Tag: CDC

CDC: Alcohol-Related Deaths Spiked During Pandemic

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published new data revealing the full extent of alcohol-related deaths during the roughly two-year lockdown period of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

As reported by CNN, the rate of alcohol-related deaths in the United States spiked by 26 percent between 2019 and 2020, with this one-year percentage increase being higher than the cumulative increase over the entirety of the previous decade. As a result, alcohol was the cause of death for over 49,000 Americans in 2020, which amounts to 13 out of every 100,000 people on average, up from 2019’s total of 10.4 people out of every 100,000.

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CDC Immunization Advisory Panel Likely to Weigh Recommending Routine COVID Shots for Children

Susan Berry, PhD

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) may have scheduled in its meeting agenda for Wednesday and Thursday a vote on whether to recommend adding COVID-19 shots to the standard Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule.

The agenda’s wording is ambiguous, as Children’s Health Defense (CHD) President and General Counsel Mary Holland noted.

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CDC Allocates $85 Million for Grants Requiring Schools to Start Student-Led Clubs Supporting LGBT Youth

The Center Square

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent $85 million on a grant program requiring public schools to start Gay-Straight Alliances, public documents show. 

According to a notice of funding report for a grant offered by the CDC, the federal agency has a total of $85 million to spend over a five year period from 2018-2023 with a twelve month budget period. 

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CDC: Administrative Federal Agency Charged with Americans’ Health and Safety Flooded With Credibility Problems

Susan Berry, PhD

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is only one example of an administrative federal agency run by unelected bureaucrats, it is one charged with ensuring Americans receive truthful health and safety information, a daunting role for an organization now engulfed with concerns about its credibility.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky wrote in a letter made public this week her agency did not conduct a type of analysis on reports made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) regarding COVID shots during 2021. Her agency, however, indicated otherwise in its documents and through some of its other representatives.

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Biden Administration Awards over $7 Million to ‘Elevate Parent Voices in Education’ After Smearing Vocal Parents as Potential ‘Domestic Terrorists’

Susan Berry, PhD

The Biden education department announced Thursday it was awarding more than $7 million in competitive grants to eight organizations that have worked to achieve what the department calls “the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing efforts to enhance and increase parent and family engagement in local education.”

Grants from the Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC) program, the announcement states, “provide financial support to organizations that offer technical assistance and training to state educational agencies and school districts that effectively engage families over policies, programs, and activities that lead to improvements in student development and academic achievement.”

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Sen. Rand Paul: ‘Dr. Fauci Continues to Lie, Cover-Up, and Deny the Science to Promote Himself’

Susan Berry, PhD

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) once again battled with White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci Wednesday about whether children with natural immunity from a prior COVID infection should be injected with the mRNA shots the government has referred to as “vaccines.”

“Dr. Fauci continues to lie, cover-up, and deny the science to promote himself,” tweeted Paul about his tense exchange with Fauci during a Senate committee hearing whose central focus was the federal response to monkeypox.

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U.S. Life Expectancy Sees Largest Two-Year Decrease in 100 Years

Minnesota Sun Staff

Life expectancy across all groups in the U.S. has fallen 2.7 years from 2019 to 2021, the largest two-year decrease in 100 years, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released Wednesday.

Overall, life expectancy at birth fell to 76.1 years, with life expectancy declines driven primarily by the coronavirus pandemic and unintentional injuries including overdoses, with heart disease, liver disease and suicide representing smaller contributions, the CDC reported. While life expectancy is expected to increase slightly in 2022, it is unlikely to rise to pre-pandemic levels and CDC researchers are still waiting to see how the U.S. fares in an expected winter rise in death rates, according to Reuters.

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Commentary: The CDC Finally Admits the Science on Natural Immunity

Admin

In August 2021 Science Magazine, a peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, highlighted groundbreaking research out of Israel that upended the public health establishment.

The research, which relied on a database enrolling some 2.5 million Israelis and was led by Tal Patalon, head of the KSM Research and Innovation Center at Maccabi Healthcare Services, and deputy Sivan Gazit, found that previous infection from Covid-19 conferred considerably stronger and longer-lasting protection against the Delta variant than vaccines.

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Documents Reveal CDC, Big Tech Colluded to Promote Biden Administration’s COVID Propaganda

Susan Berry, PhD

Documents obtained by America First Legal (AFL) reveal “concrete evidence” of how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) colluded with the social media giants to promote the Biden administration’s COVID-19 propaganda and censor Americans’ free speech, AFL reports.

