Congressman Carlos Gimenez (R-FL-26) called for reduced coronavirus regulations on the cruise industry, penning a letter to Jeffrey Zients, the White House COVID coordinator.
The letter, which gathered bipartisan support, criticized a new program implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that will require cruise lines to report the vaccination status of passengers and crew for each ship, if they opt into the program.
Read the full story
Anew CDC report states a prior case of COVID-19 protected people from infection better than vaccinations did during the delta wave last summer and fall.
The findings were published Wednesday in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and is based on new research from the agency and health officials in California and New York that appears to contradict public health messaging that pushed for vaccinations.
Still, experts say the vaccination shots remain the safest way to protect against the worse side effects of contracting COVID, according to NBC News. During the height of the virus’s delta-variant surge last summer, essentially all hospitalized COVID patients were not vaccinated.
Read the full story
Democrat Nashville lawmakers Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville-HD55) and Sen. Brenda Gilmore (D-Nashville-SD19) filed a bill that would change the start times of high schools and middle schools, ostensibly giving students more time to sleep.
HB1836 and SB1818 were filed on Wednesday and amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 49-6-3004, by adding “Beginning with the 2023-2024 school year, each public high school shall begin classroom instruction no earlier than eight-thirty a.m. (8:30 a.m.). Beginning with the 2023-2024 school year, each public middle school shall begin classroom instruction no earlier than eight o’clock a.m. (8:00 a.m.).” These changes would go into effect for the 2023-2024 school year.
Read the full story
Attorneys for the federal government announced they are withdrawing an appeal in the State of Florida’s fight against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s conditional sailing order. The back-and-forth fight between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) administration and the CDC ends.
Florida and the federal government have been in a legal battle since last summer when the CDC imposed their conditional sailing order on cruise lines. According to the order, cruise ships were required to complete four phases of certification before returning to operation, including vaccination status.
Read the full story
Ahead of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on vaccine mandates expected as early as this week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is under increased scrutiny after recent comments about COVID-19 deaths.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky fell into controversy after a clip of her appearance on Good Morning America Friday went viral.
“I want to ask you about the encouraging headlines we’re talking about this morning, a new study talking about just how well vaccines are working to prevent severe illness,” co-host Cecilia Vega said on Good Morning America. “Given that, is it time to rethink how we’re living with this virus if it is potentially here to stay?”
Read the full story
For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is acknowledging that comorbidities are behind a vast majority of deaths from the virus.
“The overwhelming number of deaths – over 75 percent – occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who were unhealthy to begin with,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, said on “Good Morning America.”
Read the full story
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Thursday declined to comment recently revealed revelations that Pfizer is not currently shipping its fully Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccine called Comirnaty in the United States.
Instead, Pfizer continues to ship – and healthcare providers continue to distribute – the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which has only received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) approval from the FDA.
Read the full story
Ohio State University along with CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, teamed up to open a new drive-thru COVID-19 testing facility capable of administering 1000 tests per day to students at the school.
“We know that testing is an important tool in our battle against COVID-19,” said Dr. Andrew Thomas, interim co-leader and chief clinical officer at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center said in a press release. “We remain committed to supporting the central Ohio community and to meeting the increased demand for COVID-19 testing. At this point, our focus is testing individuals with COVID-19 symptoms and those with significant exposures to people known to have COVID-19. Knowing your COVID status can help prevent you from spreading this virus to family members, friends and others you come in close contact with.”
Read the full story
Fairfax County Fire and Rescue is making major adjustments to its services as it deals with an outbreak of COVID-19 cases.
“Due to an increase in the number of COVID cases among staff, the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department (FCFRD) has implemented temporary staffing adjustments to ensure we maintain the highest level of service possible to our community while balancing personnel challenges,” the department said in a press release. “Currently, 66 employees have tested positive for COVID. An additional 12 FCFRD staff are in quarantine.”
