Coronavirus vaccine and COVID variant updates for 01-03-2022

<p>Top federal health officials in the U.S. are now looking to add a negative test along with its five-day isolation restrictions for Americans who test positive but have no symptoms. You keeping up with all this? The CDC is adding the test not because of science, but due to pushback on its new recommendations of last week that isolation be shortened from 10 days to five.</p><br><p>Does anyone want to be in charge anymore? The US President said recently he doesn’t believe there’s a federal answer to COVID and the states should handle it. Now the Governor of Colorado is saying there won’t be any state restrictions and local municipalities should handle it. The state has had a nearly 250% increase in infections over the last two weeks.&nbsp;</p><br><p>It may not be the most pleasant way to measure COVID but unlike at home tests, it sure is readily available, and more reliable. Health departments are increasingly using sewage samples for some coronavirus data that helps them better prepare. And bonus, you can also measure things like obesity, opioids, even polio. Coronavirus levels in those sewage samples across the country are higher now than at any point in the pandemic.&nbsp;</p><br><p>Well now we’re just making up words. It’s been confirmed you can catch COVID and the flu at the same time, and that’s being called “flurona.” A pregnant woman in Israel is believed to be the world's first case of flurona. Her symptoms are mild, but the message from health officials is…get COVID vaccines, get a COVID booster, and get the flu shot too.&nbsp;</p><br><p>You know how to discredit conspiracy theories? Don’t do exactly what the conspiracy theory says is going to happen. A tech start-up has a microchip that’s to be implanted in people’s arms so they can be scanned for their vaccination status. The managing director says he hears the criticism, but the technology is here to stay, like it or not.</p><br><p>In the United States, cases were up 202%, deaths are down 4%, and hospitalizations are up 30% over 14 days. The 7-day av