Covid-19

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has been under fire nationally for his handling of the coronavirus, with the second-highest number of hospitalizations in the country, next to Florida. Critics point to his policies that actively undermine public health, including banning vaccine and mask mandates as the highly-infectious delta variant explodes across the country. President Joe Biden this week called Abbott's policies “the most extreme."

Texas children have start going back to school, and Gov. Abbott's Education Agency (TEA) just released new COVID-19 protocols, which ignore CDC guidance. The lack of any attempt to protect children and teachers from the virus is prompting widespread outrage, with some correctly noting the state has stricter policies against lice that the coronavirus.

Vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers are instead sucking down horse paste — the latest snake-oil "miracle cure" — once they become sick with COVID-19, resulting in an increase in calls to poison control centers, the Daily Beast reported Friday.

The horse paste contains ivermectin, which is normally used to treat parasites in humans and livestock but is now being prescribed by quack doctors and promoted in online forums as the latest version of the Trumpian drug hydroxychloroquine.

Three employees at CNN have been fired for violating the network's coronavirus policy by coming into the office unvaccinated, according to US media reports.

In an internal memo emailed to staff Thursday and obtained by several US media outlets, CNN President Jeff Zucker said that in the past week the company had become aware of three employees who came to work unvaccinated. All three were "terminated".

The Washington Post reported Thursday evening that President Joe Biden is thinking of playing hardball with anti-vaxxers continuing to spread COVID-19 throughout the United States.

The administration is looking at how to use the White House's regulatory power to force safety requirements. While there are legitimate reasons that some patients' doctors don't want them to get the vaccine yet or some religious faiths have a long-time, documented anti-medicine approach, most anti-vaxxers are denying the shot on conspiracy grounds.

Local school board meetings are still going haywire as right-wing parents lose their minds over mask mandates. California schools intend to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) for ushering in a mask mandate, which could prove to be the first case law on the topic.

But in North Carolina, things got so heated that the school board members simply adjourned and walked away, leaving the angry crowd still screaming at them.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul blasted millions of Americans who are fully vaccinated, telling them to "mind your own business" after complaining about those who say they don't want to eat in restaurants where everyone is not vaccinated.

"The bottom line is for those who are saying, 'I won't go to a restaurant unless we force everybody to be vaccinated,' if you're vaccinated you are overwhelmingly safe from hospitalization and death. Mind your own business," the Kentucky Republican said on Fox News.

On Thursday, KMOV reported that a taxi company in St. Louis, Missouri has instituted a policy prohibiting any masked or vaccinated people from riding in their cars.

"Charlie Bullington owns Yo Transportation services, a business he started 16 years ago," reported Emma Hogg. "Recently, he has made it a requirement that he will only transport passengers who aren't wearing masks and have not gotten the vaccine. Bullington said he verifies his passengers have not been vaccinated and won't be wearing a mask before he even picks them up. One man took to Facebook saying he was denied a ride because of his vaccination status."

One of the three congressional Republicans suing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over fines for mask mandate violations now has COVID, ABC News reports.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) who says he is fully vaccinated, tweeted that he started feeling sick on Thursday before testing positive for the virus. He will be in quarantine for 10 days.

Florida is growing more and more dangerous as the COVID-19 threat spreads across every county with huge increases in cases and hospitalizations.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has appeared defensive about questions regarding the increases and has maintained he won't put in any new restrictions to slow the spread of the disease.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins is still not getting vaccinated against the novel coronavirus even though he just spent the past five days being quarantined after being exposed to an infected teammate.

Cousins, who played golf with and received phone calls from former President Donald Trump during his one term in office, told reporters on Thursday that his decision to not get vaccinated is "personal," and said that he would think of other ways to try to keep himself from getting sick during the NFL season.