Read the full story
The Dole Company announced a recall last week on specific products due to possible listeria contamination. Many variations of Dole’s bagged salads that had been processed in Bessemer City, NC, and Yuma, AZ were found to have been contaminated with listeria.
In the statement from Dole, “all Dole-branded and private label packaged salads” that were processed at both locations were possibly contaminated. It added that both locations would temporarily suspend operations and undergo an extensive cleaning and sanitizing protocol.
Read the full story
Healthcare workers are up in arms over a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emergency guidance that allows healthcare workers who have had “higher risk exposures” to COVID, and even those infected with COVID to return to work after a five day quarantine as long as they’re asymptomatic.
Nurses groups are condemning the CDC’s guidance as “potentially dangerous” for both workers and patients.
Earlier this month, the CDC issued the alert to health care workers across the United States as a “contingency” plan for anticipated staffing shortages due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Read the full story
A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health (FDOH), responding to an inquiry by The Florida Capital Star related to COVID vaccines, said he was unsure if any of the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) fully approved COVID vaccine -Comirnaty – was being distributed in Florida. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Comirnaty in August.
The FDOH spokesperson said he was aware of the continued use of the experimental version of the Pfizer vaccine.
Though Pfizer has shipped Comirnaty to the European Union, the vaccine’s availability in the U.S. is unclear.
Read the full story
Few would argue the United States, or any country for that matter, was prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, even though, starting in 2003, the U.S. devoted $5.6 billion to fund Project Bioshield, running through 2013, and another $2.8 billion of funding through 2018. Project Bioshield was designed to prepare the United States against a bio attack, including provisions for the stockpiling and distribution of vaccines.
Though Covid-19 was a new virus, congressional testimony from 2003 paints a concerning picture about what we knew – and when – about the family of viruses from which it originated.
“I am particularly interested in learning how Project BioShield would assist in addressing the current public health emergency created by the epidemic known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome [SARS],” said Tom Davis, chairman of the Committee on Government Reform. “More than 2,000 suspected cases of this mysterious disease have been reported in 17 nations, including the United States, with 78 fatalities. So far, there is no effective treatment or vaccine to combat this deadly syndrome.”
Read the full story
Although the COVID-19 vaccine has been widely available since spring, so-called “breakthrough” cases, where someone contracts the coronavirus after being vaccinated, are spiking in parts of the country including Arizona. Nearly 18 percent of new COVID-19 infections in September were among the vaccinated. The majority of them received the Pfizer vaccine, although substantial numbers of breakthrough cases happened after receiving the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, in mid-April, there were 495 breakthrough cases in Arizona. Now, there are 49,962. Of those, 376 people have died, although their cause of death wasn’t specified.
Read the full story
Students as young as five years old may still need to wear masks in school after the COVID-19 vaccine is approved for children ages 5-11, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said in a White House briefing Wednesday. Walensky did not discuss if or when children would not be required to wear masks in school.
“After we have authorization from (the Food and Drug Administration) and recommendations from the CDC, we will be working to scale up pediatric vaccination. That said, it will take some time … as we head into these winter months, we know we cannot be complacent,” Walensky stated.
Read the full story
On Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article noting that California has some of the lowest COVID-19 case rates in the US, even though the Golden State’s vaccination rate lags many states that are currently struggling with the delta variant.
“One clear example is the New England states of Vermont and Maine,” the Chronicle reported. “Relatively shielded from the worst of the nation’s previous surges, they have struggled against the delta variant, which has sent their case rates soaring.”
Read the full story
A series of economic struggles that have grown increasingly worse this year will likely have a significant impact on the holiday season, many economic experts predict.
After President Joe Biden gave remarks from the White House this week, one reporter called out, “Will Christmas presents arrive on time, sir?” The president did not respond to that question or the flurry of others as he walked away from the podium.
Read the full story
Competition tends to bring about a better product or service, at a lower price, than does monopoly. This is a basic premise held by virtually all economists, disputed by pretty much no one in the profession. The entire antitrust edifice of the American system is built upon this foundational aspect of the dismal science.
