A medical worker prepares a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine at a temporary vaccination centre set up in the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast on December 21, 2021, after it opened as part of the accelerated roll-out of Covid-19 booster jabs. (Photo by PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 12:56 PM PT – Friday, November 18, 2022

Officials have announced that COVID-19 booster shots are going unused by a wide margin across the country. This has sparked mass concern over the possibility of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations surging again this winter.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 10% of people, about 30 million, aged five and older have received the updated bivalent shots.

The new bivalent boosters, which target two Omicron subvariants as well as the original viral strain, were purchased by the federal government in dosages totaling more than 170 million.

While uptake has been consistently minimal for children, older people are largely avoiding the new shots. Reports have showed that only 27% of those aged 65 and older have received the latest dose.

According to some public health experts, a lack of outreach and the wrong kind of messaging from health officials are contributing to the delayed uptake of the modified booster. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University, made a statement about the issue.

“Anecdotally, it sounds like a lot of people are still not aware that the bivalent boosters are available,” Rasmussen said. “If they are, many don’t seem to understand the importance of getting boosted at all—with bivalent or original recipe—and there is a decided lack of urgency in communications about it.” 

If people received the updated boosters at the same rate as the yearly flu shot it is estimated that up to 100,000 hospitalizations may be averted and 9,000 lives could be spared this winter.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh on October 23, 2018. (Photo credit should read FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:44 AM PT – Friday, November 18, 2022

The Biden administration told a U.S. Court that Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman is immune from litigation. This case is regarding the 2018 killing of the Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

The Crown Prince was named Saudi’s Prime Minister back in September. This came after U.S. intelligence determined that Bin Salman ordered the killing of Khashoggi.

Back in 2019, when Biden was still just a presidential candidate, he pledged to hold Bin Salman accountable over the matter.

“I think it was a flat-out murder,” the Democrat said. “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.”

A lawsuit was initially filed by Khashoggi’s widow, and by the late journalists civil rights group, Democracy for the Arab World Now. In a court filing on Thursday, attorneys for the Justice Department argued that as the head of a sitting government, Bin Salman was immune from a civil lawsuit.

The possibility of the United States government punishing Prince Mohammed for the murder of Khashoggi, a resident of the Washington metropolitan region, was rejected by Biden in February 2021. Biden claimed that at the time, there had never been a precedence for the U.S. to act against the head of a key partner.

The State Department described the administration’s request for the Saudi Crown Prince to be exempt from prosecution in American courts as “pure legal determination.” According to the State Department, upholding the idea of “sovereign immunity” contributes to ensuring that American leaders don’t have to worry about being hauled into international courts to defend themselves against claims from other nations.

The application is not legally binding, and the judge will eventually determine whether to award immunity. Thursday’s filing will likely lead to the dismissal of the case.