New South African COVID-19 strain is the
most mutated one: report
Posted By: AltaD, 8/30/2021 11:27:41 AM
A COVID-19 variant first detected in South Africa could be more infectious than other mutations – and may have the potential of being resistant to vaccines, according to a report. The C.1.2 strain has been linked to “increased transmissibility” and is said to have mutated the most from the original virus, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Mirror reported.(Snip)“We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group,” said professor Adi Stern of Tel Aviv University
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Chicago - On Tuesday, Chicago Public Schools bus drivers and riders will load up bright and early for day two of the 2021-2022 school year – and both groups hope it goes much more smoothly than it did on Monday. A massive bus driver shortage is creating confusion and stress for parents. (Snip)The district said the rush of resignations was likely driven by COVID-19 vaccination requirements. Families impacted by the loss of school bus service will receive $1,000 for the first two weeks, and $500 in following months to offset some of the costs. “It’s chaos,” Ms. Lewis said. “It’s utter chaos.”
A COVID-19 variant first detected in South Africa could be more infectious than other mutations – and may have the potential of being resistant to vaccines, according to a report.
The C.1.2 strain has been linked to “increased transmissibility” and is said to have mutated the most from the original virus, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Mirror reported.(Snip)“We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group,” said professor Adi Stern of Tel Aviv University
Conservative commentator and vaccine doubter Alex Berenson has reportedly been permanently suspended from Twitter for violating the social media platform’s COVID-19 misinformation rules. Berenson’s account was banned Saturday after “repeated violations” of the rules (Snip) “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine,” the tweet read.
“Think of it — at best — as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.”
Berenson, in his Substack post, defended the tweet in question as “entirely accurate.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger is likely to lose his House seat after Illinois Democrats redraw the state map for the post-2020 redistricting cycle, according to a Politico report on Wednesday.
Kinzinger, who rose to prominence in the Trump era as a vocal critic of the former president, has represented Illinois' 16th Congressional District, which covers the exurbs of Chicago, since 2013.
Democratic state lawmakers, who are in control of Illinois' redistricting map, are planning to remove Kinzinger's seat, sources familiar with the process told Politico. If that happens, Kinzinger may have to run for another office in the blue-leaning state should he choose to remain an elected official next year.
Two members of Congress caused a stir when they made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan Tuesday to witness the evacuation operation at Kabul’s international airport firsthand. Reps. Seth Moulton and Peter Meijer infuriated White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials who accused them of using vital resources in the midst of the chaotic American withdrawal.(Snip) “As Members of Congress, we have a duty to provide oversight on the executive branch,’” the two said. “We conducted this visit in secret, speaking about it only after our departure, to minimize the risk and disruption to the people on the ground, and because we were there to gather information, not to grandstand.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker warned Tuesday that if Illinois' COVID metrics don't decline, "significantly greater mitigations" could be imposed in the state. (Snip) Pritzker said heightened mitigations could include things like "phases," which brought restrictions on both a regional and statewide level earlier in the pandemic, though he did not offer many specifics.
"Those are things that we don't want to go back to," he said, "Those are, you know, phases, situations, things on the menu that I think we don't want to go to but right now."
Pritzker noted that increased mitigations have already been implemented across the state, including an indoor mask mandate in schools, a vaccine mandate for state employees
CVS Health is holding a "conscious inclusion workshop" that aims to teach employees how to hold each other "accountable" for non-inclusive behaviors, FOX Business has learned.
An internal email obtained by FOX Business showed David Casey, SVP of Workforce Strategies and Chief Diversity Officer, discussing the four-week program.(Snip) the "workshop was announced in July 2020 as part of our nearly $600 million commitment to address racial inequality." He added that "our stated goal is 100 percent employee participation." It's unclear how employees would be held accountable and CVS did not comment when asked about this.
A school board member in Illinois who is also a doctor says state regulators are threatening his medical license over his criticism of Gov. J.B. Pritzker's mask mandate in schools.