And yet when push comes to shove, our society jettisons this insight, at least when it comes to assuring the quality of our food and drugs.
The Food and Drug Administration is a monopoly agency entrusted with this task. Its word is final concerning such matters. No competition is allowed. If a private agency set itself up as an alternative, it would first be subjected to raucous laughter, and then its creators jailed.
The FDA is a licensing agency. If it does not approve of a food or drug, it is illegal to offer it for sale. What is the non-monopolistic alternative to this sad state of affairs? This is called certification. How, pray tell, does this work? It is simple. Different firms set themselves up as evaluators of the quality of food and drugs, and each of them subjects these products to their examinations. They certify some as approved, and list others as not approved.
Read the full story
The CDC adopted a “double-standard exclusively for COVID-19 data collection” that inflated cases and deaths starting early in the pandemic, violating multiple federal laws and distorting mitigation policies, Oregon lawmakers told the feds’ top lawyer in the state.
Advised by “a large team of world-renowned doctors, epidemiologists, virologists, and attorneys,” state Senators Kim Thatcher and Dennis Linthicum petitioned U.S. Attorney Scott Asphaug to approve a grand jury investigation into how the pandemic is being measured.
Read the full story
Rep. Rashida Tlain (D-MI-13) admitted on video Wednesday that she only wears a mask when the cameras are rolling.
“I’m only wearing it because I have this Republican tracker over here,” Tlaib said when asked by a man whether he should put on a mask.
Read the full story
Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac this week responded to criticism he received in Rolling Stone for his personal decision not to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
The article, called “The NBA’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Trying to Push Around the League — And It’s Working,” chastised the 23-year-old basketball pro, who has had COVID-19, and recovered from the virus.
Read the full story
On Friday, September 17, the CDC published a study that refutes the common claim that COVID-19 is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Coauthored by more than 50 MD’s and Ph.D.’s, the study contains data on the vaccine status of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 (C-19) at 21 U.S. hospitals across 18 states during March to August of 2021.
Contrary to assertions from the Associated Press and Anthony Fauci that fully vaccinated people comprise only 1% of those being hospitalized or killed by C-19, the study found that 13% of patients hospitalized with C-19 had been fully vaccinated. Moreover, that 13% figure is just the tip of the iceberg because the authors excluded from their study a large group of hospitalized C-19 patients, the bulk of whom were likely vaccinated.
Read the full story
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that a southern Arizona county has reached 99.9 percent vaccination of its eligible population, apparently the first county in America to reach that benchmark since the COVID-19 vaccine became available earlier this year.
Santa Cruz County, which includes the city of Nogales, is almost completely vaccinated, though the county’s Heath and Human Services (HHS) Director says the numbers may be a bit inflated.
Read the full story
One of the key reasons I left the Democratic Party years ago was the atrocious way they treated black people.
I’m not just talking about “Jim Crow” or LBJ’s well-known patriarchal and racist use of the “n-word” to celebrate blacks voting Democratic forever in gratitude for his ultimately useless early “virtue signaling” called the “War on Poverty.”
(Notice any difference between South Central then and now?)
Read the full story
The tens of thousands of Afghan refugees being imported into the United States by the Biden Administration are carrying numerous dangerous diseases in addition to the Chinese coronavirus, including malaria, measles, and tuberculosis, as reported by Breitbart.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) admitted to the influx of diseases through the Afghan arrivals in a statement on Monday, declaring that all of the refugees will be required to take the measles vaccine; however, there are still no measures in place to require them to receive a coronavirus vaccine.
According to the CDC press release, they had been “notified by public health departments of 16 measles cases among the evacuees.” Subsequently, they ordered that “evacuees who are in the United States are required to be vaccinated with MMR and complete a 21-day quarantine from the time of vaccination at U.S. ‘Safe Haven’ designated locations.”
Read the full story
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance ultimately hindered the U.S. response to the pandemic, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote in his upcoming book “Uncontrolled Spread,” set to be released Sept. 21.