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FDA Quickly Authorizes COVID Shots for Infants and Young Children

Susan Berry, PhD

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quickly authorized the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine shots for infants and young children Friday, paving the way for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory committee to vote on authorization over the weekend to allow the youngest children to get the shots as early as next week.

Per the press announcement by the FDA, the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Moderna COVID vaccine for older children and adults has been “amended” to “include use of the vaccine in individuals 6 months through 17 years of age,” while the EUA for the Pfizer COVID shot will now include use of the vaccine for babies as young as “6 months through 4 years of age.”

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Crowds Gather at the Supreme Court in Anticipation of the Possible Overturn of Roe v. Wade

Julie Carr

The Star News Network was on scene at the Supreme Court Monday as activists from the left and the right gathered to learn if the justices would publish their decision on Dobbs vs Jackson, which would effectively overturn Roe vs Wade and send the question of abortion limits back to the states.

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Republican Lawmakers Demand Answers from FDA on COVID Vaccines for Babies and Toddlers

Susan Berry, PhD

A group of Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and House are demanding answers from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its vaccine panel regarding the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application for COVID vaccines in babies and young children under five years of age.

Though young children without other significant medical issues bear the least risk of serious illness from catching the COVID infection, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha is already planning for the distribution of COVID vaccines for babies and toddlers under five years of age as early as June 21 if the FDA and CDC approve.

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U.S. Birth Rate Increases for the First Time in Seven Years

Minnesota Sun Staff

The U.S. birthrate in 2021 increased for the first time since 2014, with COVID-19 pandemic restrictions potentially causing the jump.

The U.S. birthrate saw a 1% increase over the course of 2021 with 3.66 million babies being born throughout the year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. All age groups of women over 25 contributed to the jump in birthrates, with some experts suggesting that a lengthening COVID-19 pandemic might have contributed to the bump, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Federal Court Deals Another Crushing Blow to Biden Admin’s Immigration Order

Minnesota Sun Staff

A federal judge ordered the Biden administration Wednesday to fully implement Title 42 for the next 14 days, the latest setback in the administration’s efforts to end the public health policy.

Louisiana Judge Robert R. Summerhays issued the order in Arizona’s case against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) decision to end Title 42, which is used to quickly expel certain migrants during the pandemic. The order requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to continue enforcing the policy, and prevents the agency from implementing the CDC’s order to terminate the program.

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Biden Administration Will Fight to Keep Mask Mandate for Planes, Trains and Airports

The Center Square

The U.S. Department of Justice has appealed a federal judge’s ruling overturning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) mask mandate on planes, trains and in airports.

In her ruling to overturn the mandate, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle called the CDC mandate “unlawful,” saying the Biden administration did not follow proper procedures and went beyond its authority in making the rule.

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Texas Mask Mandate Repeal Case Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge’s Ruling

Julie Carr

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robert Henneke, the executive director and general counsel of The Texas Public Policy Foundation, about Florida federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s Oct. 18, 2022 ruling that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for air travelers and public transportation passengers.

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Texas Mask Mandate Repeal Case Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge’s Ruling

Julie Carr

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robert Henneke, the executive director and general counsel of The Texas Public Policy Foundation, about Florida federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s Oct. 18, 2022 ruling that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for air travelers and public transportation passengers.

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Four Largest Airlines Drop COVID Mask Requirement Hours After Trump-Appointed Judge Strikes Down CDC Mandate

Minnesota Sun Staff

Four major U.S. airlines are ditching COVID-19 mask requirements after a federal judge in Florida on Monday struck down the Biden administration’s mask mandate for air passengers and others mass travelers.

Several airlines, including United Airlines, Delta, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines announced that they were dropping the mask requirements for passengers and employees.

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Border Patrol Watchdog: White House’s Border Security Promises Ring Hollow

Minnesota Sun Staff
Migrants detained by CBP

National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the White House isn’t telling the American public key details about its assurance that migrants without lawful claims to stay in the country will be quickly removed as they prepare for a possible influx at the border ahead of Title 42’s end.

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Commentary: Pharma Giant’s Mandate Makes Ex-Workers of Vaccine Objectors

RealClearWire
Eli Lilly Corporate Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Mandy Van Gorp was confident that her employer of 18 years, Eli Lilly and Company, would treat her fairly when she objected to its company-wide COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The pharmaceutical giant had promised to exempt employees with valid health or religious objections to the policy and she believed she had had both.

