Covid Update
Bloomberg reports Three Senators Positive; U.S. Schools Face Havoc.
Ten Key Details
- Florida’s Hillsborough County Public Schools has 11,959 has almost 11,959 students in isolation or quarantine. The school board voted Wednesday to mandate masks for everyone except those who provide a doctor’s note.
- Oregon and Washington State mandated that all teachers and school personnel must get vaccinated. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is expected to make a similar announcement.
- In Alabama, the entire state is out of intensive care beds. Florida, Mississippi, Georgia and Texas’s ICUs are at 90% capacity. Tennessee intensive care beds are full in most metropolitan areas.
- International Business Machines Corp. is temporarily closing its offices in New York City. Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, is offering employees $250 if they get vaccinated by the end of the year.
- Garth Brooks cancels concerts and refunds 350,000 tickets out of fear of spreading Covid. [NYT – Below]
- President Joe Biden defended his push to give booster shots to all Americans, countering criticism that the move is unfair to other nations that are still struggling to procure a first dose of vaccine.
- GOP Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, independent Angus King of Maine and Democrat John Hickenlooper of Colorado revealed getting positive tests Thursday.
- Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed an executive order Thursday prohibiting local governments from requiring masks or other Covid-19 protection measures at private businesses.
- The U.S. recorded more than 1 million Covid-19 shots on Thursday, topping that level for the first time in almost seven weeks
- Humana Inc. will require workers to be vaccinated once the Food and Drug Administration fully approves a Covid-19 vaccine.
Legal Battle in Texas
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, aslo testing positive for Covid this week, banned mask mandates.
In a rebuke of Abbot’s order the Washington Post reports Educators Will Not Enforce Maks Ban.
The Texas Education Agency said on Thursday that it would not enforce a ban by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on mask mandates, and would instead wait for “court issues” to be resolved as legal challenges to the ban play out throughout the state.
The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday denied Abbott’s request to stop school districts from requiring students to wear masks. The ruling is the latest in a legal battle playing out in Texas and other parts of the country. At least seven states are restricting local officials from instituting mask mandates in schools while classes resume and students younger than 12 remain ineligible for the vaccines.
WaPo also reports Philadelphia becomes latest archdiocese to reject religious exemptions for vaccine mandates
New York Times Update
- A California school district will require older students to be vaccinated.
- City workers in Los Angeles will soon have to get vaccinated.
- Garth Brooks cancels five stadium concerts as Covid-19 cases rise.
- N.Y.P.D. will discipline unvaccinated officers who don’t wear masks.
Fox News Asks Employees to Disclose Vaccination Status
Here is one that comes completely unexpected: Fox News asks employees to disclose vaccination status
Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott in a Tuesday memo updating staff on covid-19 procedures, which was obtained by both CNN Business and TVNewser, said the company had “asked all employees — whether on site as part of our essential workforce or working remotely — to upload their vaccination status” into an internal database.
The company has not mandated vaccines for its staff and has been encouraging safety measures, including uploading their vaccination status, since at least June.
However, other companies such as Tyson Foods and Facebook, have introduced vaccine mandates, as have media outlets including The Washington Post and the New York Times.
Earlier this month, CNN fired three staff members in the United States for working in the office while unvaccinated against the coronavirus.
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Mish
In France in the early 80’s they learned that HIV could be transmitted by blood
transfusions and an American company had made a machine to kill the virus
before it was put into another person. The government at the time knew this but
waited eight months till a French company was ready with a machine that did the
same thing. 5,000 people were infected by transfusion with HIV and died because the French
government waited for a domestically manufactured machine. A scandal ensued and
the investigation revealed that the decision was made in a committee meeting
and that no one there remembered who actually made the decision to condemn
these people to death. The prime minister was there as were several other top
ministers. In the end the Prime Minister, Laurent Fabius, said that he was
responsible but not guilty, a typical bureaucratic response. No one was ever
sanctioned.
It won’t take long to find out if my guess is accurate. We will know within two weeks. If this surge lasts longer than that, it means that there is either a high number of people with reinfections, or a high number of breakthrough cases, or both. At that point we’ll have to address waning immunity, and whether it is natural immunity or from the vaccine that is waning. It bothers me when people post that they have all the answers. No one does. We each have a world view, and we can make projections based on them. If my prediction doesn’t happen, I’ll have to adjust mine.
I’m confused. Are you saying that an uncommon risk of myocarditis from the vaccine is somehow worse than actually having covid, which comes with a very high risk of myocarditis?
Quite often in times like these you hear people say “God is trying to send this country a message” and then point towards the immoral/failed leadership of the left. This has been a trend with the televangelical community for a while now. I find it fascinating in the last five years they embraced an immoral adulterous man as the leader of the elephant team and there are no prophetic messages coming from these people as this virus is hitting the redest states the hardest. Funny how such disease is used for political gains by these evangelicals when the other party is in charge.I have to remind people God is not a Republican and God is not a Democrat as I make this observation.