This week, a federal appeals court reinstated in 26 states the administration's vaccination mandate for health workers at hospitals that receive federal funding. As it stands, the vaccine requirement for Medicare and Medicaid providers is blocked by courts in about half of U.S. states but not in the other half, creating the potential for patchwork enforcement across the country...READ MORE

GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology are rushing to speed up production of their COVID-19 therapy, now that they're the only companies with an antibody that appears to be truly effective against omicron...The FDA...cleared a Samsung Biologics site as a second manufacturing facility to make GSK and Vir’s Xevudy (sotrovimab)...Along with adding the new facility, GSK and Vir worked with external partners to secure additional batches of drug substance to support supply this year...READ MORE

One of the two drugs in the antiviral cocktail could cause serious interactions with widely used prescriptions, including statins, blood thinners and some antidepressants...the first antiviral pills for Covid-19 promise desperately needed protection for people at risk of severe disease. However, many people prescribed Pfizer’s or Merck’s new medications will require careful monitoring by doctors and pharmacists, and the antivirals may not be safe for everyone, experts caution...could cause severe or life-threatening interactions with widely used medications, including statins, blood thinners and some antidepressants. And the FDA does not recommend Paxlovid for people with severe kidney or liver disease...READ MORE

COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna should be "preferred" over Johnson & Johnson's shot, a U.S. government advisory panel said...after reviewing data on potentially dangerous blood vessel blockages from clotting associated with J&J's vaccine. The recommendation follows a strengthened warning the Food and Drug Administration added to the shot...The recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory panel...is likely to further constrain use of J&J's vaccine...READ MORE

...federal judge in Texas has denied attempts by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conceal data on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. The judicial rule overturned the regulatory agency’s plan to withhold data for up to 55 years...The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by a nonprofit organization called Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, which was formed to promote transparency of the COVID-19 vaccine data used to secure Emergency Use Authorization. In its lawsuit...the PHMPT claimed that under federal law, the data and information in the biological product file that was submitted to the FDA are expected to be available for public disclosure unless extraordinary circumstances have been shown. The judge presiding over the lawsuit agreed...The judge’s ruling demands that the FDA make the data publicly available within a span of eight months...READ MORE

Paxlovid and molnupiravir are the first oral treatments for COVID-19, potentially valuable new tools as the fast-spreading omicron variant fuels a sharp surge in cases across the U.S...The Food and Drug Administration...authorized the first pill for COVID-19, clearing for emergency use an antiviral treatment from Pfizer at a precarious moment in the two-year-old pandemic. One day later...the agency cleared a second pill developed by Merck & Co...READ MORE

Nevada health officials have confirmed the state’s second confirmed case of the coronavirus caused by the highly transmissible omicron variant, this time in a rural county...The second case was found in Churchill County in northern Nevada and involved an unvaccinated woman in her mid-40s, according to the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory...READ MORE