Dr. Jeremy Henrichs, a sports doctor at Carle Hospital and sports team physician at the University of Illinois, also sits on the Mahomet-Seymour Board of Education.(Snip)In a separate email, a state medical investigator, whose name was redacted from the email, said a complaint filed against Henrichs “appears to be a parent or concerned citizen who did not agree with the doctor's opinion on the masking motion for schools.
“That would fall under the unprofessional conduct part of the medical practice act,”
Chicago - Masks must be worn in public indoor settings in Chicago regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status as the city continues to see an increase in COVID-19 transmission, public health officials announced Tuesday.
Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said everyone over the age of 2, regardless of vaccination status, will be required to wear a mask beginning Friday, Aug. 20, while indoors in public settings.
It will apply to gyms, stores, common areas of apartment buildings and in restaurants (Snip) Currently, Chicago is averaging 18 COVID-19-related hospitalizations a day, which is down from a peak of roughly 200 a day, Arwady said.
Dallas - Although delta remains the most prevalent variant, the lambda strain of COVID-19 is starting to emerge and there’s little known about it.
“We do not know whether this is going to be better or worse than delta, there’s not enough information,” said Dr. Andrew Yurochko, with LSU Health Shreveport.
According to the World Health Organization, lambda was first discovered in Peru last year. Since April, it’s been responsible for more than 80 percent of cases reported there.
It’s now taken over other parts of South America, including Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil. Now, 44 American states have reported lambda cases
Extended rent moratoriums and the slow distribution of billions in federal rent assistance are driving many small landlords to call it quits. “Nobody wants to become a landlord anymore,” said Diane Baird, (Snip) Mike Bodeis, president of the 450-member Port Huron Area Landlord Association, and himself the owner of 40 rental houses, told The Epoch Times, “It’s a myth that 3.6 million Americans may soon be made homeless. Two-thirds of them could be paying their rent, but are not because they choose not to. They did not choose to pay their rent or utility bills with all the stimulus money they received.
New Zealand is closing its borders for the remainder of the year, continuing the country’s embrace of a total isolationist strategy in its fight against the coronavirus.
On Thursday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the country’s borders “will never be the same after” the pandemic, likening the situation to the 9/11 attacks.
“Just like after 9/11, the border will never be the same after Covid … things can change, but that doesn’t mean we can’t adapt to them in a way that eventually feels normal again,” said Ardern.(Snip)Since the start of the pandemic, New Zealand adopted a strict border protection policy, which resulted in only 26 coronavirus-related deaths.
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President Joe Biden received praise from an unlikely source on Tuesday: Ann Coulter.
Biden had just concluded his address to the nation on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a war that had lasted 20 years. The president has been criticized for failing to anticipate the rapid crumbling of Afghan security forces in the face of the Taliban’s advance.
That caused a chaotic scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where the U.S. military hurried to evacuate more than 123,000 Americans and Afghans despite being surrounded by the Taliban and ISIS-K.
We’ve written about Biden checking his watch while he was at Dover AFB yesterday watching the transfer of those who died in Kabul from the airplane to the hearses (snip) Marine Lance Corporation Rylee McCollum was one of those who died. (snip) his wife, Jiennah went to meet with Biden. (snip) Roice [McCollum’s sister] said. The president brought up his son, Beau, according to her account, describing his son’s military service and subsequent death from cancer. It struck the family as scripted and shallow, a conversation that lasted only a couple of minutes in ‘total disregard to the loss of our Marine,’ Roice said.
A private airplane that was flying into Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul, Afghanistan to rescue stranded American citizens and Afghan allies allegedly was told to turn back or they would be shot down.
In the past 24 hours, American officials in charge of giving clearance at the airport told fellow Americans they would be fired upon if they didn’t leave, Mary Beth Long, a former Department of Defense official, told American Greatness in an exclusive interview. (Snip)
Some American citizens, she said, have made the perilous journey to HKIA four times, only to be turned away at the gates each time. As a result of the Biden Administration’s
I ask this question for two reasons:
I have seen enough videos and read about enough officer-civilian interactions to know that the act of subduing a lethal threat requires several rounds.
If an intruder entered my home and threatened my wife and child, I would shoot until I was able to ensure the target was immobilized.
