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      Biden health chief endures Fox News grilling over mixed Covid messaging

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      Biden health chief endures Fox News grilling over mixed Covid messagingAs supreme court ponders workplace vaccine mandate, CDC director Rochelle Walensky seeks to set record straight Facing accusations of confusing messaging about the Omicron Covid surge, a senior Biden administration official was forced on to the back foot on Sunday by a supreme court justice’s mistaken remark about hospitalisations among children.Omicron could be ‘first ray of light’ towards living with CovidRead moreDuring oral arguments over a vaccinations mandate for private employers, the liberal justice Sonya Sotomayor said on Friday the US had “over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition and many on ventilators”.Reporters were swift to point out she was wrong. Though concern about children and Omicron is widespread, the Washington Post cited official data in saying there were “about 5,000 children hospitalised … either with suspected Covid or a confirmed laboratory test”.According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 836,000 people have died of Covid in the US. More than 206 million Americans, or 62.5% of the eligible population, are considered fully vaccinated.The Covid response has been dogged by resistance to vaccines and other public health measures stoked by politicians and rightwing media prominently including Fox News.Nonetheless, critics charge that official messaging has become muddled, not least over the recent decision to cut recommended quarantine from 10 days to five, and confusion about when or if the infected should test again.Earlier this week, it was reported that Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was undergoing media training. She also told told reporters she was “committed to improve” communications.Walensky was interviewed on Fox News Sunday. In Bret Baier, she faced perhaps Fox’s toughest interviewer, after the departure of Chris Wallace. It was not an easy experience.Baier asked: “The supreme court is in the process of dealing with this big issue about mandates. Do you feel it is the responsibility of the CDC director to correct a very big mischaracterisation by one of the supreme court justices?”“Yeah,” said Walensky. “Here’s what I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you that right now, if you’re unvaccinated, you’re 17 times more likely to be in the hospital and 20 times more likely to die than if you’re boosted.“And so my responsibility is to provide guidance and recommendations to protect the American people. Those recommendations strongly recommend vaccination for our children above the age of five and boosting for everyone above the age of 18 if they’re eligible.”Baier asked if the administration knew how many children were on ventilators.“I do not have that off the top of my head,” Walensky said. “But what I can say is I don’t believe there are any in many of these hospitals who are vaccinated.“So really, the highest risk of being on a ventilator for a child is if you’re unvaccinated. We also have recent data out just this week that’s demonstrated that dangerous MIS-C syndrome that we’re seeing in children, 91% protection if you’ve been vaccinated.”Baier said: “The risk of death or serious illness in children is still very small, right?”Walensky said: “Comparatively, the risk of death is small. But of course, you know, children are not supposed to die. So you know, if we have a child who is sick with Covid-19, we want to protect them.”Baier said: “Officially, you emphasise that one of your primary goals was to restore public trust, but do you think it’s fair to say that the trust and confidence of the public has gone down with the CDC?”“You know,” Walensky said, “this is hard. We have ever-evolving science with an ever-evolving variant and my job is to provide updated advice in the context of rapidly rising cases. And that is what we’ve done and I’m here to explain it to the American people and I am committed to continuing to do so and to continuing to improve.”Baier said: “We appreciate you coming on, we really do. Just getting facts out there.”Most observers think the supreme court, tilted 6-3 in favour of conservatives after three appointments under Donald Trump, seems likely to strike down the workplace mandate. The rule is due to come into effect on Monday.Baier said: “The questioning in the supreme court also said that Omicron was as deadly as Delta. That is not true, right?”Omicron drives Covid surge but New York a long way from pandemic’s early daysRead moreWalensky said: “We are starting to see data from other countries that indicate on a person-by-person basis it may not be. However, given the volume of cases that we’re seeing with Omicron we very well may see death rates rise dramatically.”Asked if mandates for private employers or government employees including members of the armed forces were necessary if prior infection conferred protection, Walensky said: “I think the thing that’s most disruptive to any business or industry has to have half their workforce out because they’re sick with Covid.”Such is the case in New York City, where essential services are struggling for staff.“We have seen with the Omicron variant,” Walensky added, “that prior infection protects you less well than it had … with prior variants.“Right now, I think the most important thing to do is to protect Americans. We do that by getting them vaccinated and getting them boosted.”TopicsBiden administrationUS politicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)Vaccines and immunisationOmicron variantnewsReuse this content More

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      California prosecutor who campaigned against vaccine mandates dies of Covid

