TV News LIES

The KP.3.1.1 COVID-19 variant is the dominant strain of the virus, the latest projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show.

The agency's Nowcast data tracker, which displays COVID-19 estimates and projections for two-week periods, projects the KP.3.1.1 variant is accounting for 36.8% of positive infections, followed by KP.3 at 16.8% in the two-week stretch starting Aug. 4.

"The KP.3.1.1 variant is very similar to other circulating variants in the United States. All current lineages are descendants of JN.1, which emerged in late 2023," Rosa Norman, a spokesperson at the CDC, previously told USA TODAY.

"At this time, we anticipate that COVID-19 treatments and vaccines will continue to work against all circulating variants,' she said. "CDC will continue to monitor the severity of variants and will monitor vaccine effectiveness."

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A salmonella outbreak linked to recalled cucumbers has reached 31 states and Washington, D.C., sickening at least 449 people, according to new information provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the beginning of June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a recall of cucumbers potentially contaminated with salmonella. The cucumbers were shipped to wholesalers and distributed in 14 states between May 17 through May 21.

The CDC discovered that cucumbers contaminated with one of two outbreak strains infected 449 people and hospitalized 125, the CDC announced on Wednesday. The likely source of some illnesses in that outbreak can be traced back to two Florida growers: Bedner Growers, Inc., of Boynton Beach and Thomas Produce Company, of Boca Raton, the CDC said.

Cucumbers from those companies are no longer being grown or harvested for the season.

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Indiana's attorney general has dropped a lawsuit that accused the state's largest hospital system of violating patient privacy laws when a doctor told a newspaper that a 10-year-old Ohio girl had traveled to Indiana for an abortion.

A federal judge last week approved Attorney General Todd Rokita's request to dismiss his lawsuit, which the Republican had filed last year against Indiana University Health and IU Healthcare Associates, The Indianapolis Star reported.

The suit accused the hospital system of violating HIPAA, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and a state law, for not protecting patient information in the case of a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to Indiana to receive abortion drugs.

The World Health Organization has declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern. Cases of mpox — previously called monkeypox — have been surging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In recent weeks, cases have appeared in nearby African countries, including several that have never reported mpox cases before.

"What we're seeing is tip of the iceberg" because of weaknesses in the surveillance system, says Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of the emergency committee convened by WHO and an infectious disease physician at Niger Delta University in Nigeria.

"This is something that should concern us all," says WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

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Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that over half of the United States have reported "very high" levels of COVID-19 activity.

Using wastewater or sewage, the CDC tests the water to see if there are any traces of an infectious disease within a community, the government agency says.

Data collected on Aug. 9 by the CDC showed that 27 states have reported "very high" levels of wastewater viral activity nationwide.