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Worcester and eight other police departments will be conducting a gun buyback program Saturday as part of a collaborative initiative to try to reduce the number of firearms in the community.

People can drop off firearms, unloaded and wrapped up or in a bag, and collect a gift card for groceries without having to provide identification or weapon information.

With Central Massachusetts seeing another COVID-19 surge UMass Memorial Health is reporting a steep increase in inpatient cases over the last month and a lack of beds to meet current patient demand.

In four weeks, there has been a rise from 70 to 198 inpatient cases, Dr. Eric Dickson, the president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, wrote in an email to caregivers on Tuesday.

HOLDEN (CBS) – Karen Raphaelson walks very carefully around her active dogs these days, just off knee replacement surgery that she had to wait a year for. “It’s been pretty bad, I’d fall a lot, my knee would give out,” said Raphaelson.

Despite having one of the nation's highest vaccination rates, Massachusetts is in the midst of a full coronavirus resurgence. The state's daily case average is now at its highest point in nearly a year, and in the last month alone, new hospital admissions have more than doubled.

BOSTON (CBS) – Anxiety over rising COVID-19 numbers had the Cambridge Health Alliance vaccination clinic in Somerville packed Thursday. “Now another new prominent variant,” said Joe Mello, who got a booster.

This week’s COVID case numbers in Massachusetts are at the highest since January. The positivity rate is back where it was this time last year, at around 5%. “I just hope it doesn’t get any worse like before,” said Chuck Maxwell, as he got a booster shot.

Every morning, millions of people around the world tune in to Jonathan Graziano's TikTok account to find out what kind of day they'll have. The way this news is determined isn't by the stars or the moon or numerology, but by a 13-year-old pug named Noodle.

WORCESTER, Mass. - A new variant of COVID-19 discovered in South Africa is spreading and a local doctor says there are a number of mutations in this one and it could become the primary variant going forward.

Omicron has led at least 44 countries including the U.S. to impose travel restrictions from several African countries. There are currently no known cases in the U.S., but UMass Memorial Health internal medicine specialist, Dr. Robert Klugman, says there's a high chance there will be.

New COVID-19 cases continue to mount at an alarming rate, the state reported Thursday, with more patients streaming into already-strained hospitals just as the new Omicron strain of the virus appears to be taking a deeper hold in the United States.

President Joe Biden is expected to extend a mask mandate on all public transportation Thursday through mid-March as the first case of the new omicron COVID-19 variant has been detected in the United States.

He also wants inbound international passengers to take a COVID test within 24 hours of departure and plans to increase the availability of free at-home rapid tests.