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      California prosecutor who campaigned against vaccine mandates dies of Covid Kelly Ernby, who recently ran for the state assembly, was unvaccinated at the time of her death, husband says A deputy district attorney from California who regularly spoke out against vaccine mandates has died of complications from Covid-19.Kelly Ernby, 46, a prosecutor from Orange county, southern California, who recently ran for the state assembly, died after contracting the virus, her family and friends have said.According to Ernby’s husband, Axel Mattias Ernby, Kelly Ernby was unvaccinated at the time of her death.“She was NOT vaccinated. That’s the problem,” Axel Ernby said on social media posts.A month before her death, Kelly Ernby spoke out against vaccine mandates at a rally outside Irvine city hall. The protest was organized by chapters of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization, representing members at California State University, Fullerton and University of California Irvine.“There’s nothing that matters more than our freedoms right now,” Ernby said, according to the Daily Titan, a student newspaper.On her personal Facebook, Ernby also spoke out against Covid vaccine mandates, writing in August that “thevaccine is not the cure to Covid, and mandates won’t work”.Before the pandemic, Ernby also denounced vaccine mandates. At an online town hall in 2019, Ernby said she opposed a new state law that would tighten vaccine rules for California school children.“My fundamental belief is that government should be very small and I don’t believe in mandates,” said Ernby then.“I don’t think that the government should be involved in mandating what vaccines people are taking,” she said. “I think that’s a decision between doctors and their patients … If the government is going to mandate vaccines, what else are they going to mandate?”News of Ernby’s death has gained widespread attention online, underscoring tensions between those who oppose vaccine mandates as a form of government overreach and others who see it as critical protection against Covid and the way to end the pandemic.Among the posted condolences to Ernby’s friends and families, some online commenters blamed Ernby for her own death and posted replies about Ernby’s anti-vaccine-mandate stance.Ernby lived in Huntington Beach, California, an hour outside of Los Angeles, where a number of anti vaccine-mandate rallies have taken place.She had worked in the district attorney’s office since 2011 and specialized in environmental and consumer law, according to a statement posted by the Orangecounty district attorney, Todd Spitzer.“Kelly was an incredibly vibrant and passionate attorney who cared deeply about the work that we do as prosecutors – and deeply about the community we all fight so hard to protect,” said Spitzer in the statement following Ernby’s death.In 2019, Ernby ran for the California state assembly and lost in the 2020 primary to fellow Republican politician Diane Dixon.Ernby later was elected as an Orange county GOP central committee member in 2020 but died halfway through her four-year term.Vaccine mandates have continued to receive pushback, despite soaring cases of the Omicron variant.The Mayo Clinic, the non-profit medical center, fired about 700 out of 70,000 employees who refused to comply with the mandatory vaccination policy, reported NBC news.Employees were told to receive their first dose of the vaccine by Monday or get a medical or religious exemption. Staff who had already received their first jab were told to not delay getting their second shot.“While Mayo Clinic is saddened to lose valuable employees, we need to take all steps necessary to keep our patients, workforce, visitors and communities safe,” said the clinic in a statement, also confirming that 99% of Mayo Clinic employees across all locations complied with the mandate.TopicsCaliforniaUS politicsOmicron variantVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account

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      Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account Georgia Republican’s Covid misinformation violation prompts move, after being issued a ‘fourth strike’ in August The personal Twitter account of the Georgia Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been permanently suspended, for violating policies on Covid misinformation.One in three Americans say violence against government justified – pollRead moreThe action against Greene on Sunday came under the “strike” system Twitter launched last March, which uses artificial intelligence to identify posts about the coronavirus misleading enough to cause harm.Two or three strikes earn a 12-hour account lock, four strikes prompt a weeklong suspension and five or more can get an account permanently removed. Twitter had previously suspended Greene’s account for periods ranging from 12 hours to a week. She was issued a “fourth strike” this summer, for saying vaccines were failing.“We’ve been clear that … we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy,” a Twitter spokeswoman said on Sunday. The congresswoman’s official account remains active.The Republican is a determined controversialist and extremist who courts controversy and confrontation.On social media, she has voiced support for racist views, QAnon conspiracy theories such as the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and calls for violence against Democrats including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.Last February, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, called Greene’s embrace of conspiracy theories and “loony lies” a “cancer for the Republican party”. The Democratic-led House ejected her from committee assignments.In July, Twitter suspended Greene for a week after Joe Biden urged tech companies to take stronger action against bogus vaccine claims that the president said were “killing people”. Twitter has said it has removed thousands of tweets and challenged millions of accounts.Greene has regularly been fined for refusing to follow Covid guidelines in Congress, including regarding mask-wearing on the House floor.In a statement on the Telegram app on Sunday, she called Twitter “an enemy to America” and said it could not “handle the truth”.She also accused