As to the first statement, there are plenty of examples of police officers firing multiple shots at a suspected threat. In the past year, the American public has been thoroughly able to parse through the shootings of criminals like Breonna Taylor and Antonio Brown, to name just two examples.
Biden speech - live: President discusses
‘tough decisions’ after last
US troops leave Kabul 26 replies
‘tough decisions’ after last
US troops leave Kabul 26 replies
President Joe Biden will address the nation following the US withdrawal from a 20-year war in Afghanistan, after the last American troops departed from Kabul on Monday night. The nation’s longest war – in which nearly 50,000 Afghan civilians, 2,500 US service members, and thousands of Afghan military, police and Taliban fighters were killed – “has ended,” the president said in a statement on 30 August.
A day after the U.S. officially pulled out of Afghanistan, and less than a week after a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. Service Members, Rep. Carlos Gimenez has just tweeted that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) has blocked the names of those dead servicemen and women from being read on the floor of the House of Representatives. Rep. Brian Mast (R), a wounded combat veteran from Afghanistan, tells The Floridian that during a Republican-only “moment of silence,” Speaker Pelosi refused to recognize them to” read names or bring up bills or anything.”
With the final military planes off the tarmac and out of Afghan airspace, the Biden administration was desperate to try to paint their deadly disaster as some sort of success. Each of the press secretaries and top officials at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon parroted the same talking point that it was the largest airlift in U.S. history. But CBS News popped their bubble Monday as they pointed out how the “hundreds” of Americans they abandoned in the terrorist haven would beg to differ.
During their Special Report break-in for the Pentagon press conference with U.S. CENTCOM General Kenneth McKenzie, senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe seemed taken aback
Tuesday, Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did not rule out providing aid to the Taliban following the United States’ withdrawal out of Afghanistan.
Sullivan told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that giving aid to the Taliban “will be about whether the terrorist organization follows through on its commitments,” including safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies.
“[F]irst of all, we do believe that there is an important dimension of humanitarian assistance that should go directly to the people of Afghanistan,” Sullivan outlined. “They need help with respect to health and food aid and other forms of subsistence, and we do intend to continue that. Secondly, when it comes to our economic
A poll released Tuesday shows President Joe Biden continues to suffer low approval ratings after his disastrous exit from Afghanistan.Morning Consult reports that 48 percent of voters approve of Biden’s job performance while 49 percent disapprove.That marks a seven-point drop in Biden’s net approval rating in two weeks since Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban earlier this month. (Snip) The latest poll was conducted Aug. 27-29 among 15,623 registered U.S. voters.Biden’s net approval rating has fallen six points among independents, the poll shows, a drop in line with other polling released over the past 48-hours as the president comes under attack from all sides.
With last troops out of Afghanistan, House
GOP plans 'accountability' for
Biden administration 23 replies
GOP plans 'accountability' for
Biden administration 23 replies
With U.S. troops fully out of Afghanistan by President Joe Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline, House Republicans who opposed the withdrawal date are full of rage — and planning a variety of legislative tactics to get a better understanding of the situation.
GOP lawmakers say they want to hold the administration accountable for failures in the withdrawal’s execution that left 13 U.S. service members dead and hundreds of Americans still in the country.
Taking after Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken finally showed up two hours late and spoke about the U.S. leaving Afghanistan after twenty years today.
He spoke about how they were now going to be setting up diplomatic operations in Doha, Qatar rather than Kabul. He claimed a new “diplomatic mission” had begun.
Blinken then claimed a new international consensus and the U.S. would hold the Taliban accountable to allow freedom of movement for people to leave. We didn’t even do that by the airport for Americans when we had troops there when they were right outside the gates. How are we going to guarantee anything without troops there?
A Nevada school board member said he had thoughts of suicide before stepping down amid threats and harassment. In Virginia, a board member resigned over what she saw as politics driving decisions on masks. The vitriol at board meetings in Wisconsin had one member fearing he would find his tires slashed. School board members are largely unpaid volunteers, traditionally former educators and parents who step forward to shape school policy, choose a superintendent and review the budget. But a growing number are resigning or questioning their willingness to serve as meetings have devolved into shouting contests between deeply political constituencies