Gottlieb said in the book that U.S. intelligence agencies need to play a more active role in preparing for a pandemic, as opposed to leaving plans solely to health agencies like the CDC.
“We need to have human assets in the medical community so we understand when an outbreak emerges,” Gottlieb said, Axios reported. “We need to have the capability of monitoring typical streams of intelligence, like signals intelligence and maybe even satellite intelligence, looking for things that could be trip wires for an outbreak of disease.”
Read the full story
Tennessee’s Attorney General this week sent a letter to the Biden Administration challenging the legality of the the forty-sixth President’s recent COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
“I would encourage everyone eligible, in consultation with a doctor, to get a COVID vaccination,” Attorney General Herbert Slatery III said in a statement. “It is one effective way out of this pandemic. However, this vaccine-or-test mandate appears to be an unprecedented expansion of federal power and fails to consider the steps individuals, employers, and our state have already made.”
Read the full story
In defiance of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for group gatherings, Georgia faculty and students have coordinated weeklong protests of the University System of Georgia.
The students are gathering to demand that the University System implement a mask mandate on all of the state’s publicly-run university campuses.
Read the full story
In a terse essay titled “Science and Dictatorship,” Albert Einstein warned that “Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech.” And on his deathbed, Einstein cautioned, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.”
With reckless disregard for both of those principles, powerful government officials and big tech executives have corrupted or suppressed the central scientific facts about face masks. The impacts of this extend far beyond the issue of masks and have caused widespread harm and countless deaths.
Read the full story
New research published by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Bangladesh, which tracked mask-wearing among 340,000 Bangladeshi adults, indicates mask usage can considerably reduce the spread of symptomatic COVID-19.
Some medical professionals, however, remain uneasy about mask mandates in schools because of their possible impact on children’s learning and social health.
Read the full story
Top U.S. health officials told the White House pandemic coordinator on Thursday to scale back the Biden administration’s plan to administer the coronavirus booster shots to individuals in September, The New York Times reported.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey D. Zients that they need more time to collect and analyze the necessary data relating to the booster shots, The New York Times reported.
The doctors told Zients that their agencies might be able to determine whether to recommend boosters for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the coming weeks, according to the Times.
The two doctors presented their argument to Zients at a meeting on Thursday. It is unclear how Zients responded to the news.
Read the full story
Alan Dershowitz says calls for the impeachment of Joe Biden are “wrong.” He claims in his most recent op-ed at the D.C. establishment’s favorite Republican rag, The Hill: “Whatever one may think of what Biden did or failed to do, it does not constitute an impeachable offense under the text of the Constitution.” With all due respect, Dershowitz is full of crap.
“The Framers,” Dershowitz writes, “insisted that a president could not be impeached unless he committed criminal-type conduct akin to treason and bribery.” If this is true, then why did President Thomas Jefferson call for the impeachment of a federal district judge on the grounds that he was “a man of loose morals and intemperate habits?” Jefferson was a prominent founder, who greatly influenced the framers of the Constitution.
Read the full story
Some Arizona school officials are in a feud with Governor Doug Ducey and the Arizona Legislature over implementing mandatory mask policies, but some of those officials have been caught not wearing masks themselves. Arizona Superintendent of Schools Kathy Hoffman, a Democrat, was spotted not wearing one along with others at a baby shower. Not a single person present had a mask on or was social distancing. Amphitheater Public Schools, which mandated masks on August 16, posted a photo of their Communications Director Michelle Valenzuela, posing without a mask on, clearly standing within a couple of feet of the photographer. They deleted the tweet.
Ducey is confident the school mask mandates will not hold up in court. He said earlier in August, “COVID has been with us for well over a year and a half now, and Arizonans are educated about it. If they want to wear masks, they should absolutely do so. It’s an individual choice. No one and no law anywhere in Arizona is stopping anyone from wearing masks. Ultimately, these mandates are toothless, unenforceable and will not hold up in court.”