Twitter of seeking “a communist revolution” and said: “Social media platforms can’t stop the truth from being spread far and wide. Big tech can’t stop the truth. Communist Democrats can’t stop the truth. I stand with the truth and the people. We will overcome.”Greene said her account was suspended after tweeting statistics from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a government database which includes raw data.Among Greene’s final tweets was one that falsely referenced “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths”, according to her Telegram account, which appears to mirror her now-banned Twitter feed.More than 825,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the US, out of a caseload of nearly 55m. Many states are experiencing a surge of cases and disruption to everyday life caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant.On Sunday, Biden’s top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, said the US had been seeing almost a “vertical increase” of cases, now averaging 400,000 a day with hospitalisations up too.Resistance to vaccinations and other public health measures has fueled the pandemic and political tensions. Last week, Greene boasted on Twitter about talking to Donald Trump by phone. She said she had received the former president’s permission to clarify his stance that he is against vaccine mandates though he encourages people to get the shot and booster.Trump was booed by some audience members in Dallas on 19 December, when he said he had received a booster shot.TopicsRepublicansThe far rightUS politicsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      Fauci: Omicron ‘raging through the world’ and travel increases Covid risks

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      Fauci: Omicron ‘raging through the world’ and travel increases Covid risks
      Chief White House medical adviser: breakthroughs will happen
      22,000 new cases but New York says hospitals can cope
      Harris: White House did not see Omicron coming
      The Omicron variant of Covid-19 has “extraordinary spreading capabilities”, the top US infectious diseases expert said on Sunday, and promises to bring a bleak winter as it continues “raging through the world”.Doug Ericksen, state senator who fought vaccine mandates, dies at 52Read moreDr Anthony Fauci’s warning came ahead of the busy holiday travel period, which he said would elevate the risk of infection even in vaccinated people.In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged Americans to get booster shots and wear masks.He also appeared to attempt damage control over Vice-President Kamala Harris’s contention that the Biden administration “didn’t see” the Omicron or Delta variants coming.Harris’s comments on Friday were “taken out of context”, Fauci insisted, and referred to the “extraordinary number of mutations” of Covid-19 rather than any lack of readiness.“We were well prepared and expected that we were going to see variants,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”Fauci looked ahead to a scheduled national address by Biden on Tuesday, in which he said the president would “upscale” elements of the White House Covid winter plan.“He’s going to stress several things,” Fauci said. “… Getting people boosted who are vaccinated, getting children vaccinated, making testing more available, having surge teams out, because we know we’re going to need them because there will be an increased demand on hospitalisation.”The White House reset comes at the end of a week in which the US surpassed 800,000 deaths from coronavirus and saw a 17% surge in cases and a 9% rise in deaths.Medical experts have warned of an Omicron-fueled “viral blizzard” sweeping the country. Biden has spoken of a “winter of severe illness and death” among the unvaccinated.Fauci repeated such dire predictions on CNN’s State of the Union.“One thing that’s clear is [Omicron’s] extraordinary capability of spreading, its transmissibility capability,” he said. “It is just raging through the world.“This virus is extraordinary. It has a doubling time of anywhere from two to three days in certain regions of the country, which means it’s going to take over. If you look at what it’s done in South Africa, what it’s doing in the UK, and what it’s starting to do right now, the president is correct.“It is going to be tough. We can’t walk away from that because with the Omicron that we’re dealing with it is going to be a tough few weeks to months as we get deeper into the winter. We are going to see significant stress in some regions of the country, on the hospital system, particularly in those areas where you have a low level of vaccination.”Many cases of Omicron are so-called “breakthrough” infections. Florida, one of the hardest-hit states throughout the pandemic, reported on Sunday that about 30% of new infections were in people vaccinated but yet to receive a booster.Fauci and other experts have said immunisations alone will not prevent the spread of Omicron, but are confident that the risk of serious disease or death is vastly reduced in those who are vaccinated.Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CBS’s Face the Nation he was concerned about the effects of Omicron on those who are not vaccinated.New York reports 22,000 new Covid cases – but hospitals say they can copeRead more“It’s a brand new version and so different that it has the properties to potentially be evasive of the vaccines and other measures that we’ve taken,” he said.“The big message for today is if you’ve had vaccines and a booster you’re very well protected against Omicron causing you severe disease. Anybody who’s in that 60% of Americans who are eligible for a booster but haven’t yet gotten one, this is the week to do it. Do not wait.”In New York, authorities said 22,000 people tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, eclipsing the previous record since testing became widely available.Meanwhile, a study in South Africa this week suggested that the Pfizer vaccine has a weaker efficacy against Omicron in patients who have received two doses than it does against the Delta variant.The research by Discovery Health, the country’s largest medical insurance administrator, calculated a 70% protection from hospitalization compared with the unvaccinated, and 33% protection against infection.The group said that represented a drop from 93% hospitalization protection and 80% infection prevention for Delta.TopicsCoronavirusBiden administrationAnthony FauciUS politicsInfectious diseasesVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      Doug Ericksen, state senator who fought vaccine mandates, dies at 52