Despite presenting a doctor’s note in support of her exemption, citing an auto-immune disease, the company denied her request for a medical exemption. To add injury to the insult she felt, she tested positive for COVID-19 the day after receiving her rejection letter. She then appealed for a six-month deferral on grounds of the positive test. Lilly also denied that request. When she then raised her religious concerns, Lilly said she had missed the application deadline – a deadline that had lapsed several weeks before Lilly replied to her initial accommodation request.

The “toughest night was when we were sitting at the dinner table and my 12-year-old was sobbing, hysterically begging me to get the vaccine so I could keep my job,” recalled Van Gorp, a 42-year-old sales representative and mother of three. “I had to explain that my choice was not about money and that I felt God was leading me not to follow a mandate. It’s hard to explain that to a 12-year-old.”

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CDC Set to Announce Easing of Mask Guidelines

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is allegedly set to announce an easing of mask restrictions on the national level.

Fox News reports that the updated guidelines will focus less on the overall number of cases, and will instead emphasize a community’s general risk of spreading the coronavirus. As such, current guidelines apply to individuals who live in communities with allegedly “substantial or high transmission.” The CDC claims, without evidence, that 95 percent of all counties in the United States qualify as “high transmission.”

The new guidelines will apparently not apply to most Americans, as the new criteria will factor in hospitalizations with the overall capacity of local medical facilities. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has said that the new guidelines will focus more on “enhanced prevention efforts.”

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CDC Report Finds Natural Immunity Worked Better Than Vaccine Against COVID’s Delta-Variant Wave

Admin

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.

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CDC Director: 75 Percent of COVID Deaths Among Vaccinated Had Four Comorbidities

The Center Square
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky

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?”

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NIH Declines to Comment About Availability of Pfizer’s Fully FDA Approved Vaccine

Peter D'Abrosca

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. 

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Nurses Blast New CDC Emergency Guidance That Allows Healthcare Workers Infected with COVID to Return to Work

Minnesota Sun Staff
Healthcare worker in hair net and mask

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.

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Commentary: Dr. Fauci Warned About Coronaviruses in 2003 – But Didn’t Act on It

RealClearWire
Dr. Anthony Fauci

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.”

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CDC Says Five-Year-Olds Will Still Need to Wear Masks After Vaccine Is Approved for Kids

Minnesota Sun Staff
Blonde child wearing hair up, holding journal and wearing a mask

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.

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Commentary: Vaccination Rates Not Linked to Lower COVID Rates, Epidemiology Paper Finds

Minnesota Sun Staff

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.”

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Holiday Blues: Economic Challenges Threaten Season with Delays, Shortages and Price Hikes

The Center Square

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.

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Commentary: The FDA’s Power over Food and Drug Approval

Minnesota Sun Staff

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.

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Lawmakers Seek Federal Grand Jury Investigation for COVID-19 Statistical Manipulation

Minnesota Sun Staff

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.

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Orlando Magic Player Rips Mainstream Press After Being Dubbed ‘Anti-Vax’

Peter D'Abrosca

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.

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Analysis: COVID-19 Is Not a ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’

Admin

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.

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Roger Simon Commentary: The Democrats’ War on Blacks Keeps Growing in the Pandemic

RealClearWire

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?)

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Afghan Refugees Bringing Numerous Diseases to U.S., Including Measles, Malaria, and Tuberculosis

Minnesota Sun Staff

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.”

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Former FDA Head Says CDC Guidance Hurt Pandemic Response

Admin
Scott Gottlieb

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.”

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An Analytical Review of the Central Scientific Facts About the Efficacy of Face Masks and Claims They Reduce the Transmission of COVID-19

Minnesota Sun Staff

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.

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Studies Point to Varied Effects of Masking

Bradley Vasoli
Crowded street market with people wearing masks

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.

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Report: Top Health Officials Tell White House to Pause Vaccine Booster Plan

Minnesota Sun Staff

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.

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Commentary: The Clear Case for Joe Biden’s Impeachment

Minnesota Sun Staff

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.

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Current New York Governor Kathy Hochul Discloses 12,000 Additional COVID Deaths Previously Obscured by Cuomo Administration

Minnesota Sun Staff
Kathy Hotchu

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.

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‘Squad’ Members Earned Tens of Thousands as Landlords, Even as They Supported Eviction Moratorium

Minnesota Sun Staff
Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib

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.

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States Banning Mask Mandates Could Face Civil Rights Probes, on Biden’s Directive

Minnesota Sun Staff

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.

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Michigan Bill Aims to Ban Employers from Requiring Vaccines, Masks

The Center Square

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.

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Biden’s Education Secretary Voices Support for Schools That Force Mask Mandates

Minnesota Sun Staff
Miguel Cardona

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.

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