In the past four days, China has reported 119 new virus cases among people involved in the games, including 37 people who tested positive on Sunday and 34 on Saturday, according to Olympics organizers. The organizers said most of those people have tested positive for the virus after arriving at the Beijing airport. On Sunday, eight athletes and team officials were among 28 people who tested positive at the airport....

The VA reported that 6,772 patients in its care have died from COVID-related complications since last March. That’s more than the combined deaths from Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2010) and Operation Enduring Freedom Freedom (2001-14), where the Defense Department (DoD) lists 6,756 total military deaths. Not included among the VA’s COVID death total are another 95 employees who contacted the virus in recent months and also died from complications. The DoD doesn’t say which areas of the clinics or hospitals where those employees worked, nor how they came in contact with the virus, according to Military Times....

Hospitalizations overall are down from this point last year but admissions among the 18-29 demographic and 0-17 demographic have been ticking up since mid-December. Younger people are still less susceptible to becoming seriously ill with COVID-19 than older people, but New York officials are warning that kids are being hospitalized at alarming rates. “We are alerting New Yorkers to this recent striking increase in pediatric COVID-19 admissions so that pediatricians, parents and guardians can take urgent action to protect our youngest New Yorkers,” New York Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said in a statement....

And pandemic over-regulation has made the challenges of my son’s life infinitely harder—as it has the lives of countless other individuals with disabilities. Throughout the pandemic, young children with autism and other special needs have been kicked off of flights, have been banned from flying, denied entry into museums, thrown out of bookstores and had their education stunted. They have been generally treated like loathsome vectors of disease, like contagiants....

England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, on Wednesday urged the public to scale back their Christmas plans to prevent the spread of the highly transmissible variant. Wednesday’s number was about 10,000 higher than the previous peak in daily infections reported in January. Whitty said that Britain is being hit by “two epidemics on top of each other” and that people should treat social activity at Christmas with caution. “People should be prioritising those things, and only those things, that really matter to them,” Whitty told a press briefing....

The incident took place at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, a city in Los Angeles County, California last week, KABC reported. Sheriff’s deputies told the station that a man in the hospital’s COVID-19 unit brutally beat his roommate, an 82-year-old man, with the oxygen tank on the morning of December 17. The victim of the attack died the next day. The two men did not know each other, according to the station, and investigators are working to determine the motive for the attack....

Dr. Rebecca Karb, an emergency medicine physician and faculty member at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, said: “Last night, one of my (many) patients with COVID told me she had a large Thanksgiving dinner with family—22 people,” in a post Tuesday on Twitter. “The day after, one family member tested positive. Since then (according to my patient) ALL 22 people have developed symptoms, some severe....

Here we look at five states where the number of residents per 100,000 people who received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine are highest in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). All vaccine data below presents the latest numbers reported as of Monday 9 a.m. local time, according to the CDC. The figures for doses distributed and people who received their first dose include totals for both the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines....

“We are looking at all possible solutions for staying safe while gradually returning back to normal, including the use of vaccination certificates to demonstrate a person’s vaccination status. “We are currently in the phase of developing a vaccine, the first step towards a lasting exit out of the current pandemic. When an effective and safe vaccine has been developed, it should quickly be deployed, and its safety and effectiveness will continue to be monitored in the process known as ‘pharmacovigilance’....

The goal of the executive order is to ensure that “inpatient healthcare facilities have sufficient resources and personnel to treat patients suffering from COVID-19 and to ensure that inpatient facilities and outpatient settings have sufficient resources to administer COVID-19 vaccinations.” The list of licensed professionals that will now be able to vaccinate people in the state now includes certified nurse assistants, practical nurses, podiatrists, optometrists, chiropractors, dentists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, veterinarians, respiratory therapists, speech-language pathologists, and surgical assistants....

The “one-stop shop website,” as the Biden Administration describes the site in a press release, primarily serves to consolidate COVID-19 information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While health experts think the site will be useful, the lack of real-time information is a major point of criticism. “I think that this website does not offer that much more than was previously available, except everything is on one website and easily accessible to the public,” Aaron Glatt, MD, chief of infectious disease at Mount Sinai South Nassau in West Hempstead, NY, told Verywell....

