Ep. 96: News Roundup Week of 8/9/21

Heart & Home

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul (HOKUL) will succeed Andrew Cuomo as governor of New York after his resignation from office Tuesday following sexual-harassment accusations. She will be the first female governor in New York’s history. ——— Canada opened its border to fully vaccinated American tourists on Monday. The U.S. didn’t reciprocate. Although Canadians can continue to fly to the U.S. for nonessential purposes, as they have been permitted to do throughout the pandemic, they are not allowed to cross at the land border. ——- In Australia things are tightening up. It is becoming increasingly unlikely Sydney will end its nine-week lockdown on Aug. 28 as planned. Police in Australia hiked fines for people breaking lockdown rules in Sydney and the rest of its home state. strict stay-at-home orders were extended statewide today amid a record jump in daily new Covid-19 infections. ———- On Thursday, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc for people with compromised immune systems. On Friday, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended administering additional messenger RNA vaccine doses to certain immunocompromised people. Immunocompromised people who received a Johnson & Johnson shot aren’t currently eligible for an additional mRNA dose because there isn’t enough data to support such a recommendation, CDC and FDA officials told the panel. The FDA said other vaccinated individuals are protected and don’t need an additional dose of a Covid-19 vaccine but the agency is studying whether the general public will need additional doses in the future. Anthony Fauci believes eventually the third shot will be approved for everyone. ——— Climatologists in the US have said July 2021 was the hottest month in 142 years of recordkeeping. The previous record was set in July 2016. But the heatwave isn’t over. —— A new study published on Friday in the journal Science Advances reports severe illnesses and deaths from Covid-19 spiked on the West Coast in the weeks after catastrophic wildfires raged across the region last year. The increases in disease and death appear to have been aggravated by the smoke that blanketed parts of California, Oregon and Washington during the 2020 wildfire season. ———— Tropical depression Fred crossed Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba and expected to regain strength. It could become a tropical storm tonight as it nears Florida.