With only 210,000 jobs added in November, America’s employers saw the slowest hiring pace in nearly a year. In the monthly jobs report, the Labor Department also noted that the unemployment rate dipped from 4.6% to 4.2%, proof that many people reported they had a job. President Joe Biden played up the drop in the…

The news of a new COVID-19 variant had the stock market seeing red this past week, but some stocks actually got an Omicron boost while the rest of the market got spooked. #5: Stay-at-home stocks Two of the stock market’s favorite pandemic plays, Zoom and Peloton, have had a rough go with reopening. But both…

Looking to avoid what happened last winter, President Joe Biden announced his administration’s strategy to address COVID-19 this winter. According to the New York Times, the United States’ 7-day average for new cases peaked at over 250,000 this past January. Weekly applications for unemployment benefits also peaked at around this time at over 900,000. “Just…

Health experts, world leaders, and news anchors have all been flubbing the pronunciation of Omicron, the latest COVID-19 variant. On Nov. 26, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, a COVID technical lead at the World Health Organization, announced to the world the newest COVID-19 variant and pronounced it “Oh-my-kraan.”  Three days later, President Joe Biden gave a briefing…

The California and San Francisco Departments of Public Health released a joint statement Wednesday announcing the first case of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 detected in the United States. According to the statement, “the University of California, San Francisco identified this case through their sequencing capabilities.” “California is continuing to monitor the variant’s presence and…

On the same day federal judges in two different courts blocked two different Biden administration COVID-19 vaccine mandates, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Tuesday it was working on tightening its current testing requirements for international travelers. Currently, fully vaccinated travelers are required to get tested within three days of boarding. “CDC is…

The World Health Organization announced a new and potentially more dangerous COVID-19 variant spreading across the globe called Omicron. Here’s how WHO named this variant.  In May, WHO announced it would use the Greek alphabet to name new COVID-19 variants, a practice once used by The National Hurricane Center when naming hurricanes.  Since implementing the…

In a narrow Tuesday afternoon vote of 13-10, an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Merck’s COVID-19 pill. Molnupiravir is an oral antiviral drug initially hailed as a potential game changer in the battle against Covid since it can be taken at home instead of at a hospital like other treatments.…

Stocks fell on Wall Street at the start of trading Tuesday, amid new details regarding the Omicron variant. Those details included comments from Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, who told the Financial Times he expected current vaccines would struggle with the variant. “There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level . . . we…

A day after reports started coming out that the Food and Drug Administration was looking to approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 boosters in kids ages 16 and 17, new details are leaving more questions than answers as to the origin of the new Omicron variant. According to those details, the Netherlands’ RIVM health institute found omicron in…