Millions more people in the United States will soon be able to receive an extra shot of any coronavirus vaccine, regardless of their initial vaccination — a flexibility that comes along with the authorization Wednesday of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson booster shots by federal regulators.
New York City on Wednesday announced that it is expanding its vaccine mandate to all public employees and it will also end the option of testing weekly instead of getting the vaccine.
State and local public health departments across the country have endured not only the public’s fury, but widespread staff defections, burnout, firings, unpredictable funding and a significant erosion in their authority to impose the health orders that were critical to America’s early response to the pandemic.
South Korea plans to ship almost 1.6 million doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to Vietnam and Thailand this week, the foreign ministry announced Tuesday, as the Southeast Asian nations struggle to contain the spread of the virus.
The donation comes as South Korea’s vaccination program has accelerated rapidly, with 70 percent of the population expected to be inoculated by the end of the month.
