Tag: pandemic

More than a half million Americans gain coverage under Biden

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WASHINGTON — More than a half million Americans have taken advantage of the Biden administration’s special health insurance sign-up window keyed to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government announced Wednesday in anticipation that even more consumers will gain coverage in the coming months.

The reason officials expect sign-ups to keep growing is that millions of people became eligible effective Apr. 1 for pumped-up subsidies toward their premiums under President Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief legislation. The special sign-up opportunity for Affordable Care Act plans will be available until Aug. 15.

Biden campaigned on a strategy of building on the Obama-era health law to push the United States toward coverage for all. As president, he’s wasted no time. Continue reading.

Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Update: April 9, 2021

Governor Walz Launches Industry-Focused COVID-19 Vaccine Outreach Campaign

Campaign kicks off with food service industry workers

Gov. Walz at COVID Vaccination Center

As a part of the broader statewide ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves, MN’ campaign to make sure all Minnesotans have access to the COVID-19 vaccine,  Governor Walz launched an outreach effort focused on connecting workers in critical industries to the resources they need to get vaccinated. In the coming weeks, workers in priority frontline sectors will be vaccinated at community vaccination sites.

Continue reading “Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Update: April 9, 2021”

The $50 billion race to save America’s renters from eviction

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With judges ruling against a federal eviction ban, pressure mounts on the Biden administration to distribute billions in aid to renters

The Biden administration again extended a federal moratorium on evictions last week, but conflicting court rulings on whether the ban is legal, plus the difficulty of rolling out nearly $50 billion in federal aid, mean the country’s reckoning with its eviction crisis may come sooner than expected.

The year-old federal moratorium — which has now been extended through June 30 — has probably kept hundreds of thousands or millions of people from being evicted from their apartments and homes. More than 10 million Americans are behind on rent, according to Moody’s, easily topping the 7 million who lost their homes to foreclosure in the 2008 housing bust.

Despite the unprecedented federal effort to protect tenants, landlords have been chipping away at the moratorium in court. Six lawsuits have made their way before federal judges — with three ruling in support of the ban and three calling it illegal. Continue reading.

Democrats hope to extend new insurance subsidies before 2022 midterms

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Lawmakers say they plan to extend enhanced premium tax credits but haven’t laid out a specific plan for doing so

Health insurance shoppers who buy coverage on the state and federal exchanges are likely to see a discount in their premiums as soon as next month, thanks to the recent COVID-19 relief law, but prices could rise again in 2023 if Congress doesn’t extend new subsidies before then.

As Democrats consider what aspects of their health agenda their next legislative push may include, lawmakers say they plan to extend the enhanced premium tax credits that were authorized through 2022 in the COVID-19 relief law enacted last month, but they haven’t laid out a specific plan for doing so. 

The law increases the size of tax credit subsidies so that no one shopping on a state or federal health insurance exchange would pay more than 8.5 percent of their income on premiums in 2021 or 2022. In the past, people with income of more than four times the federal poverty level did not qualify for any subsidies for the insurance, and that limit would return if the extra help expires.  Continue reading.

Opinion: Why tearing down Fauci is essential to the MAGA myth

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MAGA political philosophy is not systematic, but it is comprehensive. Right-wing populism offers a distorted lens to view nearly all of life.

Through this warped lens, progress toward equal rights is actually the oppression of White people. Free and fair elections, when lost, are actually conspiratorial plots by the ruthless left. But perhaps the most remarkable distortion concerns the MAGA view of covid-19.

We have all seen the basic outlines of pandemic reality. Experts in epidemiology warned that the disease would spread through contact or droplets at short distances, which is how it spread. The experts recommended early lockdowns to keep health systems from being overwhelmed, and the lockdowns generally worked. The experts said Americans could influence the spread of the disease by taking basic measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing. The disease was controlled when people did these things. The disease ran rampant when they did not, killing a lot of old and vulnerable people in the process. Continue reading.