According to ESPN’s Todd Archer, Smith’s decision to switch from his No. 54 jersey to his desired No. 9 jersey will come with a “mid-six-figure cost,” as he’ll have to buy out the entire inventory of his No. 54 jerseys and T-shirts currently available for sale. Had Smith waited until 2022, he wouldn’t have had to pay a dime to make the switch. But apparently, he wants the number badly enough that the cost doesn’t matter....

Ever since he started having celebrities and athletes read mean-spirited tweets on his show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” other outlets have followed suit. The Cowboys recently joined the fun, releasing a video Friday of their players reading angry tweets from fans. MORE: Top 10 Dallas Cowboys of all time | Cowboys feeling early impact of Greg Hardy Players such as receiver Terrance Williams and cornerback Brandon Carr received a lot of the heat....

As the Cowboys gear up for a preseason game against the Rams on Saturday, notably absent Ezekiel Elliott has returned to the Lonestar State after his holdout/personal training camp in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The photos of Elliott below made their rounds online and gained heavy skepticism before WFAA reporter Mike Leslie confirmed it was indeed the star running back. Maybe most notably in the report from Leslie is that Elliott’s training team flew back to Dallas with him, indicating this is more than a quick trip back home to run a few errands....

Romo has been the face of Dallas for about a decade now, but perhaps it’s time for a change. Prescott has a lot of promise, and quotes from Cowboys Executive Vice President Stephen Jones to MMQB indicate just how much the team likes him. The Cowboys tried desperately to move up in the first round to select Paxton Lynch (who went to Denver), but ultimately couldn’t. Now? They wouldn’t even trade Prescott for Lynch straight up....

MORE: Cowboys’ Ezekiel Elliott involved in Dallas bar incident A post shared by Lucky Whitehead (@luck2fast) on Jul 16, 2017 at 3:54pm PDT Whitehead wrote about his stolen dog in an Instagram post: “I’ve taken some time to collect my thoughts on this subject matter, and it’s very heartbreaking to say that Blitz has been stolen from my home last Sunday. While out of town, Blitz was being taken care of by a close friend at my house and someone broke in and took him....

The Coyotes moved up from 20 to 16 to select Chychrun, a 6-2, 200-pound defenseman who is the son of former NHL player Jeff Chychrun. To move up four spots, the Coyotes sent the 20th pick, originally owned by the Rangers, and the 53rd pick, along with forward Joe Vitale. MORE: Sights from the NHL Draft | Leafs take Auston Matthews No. 1 The Red Wings also sent Pavel Datsyuk’s contract to the Coyotes, who will have to eat the $7 million remaining on Datsyuk’s contract and include that amount in their 2016-17 salary cap....

Critics and fans agreed. At the end of the film’s gala screening last week, the black-tie audience in the Palais des Festivals leapt to its feet and gave a rare 20-minute standing ovation. The reason the picture works so well, says its leading lady, Cecilia Roth, is because of Almodovar’s clear–if extreme –view of the world. “Pedro can watch everything without prejudice,” Roth explains. “And he can transmit that to you when you watch his movies on the screen....

The TNT broadcaster is about to receive a rare third bone marrow transplant from an anonymous donor, Sager’s son Craig Sager II said Tuesday. The elder Sager began preparing for the procedure in July, which forced him to skip the Rio Olympics. MORE: Sager’s suits light up the NBA world That is one of the few assignments he has missed since being diagnosed. Sager has kept an exhausting schedule as he balances his work and recovery responsibilities, all the while maintaining a powerful positive outlook....

It’s actually unlikely. Industry experts say it would be suicidal for a company with a valuable brand name to dabble in spam, which is about as reviled a sales tool as the intrusive dinnertime telemarketing phone call. Still, spam is now thought to account for one in 10 e-mails over the Internet. As a result, ISPs must buy more hardware to handle the load, and consumers may eventually foot the cost in higher ISP bills down the road....