Read the full story
The Wayne County Public Health Department issued a new order mandating school districts and daycare providers require students, faculty, staff, and visitors to wear a face mask while in school and during school-sponsored indoor events.
The order takes effect immediately directing public, private, and parochial schools and daycare providers to:
Require indoor wearing of face masks for all pre-kindergarten through grade 12 students, regardless of their vaccine status; and,
Require face masks to be worn indoors by all teachers, administrative staff, other employees, parent and guardians, attendees, and volunteers.
The order remains in effect until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorize COVID-19 community transmission for Wayne County as “moderate” for at least 14 consecutive days or further notice by Wayne County officials.
Read the full story
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) secured a $13 million grant from the federal government to support COVID-19 testing and mitigation in 51 small, rural hospitals.
“Our top priority is supporting the brave professionals on the frontlines of our health care industry in every corner of our state to ensure that they have what they need to protect themselves, their family, and their neighbors,” Whitmer said in a statement. “This funding will help rural hospitals continue serving their communities by expanding their COVID-19 testing capacity and mitigation efforts. I want to thank the nurses, doctors, and all medical professionals who continue to go above and beyond to keep people safe each and every day.”
Rural hospitals with fewer than 50 staff will be able to use the funds from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration for testing equipment, personnel, temporary structures, or education. Mitigation strategies must follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) community mitigation framework, including education, contact tracing, communication, and outreach. Each hospital will receive about $257,000 that must be spent within 18 months of receipt.
Read the full story
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul disclosed on her first day in office nearly 12,000 COVID-19 deaths that were previously unreported in the state’s data tracker during former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration.
The New York State Department of Health’s COVID-19 data tracker reported Wednesday nearly 55,395 virus deaths in the state reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the start of the pandemic, just under 12,000 more than the roughly 43,400 COVID-19 deaths disclosed in the state-managed tracker on Cuomo’s last day in office.
The discrepancy results from the Cuomo administration’s decision to report only laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases in which patients died at hospitals, nursing homes and adult care facilities. The Cuomo administration’s tally deliberately excluded New Yorkers who died from COVID-19 at their homes, hospices, state prisons or state-run homes for those with disabilities.
Read the full story
The American Medical Association (AMA) is calling for public and private vaccine mandates.
“With the highly transmissible and more virulent Delta variant wreaking havoc and emergency departments once again overwhelmed, physicians and all frontline health care workers need help,” the AMA said. “The way to regain the upper hand in this fight is requiring vaccinations—specifically vaccine mandates.”
Read the full story
Far-left Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who have both been vocal critics of landlords and supportive of the eviction moratorium that prevents them from collecting rent indefinitely, made tens of thousands of dollars themselves collecting rent last year, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Tlaib disclosed in a recent financial statement that she made between $15,000 and $50,000 from rent out of a property she owns in Detroit, even after she had recently criticized “landlords and bill collectors” and said that Americans needed to be protected from them “in the midst of a pandemic.” Pressley made roughly $15,000 from 2019 to 2020 off a property she owns in Boston. Pressley has denounced landlords for trying to collect rent during the pandemic, claiming it to be “literally a matter of life and death.”
Both congresswomen, along with others in the so-called “squad” and other congressional Democrats, were supportive of extending the eviction moratorium that has forbidden landlords across the nation from collecting rent, ostensibly to provide financial relief to Americans who cannot pay their rent due to losing their jobs to lockdown orders. The Biden Administration extended the eviction moratorium through October, after the original moratorium implemented last September by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was set to expire earlier this year.
Read the full story
President Biden is ratcheting up opposition to Republican governors blocking COVID mask mandates in schools, putting in charge the Education Department, which is raising the possibility of using its civil rights arm to oppose such policies.
Biden on Wednesday ordered Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to “assess all available tools” that can be used against states that fail to protect students amid surging coronavirus cases.
Read the full story
Lawmakers heard testimony on House Bill 4471, which aims to ban employers from requiring certain vaccines and wearing masks.