Lockdowns Did More Economic Good Than Harm, Data Show

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Republicans have claimed repeatedly that so-called “blue state” lockdowns in response to the coronavirus pandemic have destroyed their economies and that red states are enjoying robust recovery. However, a recent study has found that of the five states recovering jobs the most quickly since the beginning of the pandemic, four of them went blue in the 2020 presidential election — and the other is helmed by a Democratic governor.

The study, conducted by Wallet Hub and released on March 25, found that Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire had the most marked decreases in unemployment claims between the beginning of the pandemic to the present, indicating at least some promising recovery for their respective job markets. Of these, three (Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire) went to President Joe Biden in the November presidential election, with a fourth, Maine, giving three of its four electoral college votes to Biden.

The four states implemented strict safety precautions, lockdown measures, and mask mandates at the outset of the pandemic. The sole red state in the top five for job recovery, North Carolina, is helmed by a Democratic governor who also implemented strong safety measures when combating COVID-19. Continuer reading.

Biden to announce all US adults will be eligible for coronavirus vaccine by April 19

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President Biden plans to announce Tuesday that he is moving up his target for all American adults to become eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine by almost two weeks to April 19, according to a White House official.

Biden is also expected to announce that the United States has administered 150 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, the official confirmed, putting the president on track to meet or exceed his goal of administering 200 million doses in his first 100 days in office.

CNN first reported Biden’s planned announcements on Tuesday. The president is scheduled to visit a vaccination site at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va., Tuesday afternoon before returning to the White House to give remarks on the state of vaccinations. Continue reading.

Minnesota COVID-19 hospitalizations have nearly doubled since late Feb.

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Many patients under 65; some instances of U.K. COVID variant detected. 

Minnesota hospitals are caring for nearly twice as many COVID-19 patients as they did at the end of February following an increase in new coronavirus infections.

As of Sunday, 448 people were in Minnesota’s hospitals with COVID-19 complications, compared with 232 on Feb. 28, according to data released by state health officials.

While still below the crisis levels of last fall, hospitals this time around are mostly treating COVID-19 patients who are younger than 65 now that 82.5% of the state’s elderly have been vaccinated. Continue reading.

Compulsory Vaccination Is American As Apple Pie — And Old As The Revolution

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With a large portion of the country getting vaccinated, we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. To protect public health, certain activities will obviously require people to be vaccinated, a kind of policy that has existed in some form or another since the American Revolution. Despite the longstanding established practice, the idea of a “vaccine passport” has people making bizarre comparisons to the Holocaust and tyrannical governments. It is common practice for people to provide their vaccination records in order to go to school, have certain jobs and travel to certain countries. The concept of a “vaccine passport” is just to streamline this process and make it easier for people to show proof of their COVID-19 vaccination. If one doesn’t want to get vaccinated, they might just have to forgo participating in certain activities.

Compulsory vaccination laws are justified legally based on the state’s compelling interest in protecting the health and welfare of the population. It is common to restrain a little individual liberty in order to protect the safety of the larger society. Consider the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” Our liberty must be restrained if said liberty has the likelihood of putting others at risk. This applies to gun laws, traffic laws, or bringing shampoo bottles on airplanes. If a person doesn’t want to get vaccinated, that is their choice. But they likely forfeit traveling, attending schools, or having certain jobs.

Compulsory vaccination policies in this country began during the American Revolution. Smallpox was a huge threat to the Continental Army and word of the disease was actually halting enlistments. In order to protect soldiers and the war effort, General Washington ordered all new recruits receive the “variolation” for smallpox in 1776. The policy was successful at eradicating smallpox among soldiers, which helped the Continental Army defeat the British invasion at Saratoga. Continue reading.

Fauci pushes back on GOP criticisms, calling claims ‘bizarre’

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Facing criticism from several high-profile Republicans in recent weeks, the country’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci, pushed back on some of the claims, calling the remarks “bizarre.”

The most recent slight came Friday from Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who in a series of tweets urged Fauci to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, where authorities are grappling with an influx of migrants, and asked him to witness firsthand what he called the nation’s “biggest super spreader event.”

Graham claimed thousands of Central American migrants are spreading the virus while being detained in overcrowded facilities. Continue reading.