Supreme Court leaves CDC eviction moratorium intact

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday left intact a nationwide pause on evictions put in place amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The 5-4 vote rejected an emergency request from a group of landlords asking the court to effectively end the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) eviction moratorium, which is set to run through July.

The landlord group had asked the justices to lift the stay on a ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that the moratorium amounted to an unlawful government overreach. Continue reading.

Trump ‘exploded’ at Birx for making him feel ‘depressed’ because she wouldn’t whitewash COVID dangers: authors

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The authors of a new book about former President Donald Trump’s handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic told CNN’s Erica Hill on Tuesday that Trump last year angrily chewed out Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci for making him feel “depressed” about the novel coronavirus pandemic.

While appearing on CNN, Washington Post reporters Damian Paletta and Yasmine Abutaleb explained the delicate balance that Birx and other public health officials had to strike in trying to get Trump to back public health measures aimed at containing the virus.

All the same, Paletta said, no amount of flattery delivered by Birx could help her escape Trump’s wrath. Continue reading.

Wisconsin Doctors Slam Johnson For Hosting Anti-Vaccination Event

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Medical experts are criticizing Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) for his decision to hold a vaccine skepticism event even as most new deaths connected to the COVID-19 pandemic are occurring among unvaccinated people.

Johnson announced on Friday that he would hold a media event the following Monday to discuss purported adverse reactions to the vaccines. The senator said that he would be joined at the event by the wife of a former Green Bay Packers player who claims to have experienced problems after being vaccinated.

Johnson told a local outlet he was not anti-vaccine, but insisted, “I don’t think you can ignore some of the issues, some of the problems.” Continue reading.

DFL DeBrief: The Anti-Vax Quack Running for Governor

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Dr. Scott Jensen is a Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota and a total quack. The crew discusses Jensen’s candidacy, the efforts by Republicans in St. Paul to delay passage of a budget bill, and the future of voting rights legislation in Washington D.C.

Listen here: https://dfldebrief.buzzsprout.com/1789166/8762584-the-anti-vax-quack-running-for-mn-governor

If you like the show, be sure to tell your friends and rate and review on Apple Podcasts! You can submit trivia answers or any feedback you have to podcast@dfl.org.

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Continue reading “DFL DeBrief: The Anti-Vax Quack Running for Governor”

The vast majority of current COVID-19 deaths in the US are among the unvaccinated: report

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In the United States, around 65% of the adult population has, according to the New York Times, been at least partially vaccinated for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Vaccination rates tend to be higher in blue states than in red states, some of which have recently seen spikes in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations. And according to reporting in the Associated Press, the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are, at this point, among the unvaccinated.

Associated Press journalists Carla K. Johnson and Mike Stobbe report, “An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1%. And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average.”

Johnson and Stobbe note that AP “analyzed figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” adding that “the CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalizations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data.” Continue reading.

Inside the extraordinary effort to save Trump from covid-19

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His illness was more severe than the White House acknowledged at the time. Advisers thought it would alter his response to the pandemic. They were wrong.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar’s phone rang with an urgent request: Could he help someone at the White House obtain an experimental coronavirus treatment, known as a monoclonal antibody?

If Azar could get the drug, what would the White House need to do to make that happen? Azar thought for a moment. It was Oct. 1, 2020, and the drug was still in clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration would have to make a “compassionate use” exception for its use since it was not yet available to the public. Only about 10 people so far had used it outside of those trials. Azar said of course he would help.

Azar wasn’t told who the drug was for but would later connect the dots. The patient was one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers: Hope Hicks. Continue reading.

CDC extends eviction moratorium through July

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday announced a one-month extension to the nationwide pause on evictions put in place amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The eviction moratorium, which was set to expire this month, will now last through July under the new order, which is expected to be the final extension, the CDC said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a historic threat to the nation’s public health,” the CDC said in a statement. “Keeping people in their homes and out of crowded or congregate settings — like homeless shelters — by preventing evictions is a key step in helping to stop the spread of COVID-19.” Continue reading.

Nearly 900 Secret Service members were infected with the coronavirus. A watchdog blames Trump.

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Almost 900 Secret Service members have tested positive for the coronavirus since March 2020, according to a watchdog report, and many of those infected had protection assignments that included the safety of the president and vice president.

The nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington published a report Tuesday detailing how 881 Secret Service employees had tested positive between March 1, 2020 and March 9, 2021. The data, which came from a Freedom of Information Act request to the Secret Service, found that 477 members of the special agent division had been infected. Described by the Department of Homeland Security as “the elite agents you see protecting the President and Vice President,” special agents are also responsible for a number of safety assignments overseas and in the United States, such as protecting the president and vice president’s families, presidential candidates and visiting foreign leaders.

CREW said it’s unclear “whom the special agents who tested positive were assigned to protect or when, exactly, they tested positive.” Continue reading.

Unvaccinated in Missouri could be lesson for the rest of the U.S.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As the U.S. emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, Missouri is becoming a cautionary tale for the rest of the country: It is seeing an alarming rise in cases because of a combination of the fast-spreading delta variant and stubborn resistance among many people to getting vaccinated.

Intensive care beds are filling up with surprisingly young, unvaccinated patients, and staff members are getting burned out fighting a battle that was supposed to be in its final throes.

The hope among some health leaders is that the rest of the U.S. might at least learn something from Missouri’s plight. Continue reading.

Fox News and Trump are still pushing hydroxychloroquine. Here’s what the data actually shows.

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The rapid decline of the coronavirus in an increasingly vaccinated American public has allowed us all to focus on other related, but formerly less pressing, things. High on that list thus far has been whether scientists and the media were too anxious to dismiss the lab-leak theory — a valid debate with real implications.

But also pretty high on that list — and rising — for a small but passionate number of people is something else they claim President Donald Trump was right about all along: hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment.

“There was a study that came out that said that hydroxychloroquine actually helped people survive,” Fox News’s Steve Doocy said Monday morning. “And, of course, that was one of the things that Donald Trump came out and said, ‘I’ve heard good things about it.’ Next thing you know, [Anthony S.] Fauci was standing right over, blows him up, and the left wing applauds.” Continue reading.