Just over two months ago, on Independence Day, President Joe Biden declared that the United States was “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.” Vaccines had driven down the average daily death toll from COVID-19 from more than 3,400 at the start of the year to around 400 in early July.  It didn’t last.  On Thursday, with about 1,500 Americans dying of COVID-19 each day, according to ourworldindata.org, Biden announced new measures aimed at beating back the virus again.  Public health experts applaud the stepped-up efforts, including …

Denmark Friday dropped proof-of-vaccination — or vaccine passports — requirements at nightclubs, the last of the European nation’s COVID-19 restrictions, after a successful vaccination program led to almost 87% of all adults being fully vaccinated. The European Center for Disease Control says as of Friday, nearly 90% of adults in Denmark have at least one dose and nearly 70% of its entire population.    Officials have been gradually lifting restrictions as vaccination levels increased, lifting mask requirements on public transportation August 14, and reopening nightclubs, lifting limits on public gatherings, …

The U.S. space agency on Friday will brief the media on the initial analysis of the first sample of a Martian rock collected by its Perseverance rover earlier this week. NASA confirmed the rover had collected the rock, releasing a picture of the sample inside a collection tube. The rover made a first attempt to collect a sample in early August, but the rock crumbled during the drilling and coring process. The rover moved to a different location earlier this month where the team selected a rock that held up better. Over the …

With no masks in sight, buzzing offices and concerts drawing tens of thousands, Denmark on Friday ditches vaccine passports in nightclubs, ending its last COVID-19 curb.The vaccine passports were introduced in March 2021 when Copenhagen slowly started easing restrictions.They were abolished at all venues on Sept. 1, except in nightclubs, where they will be no longer necessary from Friday.”We are definitely at the forefront in Denmark as we have no restrictions, and we are now on the other side of the pandemic thanks to the vaccination rollout,” Ulrik Orum-Petersen, a …

As the United States continues to deal with the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, President Joe Biden announced new sweeping vaccine mandates as part of a multipronged push to end the pandemic. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. Producer: Mary Cieslak  …

Africa is slated to receive 25% fewer COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year than it was expecting, the director of the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa said Thursday.The African continent, already struggling with a thin supply of vaccines while many wealthy nations initiate booster shot programs, has fully vaccinated just more than 3% of its residents.The global vaccine sharing initiative COVAX announced Wednesday that it expects to receive about 1.4 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year, as opposed to the projection …