Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, six former health advisers for U.S. President Joe Biden are urging a different approach to fighting it. Writing Thursday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the advisers wrote three articles urging Americans to learn to live with the virus in a “new normal” as opposed to trying to eradicate it. “Without a strategic plan for the ‘new normal’ with endemic COVID-19, more people in the U.S. will unnecessarily experience morbidity and mortality, health inequities will widen, and trillions will be lost …

A team of scientists is sailing to “the place in the world that’s the hardest to get to” so they can better figure out how much and how fast seas will rise because of global warming eating away at Antarctica’s ice.  Thirty-two scientists on Thursday are starting a more than two-month mission aboard an American research ship to investigate the crucial area where the massive but melting Thwaites glacier faces the Amundsen Sea and may eventually lose large amounts of ice because of warm water. The Florida-sized glacier has gotten …

The World Health Organization says a new coronavirus variant recently detected in France is nothing to be concerned about right now. Scientists at the IHU Mediterranee Infection Foundation in the city of Marseille say they discovered the new B.1.640.2 variant in December in 12 patients living near Marseille, with the first patient testing positive after traveling to the central African nation of Cameroon. The researchers said they have identified 46 mutations in the new variant, which they labeled “IHU” after the institute, that could make it more resistant to vaccines …

World tennis No.1 Novak Djokovic has had his visa canceled by Australian authorities and is facing deportation. He had received a COVID-19 vaccination exemption to defend his title at the Australian Open but has reportedly failed to provide proper evidence to border officials. The Serbian is the defending Australian Open champion, and a nine-time winner of the event, but the government said Thursday he’s no longer welcome. He was detained at Melbourne airport Wednesday for several hours before border force officials announced that he had not met immigration regulations and …

Omicron may not cause as much lung damage as the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus, according to new lab studies. That, plus vaccination, may help explain why patients with omicron are not being hospitalized or dying as often as patients infected with previous variants. But omicron is still killing an average of 1,200 people each day in the United States, about equal to the peak of the second COVID-19 wave in July and August of 2020. “If it’s milder compared to delta; delta was horrible,” said Joe Grove, a …

Influential government advisers are strongly urging that teens as young as 12 get COVID-19 boosters as soon as they’re eligible, a key move as the U.S. battles the omicron surge and schools struggle with how to restart classes amid the spike.  All Americans 16 and older are encouraged to get a booster, which health authorities say offers the best chance at avoiding the highly contagious omicron variant. Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration authorized an extra Pfizer shot for kids ages 12 to 15, as well — but …