Covid-19

An ethics watchdog says U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy "may have violated a federal conflict-of-interest law" after not divesting ownership of stock in a company that is part of the Biden administration's free COVID test kit distribution program, and may have traded stock related to the program during the time the program was being finalized and announced.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) Thursday issued a report revealing DeJoy, "who has logistics and supply-chain expertise as the longtime owner of a trucking company, was reportedly 'intensely involved' in the logistics of the project and has been among its most vocal advocates."

Reporting on the racial disparities in the impact of the coronavirus pandemic had a perverse effect among white Americans, according to two new studies.

Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times reported, "When white Americans heard about COVID hitting people of color harder, a lot of them mentally peaced out. This is ugly."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday authorized another round of COVID-19 booster shots for people 50 and older, as well as those who are immunocompromised.

The decision to amend an earlier emergency use authorization for a second booster dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is meant to increase protection against severe illness from COVID-19 as the BA.2 variant grows increasingly common in the United States.

As much as $80 billion - about 10 percent - of the $800 billion disbursed through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), intended to help Americans impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, may have been stolen in what the Justice Department says is the largest fraud in U.S. history.

While the prevalence of COVID relief fraud previously has been reported, the enormous scope only now is becoming clear. “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” said Matthew Schneider, a former U.S. attorney from Michigan who is now with Honigman LLP. “It is the biggest fraud in a generation.”

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) is facing serious blow back for his remarks arguing the legalization of interracial marriage should not have been a U.S. Supreme Court ruling but rather a decision left to individual states. The controversial remarks came during the confirmation hearings held for President Joe Biden's SCOTUS justice nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

At one point during his questioning of Brown Jackson, Braun complained about what he described as "judicial activism" as he highlighted a number of historic rulings he appeared to have issues — with interracial marriage being one of them.

In many countries, as restrictions lift and freedoms are restored, there’s a general feeling that the pandemic is over. There is, however, still the significant concern that a dangerous new variant could emerge.

This happened when omicron arrived, but we got lucky with that one. Omicron turned out to be more transmissible, but mercifully it hasn’t caused an increase in severe disease in most countries where it is dominant.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Thursday took a break from pushing Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine, and turned her attention back to vaccinations against the novel coronavirus.

While speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, Greene complained that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was recommending too many booster shots to combat COVID-19.

Hundreds of thousands of Irish and international visitors were to celebrate St Patrick's Day in Ireland on Thursday after a two-year pause in festivities due to the coronavirus.

Events celebrating Ireland's patron saint were some of the first to be called off in 2020 as mass gatherings were shelved, pubs closed and international travel stopped.

Followers of the QAnon movement now reportedly believe that former President Donald Trump has been purposely mispronouncing "China" because he wants to send a secret message about Ukraine.

According to Vice's David Gilbert, the new conspiracy theory was first noticed by disinformation expert Marc Owen Jones.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) this week joined broadcaster Alex Jones to discuss a conspiracy theory called the "Great Reset" which he believes is trying to cause a "90% population reduction by 2030."

During his broadcast on Tuesday, Jones told Greene that he expects a nuclear war to "breakout" in the coming days as a part of the "Great Reset."

Johnson County resident Melissa Campbell urged state senators Tuesday to remove the authority of state and local health authorities to order quarantines to prevent the spread of an infectious disease.

State law doesn’t provide details about what it means to quarantine, Campbell said, and she fears the worst. Senate Bill 489 would fix that by stripping the secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and county-level health officers of their powers.

Aside from saving human lives in the immediate moment, the other fundamental reason that public health officials were pushing mass vaccination to slow the spread of COVID-19 is because the more hosts in which a virus resides, the more likely the virus is to eventually mutate into something more virulent. Obviously, that has happened at least twice so far with SARS-CoV-2: first with the ultra-contagious delta variant, and then later with the even more contagious omicron variant.

This article first appeared on Salon.

Locals present for the U.S. trucker convoy fighting the COVID-19 vaccine in Missouri unleashed a flurry of mockery while reporting the right-wing activism. The Riverfront Times called it a "temper tantrum of grievance" waving confederate flags on Missouri highways.

The so-called "Freedom Convoy" was supposed to head to Washington, D.C. for a protest ahead of the State of the Union. Instead, many of them dropped out of the convoy and went home. Ultimately, there ended up being under a dozen people, with more police and reporters than protesters. The goal to shut down the Beltway the way they had the bridge between Ottawa and the United States fizzled.