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      Doug Ericksen, state senator who fought vaccine mandates, dies at 52
      Washington Republican tested positive for Covid in El Salvador
      Trump supporter opposed pandemic emergency orders
      Harris: White House did not see Omicron coming
      Doug Ericksen, a staunch conservative Washington state senator who led Donald Trump’s campaign in the north-western state and was an outspoken critic of Democratic governor Jay Inslee’s Covid-19 pandemic emergency orders, has died. He was 52.New York reports 22,000 new Covid cases – but hospitals say they can copeRead moreEricksen’s death on Friday came weeks after he said he tested positive for coronavirus while in El Salvador – though his cause of death wasn’t immediately released.The state Senate Republican caucus confirmed his death but did not say where he died.The Ferndale Republican reached out to Republican colleagues last month, saying he had taken a trip to El Salvador and tested positive for Covid-19 shortly after he arrived. Reasons for his visit were unclear.In a message to state House and Senate members, Ericksen asked for advice on how to receive monoclonal antibodies, which were not then available in El Salvador.He soon arranged a medevac flight out of El Salvador, former state representative Luanne Van Werven said. Van Werven said the next week the senator was recovering at a Florida hospital. No information about Ericksen’s location or condition had since been released.Ericksen represented the 42nd district in Whatcom county and had been in the state legislature since 1998, the Seattle Times reported. He served six terms in the state House before being elected to the Senate in 2010.Ericksen introduced legislation aimed at protecting the rights of people who do not wish to get vaccinated. It was unclear if he had been vaccinated against Covid-19.The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says people should be fully vaccinated before visiting El Salvador, where levels of Covid-19 are “high”.TopicsCoronavirusWashington stateRepublicansUS politicsVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      Kamala Harris concedes White House ‘didn’t see’ Delta and Omicron coming

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      Kamala Harris concedes White House ‘didn’t see’ Delta and Omicron comingVice-president’s candid admission on Covid variants came in wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times Kamala Harris has conceded that the Biden administration was blind to the emergence of the Delta and Omicron variants of Covid-19, and said she fears “misinformation” over vaccines will prolong the pandemic well into a third year.Biden commemorates 49th anniversary of crash that killed his first wifeRead moreThe candid admission came in a wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times, which followed reports that the vice-president was “struggling” to make a mark as Joe Biden’s No 2 and was keen for a more prominent role.Biden’s handling of the pandemic, alongside other woes such as spiking inflation and the supply chain crisis, has contributed to a steady decline in his popularity ratings.On Saturday, a White House official told NBC News the president would make a speech about Covid-19 on Tuesday, at which he would unveil new measures to combat the virus, including steps to “help communities in need of assistance”.Biden would also be “issuing a stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans that choose to remain unvaccinated”, the official said.Harris, who has suffered the same sinking approval ratings as the 79-year-old president, was seen as shoo-in for the 2024 Democratic nomination until Biden said last month he would seek a second term. The White House said on Thursday Harris would be his running mate again.As well as speaking to the LA Times, Harris had a heated exchange on Friday with the radio host Charlamagne tha God.At the conclusion of a testy interview that Harris aides reportedly tried to cut short, Charlamagne tha God questioned if Biden or Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat from West Virginia who wields outsized power in the 50-50 Senate, was the “real” president.“C’mon, Charlamagne,” Harris snapped. “It’s Joe Biden.“No, no, no, no. It’s Joe Biden, and don’t start talking like a Republican, about asking whether or not he’s president.”Harris’s comments about Covid, in which she also appeared to place blame on the medical community for a lack of foresight, would seem to confirm the administration’s view that the pandemic is its biggest obstacle to progress.“We didn’t see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not – upon whose advice and direction we have relied – didn’t see Delta coming,” Harris said.“We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”Harris also said the public needed to be more trusting of Covid-19 vaccines, citing a slow take-up rate despite the White House and federal health officials’ efforts to urge vaccinations and boosters.“I would take that more seriously,” Harris said of disinformation promoted in Republican circles and swirling elsewhere, successfully dissuading people from getting a shot.