Biden interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle airs tonight https://t.co/DFoU27copv
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 5, 2023
Per The Hill:
President Biden on Friday will sit down with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle for his first interview since announcing his reelection bid last week, the network announced.
The two will discuss, “the administration’s infrastructure agenda, the 2024 campaign and recently announced reelection bid, the shaping GOP field, looming debt ceiling crisis, and more,” the network said in a news release. The interview will air Friday at 10 p.m. Eastern time.
Biden’s sit down with Ruhle is the first time he will speak at length about his reelection bid since it was announced last week. The president has had a relatively light public schedule in the time since, attending the White House correspondents’ dinner last Saturday and hosting a few events at the White House this week…
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Per Medical News Today, “WHO says COVID-19 health emergency is over as mortality rates reach all-time low”:
On May 5, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced in a virtual media briefing that COVID-19 is no longer a “public health emergency of international concern.”
The decision to end the pandemic’s emergency status after more than three years followed the 15th meetingTrusted Source of the WHO’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on May 4.
The WHO’s Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a media briefing the pandemic has been on a downward trend for more than a year, as population immunity has increased from both vaccination and infection, while mortality rates have decreased and overall pressure on health systems have eased…
More than three years since the WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency in January 2020, millions of people — estimates of around 7 million or more — have died. However, Dr. Tedros said those estimates could be closer to 20 million deaths, warning the virus still posed a significant global threat…
Dr. Katherine O’Brien, director of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals at the WHO, said in a media briefing the high risk of severe illness and death is still low in many countries around the world, particularly in those with high COVID-19 vaccination rates.
“Vaccines have played a really important role in protecting populations,” she said, noting the WHO’s announcement does not mean the fight against the virus is over. “The work remains essential for the life-saving nature of the vaccines,” she said…
From the Los Angeles Times, “The CDC is changing the way it monitors COVID-19 in the U.S. “:
Acknowledging that it is losing some of its eyes and ears across the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week unveiled a scaled-down COVID-19 surveillance system for the post-pandemic era.
The CDC’s new monitoring network won’t have the fine resolution on the coronavirus that the agency strove for during earlier stages of the pandemic. But it will lash together a raft of new and existing tools to keep an eye on the virus while also keeping broader tabs on the public’s health.
With the federal government’s three-year-old public health emergency set to expire next Thursday, the agency will begin to track COVID-19 cases alongside other respiratory illnesses, said Dr. Nirav D. Shah, the CDC’s principal deputy director. New cases of the pandemic virus, which has caused 1.1 million deaths in the United States and 6.9 million deaths worldwide, will eventually be lumped together with influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and other infections that can cause pneumonia and death in humans.
The CDC will still be able to alert communities to upticks in coronavirus spread based on its continued tracking of emergency department visits, COVID-19 hospitalizations and wastewater surveillance from local sewage plants. Reliable statistics on COVID-19 deaths will lag behind other data…
We’ll probably be discussing this in my next Covid Update, but that’s not till Wednesday and I know not every commentor sees it.
Friday Evening Open Thread: Programming Note / Pandemic MilestonesPost + Comments (66)