POLITICUSUSA
The Biden administration announced it will ease travel restrictions for vaccinated foreign travelers in November.
According to White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients, all foreign visitors must be fully vaccinated and must show proof of vaccination before boarding flights bound for the United States. They will also be required to provide a negative test no later than 72 hours prior to flying. Travelers who meet all these requirements will not need to quarantine.
CNN’s Don Lemon expressed his frustration with unvaccinated Americans, accusing them of prolonging the Covid-19 pandemic and saying that it’s time to “shun” them for their inaction. Lemon added that they were “harmful to the greater good.”
According to a new Axios-Ipsos poll, the majority of Americans––that’s 60%––support President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates.
The mandates will affect roughly 100 million Americans. It will include a vaccine mandate for all federal workers and contractors, in addition to a requirement that large companies must mandate vaccines or regular testing for employees.
Even though Covid-19 has surged across Arkansas in recent weeks, the state’s Republican Governor, Asa Hutchinson, insisted that President Joe Biden’s recent vaccine mandate for employers will only “harden resistance” among those who have refused to get vaccinated against the virus in the first place.
Former Vice President Mike Pence criticized President Joe Biden’s sweeping Covid-19 vaccination requirements. Pence lent himself to hyperbole, saying the announcement was “unlike anything I have ever heard from an American president.”
South Dakota Kristi Noem (R) has vowed to fight President Joe Biden’s sweeping Covid-19 vaccination requirements. Noem has explicitly refused to follow the guidance of medical experts throughout the pandemic, actions that resulted in South Dakota harboring one of the worst outbreaks in the United States.
President Joe Biden is expected to announce a vaccine mandate for all federal employees with no option for testing or opting out.
These steps are part of a 6-point Covid-19 action plan.
“We know that increasing vaccinations will stop the spread of the pandemic we’ll get the pandemic under control, we’ll return people to normal life. That’s what our objective is,” said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, slammed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for being “completely wrong” about Covid-19 vaccines.
Fauci’s comments came after DeSantis insisted that whether or not a person gets a Covid-19 vaccine comes down to “personal choice.”
On Friday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) insisted that whether or not a person gets a Covid-19 vaccine comes down to “personal choice.”
“It’s about your health and whether you want that protection or not. It really doesn’t impact me or anyone else,” he said at the time.
Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman is facing heavy criticism after he wrote a LinkedIn post in which he claimed that obesity is the “root cause” of health issues, including COVID-19. Neman deleted the post following backlash.
Speaking on CNN, ChiefWhite House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, said it would be a “good idea” to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for school children.
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) claimed that researchers won’t study ivermectin, a toxic anti-parasitic used to treat parasitic worms, lice, and skin problems in livestock because of their “hatred” for ex-President Donald Trump.
Writing in an op-ed for The Columbus-Dispatch, Ohio senatorial candidate J.D. Vance, the author of the best-selling Hillbilly Elegy, railed against Ohio State University’s (OSU) vaccine mandate, calling it “an invasion of medical privacy, and a complete bait-and-switch.”
Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has deleted a tweet comparing Covid-19 vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.
Massie shared a meme showing an arm tattooed with a concentration camp identification number, effectively comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust, which was the systematic murder of more than six million Jews across German-occupied Europe.
In Florida, the Covid-19 pandemic is worse than it’s ever been.
A sobering New York Times report finds that Floridians are “being hospitalized and dying of Covid-19 now than at any previous point in the pandemic, underscoring the perils of limiting public health measures as the Delta variant rips through the state.”
On the heels of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) announcement that it had fully approved Pfizer and BioTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, New York City will require every Department of Education employee to have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by September 27. There is no ability to opt out.
During an appearance on MSNBC, Florida School Superintendent Dr. Carlee Simon explained why she continues to defy Governor Ron DeSantis’s ban on mask mandates.
“Masks are not a medical device,” she said. “Masks are preventive. They are preventive safety devices. It would be just as though we were asking a student to wear a baseball helmet when they go up to bat at a baseball game,” she said.
Pressley Stutts, who served as an executive committee member of the Greenville County Republican Party and the leader of the Greenville Tea Party, died in South Carolina after a battle with Covid-19.
Stutts had pushed back against vaccination efforts in his state and regularly shared Covid-19 conspiracy theories.
Steve Walsh, the husband of Missouri State Representative Sara Walsh (R) has died of Covid-19 complications. He was unvaccinated. And his wife has continued to resist getting vaccinated herself.
“It saddens my heart to share that this morning my best friend and beloved husband Steve Walsh was welcomed to Heaven’s glory into the arms of Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior,” Walsh wrote on Twitter.
The White House will announce that most Americans will need Covid-19 booster shots eight months after their initial vaccination, citing data that shows signs of waning immunity.
“Based on our latest assessment, the current protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death could diminish in the months ahead, especially among those who are at higher risk or were vaccinated during the earlier phases of the vaccination rollout. For that reason, we conclude that a booster shot will be needed to maximize vaccine-induced protection and prolong its durability,” a group of eight officials, including infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said in a statement.