“The biggest threat still to the American people is the threat to the unvaccinated. And most people who believe in the efficacy of the vaccine and the seriousness of the virus have been vaccinated. That troubles me deeply.”Harris’s claims are backed by data analysis showing that 91% of Democrats have received a first shot compared to only 60% of Republicans. Deaths from Covid-19 are occurring increasingly in areas that voted for Donald Trump in 2020, compared to areas that voted for Biden.The administration was handed a victory on Friday, as an appeals court said its vaccine mandate for large companies could go into effect. That contest is not over, however, as Republicans seek to take the matter all the way to the supreme court.“We have not been victorious over [Covid-19],” Harris told the LA Times, appearing to counter Biden’s claim in July that the virus “no longer controls our lives”.“I don’t think that in any regard anyone can claim victory when, you know, there are 800,000 people who are dead because of this virus.”Biden acknowledges his Build Back Better plan will miss Christmas deadlineRead moreOther subjects covered in the LA Times interview included Biden’s Build Back Better domestic spending plan, immigration and voting rights, all hot-button topics on which the administration has failed to make much headway.Harris said the failure to pass the $1.75tn economic and climate spending package, which Biden conceded on Friday would miss its Christmas deadline, was a frustration – but offered no alternative plan.Although she blamed Republican stonewalling, the measure is being held up in particular by Manchin.“We have to keep appealing to the American people that they should expect Congress and their elected representatives to act on the issue,” Harris said. “We can’t give up on it, that’s for sure.”TopicsKamala HarrisCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationUS politicsBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden faces vaccine mandate pushback from own party despite support of scientists

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      Biden faces vaccine mandate pushback from own party despite support of scientistsTwo Democratic senators push back against president’s rules for large businesses as cases continue to rise in the US Two Democratic senators have resisted Joe Biden’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses, illustrating problems the US president faces even within a faction of his own party, despite having the support of scientists and public health experts.The US Senate on Wednesday evening voted to overturn the mandate as new cases and hospitalizations continue rising in the country.Why doesn’t Biden mail free Covid tests to all Americans? | Ross BarkanRead moreThe West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who co-sponsored the bill, and Montana’s Senator Jon Tester crossed Democratic party lines to vote yes and join 50 Republicans in their political opposition to the public health policy.The bill is seen as a largely symbolic gesture, since it would also need to pass the Democratic-led House and would probably be vetoed by Biden. The mandate was already put on hold by a federal appeals court, and the future of the mandates will likely be decided by courts, not lawmakers.But the vote showed the significant political problems Biden has faced in carrying out his public health policies to combat the pandemic. He has encountered virtually implacable Republican opposition – now joined by rebel Democrat senators – that has ranged from ideological concerns over how far government power can be exercised to fringe conspiracy theories and quack science.Manchin, who is vaccinated and boosted, said the rule represents federal overreach, which is why he co-sponsored the bill.“It is not the place of the federal government to tell private business owners how to protect their employees from Covid-19 and operate their businesses,” he said in a statement, nonetheless urging “every West Virginian and American to get vaccinated to protect themselves and their loved ones”.West Virginia, which has the third-highest rate of deaths from Covid in the country, and Montana, where some health systems instituted crisis standards of care, have suffered devastating surges throughout the pandemic. Half of all West Virginians and half of eligible Montanans are fully vaccinated, both lower than the national average.Public health experts fear the mandates, and political opposition to them, have further cemented the politicization of health policies.West Virginia has joined other states in suing to undermine the mandates for large businesses and government contractors, both of which have been blocked by federal courts. Governor Jim Justice has said there’s “no chance” vaccines will be mandated in West Virginia schools.“The data is very clear that mandates work,” Christopher Martin, a physician and professor at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, said. “I don’t know of any other measure right now that would get more people vaccinated other than requiring them to do so.”There is a long precedent of strong vaccination requirements in workplaces and schools in West Virginia and around the country.But concerns over the Covid vaccines combined with political polarization have “unintended consequences” because “people are mistrustful of governments”, Martin said. The opposition is not based on public health concerns but on civil liberties and other arguments.“That starting point of not wanting the vaccine in the first place again arises from this broad and inherent mistrust in institutions,” he said. “People perceived these institutions to fail them.”In West Virginia, widespread job losses over the past several decades have eroded trust in the government. The vaccine mandates expose larger societal rifts, Martin said. “Vaccinations in particular in this current climate have really exploded the problems that we have in our society.”Officials, including in public health, “need to begin the exercise of restoring trust”, Martin said.In the meantime, vaccine mandates will work like seatbelt laws once did, gradually becoming the norm, he said. “It improves compliance, but it takes a long time.”The US is now seeing an average of more than 119,000 new Covid cases and 1,700 deaths every day.TopicsJoe BidenDemocratsJoe ManchinUS politicsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More