The bill aims to ban employers from firing or discriminating against employees who choose not to get certain vaccinations, including tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, or COVID-19, or making them wear masks or disclosing vaccination status.
Read the full story
Joe Biden’s Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, admitted to having spoken directly with faculty members from school districts that are defying the law and forcing mask mandates on their students, even if their states have banned such mandates, ABC News reports.
Cardona said that some such schools fear repercussions from the state governments if they continue defying the bans, including in Texas and Florida. “I have had the conversations with superintendents,” Cardona said in an interview on Tuesday. “And they have asked, if this goes in that direction, how do we get support? My message is, open the schools safely; we got your back.”
Cardona had previously sent a letter to several school districts in Florida promising that the federal government would fund the schools directly in the event that Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) follows through on his promise to suspend the salaries of all superintendents who force such mandates onto their students in defiance of state law.
Read the full story
The United Faculty of Florida is imploring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to impose a mask mandate on all of Florida’s colleges and universities.
Their basis for the request is rooted in the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in July which said everyone should wear masks indoors. They called on the governor through a letter which said Florida’s colleges and universities should “follow CDC recommendations, including universal masking indoors and other common-sense measures, to limit severe illness and keep our colleges and universities open for learning.”
Read the full story
Republican lawmakers on Thursday introduced the Vaccine Passport and Voter ID Harmonization Act, legislation that would require states mandating vaccine passports to also mandate voter ID requirements.
The Daily Caller News Foundation first obtained the text of the bill, introduced by Kevin Cramer of North Dakota in the Senate and Nancy Mace of South Carolina in the House, “requiring states and local jurisdictions that institute vaccine passports to require voter identification in federal elections.”
Read the full story
COVID-19 isn’t over in Michigan but early 2021 data from 24 states suggests a fully vaccinated person is much less likely to be hospitalized or die from the virus, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).
As summer winds down, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranked Michigan as having “substantial” community COVID-19 transmission with a seven-day average case positivity rate between 5% to 7.9%.
Read the full story
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) went maskless during a weekend wedding, violating recommendations Democrats have placed on Americans.
Video posted by Michigan Rising Action showed Tlaib smiling broadly and dancing while violating CDC six-foot distancing guidelines:
Read the full story
Michigan’s local health departments are plotting new restrictions as bureaucrats are alarmed by a rise in COVID-19 cases that apparently are not being blunted with vaccinations.
WZZM speculated another lockdown may be “in sight.”
Read the full story
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) elevated Michigan’s level of COVID-19 spread to “substantial” on Wednesday, daily death totals statewide due to COVID remain in single digits.
According to the widely cited tracking website worldometers.info, the seven-day moving average of COVID deaths per day in Michigan has stayed under double digits since July 1st.
Read the full story
In a new poll from St. Pete Polls taken from Aug. 2nd through 3rd, 62 percent of likely Florida voters support mask mandates for schoolchildren.
The poll was conducted after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced the signing of an executive order banning mask mandates in Florida’s public schools. The order also directed the state to craft penalties and punishments for school districts who choose to ignore the state’s directive and impose a mandate regardless.
Read the full story
Fast food chain McDonald’s is requiring all its staff and customers, vaccinated and unvaccinated, to resume wearing masks in its restaurants in areas deemed high risk by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The company first announced its new rules in an internal memo to franchisees and workers, CNBC reported. The rules, which went into effect Monday, follow updated guidance last week from the CDC, which recommended fully-vaccinated Americans wear masks indoors to prevent the spread of the delta variant of coronavirus.
McDonald’s told the Daily Caller News Foundation the change in policy was due to the CDC’s updated guidance, and said the company was following the science in making its decision.
Read the full story
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried has claimed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ Department of Health (FDOH) is not reporting Florida’s COVID data to the CDC in a timely fashion.
Fried has since begun doing her own daily COVID briefings after DeSantis moved them to weekly occurrences.