Mask rules get tighter in Europe in winter's COVID-19 wave | AP News ROME (AP) — To mask or not to mask is a question Italy settled early in the COVID-19 outbreak with a vigorous “yes." Now the onetime epicenter of the pandemic in Europe hopes even stricter mask rules will help it beat the latest infection surge. AP NEWS

... Other countries are taking similar action as the more transmissible — yet, apparently, less virulent — omicron variant spreads through the continent.

Access Health CEO Jeff Fortenbacher's nonprofit tries to provide better health care by offering l0wer-cost health insurance and offering counseling and care to low-income and minority patients around Muskegon, Mich., where the rate of full vaccination in that population is at a mere 14%.

He says the challenges of reaching these communities has gotten even harder lately. "It just cuts across that whole issue of trust and suspicion and not getting the information," he says. After two years of recommendations on masking, isolation, travel and vaccines, many are just checked out. "I mean, it's almost like white noise."

Even as the omicron variant of the coronavirus wreaks havoc on hospitals and COVID-19 kills over 1,500 Americans every day, public health leaders are struggling to get people to tune in to guidance that could help stem the contagion.

UK virus hunting labs seek to bolster global variant network | AP News LONDON (AP) — The air conditioners hum constantly in the lab at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, countering the heat thrown off by rows of high-tech sequencing machines that work seven days a week analyzing the genetic material of COVID-19 cases from throughout the U.K. AP NEWS

...